Try as I might, I always have difficulty getting started with anything I attempt to write. Like most other endeavors in life, my aim is to make good use of the time. If I’m in a story telling mood my intentions are to entertain you. If I’m politicking, quite frankly, my intentions are a little less honorable. Talking politics is sometimes an emotional exercise but differences are usually settled at the ballot box. At least that is how it used to be.
For a number of years I was a strong union member and supporter. Union members almost to a man (or a woman) are usually Democrats. It’s no secret that unions are a great source of clout to any political aspirations in an area. Of course such clout/support comes at a price. Such has been the case for the last several decades. Please understand that I’m speaking of the unions I’ve belonged to in my life. Even though the unions provided a certain amount of muscle and physical foreboding there was also an invisible line that separated ideology and honor. A persons family and private property was off-limits.
Somewhere during the 1960′s the Democratic party went through a change of sorts. The radical left wrestled control from the “smokey backroom” crowd. The result of this change was the unlikely mix of labor and radical leftist resulting in a two headed monster that was neither fish nor fowl. The inclusion of the civil rights movement into the mix lent a legitimacy to the mix. The party of Jim Crow and Huey Long was dead. Union people such as myself were put on notice about who we were to support politically. The new marching orders left no illusions about the direction of the Democratic party. My last act as a union/political activist was to help get John Conyers Jr. elected as congressman in Michigan’s 14th district. The unions as an entity would continue to support the party but the membership tended to show less devotion to the Democrats. Long time union members and Democratic supporters broke with the parties new direction. A fact that caused much turmoil within the union. Several UAW locals rebelled against the orders of the International in Detroit concerning orders on how to vote.
Free trade legislation the likes of NAFTA and other world order type job eaters were forced on the American workers without much opposition from either political party. The day of the political baron king was upon us. The new Democrats, in order to gain better control of the system, used the old but effective method of greed to keep a great many of our lawmakers on the string. As the saying goes it was a case of one size fitting all. Republicans and Democrats alike jumped on board the “gravy train” that had replaced much of our political system. The only real hope of the American voter to rein in these robber barons was to impose term limits. That hope was laid to rest in 1995 when the U.S. Supreme Court found that term limits infringed on the rights of citizens to run for office. After that ruling any chance to reform the system was easily “checkmated” by unrestrained big lobbyist money. It almost seemed as if the power of the ballot box was becoming a sad joke in our nation. The voters had to look on while their control was taken apart piece by piece. Several efforts to limit campaign finance had also pretty much ended in failure. The Washington boys and girls were on a roll.
Although I’ve made much todo about the use of money to corrupt our political system it wasn’t always the only enticement. Many office holders, senators in particular were very wealthy at the time they took office. However politics can be the source of other benefits besides money.
Like all such scam’s, the heavy tug of greed made these modern day robber barons sloppy. They really thought that the gravy train would go on forever. They soon forgot that all that was needed to end it all was for the electorate to wake up. The ballot box made all citizens equal. I’d like to have a dollar for every time I’ve heard a liberal bemoan the fact that even social undesirables have a right to vote.
By my reckoning the political system on the Federal level just laid down and began a slow slide into oblivion. The voters were reduced to the least considered part of the process. And so it was until the state of our government, our national debt, and our economy hit rock bottom in 2009/2010.
Barack H. Obama rose to national prominence almost overnight. A man completely unknown to the majority of American voters. He was marketed as the next great hope by the liberal media. After becoming a senator from Illinois he immediately began his campaign to become president . My curiosity caused me to want to learn more about this man. Maybe it was my cynical nature but it wasn’t long before I was finding to many “dead ends” in his promises, to much radicalism in his plans for change. The worst thing however was the realization that Obama was the ultimate product of our abused political system. An administration that promised to out rank both Jackson and Grant in pure incompetence and deception. When those two items are coupled with this presidents very public disdain for much of America’s customs and world standing, a very disturbing picture emerges.
And so it was that we had a corrupt political system and a president that seemed to spend most of his time on television, forever in campaign mode, and spending the country into bankruptcy . I was becoming concerned about where he was taking our country but the media continued to cover his actions with a very liberal view. How long before someone started to speak out for the people or had we already crossed into the area where everyone had surrendered to the perceived enviable. A political “dead zone”.
The president and his administration would ultimately create the first failure in the collapse of their house of cards. A major change in how the nations healthcare was administered and the refusal to answer questions about the changes was just the beginning. Voters that were able to question their representatives were met with hateful arrogance as well as a lot of defiant vanity. The Washington crowd had gotten to the point of forgetting who they worked for. All those years spent building their own political empires was being lost due to this president.
The advent of the tea party or something similar should not have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with American history. This nation came about as the result of too much government interference. The principles set forth by our founding fathers haven’t changed. The people still have the right to be heard, the right to public assembly, the right to question public servants that forget they are indeed servants to those that elected them. To coin an often used phrase, the president and his party woke a sleeping giant. Efforts by the media and white house to silence the tea party has only inflamed the situation. The president has tried to sell the notion that he and his administration are victims of his predecessors failures. The media has tried to call the tea party both racist and uneducated. The good news for us all is that the resistance to the tea party is coming up short of the intended mark. A goodly portion of the American people are fed up with the political picture in this country. Many are now speaking out by way of the tea party and the internet.
If we are going to change this countries direction we have got to organize against this president and his followers. His abdication to the desecration of Ground Zero is even more reason to question the direction of our government. Please consider the political actions of the last 20 months. Are you comfortable with everything? IF your answer is NO, please join those of us that are working to stop this madness.
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