Sunday, February 19, 2006

What to do...what to do...

The great journalist, Helen Thomas, was one of the panelists on last week's Real Time with Bill Maher. One of the things she said has been sticking with me.

They were discussing all the scandal & corruption coming out of Washington, and she said she didn't understand the passiveness of the American people (not to do anything.)

While I totally understand where she's coming from, I wonder what she expects us to do.

We can take to the streets with peaceful protesting, write letters, sign petitions, buy blue, blog, etc, but that isn't enough. If we tried to "storm the castle" and drag the bums out by force, we'd be met with a sniper's bullet. So what are we to do, Helen?

3 comments:

Snave said...

I agree with Molly. We need to keep doing what we're doing, and I believe sooner or later we will prevail.

My main concern is not that the American people won't rise up and vote the freaks out of office, but that the freaks will have done so much damage by the time someone else DOES control the White House, it would take decades to repair that damage... and the attention span is so short and the need for instant gratification so strong among Americans that if the mess isn't fixed in a big way in four years... arrrgh. What I'm saying is, if we get back into the White House I fear we may have only four years to enjoy it.

Just think about what we would have to repair:

- Our voting process. Getting rid of the Diebold machines and getting back to a paper trail might be problematic.
- Our foreign relations. Our relations with the Muslim world were bad before Bush, but now they appear to be beyond repair. What about the rest of the world? How can we regain the trust of other nations? When will we normalize relations with Cuba?
- Our energy situation. During a time when we should have become less dependent on fossil fuels for political and environmental reasons among other things, we haven't done nearly enough because our administration is basically made up of oil people.
- Our economy. More and more of our jobs are leaving the country. Our economy is more and more dependent on China. Americans are not being encouraged to save for their later years, and are instead encouraged to spend, even beyond their means. How in hell are we going to fix all of this?
- Our socioeconomic situation. Bush's tax cuts seem to be doing their job so far, that is, we are seeing reductions in social programs, student loans, etc. It's nothing more than a way to starve what conservatives view as "the beast of big government" and to keep money in the hands of those who they believe have "earned" it (the rich) and out of the hands of those who "don't deserve it because they haven't earned it" (the poor). But how are we going to sell people on the idea that the "tax cuts" need to be rescinded?

Anyway, I know we can win back the White House in 2008. My concern is that we won't be able to fix the mess adequately enough to stay in the White House for more than four years... unless we can learn to spin things the way the GOP has. And they have about a 30-year head start on us in that area...

Let's stay busy. We can't just roll over. We have to keep writing letters, blogging, making phone calls, doing whatever we can!

Lizzy said...

I'll never roll over, and I know none of you will either.

Jim Marquis said...

Protesting won't do anything at this point. But there is a solution...

We can take back control of Congress this November. And that will make it a whole lot easier to take back the presidency in 2008.