Yesterday, I spent my day in Oakland, CA.  I attended one of my company’s infamous rah-rah sessions about making money.  I had a decent time, as decent times go, but I always seem to become somewhat disillusioned about the current state of the economy when it is all said and done.  My company had a record year which is great because this is how I get paid.  But then, it isn’t so great because I get to hear the owner of the company go on about how the economy is rockin’ and rollin’ (refer to an April 8th post in my blog, me duce tutus eris). I know this is completely erroneous, otherwise so many people would not be out of work.  I know this is erroneous simply because I work in the field that was hit the very hardest when profits could not be counted on: the high tech field.  Although I still plow forth in this field, I am making at least a third less than I was making three years ago.  This is not a step forward in anyone’s life.  Leaving your comfy techie position to shelve books in Borders is not moving up the ladder.  And who suffers the most for this?  Families with kids.  But then, families and kids are not on President Bush’s radar unless you count abortion as a family issue, which it is not.

I started thinking, though, after mr. owner’s dissertation about how this speech was almost a carbon copy of what he said six months ago.  I started to put two-and-two together and realized that he is a product of the new conservative movement which depends on your ability to be a robot to fill the ranks.  It seems as though that when you sign on as a neo-conservative, part of the initiation is a ceremony in which a chip is implanted in your neck which tunes to a broadcasted message that continuously pumps the “talking points” into your mind.  It’s like having a little demon on your shoulder whispering sweet evilness into your ears at all times of the day.  Sometimes the voice is Dick Cheney’s, sometimes it might be Karl Rove’s, and every now and then it could be Rumsfeld reciting his rhetorical questions such as: “Are we the party for the rich?  Sure.  Are we for the Christian right?  Maybe.  Are we selfish pricks who want to pick fights with weenie liberals?  You betcha.” Of course, I’m being light hearted (about the chips, not Rumsfeld’s possible communicated sweet nothings), but what this means is that there is organization on the right.  Thanks to the likes of Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, Dick Cheney, and countless others, we have a Republican party that has successfully changed itself into a starkly more conservative group of white men (and women…let’s be fair and balanced here) and have been able to turn the tide of America to conservative thugism.  In a matter of a few years their message has been disseminated amongst the populace through the use of talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and others as well.  This has proven to be effective amongst the robotic Republicans, both economically and religiously speaking.  They’ve been able to stay “on message,” as is their wont to say, and have hammered it into the skulls of flip-flopping America that liberals and Democrats are robbing the country with their taxes, they’re outlawing Christianity (as opposed to outlawing all religions), they’re marrying dogs and humans, and they want Osama bin Laden as president.  This is the machine at work, my friends.

What liberals and Democrats need is an organized, well-funded, and effective front.  Ralph Nader began to succeed some years ago but his power now is waning due to the steady killing of our nation by the Bush administration.  What Nader has now, for the most part, is just a bunch of green (meaning new or untested) organizers that can’t even keep band practices going on a steady basis.  Nader is an amazing figurehead and, likewise, is a very formidable force, but without decent local leadership he can go nowhere.  So, where do we look within the Democratic party?  Johns Kerry and Edwards, although it is of utmost importance that they take office, do not offer the organization and drive to push a more liberal agenda forward.  They’ll be in the position of national leadership which, at this point in time, means they’ll need to be rather milquetoast in their approach to leadership so as to not scare the middle (otherwise known as the majority) away.

Lately I’ve increasingly noticed that Howard Dean seems to be taking this helm that so desperately needs to be filled.  To me, he seems to be doing better things for this country as a grass-roots organizer for progressive causes than he would on the campaign trail fighting against the Bush machine.  This is a fresh movement that needs to be driven properly and, even more importantly, needs to become stronger after the elections.  Of course, if Bush steals the presidency again this will happen with its own force of inertia.  If Kerry gets into office, this might not be the case.  One of the sad characteristics of liberals (esp. progressive Democrats) is that after an election they go to sleep.  They even tend to sleep during the mid-term elections.  We need to stay awake! If Kerry wins the presidency, Howard Dean’s movement needs to shift into high gear to work for change, enact new legislation that benefits the people (the worker), the environment (our world), and our democracy (our power).  Please take some time and check out Democracy for America and, if you can, whether you’re a Naderite, a Kerry supporter, or a liberal abstainer, get involved.

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