by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

In 2006, there will be a "mid term" election where the house and 1/3 of the senate is on the line. Democrats need to regain the high ground and carry the attack to the conservatives. It is imperative that the right lose control of both houses of congress in this election. I have to believe that Dixie-crats and right wing conservatives do not represent the majority of our citizenry. I have to believe that, given a glimpse at the true agenda of the right, the majority of Americans will reject them and return decent, altruistic people to the halls of government.

It is imperative that Democrats return to the political offensive. When the right tries to make Right to Life an issue, confront them with their stances on capital punishment, AFDC and the moral justification for Bush's war of personal retribution. When they talk taxes, Democrats need to talk infrastructure as opposed to Imperial military actions. Welfare needs to be equated to children and single parent households. Estate taxes need to be equated to the creation of a heriditary aristocracy which will exclude the majority of our citizens from full enfranchisement. Instead of becoming defensive when some hypocritical bible-thumper screams about homosexuality, and equates said to moral degeneracy, that becomes the time to discuss the disconnect between our society and any major religious value system that these very same Pharisees have engineered (for it is a truism that were Jesus of Nazereth to return to Earth today, the right wing bible thumpers would be the first to deny Him...but that is another rant for another time.)

The conservative right has been demonizing Liberalism more and more recently. The number of books by such luminaries of the right as Coulter, Savage and Hannity (to name but a few) equating liberal thought to something bad...evil...has reached a new high. Yet, for the most part all those liberal bashers have nothing to offer as an alternative except for total selfishness. Their mantra seems to be "Gimme mine and to hell with the rest of you." This is not acceptable. One of the things that has made this country such a beacon have been the facts that we do not have an aristocracy and that all citizens are considered equal. In other words, we are all in this together, and what hurts the least of us, hurts all of us. This is what the Right does not understand. This is what we Liberals have to impress upon the Middle Majority. Over the past twenty years or so, the Right has done a better job of convincing the majority in the center of the political spectrum that their agenda is the best for the country. Well, it is time for the Democrats to return to the high ground.

In his Inaugural address, John Kennedy claimed the high ground for the Democrats for a full generation. A couple of short lines beginning with "Ask not..." captured the heart and soul of this country for twenty plus years. It is time for another true leader to emerge to restore our sense of vision and purpose. Acting alone we can accomplish little. Acting together we can accomplish great things which will be remembered for millenia to come.

'Nuff said...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005