Wha-a-a-at?!?!

by Mary Pitt

It is a comon expression that one sees on the faces of "liberal" bloggers and op-ed writers on internet web sites as we view the talking heads in the expensive suits on the mainstream media dismissing us and demanding a move to the centrist viewpoint. It's like kenneling the watchdogs because a few foxes and skunks have been removed from the chicken house. We dis-elected enough right-wingers from the House of Representatives to give the Democrats a narrow edge and dislodged a few Senators so that there wiould be a fighting chance in the Senate and we are dismissed with a pat on the head and a "Good boy" and told that, despite our efforts, our agenda will be ignored in Congress for the next two years. We have made a start on the job ahead but there are still many thieves in the counting house and we have much work left to do.

Many Neo-Con sympathizers remain in the Senate and both Houses are still rife with the Old Guard who exercize earmarks on a whim and this corruption will continue until they are rooted out. It will take two more elections to clean the culprits out of the Senate and we will still be afflicted by Good Ole Joe Lieberman while there are many good people like Ned Lamont who are still on the outside looking in. Nancy Pelosi made a good start on the popular agenda with her declaration of The First Hundred Hours but they must not stop there Count the numbers of the Executive Orders and Presidential Signing Statements that must be countermanded. Add the reform of the "reforms" that have taken place in the last six years and you will find a veritable blizzard of work that must be done to restore our individual rights under the Constitution.

Once again we are being bombarded with cries for "bipartisanship" as the Republicans realize that we have disabled their rubber stamp. They should get the same "bipartisanship" that we were given as fulfillment of the Bush campaign promises. If it works for them, it should work almost as well for us. So long as our children are in Iraq, so long as our rights as free Americans are being stolen, so long as our tax money is being diverted from its intended purpose to the pockets of the big multi-national corporations, so long as our good jobs remain in overseas factories and technology labs, and so long as The People's House is walled off from the public so that the Business of The People can be conducted in secret, our work is far from done.

Candidates for President are gearing up for the run in 2008. So must we be gearing up to counteract the campaigns, not only of the Republicans like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani but also of some of the go-along-to-get-along Democrat "centrists" who have spent six years selling out the people and voting in lockstep with this adminstration in order to further their own ambitions. There is still time to convene a meeting of the "splinter parties" to find those issues on which we can coalesce and find common cause to gain the strength to become a real factor in the choice of our next President. We demonstrated strength in the elections of 2004 and have grown stronger in the last two years as our demands were heard and our influence felt as we worked behind the Democrats in this election. If we can gather together, finding our common ground and casting aside our differences, we can be influential in taking back our country in a peaceful manner in 2008.

Only by founding a real "party of the people" can we not only affect but possibly make major choices in the selection of our next adminstration. Without it, we can look forward to another pat on the head and another "Good Boy" as we are put back in the kennel with our foreheads wrinkled in dismay and our mouths wide open, saying "Wha-a-a-at?!?!"