'Tommy'

The Situation

For those that know me, it's no secret that I loathe conservatives . . . but I’m fast getting FED UP with Liberals that are so damned pious about everything, anemic when it comes to perspective, allergic to nuance, and are proud/willful amnesiacs when it comes to history, political and otherwise . . . seriously.  We claim on the Left to be grounded in reality.  We claim to be so ‘smart’.  We 'laugh' at the Tea Baggers for their supposed ignorance and idiocy.

We are JUST LIKE THEM . . . it seems.

But what's worse, unlike the Tea Baggers, who are comfortable in their swill and the fecal, colloidal 'brew' that is the 'medium' they swim in politically . . . We really think we 'swim' in a mythical river where the water everywhere is Poland Spring worthy, and that greenery, comparable to Garden of Eden lore, adorns either shore . . .

The Truth? 

We exist in the world of the tidal, meandering Passaic River, where it belches up acrid, swamp gas from the sediments ever so often, and prolonged contact the brown water with one's skin can leave a horrible rash, probably worse if you have an open wound somewhere!  The Tea Baggers at least see most of this 'reality' but 'love it'(a masochistic 'habit' I'm certain . . . but mind wiping is a hell of a thing) . . . We profess to loathe it but STILL can't SEE the filth that swirls around us.  We think that the problem is that only a few dead logs and errant boulders in an otherwise healthy ecosystem is the issue . . . when the problem is that the ENTIRE ENVIRONMENT is almost completely contaminated and festering.

 

Moreover, there are now very few 'edible organisms' to encounter within its depths.

To ‘clean-up’ this river requires a Long Game.

To ‘clean-up’ means NEVER getting an outright 'win', but being happy with, and taking stock of, any improvements or movement in the 'direction we say we want to go', as well as building on it.

We are so in ‘La-La Land’, singing along with the Smurfs, it precludes us from seeing that Barrack Obama IS taking that approach!  In the throes of our years long 'frothing tantrum’, that ‘foam’ has whipped-up and blinded us.  The causticity of this ‘effervescence’ has BURNED AWAY almost all of our sensibilities and grounded, political astuteness.  It is evident in fact that we're CONSTANTLY, getting caught flat-footed, as the GOP erase our 20th century gains.  We’re intoxicated with naïveté and have this recruitment-repellant, penchant for donning rose-colored lenses when we look at the political landscape.

I am getting sick of it.

I am NOT saying the President is 'perfect'.  He is not even close to that.  I’m simply imploring you, for Pete's sakes, to STOP letting the short-comings, or those that are 'perceived' as such (by an actually conservative-run media for the most part), make you look at things as if the glass is emptying.  Please throw those damned 'glasses' in the trash so you may begin to 'smell' and see the stink and filth of the ‘Passaic’ all around you, and deep-six this ‘all or nothing’ trip you've been on the last few years!  You’ll 'throw the baby out with the bath water' and, in the process, you'll also unravel that honorable and decent quilt of accomplishment's you've built over the ages.  It will be akin to the proverbial ‘knitted sweater’ that is quickly ‘disappearing’ because a loose end is being pulled by something:

As that ‘baby in the bathwater’ ‘falls’ due to the arc of your ‘toss’, you’ll start to see that ‘sweater’ of rights and accomplishments, that you obliviously wear against the ‘cold’ of ‘anywhere-else-but-here’, shrivel and diminish, because quite a few strands are tied-to the success or failure of this President.  In other words progress is tied to the ‘motion’ of ‘the baby’ that you’ve decided to throw out . . . or keep.

He succeeds, your sweater remains intact, expands and the ‘patterns’ diversify becoming more beautiful. 

He fails, with you morons chanting angrily, drunk on ‘He's-Just-Like-Bush!’ Wine, then the sweater disassembles . . .

I just hope you don't bitch when the chill of ‘everywhere-else’ starts to seep into the joints of your, pious, idealistic bodies!

Say ‘Hi!’ 'Tommy' . . .

Above was a bit of a vent, but listen up:

I'm tough on my fellow liberals because we have everything that is necessary to right this ship . . . but we are too easily distracted, as well as almost terminal due to this frustrating, metastasizing, Cat Herd 'Cancer' of a political nature, we can’t seem to cure ourselves of, even temporarily, to save ourselves or the party.

 

We are actually stepping RIGHT INTO the ‘Stereotypical Suit’ the GOP has built for us over the decades that screams naive and impractical, and whole other host of adjectives and concepts describing ineptitude and idealism.  We are playing the game by GOP rules STILL . . . and we don't get it.  We let 'slight ideological deviances', due to the inescapable sausage-making nature of constructing political policy . . . loom so large we actually STOP moving forward!

The sausage-making nature of politics is akin to the 'guaranteed' misbehavior of a small child, who we'll just refer to as 'Tommy', on a road trip.

(I know some of you are so wound up with frustration, anger and disappointment at the lack of progress, you may not have the nascent intellectual capacity to even entertain seeing these Politicians as mere children.  The game of politics is essentially petulant kids playing the sandbox.  When you strip away the personality, of the member of congress and their 'swag' . . . you ARE dealing with 'children')

We 'pull the car over' to yell at 'Tommy' EVERY TIME he raises his voice, says a 'bad word' or some other 'transgression', that in fact, DOES NOT interfere with your ability to keep driving the 'car'.

However, we keep doing that . . . over and over again.

We needed to simply 'correct Tommy', give the feedback, but KEEP DRIVING!

We then run out of time to get where we're going, or we arrive too late, due to the incessant 'halting' . . . and guess what we do:

 

We blame it ALL on Tommy!

Seriously?

Tommy is the CHILD, strapped to the car seat at the back and you're the ADULT driving . . . but Tommy is THE SOLE Reason you didn't make it!?

Way to go with the disconnect, my liberal ‘desperados’ . . .!

For you that are still going 'What the F@#$% is he talking about . . .?’, let me dissect the metaphor for you:

• We like to call ourselves a movement aka a collective ‘vehicle’ that is in motion towards our stated goals.  A construct that is stronger than just one person . . . 

• We outnumber the other side on the voter rolls.

•  Most folks, when asked independently, agree with most of our policy prescriptions. 

Thanks to the above, we do have a certain amount of constant, political, ‘Potential Energy’.  However, due to our 'bad habits' of non-participation, idealism, impatience, no tolerance for nuance, etc, this ‘energy’ never gets substantially and consistently transformed into ‘Kinetic Energy’ for the change we say we want.  To be more accurate, and in keeping with the road trip metaphor, we keep 'shunting' the Kinetic Energy BACK to Potential Energy every time we stop the car to 'yell at Tommy', who is only 'doing what he can't help doing' because of 'What He Is'.

Barrack Obama is ONE MAN.  He IS just . . . 'Tommy'.

How do you let him stop the ‘train’ you're supposed to be on?

Barrack Obama has said that we must 'make him do it'.

He's right.  It is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy:

Healthy, constant and guaranteed, political participation, flanked with an appreciation for nuance, perspective, and an always-running Long Game.

You need to guide 'Tommy', mold him into the 'adult' you’d like, or lead him to the place you want him to go  

Right now, you're questioning the 'worth' of 'Tommy'.

Right now, you aren't really providing ANY sustained, substantive, 'guidance', but are blaming 'Tommy' for not having it.

What parent questions the 'worth' of their child!?

When your child makes an effort at something worthwhile, but just falls short, why not provide positive reinforcement?

Do you tell your child they aren't worth the sperm and egg it took to 'make them’? (. . . because that is how many of you on the Left are acting.)

Do you discount all the effort 'Tommy' has made, while playing his soccer game but happened to miss his goal attempt?  Do you just berate him over and over because he didn't score that he " . . . sucks!"?

Is that how you treat your 'Child' folks?

To expand the metaphor, ANY of our elected officials, including our President, are 'Tommy'.  They require around the 'political calendar', as it were, monitoring, feedback and an unflinching participation if they are to do what you want them to do . . . if 'Tommy' is to grow into that responsible adult you say you'd like.

"I want a break from 'politics'"

"I'm just not that into politics . . ."

NO MORE of the above!

Those are the ‘famous last words’ of a terminally-ill society and/or country.  Do not allow those sorts of sentiments to be uttered around you anymore, without a vigorous rebuttal.  It's why we're always 'reacting' instead of being 'proactive' to the forces on the Right and the insidious influence that the plutocratic zealots have on our officials on the Left - They already have those on the Right as their personal Washroom Attendants.

'Politics' affects everything you do from your light bill to the safety of the baby food you give your child.  Stop abdicating your role.

I hope you get it.

More often than not, children are a reflection of the failures or successes of the parents. 

Same with ALL of our politicians . . . especially the President.

We get the government we've 'reared' in all those 'Tommy's on the Hill:

Stop being a neglectful and albeit lazy 'parent', and get to work with the sophisticated, time-consuming demands necessary for 'Tommy' to 'act right' and 'do what you want'.  We have bad habits as a country . . . but as Lefty, I'm painfully aware of our short comings . . . and we need to address them immediately.

. . . or else don't blame the 'Tommy's' of the world.