Everything Starts with You

I have been reading heartfelt and sincere pleas to Al Gore to run for President. Some of these of these articles that try to tap into Al Gore’s “conscience” seem more like prayers than reasons why he should enter the race. I have read “open letters” to Gore and articles that predict the future with Al Gore at the helm would bring America back from a spiritual and moral abyss. Sometimes, when I read these things I get a knot in my stomach and I shake my head in wonder. Have the people in America fallen to a point where they are looking for a new “messiah” to lead them out of the desert and into the “promised land”?

While I might be mixing up Jesus with Moses, the basic message of these letters and articles remains the same. It seems as if Americans have lost their moral compass and feel that the sainted Al Gore will lead us back from certain doom, and the tone of these pleadings remains the same; “Please reconsider and save America”.

The facts are that no one person can save America. No “savior” is going to be sent by the creator to lead us out of the valley of death. The savior that everyone expects to appear, whether it’s Al Gore, or Dennis Kucinich or God forbid, Hillary Clinton, is not going to “save” this country from the reckless and militaristic path to destruction. The facts are that the “savior” that everyone in this country seems to be waiting for is in the mirror looking back at you.. You heard that right. The person that will bring this nation back from moral bankruptcy is you. Don’t expect that someone is going to descend from heaven (in this case Hollywood) and put things “right” again. That can only happen when you decide that something must be done, and knowing that, you pull yourself out of your comfortable cocoon and you go ahead and do the things that are necessary to change the course of history.

When I write the word “you”, I mean you and you and you. I’m talking about every American that realizes that we can no longer proceed with our lives pretending that “somebody” will magically appear and do all the hard work that is required to change the way things are. That my friend is a kind of wishful thinking that won’t change a thing. The only way that change can be brought about in a system that has the deck stacked against the average American citizen is through hard work and perseverance. When everyone tells you that you can’t change the way things are, you must understand that change starts with one person at a time. Bobby Kennedy once said;

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

These aren’t just the words of a great man; those words are the formula for change. Change will only come if people want it bad enough. The truth is that if you can’t change the way things are, maybe you didn’t want it bad enough.

Think of what may come to be and imagine that your worst fears have materialized. Think of our country doing the unthinkable. Think of America using nuclear devices on Iran, and then on Syria. Think of the consequences. Go one step further and think of the White House declaring martial law and imagine the Army in the streets or worse yet, paid mercenaries doing their bidding. Think of the sanctions that other nations would direct towards the United States and international travel forbidden. Think of being forced to have a national ID in order to purchase anything and the things that they would be teaching your children in school. Maybe these things will never happen, but then again, what if they did? Then imagine yourself asking the question over and over in your head; “What could I have done to stop this?”

God forbid that you should ever have to ask yourself that question, but if you did, what would you answer that question with? Would you have an answer? If you had a do-over, what would you have done differently? Take a moment and put yourself in that hellish nightmare of a scenario and ask yourself that question. Once you have figured out what you could have done differently, go out and do it as if you had been given that second chance. Act as if God in all his wisdom, or anything that you regard as a power greater than yourself, had given you a do-over, than do it as if your life depended on it. Want to know something? Your life or what you perceive and have grown accustomed to as your life, just may depend on it.

Like the old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.” We are indeed living in interesting times. What we do today determines what our future will be tomorrow. Don’t count on anyone to save you from what may come. You are the only one that can decide to change things from what they are. You can’t make anyone else decide to change things. The only one you can convince to change things from what they are now is you. Do the things that you can do to make a difference, whether it may be talking to others, or to collect money for a candidate that you believe in, or attending a demonstration or organizing a grassroots group, you can do something. Bobby Kennedy also said this:

“It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task”.

He wasn’t wrong, and if you believe you can make a difference or at least try, neither are you.

Be Part of the Solution

LPA: Today I toyed with the idea of trying to re-ignite the Liberal Party of America. So far I’ve had more hits than at anytime since the party was formed and had a blog. The party used to have a website that was absolutely stunning, but when we dissolved the party, we dissolved the website.

The number of hits today shows me that people are searching for anew party. In fact many of our hits were from search engines that had “Liberal Party” or “Liberal” in the field. I believe that this is indicative of the way that Americans are feeling. The Conservative right wing fundamentalists had their chance to live up to their “contract with America”. Like almost any organization, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The wishes of right wing conservatives became the wishes of politicians and their biggest supporters, and that is corporate America. In particular Big Oil, Defense Contractors, Insurance Companies and Medical Companies.

The corporations we need to focus on were the corporations that make up The Military Industrial Complex they talked about decades ago. The future is now, and we know who the enemy is. Recent statistics confirm that less than 10% of the population control more than 90% of it’s wealth. That is a statistic that Americans cannot live with. We have families where the primary breadwinner is working full time plus has a part-time job paying low wages, just to make ends meet. We have students attending college that statisticians say will be in debt until their 30's to pay for their education. Meanwhile the Republican government has cut student loans partly to finance this unnecessary war in Iraq.

We have spent over $410,000,000,000.00 (Billion) dollars on a war we are still not winning. The American people are tired of the war and feel that they were duped into supporting the war in the first place. The Democrats promised that they would raise the minimum wage and yet they have been outfoxed time and time again by the GOP. It doesn’t seem to matter who is in charge; the rich keep getting richer and the poor seem to lose more every year. Even healthcare has been put on the back burner in some families in order to buy food to put on the families dinner table. This isn’t just happening in Mississippi or Arkansas, it’s happening everywhere.

Education, Health Care, Job Growth (meaningful jobs, not minimum wage opportunities at Wal-Mart) and the Nation’s infrastructure have suffered under this administration. Even our rights guaranteed by the Constitution have been practically gutted. The Democrats promised action on these issues when they ran for seats in Congress in 2006. They have yet to make good on their lofty promises. What will the result of the peoples dissatisfaction be? Are they going to vote Republican next election and go from bad to worse? In reality the people have no real alternative. The only alternative is another political party to put the fear of the people back in government again. Both political parties know that with multi-million dollar House and Senate races and Billion dollar Presidential races, that a third party would have a hard time getting off the ground.

I want to say this; with the help of the internet and the tools available to politically minded people, it is no longer unfeasible to start a third major political party. People reading this might ask what it is that I am up too. What I am up to is to get a liberal/progressive political party started in the United States. Do I want to continue as chairman...no. I am recovering from open-heart surgery and I can’t devote the time and energy (I could be a good cheerleader). Do I think we can field candidates in political races in 2008? Maybe we can, if the office in question has such bad candidates that we have to run somebody, it’s not out of the question. We can however, control a voting bloc that could tip the balance in many elections. If a Democratic candidate is so unacceptable we could endorse a Republican Candidate, or a Green Party Candidate. The possibilities are endless.

This idea of starting a new political party should fill people with enthusiasm. This is a chance to start something pure and new. This is a chance to become a voice in government and possibly take the power away from the families and consortiums that now run our Federal government. This party is going to need leaders. It’s going to need a Party Chairman, a Vice Chairman a Secretary, State Chairmen. The list could go on for pages. What we need right now is an exploratory committee. We need people to get together and chart a path for this new party. I would be willing to join that committee in a limited capacity. It stands to reason that the people who volunteer for these posts would be the temporary leaders of this new party.

The time has really come. I know that Americans are disenchanted with what has been happening in politics. This is a chance to do something about it. Bemoaning the fact that the politicians in Washington are not working for the people won’t change the way things are. The only way to change things is by action. Just by signing up to be on the committee, or telling your friends about The Liberal Party of America will be some kind of action. The only thing these people in Washington understand is strength in numbers. We can do this if we have the will. We must do this, if not for ourselves then for the generations of Americans to come. It has to start somewhere, sometime. Let it start here and let it start now. Things won’t get better unless we make them better.