Attacking the Belly of the Beast?

Late last night (though most people would call 8:30 early) my phone vibrated and I got an emailed response to yesterday's posting "Not the Time For Kumbaya" (you can read it at the bottom). 

Not only am I more than gracious for the time the responder, Rich Cutrona, took to read the post, and the well thought out, articulate point of view he chose to take, I'm equally grateful for the light-bulb that he seemed to turn on in my head, and hopefully yours. Rich concludes with the following: 

However, because we live in America, I still have the ability to make a choice. I choose to fight with and for those who would fight for me. I choose ethics, social justice, and environmental responsibility. I will do everything within my power to aid in the creation of a left of center, progressive political party free from the shackles of corporate plutocracy. I will choose and vote Green. Never again will I sit back and be complicit in the lethal status quo…………………………. never again.

I'm not going to rehash the eternal battle that takes place between my heart (Green) and my head (Democrat). I registered as a Democrat on November 4, 2004 - the day after George W Bush beat John Kerry - who basically wrote the antithesis of another Democratic Massachusetts Senator and Presidential Candidate and called it "Profiles in Cowardice". My line of thinking was if I'm going to vote for this party, I'm going to have a say in this party. 

I'd be extremely generous if I were to say the results were mixed at best.

Moving away from that debate though, what Rich said struck a nerve. Sure, most of us on the political left would love a thoughtful, respectful, intelligent, diverse and socially conscious answer to the Tea Party: a united national network and a platform to air our grievances as one voice. Many of us thought we had that in 2008 but those we empowered squandered their political capitol faster than a gutter drunk at a blackjack table.

Too fast too soon? Maybe. A true Green Grassroots effort has always seemed like it's been percolating near the surface of the political establishment but utterly incapable of breaking through into the mainstream. I'm starting to think that the ultimate failures are a result of misplaced ambition. Simply put: We're a bunch of Junior Varsity Quarterbacks attempting to make the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Be it Ned Lamont defeating - then losing to - Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, or the near upset of Blanche Lincoln in a useless attempt to retain the Arkansas Senate seat in a toxic environment (or even Ralph Nader's eternal quest for 3% of the presidential vote), we're bypassing the foundation: The House of Representatives.

Using the Tea Party as a top-of-the-head example: they carried the GOPricks to an overwhelming House Majority, yet in turn, thanks to batshit crazy lunatics like Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle, cost the Republicans what should have been a Senate Majority. (To say nothing of the scorn and unreliability they now face with Lisa Murkowski in Alaska).

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but a substantial number of Senators got their start in the House of Representatives. By design, a House seat is extremely easier to pick off from an incumbent than a Senate seat. The past few electoral cycles alone have seen double digit swings in seats for both parties. It's much more volatile.

Furthermore - and this is where Rich's words truly resonated - where better to launch the offensive than in conservative districts of blue states? I'll point directly to my home district: New Jersey's 5th. Represented by the uber right wing warrior Scott Garrett, who never misses the opportunity to provide verbal and financial fellatio to the banks, gun nuts, pro-lifers and the rest of the Republican establishment.  

Granted, the NJ-5 is tailor made for Republican control. The extreme wealth of Upper Bergen County meets the Hunters Guild and Bitter White Man brigade of Sussex County and throw in all of the Rapture-anticipating Warren County and it's pretty safe to say Barry Goldwater's urn could take this Seat with 60% of the vote. 

Except it can't. In his first four elections, Garrett teetered between 55% - 59% of the vote. Impressive indeed. He hit 65% of the vote in this past election, the overwhelming Republican wave. But look a little deeper. In midterm years, he recorded 118,881 (2002), 112,11242 (2006), and 119,478 this year, 2010. All while running against completely unqualified, rather conservative and absolutely unfunded Democratic competition. I voted against Garrett in the three elections that I lived in the district and still had to look up the names of the people I voted for.

Yet this collection of misfits and losers managed to crack 40% in all but 2002. It's a seat that the GOP takes for granted and with good reason: the Democrats have completely abandoned it. Would this not be the place to start? Would a seemingly comfortable congressman like Garrett be much more inclined to be caught off guard than a Republican in a 50/50 district that forces both he or she and the Democratic candidate to run to the middle to the point of being indistinguishable?  

It's extremely Pollyanna to believe somebody like Bernie Sanders could win in NJ's 5th. Until you compare the demographics of Vermont to those of Northwest NJ. 

I do NOT believe that this is a question of "How?" 

It's a matter of "Who?"

Not the time for Kumbaya.

You knew it was going to come to this, didn't you? In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Tucson that left six Americans dead and thirteen injured, the pleas are coming in by the boatload for everyone to "work together" and "respect our differences" and a whole grab bag full of platitudes that would make Rodney King blush.

What the mainstream media and a sizable majority of those who've chimed in on various social networks are yet to either realize (or lack the courage to admit) is that this is not like 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina, or the Haitian Earthquake or any other tragic event that required humanity to rise to the occasion. Not in the least.

We still don't know all of the details about what accused terrorist Jared Loughner had going in on his obviously twisted head. We're not privy to whatever sick inspirations took hold of him and forced him to act as he did. But what we do know is that Tea-Party inspired violence, both threatened and carried out, has been escalating sharply over the last two years, in the aftermath of the election of a black man with an Arabic name who has the audacity to prohibit Big Insurance from denying health-care coverage based on preexisting conditions.

If you want an actual, chronological rundown of the insanity, you can find two very comprehensive ones here and here. But if you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention for the last 20 months or so, you don't need a rundown in front of you to know exactly what I'm talking about. 

Is there any doubt in your mind that the Sarah Palins and Michelle Bachmans and Jim DeMints and Glen Becks of the world weren't pissing their pants in anxiety waiting for a connection between Loughner and a formal Tea Party organization? Be honest - what was your first reaction when you heard the news? I know mine. I texted my family "Tea Party shot a Congresswoman (D-WA)". And you know what? I ain't going to apologize for making such a claim. Even if Rush Limbaugh didn't specifically pull the trigger. 

Loughner may not have been a died-in-the wool Tea Party activist (after all, he was at one point intelligent enough to be admitted to community college, and he's too young for adult diapers) but make no mistake - it was the Tea Party's demonizing of the institution of Congress that made Gabrielle Giffords a viable target for his rage.

This is why these phony calls for "tolerance" and "working together" are an insult to everybody who never advocated bringing a loaded weapon to events where the President of the United States was speaking. If I steal my neighbor's car and he calls the police on me, should my defense be "Well I guess we need to learn how to be better neighbors?" 

Make no mistake about it: The vitriol from the Left for George W Bush was just as bad as the Right's for Barack Obama. I actually saw a bumper sticker on some yokel's pickup that made me laugh not that long ago: "I'll Treat Your President with the Same Respect You Treated Mine". That's fair. I'm not going to stoop to the level of the Iraqi babykilling yellow ribbon crowd and throw a faux "Love it or Leave It!" in their faces. I don't expect everyone in America to share my beliefs and I would never deny somebody their birthright to be pissed off at the state of the world.

But can you point me in the direction of those Republican Congressional Headquarters that were vandalized during the Iraq debate? 

Can you let me hear the voicemails that called Colin Powell a "filthy N-Word" when he committed the second major war crime in his life? 

Do you have footage of any liberals acting like Ritalin-deprived bipolar kindergartners throwing hissy fits at Tom DeLay's town hall meetings? 

The sentiments may be the same but the threat level is greatly different. I'm surprised it took this long for the violence to escalate to this point. Anybody who begs and pleads for more tolerance in our political discourse is not doing anybody any favors. Say what you want about Obama and the Democrats - they're soft, spineless, timid - I've said it all - you can't call them dangerous, threatening or violent. 

Violence and Hatred is not a bipartisan problem and should not be treated as such until liberals start opening fire on the Tea Party. Now is not the time for bipartisan come-together-lovie-dovie bullshit. It's time for the conservatives to start acting like mature, civilized, decent human beings.

Jon Kyl shoots the Messenger

Two blowhard conservatives from the great state of Arizona are crying about Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik's candid, and let's face it: accurate description of the tone and pulse of the Tea Party.

We've been down this road before, going all the way back to the infancy of the Obama Administration when Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage had the audacity to suggest they were being picked on by the Department of Homeland Security when they issued a warning about escalating recruitment among radical right wing terrorist organizations.

For a group of people who love to preach about personal responsibility and accountability, they sure do get their panties in a bunch the minute you call them out on the carpet. You don't need a PhD in Psychology to realize that the right wing groups have been pushing the envelope with insinuating that violence just might be the answer. This isn't even about guns. I've never been one to get involved in the gun control debate, I believe criminals will have them whether they're legal or not. 

This is about veiled references to the violent overthrow of the government and a phony attempt to lay claim to the heritage of the American Revolution. As if the founding fathers were a bunch of abortion clinic bombers. This happens every time a Democrat is in office. Timmy McVeigh, anyone?