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![\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/fe-logo-13-feb-09-250-px1.jpg?resize=250%2C133&ssl=1\" "\\"Fe\\"")
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\nA bit of history: I’ve been blogging in the progressive (aka “liberal”) blogosphere since 2003 for political campaigns and progressive advocacy sites, all of which led me right here and our community. When I started blogging, there were clear lines of political demarcation: Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n
Over the course of the decade, lines evolved, branching into further-left progressive Democrats like Howard Dean and far right neoconservative Republicans like Dick Cheney. Many people being uncomfortable with the political extremes, and trying to find the niche between, centrist Blue Dog Democrats such as Jim Webb of Virginia began to win elections. The Blue Dogs — Democrats from states with a large conservative constituency — were on par with traditionally moderate Republicans like Arlen Specter (who is now a Democrat). They’re socially progressive, fiscally conservative, and strong on defense. Blue Dog Democrats scored victories to make it into Congress while Bush was in his final two years in office, a signal the country was itching for change.<\/p>\n
The progressive blogosphere has been the voting bloc leaning leftward for political change the past ten years. Active and aggressive. Working to get Democrats–liberals and blue dogs alike into Congress to combat the Republican bloc equally as aggressive, that voted with discipline down party lines. Progressives chipped away at the bloc like Papillon from his cage on Devil’s Island. By and large, with the help of Republicans getting caught hitting on Congressional pages and soliciting sex in airport bathrooms and an increasingly unpopular President, Mr. Bush, we came to answer the solid Republican block with the internet as our battering ram. As we had hoped, we built a Democratic majority in Congress and the Senate and a Democrat in the White House. The progressives won. Or so we thought.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Democrats and Republicans play two different games when it comes to power in Washington, D.C. Democrats are said to know how to govern, while Republicans know how to campaign. Democrats play nice after they win. Republicans take more power and they don\u2019t care. Democrats try to be more like Republicans as they govern, or they move to the center. Republicans turn even more into themselves and do what they want. Republicans believe, as in the NFL, that on playing defense, even if you\u2019re losing you act like you\u2019re winning with each little play, and eventually you will win. On the other hand, instead of playing football, Democrats play bridge.<\/p>\n
Instead of using their majority, Democrats, including the President, have been placating the minority–the democratic Blue Dogs and the Republicans. Given how much importance was placed on Martha Coakley’s Senate campaign in Massachusetts and the yearning for a filibuster-proof Senate majority for the Democrats, they wanted absolute cover of a 20-vote cushion to protect them. That didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
59 votes out of 100 in the Senate is still a majority, but with the way the Democrats still fear them, and possible repercussions at home, the Republicans might as well be the majority. And blue dog Democrats vote with them, still shaking off the ghost of Ronald Reagan branding the Democrats as tax-and-spend liberals. Even with the decade of Republican excess, corruption and treasury-draining as the majority under Clinton and Bush, the Republicans know it and take advantage of it, particularly with mid-term elections in coming in 10 months. They’re still playing football.<\/p>\n
The Republican party has been successful in forestalling the passage of the health care bill and eroding the base of support the President enjoyed a year ago. But then again, so have the progressives. Up until the unfolding of the Massachusetts Senate drama, the push for the public option and the hard line drawn in the sand by blue dog democrats who fear the wrath of their conservative constituents in their states, made for an unlikely alliance between progressives and the Tea Baggers.<\/p>\n
Jane Hamsher, a left-wing progressive and founder of the website Firedoglake, and Grover Norquist, Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy advisor (the guy who wanted government to be small enough to drown in a bathtub) formed a partnership to kill the health care bill. Both want the current health care bill scrapped, though for entirely different reasons. Jane wanted it better. Grover just wanted it gone.<\/p>\n
Issues-wise, the lines between progressive and conservative, Democrat and Republican, blue Dog and liberal are blurred. Now traditional enemies have formed alliances uniting a large disgruntled portion of the country. A magnet for people who are angry and fed up. After ten years of democracy and now an economy gone haywire, there is no faith in democracy or government, and from the looks of things the White House and Congress, particularly the Senate, are out of touch and aren’t doing enough, fast enough. The foot dragging and tone deafness while the house is burning is pissing everyone off. It was progressive Democrats who stayed home in Massachusetts on election day last Tuesday and cost Coakley key votes and a win.<\/p>\n
The square of Saturn and Pluto in cardinal signs is forcing us to look at that which we need to strip away, digging deeper for answers to questions we never thought we needed or wanted to ask. Pluto in Capricorn is about governments and corporations. Saturn in Libra is about fairness and justice. We need to wake this boat of a country and its leaders up. Its no longer 1980, 1995 or 2000. Its 2010. The large majority of the country wants a public option and\/or affordable health care. The large majority of the country wants jobs back. We know the country’s been fucked over and we need change to accelerate.<\/p>\n
We’re waking from a fever dream of being lied to by government so long that we tuned out to sleep. So now we’re waking up. Everyone is yelling. I am yelling. After Martha Coakley’s loss Tuesday, what the fuck is it going to take to get the message that we look to the government to lead when we’re in trouble? When the government doesn’t get the message, we end up fighting back. How much harder do we have to yell?<\/p>\n
So what if Martha lost? Our people need our leadership to be better than the pettiness, foot-dragging, sense of entitlement and petty viciousness pervading current national politics. There’s not enough force majeur making an earthquake against the corporations who stranglehold this Congress and the nation’s capital. We’re getting roughed up in this football game. And we’re reacting. We need some true fearlessness out of Washington and a clear game plan, or else a whole lot of others are going to continue to react, and that won’t be pretty. We’re itching for a change that has to be more than a promise.<\/p>\n
Yours and truly,<\/p>\n
Fe Bongolan<\/strong>
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Friend & Reader: Forgive me in advance for entitling myself to this rant. I am still trying to wrap myself around what’s unfolding before our eyes. A bit of history: I’ve been blogging in the progressive (aka “liberal”) blogosphere since 2003 for political campaigns and progressive advocacy sites, all of which led me right … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,1788,114,52,1054,1637,1638],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}