Taking Back America, Part 1

Last month in this blog, I promised that I would not tell you what to do to acheive change, because you get told what to do all the time and I don't enjoy barking out orders anyway. And I promised you that instead, I would tell you what you can do to change this corrupted and broken system in which we find ourselves mired.

And so, in keeping with that promise, I present to you the first part in a series of entries to take place over the next few weeks, Taking Back America.

For those of you who are sick of the same old GOPers getting away with ever-more disgusting crimes against their constituencies, and want to do something about it there are some things you will need to bear and keep in mind.

The first thing you'll need to remember is that America as we knew it is gone. It's dead, finished, kaput. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but I also promised you in my first entry that I would tell you things that will make you angry. This is one of them.

And it should make you angry. The neoconservative assholes that have usurped and abused this once-great nation have spent decades worming their way to absolute political power. The stolen elections of 2000 and 2004 were simply the culmination of decades of work by a subsect of the Republican Party that was born in the bowels of the Nixon administration. They have corrupted the electoral process to the point where they now control it on nearly every level. They have been negligent, perhaps deliberately so as they definitely were with Hurricane Katrina, in the 9/11 attacks. They have abandoned their sworn duties to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. They have lied to get us mired in Iraq, using 9/11 as a political tool, and falsified intelligence in the process. In retaliation for being exposed as liars, they have targeted whistleblowers--the most prominent example being the outing of Valerie Plame-Wilson as a CIA NOC. And they have systematically bankrupted the Treasury and dismantled our institutions such as the EPA, Medicare and education.

So don't kid yourselves; America as we knew it is dead and gone as long as Bush & Co. and their neocon enablers in Congress and the press are in charge. That's the first thing you will want to keep in mind.

But, this is not to say that all hope is lost. If it were, I wouldn't be typing this right now. We can take back America. Just don't count on it happening overnight. Do not fool yourselves into thinking that the 2006 midterm elections or the 2008 elections will go our way. The system is too compromised at this point for that to happen. It took decades for the Republican Party to seize control of the nation. And it will take us just as long to reclaim what was once the world's oldest and most venerable democracy.

So keep this second thing in mind as you read and absorb all of this. It will take, perhaps, fifteen or twenty years to acheive tangible results. It will require dedication, organization, financing and planning on levels you probably don't realize. The GOP has threatened, intimidated, broken laws, passed new and unConstitutional laws, laundered money, bought loyalties, lied, cheated, stolen, and God only knows what else to get what it wants above all else: absolute political power. If you expect to have any hope of combatting them, you will have to be even more ruthless, cunning, and manipulative than they are. And you're going to have to do it while still maintaining the principles of honesty, integrity, and the ideals upon which this nation was founded.

All that is going to take an incredible amount of blood, sweat and tears. It's going to be difficult next to impossible. Hell, if it were easy then the Republicans would've never become so corrupt in their quest for power.

By now you're probably thinking to yourself, "whooooaaa...this guy is nuts! America, dead? Fifteen or twenty years to take it back? Hard work and lost time!? I'LL MISS AMERICAN IDOL!!!"

That's natural, but don't let it get to you. It's a tough and yes, even painful thing to accept. But you're going to have to be realistic in your thinking if you want to see any real change take place in your lifetime.

So that is the first part of this series: Accepting the reality of the situation. What we once knew as our country is gone, stolen out from under our noses. And it will take years, perhaps decades, of hard work and dedication to take it back. But it can and, with enough determination and effort, will happen.