Thursday, November 9, 2006

Congratulations. Now, Get to Work!


On a day when a steady, cleansing rain fell here on the East Coast, we awoke to find out that the American electorate has had enough of fear-mongering, paranoid, deceit-driven, hate-ridden government.

It is, on balance, a very good day, a historic day. The American people showed, once again, that they are fully capable of shifting the course of this nation's leadership--without any direction from the mass media, the talking heads in Washington with their advertising machinery, or the punditocracy. For that, a brief celebration is in order.

But the party had better be short, for there is urgent work to be done. The Democrats now need to show us that they understand what their mandate is all about. Perhaps the time has come to revisit the discussion of political capital. Now we have already had a very graphic object lesson in squandering political capital; the time has come for the Dems to show us how it may be spent.



Herewith, then, are some recommendations for an agenda; if I've left anything out, set me straight with a Comment:

-Impeachment hearings, to begin ASAP

-A formal passage of a plan to bring American troops home ASAP

-Impeachment hearings, real soon

-Get the U.S. to sign on to the Kyoto Accords, and draft a comprehensive plan of legislation and activism based on the clear and unified scientific consensus on global warming. Believe it or not, this is more important than getting our troops home and starting the impeachment hearings. But all these things can and should be done simultaneously

-Formal investigations by Congress of the conduct of the Iraq War and the rebuilding fiascos, further inquiry into the Abramoff corruption debacle, and some serious self-examination and cleansing on the part of Congress

-Impeachment hearings, to start immediately if not sooner

-rollback of the NSA wiretapping laws, the Patriot Act, and torture-friendly legislation

-Restoration of habeas corpus, in the firmest, clearest possible terms

-Impeachment hearings, quick

-Rollback of tax breaks for the ultra-rich

-Investigations into the corruption and incompetence re. Katrina, and new legislation on funding and contract awards for rebuilding

-Open inquiry and debate on the Downing Street Memo and related documents

-investigation and correction of porkbarrel legislation, lobbying, and election funding

-Impeachment hearings pronto

-Firm support for Net Neutrality and fresh regulation of corporate mergers and takeovers, particularly in the communications sector

-Did I mention the need for impeachment hearings?

-For god's sake, Nancy: get your people to earn their goddam money. Cut vacation time in half and demand that Reps be in Washington doing their jobs if they're to expect to be back

-Impeach Bush, Cheney, and all their cronies

There, that will be enough for you to be getting along with now. Remember: capital--of either the financial or political variety--is best invested rather than spent.

Also remember, Ms. Pelosi: the man's inviting you to lunch because he knows that you can get those impeachment hearings moving really quick. Just remember where your party's mandate came from--the very same grassroots that have been patiently waiting for just this moment to see these criminals routed from the halls of power. So watching Rummy fall on his sword is not enough for us: we want our nation and its government back, whole and clean. So go have lunch with the guy, but no deals, no promises, no compromises. We'll be watching.

6 comments:

Dr. Hulbeck said...

This is a very good list -- Kyoto and Net Neutrality in particular. Unofrtumately the Clinton impeachment farce has laid difficult ground for a new one. I think impeahcment is possible, and even likely, if the new Congress can be roused to investigate two or three specific issues: Cheney's Energy Task Force business, which should lay bare the true motives for the Iraq war; the Halliburton follies; Bush's illegal diversion of funds from the Afghanistan war to the Iraq war, and... well, that oughta do it, yes? One would hope.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Hulbeck took one of mine (Energy Task Force), but also the entire Medicare fiasco, including changing the rules back to letting the government negotiate prescription drugs; fixing No Child Left Behind; fixing the student loan thing; the mercury levels in water thing; the "Clean Air" thing; the "Healthy Forests" thing; cleaning out and beefing up all oversight agencies, some of which include MSHA (and tightening safety requirements in mines), OSHA, EPA, FCC, and the NRLB; banning oil drilling in ANWR; removing restrictions on international funding for women's health with the abstinence only requirements; eliminating "faith-based funding"; beefing up security protocols on shipping; and you know I could keep going but you probably really didn't mean this list to be comprehensive anyway.

So, yeah. Hella lot of work to do.

Brian Donohue said...

Thanks, Doc. I took a look at your profile and blog (I've been a Kafka lover myself since I was 12); and I liked it so much I added DHAIP to my Blogroll.

Dr. Hulbeck said...

Thank you sir! I have a weakness for good political debate, so keep up the good work!

Brian Donohue said...

No weakness, Doc--that's a strength you've got there. I've decided to try and get lesser-knowns of real quality on the Blogroll. After all, D-Kos and Digby, bless them, already get a bazillion hits a minute! It's guys like us that need a presence on people's sidebars. I just checked my stats and I have about 900 unique visitors for November, which is about as many people as are online at D-Kos at any given second.

But blogging is nonetheless valuable to me--literally. It keeps me off the streets in a city where a movie, dinner out, and a couple of drinks can set you back a day's pay.

Dr. Hulbeck said...

Indeed. The blogosphere is a mess, but it's also a unique possibility for grassroots media communication -- it's one of the few ways available (without a lot of money) for a relatively unfiltered individual perspective to be visible on a wide scale.

Anyway, point well taken. We're all in it together. ;)