The New Democratic Ideal

nyceve at dKos has an astounding and concise diary entry entitled: "My bills are mounting! Why I don't give a rat's ass about DeLay or Obama:"

There's a special place in Hell reserved for Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Bill Frist, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, all of these criminals.

But I don't have the luxury of reveling for too long in this wonderful news of indictments and frog marches. Like many Americans, I worry about paying next months skyrocketing bills. Things are spiraling out of control, Mr. Obama. Next time you join us here, talk to me, recognize my fears, recognize that life has become mired in despair for countless Americans. Understand the most painful truth, which is that many of us no longer recognize this as the America we grew up in.

Let me tell you something Kossacks, let me tell any still semi-coherent Democratic office holder, many Americans don't have the time to feel more than passing joy at the coming implosion of the House of Bush. All we worry about is staying one step ahead of the onslaught of bills.

You want to be embraced by the grassroots and the netroots, respond to me and tell me you are listening to my pragmatic and dismal day-in-day-out realities. And it gets even worse. I have no right to complain, my realities aren't a fraction as bad as the dire circumstances of most Americans.

All this bickering about centrism, too left, not quite left enough, DLC, Hillary Hate, is bullshit. For starters, just promise me that on day one, you're going to make healthcare a right not a privilege.

Your fellow citizens are really worried. Right now, Avian flu is particularly horrifying. Talk to me you moron democrats, tell me what you're going to do to protect me from the health insurance industry, the oil companies, Al Queda, unaffordable energy prices, unequal education, incompetent FEMA, a shortage of flu vaccine. How about leveling with the American people about Peak Oil?

Corruption and competence matter, but how to pay my skyrocketing health insurance premiums matters just as much.

Listen to my cries, mine is the voice of millions of Americans--voting Americans.

Taking these criminals down is glorious. Now I plead for just one democrat to step forward and assure me that they recognize that we can't hang on much longer. The middle class in this country is being destoyed in just the same way as the middle class in Iraq has been all but vanquished.

Read the comments that we get every day here. Heartbreaking is what they are! The pleas of ordinary, hard working, tax paying Americans, desperately juggling two jobs, skyrocketing costs and a seemingly out-of-touch democratic party. Mr. Obama, next time you (or more likely your staff person) writes a lengthy Kos diary, please use a paragraph or two to acknowledge that you recognize that many Americans are losing the struggle.

We won't win unless you give me reason to hope again that there is a future for me and my family in this country. We won't win until you not only address, but give concrete solutions to the problems that are haunting and destroying so many decent American citizens.

We need help.

nyceve strikes deep into a serious conundrum among the left and among the Democratic party. While we're blessed to be able to celebrate the recent fissures between Republican policy/corruption and American culture/needs, we've also attempted not to lament that fact that nobody's come forward with a viable alternative. And simply "returning to the way it was" is not going to cut it. We need serious reform-- not simply policy shifts, but honest tenable values-reform which engages every American to consider their role in society and their community. We need to consider what taxes are and what they do, we need to be able to provide the benefits of a great society, we need to live up to those promises of protection and value. We need leadership and honesty.

And there haven't been many voices that have raised beyond criticism into the realm of critique. Why? because Democrats don't have the answers. They haven't laid out their vision, they don't believe yet in the tenets of accountable politics and humane-based politics. But, if we push them, they will. Just look at what Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) has laid out in very simple terms for a viable agenda, all cogent with core values of a great society:

REP. EMANUEL: Let me go to the question about elections and what does this means politically, given everything that's going on. The American people have rejected the same policies that are giving us the same results and the status quo. They want change. They want big ideas, big reform. This is going to be a big election, a national election because of the challenges this country faces. We can do better than the policies that got us into the position we have right now. And the fact is, the Democrats have an obligation to lay out to the country what those ideas are.

Minutes later...

REP. EMANUEL: ...I'll give you five quick ideas. One, we make college education as universal for the 21st century that a high school education was in the 20th.

MR. RUSSERT: And who pays for that?

REP. EMANUEL: The American people, because it offers--Let me get to it. Second, we get a summit on the budget to deal with the $3 trillion of debt that's been added up in five years and structural deficits of $400 billion a year. Third, an energy policy that says in 10 years, we cut our dependence on foreign oil in half and make this a hybrid economy. Four, we create an institute on science and technology that builds for America like, the National Institutes has done for health care, we maintain our edge. And five, we have a universal health-care system over the next 10 years where if you work, you have health care. That says fiscal discipline and investing in the American people by reputting people first. The policies that the Republicans have offered have gotten us in the ditch we have today.

This is great stuff:

(1)Universal college education;
(2)a Budget Summit to address the $3 trillion in debt run up on the national credit card by Republicans;
(3)Make the U.S. a Hybrid Energy Economy;
(4)Create National Institutes of Science & Technology;
(5)Universal health care for workers.

Holy shit: a 5 point concept-based agenda that could "change the world." It does not address poverty initiatives outright, does not deal with protection of those devastated in Katrina and Rita, which will be necessary. It doesn't deal with the cataclysmic Iraq situation, or with the war on terrorism, and these things must be addressed more overtly [but they are contained within these points, it should be pointed out].

But a Democrat who is communicating a vision. Write this guy, tell him thank you. Then write your representatives and senators with Emanuel's 5 - Points and remind them that this is the leadership agenda we need. Tom DeLay's got other ideas for his behind-the-curtain agenda; but we need to enoucrage active societal shift; not simply disparage the fuckup our country has become under Republican tutelage in 10 years.