annie coakley and bullshit sitting

one year ago today, i stood on the packed ground of a frozen mall, a few hundred yards away from the promise of a new leader who spoke of hope, of empowerment, of an america ours to fix. 'twas the worst day i ever loved, mostly because, after walking a thousand miles, up hill both ways, in subzero weather, all by myself, i felt a patriotic pride i'd never before known, and a sense of responsibility for the tomorrow that was about to unfold.

whilst listening to potus 44 take his oath of office, i knew i was no longer a sleeping bystander, but an inspired agent of change, ready to march to a new tune of hope, and ready to build a new generation of leaders.

for the past year, i have supported my president. i have worked very hard to become a leader in progressive national security policy, become more enaged in local and state government, and build a network of leaders. at the same time, i've watched my party disintegrate into finger-pointing factions, so mired in misplaced disappointment, that we have let our real opposition change the reality of the face of the problems in america. and most importantly, how to solve them.

one year ago today, when president obama took his office, we were in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the great depression, following the greatest redistribution of wealth from middle america to the megalomaniacs in big offices on wall street, all by and for economic deregulation policies that took hold during the reagan years, and compounded during the years of the three presidents that followed. obama stepped into a shitstorm that took 28 years to build, and yet the story being told today is that it's his fault those woes stand uncorrected. in the 365 days he's held the reigns. funny how that works.

funny because our loud, reasoned, educated voices are yelling at each other instead of the teabaggers.

a week ago, i was asked if i was going up to Mass whilst gallivanting about the district of columbia, to lend a helping hand to coakley-losing-lately (let's give a shout out to paris guy for having better political instincts than me), to which i responded (and i might be paraphrasing here):

"uh, no. there's no way ted kennedy's seat is falling to the repugs. that would equal more irony than i could even get my arms around. that's just the media spewing controversy to get all of us to pay attention to a non-story."

huh. i s'pose de nile ain't just a river in egypt after all.

and last night, while raw from that loss, and in the midst of an emotional break-down resulting from travel overload, not enough sleep, and a weekend of brain overstimulation, i was ready to throw in the towel, quit my party, and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind my giving a shit about any of this! (i mean, sometimes i really do want to cash in everything i've got and go sell t-shirts on the beach in costa rica).

but today, lucidity prevails. i'm slightly more rational (key word, slightly), because i'm going to give dems a chance to rise from these ashes, pull our heads out of our collective asses, and start working on writing and telling (er, yelling from the highest mountain) the real story here.

the real story here being that liberal policy and big government is the answer to our problems. that conservative policies took money from the poor to build up the rich, ignored our crumbling infrastructure, allowed 9/11 to happen before sending our troops to die in an aghastly unprovoked war, showed not one iota of concern for our rising national debt, and let america's reputation sour around the world, all of which has made us less safe, domestically and abroad.

reagan's biggest and most lasting positive acheivement was that he was able to breathe life into a generation of heartened conservatives who believed and still cling to the fallacy that, "government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

and if democrats want to hang on to our majority, and make policies that make more sense for more americans, we have to change that story. we have to tell the true story that americans can and should believe: that government is the solution for fighting the evils of an unregulated and greedy private sector. that the conservative policies of the last three decades have acted as leeches, bleeding the heart, soul, and economic prosperity out of the average joe's, the pitbulls in lipstick, and even us latte drinking liberals, for the sake of a few more bucks in the coffers of its too-big-to-fail banks.

the end.