The Kids Are Alright

                There’s been a lot of noise lately about how the Democrats, and especially the new, young Democrats, should tone down their rhetoric and their policies.  The sentiment is that they have to pay attention to the broad middle of American politics.  Maybe, these voices say, they should consider running a political fossil like Bidden to not scare off the independent voters.  As a card carrying (Medicare and social security) old, white guy, I totally disagree.  The last thing we need at this point is a timid recalculation of our political landscape.  That timid approach has left democracy clinging by a thread and threatened the viability of not just our country but our planet.

                As the most incompetent president in the history of the republic takes time out of his “executive time” to lie to the nation about the scourge from the south imperiling our nation, we need an honest assessment of where we stand.  There aren’t very many of the pillars of 20^th Century America left standing.  We have allowed so much of what we all thought was foundational to our society slip away while we checked how many ‘likes’ we accumulated on Facebook.  Now is the time for a reckoning.  We are still the richest nation on earth, but most of that wealth is concentrated in a class of kleptocrats so small they make the age of the robber barons look paltry by comparison.  They have bought their way into the political process, changing every conceivable law, rule and regulation to their benefit.  Meanwhile, the standard of living for the majority of Americans has declined and their economic future is more insecure.  The response was to pass a tax law stealing another trillion for people at the top.  Our life expectancy is even declining.  Of all the industrialized countries in the world, we have the least mobility and the most segregated and stratified society.

                Our schools have been hollowed out by decades of assault by the right-wing plutocrats who no longer see any economic or social value in making your other people’s children are educated.  They want to stifle your child’s aspirations and dreams because it might syphon off a few pennies of their wealth.  We have created schools that operate more like prisons than schools and created a whole layer of political and administrative nonsense that prevents teachers from helping their students.  We have all but abandoned making an advanced education affordable for a larger and larger section of the population.  The policies that the Koch brothers and their allies promote are so extreme that they want millions stripped of their health care, which is polite way of saying they want to promote mass extinction.  All of this has been done in the light of day by politicians trying to make ‘sensible’ and ‘moderate’ policy.  Even the most basic right, the right to vote. Is under attack by those practicing this politics of exclusion.

                The political reality is rosy compared to the environmental situation.  As so much wealth has been concentrated in fossil fuel companies, we have protected their right to make and hoard money over the right the rest of us have to a world we can actually sustain and live in.  Fish are eating plastic and making it part of the food chain.  A mass extinction is underway that will threaten the diversity and sustainability of ecosphere in ways we can hardly comprehend.  If you own beach front property near an ocean, now is the time to sell and get out.  We are deluged with this information every day but we’ve become numb to it.  Meanwhile, the ‘moderate’ politicians make more tepid policy.

                This is the time for action.  People who want to redistribute wealth, shift from fossil fuels, open up voting, radically change and fund the educational system and fight the racist, misogynist and homophobic forces of moderation deserve our help and support.  Not to do all we can to help is like sending our grandchildren out back with a shovel to start digging their own grave.  This is their cause, their time, their moment to take charge.  If it looks a little extreme, that’s because we let it get this bad.  If it offends you, look the other way.  We blew our chance to make things better.  We sold whatever principles we had for a modest pension and a few municipal bonds.  The least we can do now is get the hell out of the way.