Soundpolitic Sundays: Kill Da Wabbit Edition

Good morning and a very Happy Easter to all of you. I think it’s time to take a break, spend some time with family, eat some ham and look for some eggs, and perhaps reflect on our behavior here on the blogs that we might resurrect some long-lost happy feelings.


To illustrate this, complete with a reference to the Easter Bunny, please prepare your ears to be tormented with swear words in this clip from Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece Chasing Amy:


So, kiddies, if you’ll excuse the language and the revelation that there really is no Easter Bunny, in this week’s edition of Soundpolitc Sundays, we’ll talk a little about the subliminal lessons we bloggers can take away from this “askew” piece of cinema…

For those unfamiliar with the works of Kevin Smith, well, I can’t really envy you. The man is one of the greatest indie film producers/directors/screenwriters/actors ever to spawn a cult following. You may know him through his famous characters Jay and Silent Bob, a crass yet philosophical duo inhabiting the universe of Smith’s several successful films.


The running theme that I see in all these films is blunt-to-the-core truth, which oftentimes is best revealed by offensive offense. That is, I find that curse-ridden dialogue and adult-themed storylines tend to weed out those prim and proper viewers (also known as cultural conservatives) who wouldn’t even begin to understand the underlying messages to begin with.

And the underlying theme of Chasing Amy is acceptance. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but basically, this guy, Holden, is a comic book writer with his buddy, Banky. Holden falls in love with a woman (who’s name is not Amy, by the way) but later their relationship goes south when he discovers “too much information” about her sexual past. This screws up their romantic present, which is already under pressure because Not-Amy identifies as a lesbian; this is something Banky does not approve of.

Hence, the exchange in the above video. Now you might be thinking that the Easter Bunny reference being “a figment of your fucking imagination!” at the end, but I’d really rather focus on this exchange in the scene’s beginning:

Banky: “What does it matter if I refer to her as a dyke? Or if I refer to the Whalers as a bunch of faggots in the privacy of my own office far from the sensitive ears of the rest of the world?”

Holden: “It’s passive-aggressive gay bashing. And I know you’re not really prejudiced at heart, I just think you should find a better way to express your anger is all I’m saying.”

No more beating around the bush. Here on TAP (and on DailyKos) I have a strange habit that results in arguments with fellow bloggers that I have great respect for: Whenever I see the phrase “teabagger” I do not hesitate to call them out for what Holden might refer to ass “passive-aggressive conservative bashing.” This thread is a good example, and there are several of them.

Allow me to explain. See, like Holden says, I know that us progressive bloggers aren’t prejudiced at heart. But sometimes, I have a hard time believing it with all this “teabagger” referencing about. It’s just not a nice way to phrase things, people.

For those who don’t know, “teabagging” is the practice of shoving your balls (if you are a man) into the face of another man! I first came to know the term a couple years ago when a couple of frat-style friends joked about having “teabagged” a buddy of theirs. This must be what college aged “hetero life partners” do for yucks. And I mean it…yuck! They spoke about the preparation of the ordeal: not taking a shower for several days to make sure the victim of the “teabags” were extra-grossed out.

So here we are, progressives, seeking the moral high ground, with the aims of taking back our country’s dialogue to favor us and further progressive goals…

…and we go about likening our opposition to this?

It makes no sense to me. And I’m sure many of you wouldn’t ever consider writing a pro-gay blog while using the words “faggot” or “dyke.” You’d think to yourself, “Will this dilute my argument among the diverse group of people who might read this?” And you’d have to answer “Yes!” when considering a homosexual might read your work. No matter how good your argument or your reporting, you’ll lose them as soon as they come upon that hate speech. They’ll write you off as just as bigoted as the conservatives who refuse to grant them equal rights under the law.

So will the moderates who come here. They don’t want to sit through that! They’ll determine your just as angry and incoherent as those on the right. Get my drift?

So we come back to this “teabagger” conundrum. I’ve said many times to just call these people “Tea Partiers” since that’s what they are. I’ve also suggested that subtle framing techniques be used by referring to them as “Tea Drinkers,” ala “Kool-Aid Drinkers” if you simply must cast them in a negative light.

Because if you think your language doesn’t cause any harm; if you believe that 100% of your readers aren’t going to mind; if you think that conservatives don’t come on here looking for exactly that kind of stuff, then I’d ask you to reconsider the audience you’re writing for:

You are writing for the Easter Bunny. A figment of your fucking imagination!

Now I think I can get away with a certain amount of cuss words as well. But I know the second I start using hate speech, I’ll be discredited. And then there’s no reason for me to do this every Sunday. It’s one of the hardest parts of the Eightfold Path I attempt to follow as a Zen Buddhist. It’s called Right Speech, and there’s nothing holy-moly or religious about it. It’s just plain-old common sense: If you want to be taken seriously and you don’t want what you say to come back and bite you, then abandon the impulse to use words like “teabagger” already!

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This is called right speech

So ask yourself: Isn’t it a lie to insinuate that Tea Party members engage in shoving their balls in people’s faces? Isn’t it kind of divisive to keep on using that word when it clearly offends people on both the left and the right? Isn’t it slightly abusive to those your speaking of and to yourself when you could choosing better words for better writing?

And doesn’t this all boil down to just idle chatter that does nothing to advance any goal, conservative or progressive?

I hope I’ve made my point. You’ve got to kill the impulse in you, fellow bloggers, to show through this kind of language that you’re no better than those Tea Partiers who just howled “nigger” and “faggot” during the Health Care Reform fiasco. It’s the same impulse, the same figment of your imagination that such speech can actually help.

In other words, this Easter, you’ve got to kill the wabbit:



So until next week, try to notice those wascally impulses that cause wrong speech and keep it real. Thanks for reading and keep up the good work!

Soundpolitic Sundays: Don't Tread On Python Edition

After blogging for the past two weeks’ editions about the Tea Party and the Coffee Party, I decided the other day that I really needed to take a break from politics.  It was time to stop talking at the TV, making phone calls, and speaking at political organizations, and use my vocals chords for personal healing.

They say laughter is the best medicine.  But I still yearned for some political stimulation.  So I popped into the videocassette player my favorite silly film, which also happens to be one of the best political satires that still has relevance today. 

An obvious clip:



So in this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays, I’m inspired to examine some less-obvious clips from this masterpiece of cinema as they relate to our current political situation.  There’s something completely different below the fold…

Now the “Bloody Peasant” sequence of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the most obvious reference to politics.  It’s pretty much self-explanatory and I’m wasting words synopsizing it.  You can see for yourself (if your connection is good enough!) that we have a very obvious and very comical treatise on the powers of self-government, the ridiculousness of monarchy, and the sometimes silliness of class-war rhetoric.

But the whole film is filled with political references.  If you haven’t seen it, then first of all where have you been?  Hiding under a shrubbery all these years?  But if you haven’t seen the 1975 film, then very briefly:  the film was produced by the revolutionary British sketch comedy troupe Monty Python, and Wikipedia’s description of the genius and influence is most appropriate:

The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles’ influence on music.

Monty Python influenced everything, from Saturday Night Live to South Park, from George Carlin to Larry the Cable Guy.  If you refuse to recognize this, than I’ll have no choice but to condemn you as knowing absolutely nothing about comedy and tell you that you probably aren’t very funny yourself.

In any case, a brief synopsis of the film is an order for you poor unadulterated souls who have yet to experience it:

In 1974, between production on the third and fourth series, the group decided to embark on their first "proper" feature film, containing entirely new material. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was based on Arthurian Legend and was directed by Jones and Gilliam. Again, the latter also contributed linking animations (and put together the opening credits). Along with the rest of the Pythons, Jones and Gilliam performed several roles in the film, but it was Chapman, considered by far the best "straight" actor of the group, who took the lead as King Arthur. Holy Grail was filmed on location, in picturesque rural areas of Scotland, with a budget of only £229,000; the money was raised in part with investments from rock groups such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin—and UK music industry entrepreneur Tony Stratton-Smith (founder/owner of the Charisma Records label, for which the Pythons recorded their comedy albums).

John Cleese noted in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi (host of the cultural radio program Q on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) that the backers of the film wanted to cut the famous Black Knight scene (in which the Black Knight loses his limbs in a duel), which arguably ended up being the funniest and the most quoted scene in the film by cult followers.

The synopsis proves itself an excellent segue!



And now we get down to the business of finding political allegory for the present political situation of Tea Party conservative obstructionism versus reality-based Coffee Party progressivism.  Here, the Black Knight himself is the metaphor for the Tea Party and conservative mentality and King Arthur represents reasoned questioning.

The Black Knight’s first response when asked to join in common cause with King Arthur is to not respond at all.  This is the first step of conservative obstructionism: non-participation and silence on the issues.  Then, Arthur simply makes his discontent known as informs the Black Knight that he’ll have to move on without him.

Great….now the Black Knight speaks up.  He makes his obstructionist intent expressly known (“None shall pass!  I move for no man!”).  King Arthur then makes an attempt to reason with the Black Knight (“I have no quarrel with you, but I must cross this bridge.”)  The Black Knight’s response is to initiate a fight to the death rather than compromise.

The fight that ensues is, of course, slapstick comedic genius.  But it’s also a fantastic example of the fight that conservatives have been fighting since the dawn of time.  While they appear to be evenly matched with progressives, it’s the same thing that occurs in the fight scene that always ends up happening in real life: 

The conservatives inevitably lose, but then keep on fighting, refusing to acknowledge defeat (“’Tis but a scratch!”).  The progressives then inform them that they’ve lost the battle, but now conservative denial takes hold.  (Arthur:  “A scratch?  Your arms off!”  The Black Knight: “No it isn’t.”)  Then progressive truth is reiterated (Arthur: “Well, what’s that then?”).  The conservative reaction is cite an imagined history, brushing off the current situation by say that they’ve won even tougher battles (“I’ve had worse.”).  This is seen in the very name of the Tea Party and the historical event they take their name from.  They would have us believe that fighting back the oppressors of today will be a piece of cake because our ancestors were able to fight off British colonial rule.

And this is as hilarious in the film as it is in real life.  The Black Knight continues to fight despite the loss of one limb…and then insists he’s still winning the greater war after losing the next.  King Arthur tries his best at first to be nice while stating the obvious (“You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.”)  The conservative reaction is to immediately make childish taunting a part of the continued futility (“Oh, had enough, eh? Chicken! Chicken!”).

So the progressive has no choice but to continue wasting his time on this silliness and take off another limb, this time going after the very principles upon which the conservative stands (In other words, “I’ll have you leg.”).  The process continues, the progressive chops an even more vital piece of the argument off the body politic.  And incredibly, the conservative become even more desperate!  He vows to fight on in a shaken voice and declares that victory is still imminent by their very nature (“I’m invincible! The Black Knight always triumphs!”).

Arthur gives the only appropriate response (“You’re a loony,” he scoffs) and then takes the final swing.  Just think of the number of calories he’s wasted and the amount of blood his adversary has lost when you see the incapacitated Black Knight reduced to only a torso….

….and you have no choice but to laugh at his warped assessment of the situation.  He thinks he’s actually broke even! (“All right, we’ll call it a draw.”) And as the bridge is finally crossed, even this offer to be friends is thrown out the window.  Having been discredited completely and incapacitated entirely, the name calling and empty threats of vengeance continue to be shouted (“Running away!  You yellow bastards!  Come back here and get what’s coming to you!  I’ll bite your legs off!”).

My friends, this is exactly the way it’s always happened when progressive principles are pitted against conservative ones.  First, they stand in our way and refuse to even start a conversation.  Then, they insist that we’ll never get anywhere.  Then they fight until they’re beaten.  And then they keep on fighting until they’re beaten even more.  Finally, they fight until they don’t even have the ability to fight.  And in the end, we’re left with nothing but noise, but at least they can’t do much damage with that.

Or can they?  They next clip from “Holy Grail” indicates the present-day problem we have with the damage that can still be done with the right-wing noise machine.

SHE’S A WITCH



This portion of “Holy Grail” is a fantastic allegory for several elements of the Tea Party.  First, we have a mass of common folk, all riled up that a threat to their way of life is living amongst them.  They run out of their homes yelling and screaming that there’s trouble afoot (“A witch!  We found a witch!”) without having first taken care of their own business – see the guy who’s still got shaving cream on? 

Then they present tampered evidence to an authority figure (here, the village Alchemist, Sir Bedevere) who they are certain will confirm their suspicions.  This authority figure then even seems to challenge the view of the mob:  After a bit of investigation, the authority figure points out that perhaps the evidence has been tampered with or entirely created (“Did you dress her up like this?”) by the very mass of commoners now pointing out the threat.  The mob even acknowledges that they did so, but only after vehemently denying it (“Well we did do the nose…and the hat…”) yet still they insist that there is still a threat (“She has got a wort!”) and, in the end, despite the evidence, they still want to the same desired outcome (“Burn her anyway!”).

Then the authority figure informs them that there really is a methodology for confirming the viewpoint that will lead to this outcome.  He asks questions of the mob in order to give the illusion of reasoned debate built upon constituent interaction (“What do you burn apart from witches?  So, why do witches burn?”).  Then, the masses display their genuine lack of intelligence with both their answers and the time it takes for them to reach them (The long pause before one member finally guesses “Because…they’re…made of wood?”).

Now, having created the illusion of logical reasoning and informed debate, the audience still cannot reach the next step. (“What else floats in water?” asks Bedevere, and the mob’s answers include cider, gravy, churches, and very small rocks!)  It’s up to another authority figure (here, King Arthur) to inject the right answer  (“A Duck!”) which provides the first authority figure with all the corroboration he needs to guide the audience along the twisted logic: If the witch weighs the same as a duck, she will also float if thrown into a pond, which means she made of wood, and therefore, she’s a witch.

That sounds an awful lot like those of right-wing authority figures on the talk radio circuit these days:  In the morning there’s Glenn Beck saying that health care reform is going to take away every freedom we have; in the very next time slot, Rush Limbaugh is telling us that the bill is being rammed down our throats instead of actually voted on; coming up next we have Sean Hannity calling any form of government health care socialistic-communistic; then Michael Savage gets even more specific by saying health care reform will lead to taking away guns and free speech.

So you see, this Tea Party thing is nothing new.  It’s been happening since the Middle Ages.  But we are making progress.  Modern technology first gave us the motion picture with which to mock this political theater in the greatest tradition of Greek comedic theater.

Today, it is brought to even wider distribution through the wonder of the Internet, the same vehicle that has given birth to the Coffee Party movement, now nearly 180,000 members strong on Facebook, where it began.  In last week’s edition, I reported that the movement was nearly 150,000 thousand; and the week before I noted that had just passed the 100K benchmark.

Keep your eye on that movement and keep your eye out for next week’s edition.  Perhaps a movement that’s growing this fast and is so grounded (I’m such a pundit) in reality might just become as influential in our politics as the Pythons were in comedy.  Just don’t forget to take a break from such wishful thinking to laugh to yourself every once in a while. 

In fact, try laughting at yourself, too.  You might just find exactly what you were looking for! 

Until next week, thanks for reading and keep up the good work!

Soundpolitic Sundays: It’s All Your Fault Edition

And a very Happy Valentine ’s Day to all you lovers out there. That’s lovers of things like music and politics and words and such. See, I tend to feel like Good Ol’ Charlie Brown these past few Valentine’s Days. I’ve been too focused on things like writing and thinking and looking for work to actually work up the courage to ask for a date…not that I could pay the tab, anyway!

Then again, whose fault is it for me not “having” a Valentine? It’s all me, of course! I’m the one walking about labeling or not labeling other people with the same title we’d give a piece of mail. So I realized earlier this week that I certainly did have a Valentine and, better yet, I’d been getting ephemera from her every week for the past two years!

This is just a fancy way of saying I have a subscription to Newsweek as gifted to me by my dear old Grandmother.

Pitiful, right? I don’t think so. I do love that magazine. Every week, I take a break from the job hunting and freelancing to enjoy that what I might be purchasing for myself: the best political commentary, interviews, and journalism on shiny paper with a dab of humor and art criticism. If I had the time, I’d praise or rebut everything in it.

Which brings me to the current February 15, 2010 issue. Set aside the fact that the issue is dated one whole day in the future (I never quite understood this trick) but within the magazine’s pages were a couple of conflicting articles that could really do for a kiss-and-make-up this Valentine’s Day. So below the fold, we’ll try to get that done for them, considering they have less than 24 hours to come to terms with yourselves.


Wait…yourselves?
------------------------
“The Take” is Newsweek’s section devoted to the finest in current punditry. The best talking heads in the business hit their typewriters with as much passion that they bring to the 24-hour news cycle.


This week, we see on the title page an article by Jacob Weisberg spoiled as “Blame voters for our political paralysis…” just above the teaser for Robert J. Samuelson’s piece saying “…No, blame politicians.” I love when this sort of thing happens. Usually when it comes to the lip-flappers on my favorite Sunday shows, I shudder in disgust once people start interrupting and talking over each other. These two pages gave me a way to at least imagine a civilized discussion…

…even though the discussion will probably go nowhere. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Mr. Robert J. Samuelson!

We have a massive candor gap, led by President Obama but also implicating most leaders of both parties. The annual budget necessarily involves a bewildering blizzard of numbers. But just a few figures capture the essence of our predicament. Here they are:

-Emphasis mine.

And then blah blah deficits and blah blah Social Security and blah blah entitlements blah blah blah...

The message: the budget is mainly a vehicle for transferring income to retirees from workers, who pay most taxes.

Followed by spending cuts yackety yack rising taxes yackey yack financial crisis don’t talk back!

I love this article like the old girlfriend who keeps popping up my head. Or like the re-runs of my least favorite sitcom episodes. I know they both don’t hold up to criticism, but I still entertain the idea. It reminds me of who I used to be.

Of course, that’s not R.J. Samuelson, Super Genius’s idea. He’s got a job to do. He’s got bills to pay. That is to say, he’s got two people he has to please beyond all reasonable doubt: his Editors and his Audience.

In order to do that, Mr. Samuelson had to display a gap in candor of his own. He’s hooting and hollering about “entitlements” and “redistribution.” This is all empty pie-filling when you consider the actual pie:


Oops! Looks like we’ve been “transferring” most of our “income” to men and women who are still working. Very. Hard.

Now why would Samuelson ignore this fact? He writes well. He’s able to craft facts together to fit his argument and come off sounding pretty intelligent. That doesn’t explain why he essentially lies in this entire article. And if the guy is that smart, he’s got to know he’s stretching the truth to please those who consume his work…

Pay attention to that word: consume. Now I feel sorry for Mr. Samuelson. He’s the one who has to try and maintain a good reputation by coming up with phrases like “candor gap.” Do a Google search on that phrase and you might as well have just searched for “Robert J. Samuelson.” It’s a phrase that essentially means nothing, except as a nice way to say that the President is lying…for those who want to believe it in order to validate their sense of self.


So who is the real problem with this article and others like it? It’s not the writer. It’s the reader. And those guys I do not feel sorry for. Not one bit. It’s these people who are causing the drop in approval ratings for a President and causes the pundits on today’s shows to talk about how Obama hasn’t “articulated” his vision properly for the American People.

Essentially, guys like Samuelson aren’t selling the truth or information for the purpose of critical thinking. They are selling soap. Like this guy:



Now we can condemn the soap salesman as a slick truth-stretcher. But what does any salesman require to make a successful pitch?

A customer.

We have another soap salesperson out there today. Here’s a humorous take on some of her sales pitches from a big party down in Tennessee earlier this week:



Zing! Bop! Pow! They’re loving every second of it, aren’t they? And rightly so. It is exactly what they want to hear. And good ‘ol Sarah Palin has learned the lesson every beauty pageant queen learns early: you give the judges what they want if you want to wear the tiara.

There’s probably a lot of condemnation of Palin around here. And a lot of scorn for the people buying up her soap. I’ve gotten into minor tussles in the comments sections regarding the use of the phrase “teabaggers” to describe her supporters.

Allow me to explain. The phrase “teabagger” refers to a rather unsavory act that involves one man disrobing and shoving his genitalia in somebody else’s face. I learned of it through some buddies in college who used to joke about it. To us, it’s disgusting and funny.

And these folks are serious. And calling them names only adds more fuel to fire. Not only that, but I’m of the firm opinion that the truth of the matter in all forms of name-calling and bullying is this:

If you call somebody else a nasty name, you might as well just call yourself that nasty name. You have become nastiness. You have become the bully. And in my experience, bullies have never served any purpose except to display cowardice and provide the opportunity for their targets to display courage.

What I’m saying to you is this: don’t blame the Tea Party. Blame yourself.

You can’t condemn these people for being stuck in a rut validating their own sense of selves as “conservatives” or “libertarian” or “ignorant” without first coming to grips with your own stack of descriptors that give you your sense of self.


Think about who “you” are. Are you just a “liberal” or a “progressive” or an “activist?” There’s really not much to that. Me? I’m not any of these things. These are just useful adjectives that describe fleeting thoughts that, ultimately, are not real.

Neither is the political climate. And this brings me to the second column I spoke of in the opening. Ladies and gentlemen, Jacob Weisberg’s “Down With The People” hits the nail on the head:

In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for important legislation. These are large factors to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.

That's it. He's talking about you, the person. Or rather, he's talking about we the people.

The logic is very easy to follow: if we are a government of the people, then the people are the government. Therefore, if a person has disdain for the government, or an opposing political movement, shouldn't that mean that this person has disdain for...himself?

Keep your own sense of self in mind as Weisberg continues:

Some say that the public is in an angry, populist, tea-partying mood. But a lot more people are watching American Idol than Glenn Beck, and our collective illogic is mostly passive rather than militant. The better explanation is that the public lives in Candyland, where government can tackle the big problems and get out of the way at the same time. [...] We like the idea of sacrifices and hard choices in theory. When was the last time we made one? Emphasis mine. -SP

Candyland. Or "Soapland" if you will. This is so incredibly true it's hilarious. And I've seen it first-hand as a candidate for office myself.


See, in the fall of 2009, I was still out of work and down on my luck. I realize this was of my own doing now, but at the time, I was pretty upset with the world for not hiring me. So since I had the time and had dreamed of doing it, I decided to run for Supervisor in the Town of Berne just three weeks out from the General Election.


I'll expand on this more in future posts, you can be sure, but the main reason I chose to run was because both the Democratic and Republican candidates seemed very reluctant to me. Both parties had to ask upwards of ten people to run before finally settling on somebody to say, "Alright, I'll do it." Me? I wanted the job. My youth and inexperience be damned; I had the resolve to want to apply for the job myself. And I figured that a degree in paralegal studies along with my enthusiasm to put in as much time as possible would be enough to get the job done. I knew it was a big job. I also knew it wasn't fair for the parties to badger somebody who'd just retired into a huge, stressful undertaking that they didn't really want.


So I did it. And I knew I wouldn't win. I had to run as a write-in candidate, which is almost certain doom. But the other thing I wanted to do was get out and talk to regular folks about local politics and hopefully raise civic awareness.


The verdict? Well, aside from getting 8.51% of the vote (scroll down to "Town of Berne Supervisor"), I determined one thing above all others:

This country needs a freakin' civics lesson!

You would not believe some of the questions I got. Here I was running for Supervisor in a rural town with a population of about 3,000 and people were asking all sorts of absolutely stupid questions! "What's your stance on abortion?" and "What's your thoughts on big government?" and "So what do you think of Obama?" and "What do you think of Bush?"

Now I was courteous at the doors, you bet. But people were floored when I informed them that their questions had absolutely nothing to do with running Town Board meetings. Floored! And not because they'd come face-to-face with an honest politician. Quite the opposite: they were forced to face their own ignorance. They were forced into realizing that all the soap they'd been buying from guys like Robert J. Samuelson was just that...soap!

And just like somebody whose been had by a slick soap salesman, they realized that they couldn't have been had if it weren't for their own selves.
Those sacrifices that Weisberg was talking about above? The way I read the piece, I wasn’t connecting the word “sacrifices” with any fleeting line in the budget. And I don’t’ think he was either. Consider the final paragraph:

Our inability to address long-term challenges makes a strong case that the United States now faces an era of historical decline. To change this story-line, we need to stop blaming the rascals we elect to office, and look instead to ourselves.

Emphasis mine – SP

To start making sacrifices as it comes to policy, you need to sacrifice your self. Get rid of it! If it’s the Tea Partiers way of thinking that has the power to cause confusion about Obama’s message; if it’s the definitions of self that Congressman and bureaucrats have crafted that keeps our institutions in gridlock; and if it’s the uncompromising stances that we take on the progressive blogosphere that clashes with these, then aren’t you to blame for this mess, too?

See my above logic. In a government of the people, you cannot draw a line between the people and the government. The people are the government. They (we) are one and the same. The politicians are just people, and the voters are just people too.

And each and every one of them is you.

As for me, it’s time to go downstairs and wish my dear old Grandma a Happy Valentine’s Day and thank her for my subscription to Newsweek. As for you…I hope I get to see you again next week as Soundpolitic Sundays continues.

And I hope you get to see…you.

Cross-posted on The Albany Project