What's The Matter With Florida?

Progressives don't seem to be very angry, maybe not even angry at all. It's not like we don't have good reason to be angry; in fact a lot of very good reasons, going all the way back to Bill Clinton. Remember NAFTA, Welfare 'Reform', triangulation?

And don't even get me started about W Bush!! There's plenty there to be angry about that's for sure. How did we allow the massive vote fraud to be initiated let alone perpetuated and then sit by while one member of the Supreme Court completed a coup d'etat that installed the most anti-American leadership in the history of the United States?

We don't need to go over the long, long, hideous list of atrocities commited by that regime over it's horrendous 8 year reign. But I will anyway with some of my personal favorites: the first major terrorist attack on the United States ever; Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq; Colin Powell at the United Nations; invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq; massive domestic spying; illegal arrests and detentions; secret torture chambers and prisons hidden around the globe, our very own Gulag; more and more extreme spying on US citirezens as well as others; executions of terrorist suspects regardless of nationality.

Oh God, you and I know I could go on forever.

But let's look at some things that should really have made us Progressives really mad, made us rise up out of our rocking chairs and local coffee shops; things like: allowing ourselves to be blamed for Al Gore's loss, media consolidation, ballot access, being locked out of the political system and the social debate, increasingly corrupt electoral process.

It's not like we haven't had our chances. So many people have worked so hard, organized, run for office, spoken out. But the machine is extraordinarily powerful, its reach vast, its influence overwhelming, its malevolence boundless.

We have every right to be angry, to rage against the machine; to do battle using more than just words.

I have spent the last two months in Florda; that's right, that social backwater, that outskirt of civilization and it has been an education, let me tell you!

The anger from fear is intense across the full range that makes up the political spectrum in Florida; from the radical, right-wing Tea Baggers all the way to the moderate Republicans.

The big political fight right now is about who will be the Republican candidate for the US Senate. The contenders are Charlie Crist, the sitting Liberal governor and Marco Rubio, the True Republican. It seems Crist's sin was taking federal stimulus money - ObamaDollars. This is a state where something like 1 in 9 citizens are in foreclosure and 1 in 7 unemployed.

Since Crist embraced Obama (figuatively and literally) he went from clear winner in the primary to clear loser.

Forget about the Democratic candidate in this race, he hasn't even a name or so it would seem if you read the local liberal media, The St. Pete Times.

To distinguish himself, Crist has just vetoed the so-called Teacher Tenure Bill. This was a heavily favored (by the Republican legislature) bill that tied teacher salary and retention to student performance and essentially eliminated tenure for teachers in the state.

The outrage was so great it caused major thunderstorms throughout the Gulf coast region this past weekend (at least that's what I think caused them).

But what's really fascinating is what passes for understanding of the issues and and how to fix things. As usual, even among Conservatives, there is a level of understanding as to the nature of the problems, but only buzz words and phrases when it comes to addressing those problems.

Take for example the suburban couple and their one child - hard working, 2-wage earner family that is just ekeing by. Mother lost her job but found another in the medical / social services field, dad had to take a substantial salary cut just to keep his job; they have a continuing battle with their home insurance company to get reimbursed for damage to their home from storms that occurred several years ago.

Devoted, committed, rabid Tea Baggers. They cannot discuss the issues with anyone who does not see the world through the Tea Bag lens; it is Liberals, anti-Christians, and Obama that are at the base of all ills in this country.

The retired couple are angry, at the Republicans. Even though he is retired from a mega-corporation he is bitter; his pension and company medical coverage were reduced when the company started crying poverty when the dot com bubble burst. He now likes to tell everyone how great he is treated by the doctors at the VA. They lost money in the stock market when Enron and the telecoms went broke. They decry the vast amounts of money poured into Republican and Democratic poltical campaigns and lament their own deminished financial situation even though they are probably millionaires (or close to it).

In 2000, he thought Nader made a lot a sense and wondered why he didn't run as a Democrat. He still thinks Nader makes a lot of sense, sees the problem of money in politics and the fact that money buys everything.

For both of these groups, that's where the analysis ends. The system is either corrupt or broken and change is needed. If you're the Tea Bagger only radical, right-wing demogogues can resolve the issues that plague them. If you're retired, the answer apparently, is eliminate the Income Tax.

Then along comes a 40-something with a Masters Degree in Political Science who teaches at 5 different colleges in the area.

At last I think, someone I can talk to who has the pulse of the young people, young himself, worldly, well-read.

"Did you see the interview on Democracy Now! yesterday?", I eagerly ask.

The lip curls.

"Do you at least read Mother Jones?", I try. The eyes narrow and a sneer crosses his face.
Alas, his world revolves around Time, and Newsweek, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. All else is trivial, conspiratorial, or worse, anti-Capitalist.

Is there no hope?

But, we are able to talk. He doesn't know anything about Bill Clinton stating that the economic plan for Haiti, concocted by the greatest financial minds in the world was an abject failure. I guess that little gem from the man that made NAFTA possible hadn't made it into Newsweek yet.

Let me know when it does.

He decries the rampant, uncontrolled sprawl development across his state, but doesn't understand who's at fault. Well, he does if you tell him, but then he falls back on who's running, who should get elected, as if anyone of them would make the least bit of difference.

Then he tells me that he's in favor of Open Primaries in Florida. I think he thinks, since I'm a "liberal" this is something we can agree on.

"Why?", I ask. What is so great about open primaries? Why would you want me, for example, a radical, left-wing Green voting for who your Republican candidate should be?

It seems he thinks the Party of the Republic has moved too far to the right; its been hijacked, taken over by the wacko fringe set. Open primaries will, he says, make it possible to push the party back, I guess to its Grand Old roots, the center, where it should be.
He apparently wasn't thinking about (or maybe not caring about) the fact that open primaries meant that the wacko-fringe set would be able to vote in the Democratic primaries and push that nobel bastion of liberalism more toward the center.

There's no difference now between the two parties, I said. Wouldn't such a scheme ensure that would be even more true than it is now, and not only that, but ensure it would stay that way? Shouldn't the goal of our electoral system to be to ensure fairness, and help move us toward democracy? I said my preference was that there be no primaries at all, that people should be able to vote for whoever they want. That would be democratic. His response was explosive. In fact, it was the explosion heard throughout the house.

I went on (do I have a death wish or what?). I talked about preference voting, IRV as options. He calmed a little when I mentioned Proportional Representation; he'd heard of that (thank God for Time magazine!).

The next day brought amazing news; since it was clear Crist could not win the Republican primary, he was thinking of running for the Senate as an Independent! Polls were showing that in a 3-way race, he would win, leading with 30% of the vote.

My political science friend was ecstatic; Crist would win and save the party, at least in Florida, and perhaps save the Republic as well from the ravages of the savage right.

Still hoping he could see the benefit of alternative voting systems, I asked what kind of representation is that if the person who wins has only 30% of those who voted?

That, apparently was the lsat straw for he went on a 30 minute tiraid, pacing, screaming at the top of his voice, permitting no interruption.

"It's the law", he shouted, "we have a plurality system!". Hw went on to call me a Communist, and recommended I move to China or Russia. "Cuba" someone chimed in. I was nonplussed. Where had I heard that before?

"I love my county!" he screamed. Therefore apparently, he supports the system as it was before being corrupted by all the money, mean-spiritedness, and radicals.

So, where does all that leave us Progressives? Shouldn't we be doing something? It became clear to me that the 'center', what we used to call Moderates, are lost. They see their old ways rapidly fading, as the song goes. They are afraid of change; hysterically afraid. You can see it in the way they react to Obama, health insurance 'reform', the war, deficits, the economyjust about anything in the news. Their world is changed, they understand that, forever.

To our credit, we're not angry, but energized, charged, anxious for change.

You know, Chomsky said once that there is no reason to Speak Truth To Power, Power already knows the truth, he said. What we need to do is speak Truth to the People.

We need to do that as much as we can; no matter how loudly we get yelled at.

Because I do belive that my 40-something friend is at home now, unable to get what I said out of his mind. He may hate it and me for that, but it bothers him; he's thinking that maybe, just maybe, he isn't right, that he's been wrong all along.

As we all know, self examination is hard.

And if he's not thinkng about it, then someone else will be.

The Time Has Come.

We, Progressives, Greens, will continue to work for the change that we know must made in order for us all to live.

We aren't working for some grand and glorious future. We see what needs to be done today.

We will speak and act on THAT vision.