No, We Won't

White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs was 'frustrated' last week, so we are told. He had an issue, apparently with some Obama supporters (or perhaps they were 'former' Obama supporters) who, I guess, are not happy with Obama's policies and some of his decisions.
Maybe Gibbs was referring to people being upset with Obama's war policy; well, we're not really at war, but you know what I mean. Another $37 Billion for U. S. military contractors, Afghan warlords, CIA drone attacks on Pakistani wedding parties, and maybe a few bucks for the troops, but no end in sight.
Or maybe it's the billions in payoffs to the wealthy hedge fund managers, investment firm partners, traders, and bankers while people lose their jobs, their homes, their health care.
And speaking of health care, maybe Gibbs was upset that Obama supporters didn't like the way he sold them out to get one Republican to vote for his measly health insurance reform.
Maybe the fact that Obama did not direct his Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation into the invasion of Iraq, torture, domestic spying, and murder initiated in the previous administration; or that he continues all those policies; or that he did not condemn the US Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, or move to have those laws overturned, and in fact has continued those policies as well as others.
Mr. Gibbs decried the 'professional left'.
I've been involved in social, political, and environmental issues as a Progressive for 40 years, so I guess that could make me a 'professional'. He said, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon."
No we won't.
Yes, we must have a National Health Service so that everyone has the health care they need when they need it, regardless of their wealth, social, or employment status. And it's good that Gibbs sort of acknowledged that the Pentagon is a bloated, craven, greedy, and corrupt cavern of psychopaths and criminals. It should be eliminated, but we'll settle, for now for a 70% cut in it's budget.
But we won't be satisfied with just that; it's a start, but doesn't go far enough.
What about corporations? Do people really believe that a piece of paper is a person? Corporations are created by people to perform a particular community service intended for the social good. They are fictions permitted and controlled by the people. And the people have the right to limit or abolish them whenever they wish.
Without that kind of control over the wealthy and their corporate covers, we the people must forever sleep with one eye open.
FDR put it this way,“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power.”
Or we can go back to that great Progressive thinker, Thomas Jefferson:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
And what about this Corporatist economic system we have; this Predatory Capitalism? When will we change that? An economy that systematically impoverishes 1/3 of the population, that rewards the 2% at the expense of the 98%, that creates a plethora of consumer goods at the expense of the environment and all living creatures in the natural world, that seeks to un-employ the vast majority of the citizenry so that the 2% can pursue ever more wealth is not an economic system but a weapon against the peoples of the world.
And, speaking of the environment, how is it that we have allowed the few to despoil so much at the expense of so many?
The air is fouled, water polluted; the soil is devoid of life and only grows crops because of oil-based fertilizers. The fact of the interconnectedness of all life is ignored, and worse in the pursuit of wealth and comfort. Species are slaughtered to extinction and people displaced from their homes and homelands. Finite resources are ruthlessly stolen with no consideration of return or replenishment; we are told resources are limitless in a finite world.
Go figure.
And don't even start on what's wrong with the political/social system. Women, People of Color have to fight and die for the opportunity to vote, an opportunity not even identified as a right in the Constitution. The ruling elite and the corporate media erect barriers to political parties, restrict the dissemination of alternative political thought, and limit the debate on issues to a select few. Dissension, protest, and demonstrations are limited, restricted, and demonstrators assaulted, their views denigrated, and their organizations infiltrated, spied upon, and sabotaged.
In the Land of The Free, the right to vote for who you want is severely limited, alternative political parties must struggle for visibility and legitimation. The anti-democratic, winner-take-all electoral system does not even offer the pretense that all views are represented in government. If your candidate loses, you're out. The idea of democracy has been relegated to the status of 'mob rule'.

No, Robert Gibbs is wrong, dead wrong. We 'professional' Progressives are a demanding lot. We won't be satisfied until we have real, systemic change. "That's not reality" he said. Well, surprise Mr. Gibbs. It is reality, very real reality. What we're enduring now is unreal, unsustainable, and unconscionable.