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Democrats United

So here’s my plan for helping our friends and comrades survive the Bush Winter.  You’ve already seen two of the trial balloons these rapacious, bloodthirsty plutocrats have floated into the bleak and barren sky-- one, removing the tax incentive for businesses to contribute to their employees’ health insurance plans, and two, borrowing anywhere from “hundreds of billions to trillions” of dollars from the already-more-than-drained Federal treasury in order to create those “personal retirement accounts.” Word on the Washington street is that the first proposal is just a head fake, designed to make us all grateful in late 2005 that Bush and Congress have agreed to a “compromise” that involves merely quadrupling employees’ health insurance premiums.  (This will be hailed by Candy Crowley & Co. as evidence that Bush’s second-term agenda is “bold, but tempered by pragmatism.") But the second proposal is gonna happen, folks.  It’s what the Norquistas call a “once-in-a-lifetime twofer”:  you get to bankrupt the Treasury in order to destroy Social Security.  You gotta love it!  (It’s funny about Social Security, isn’t it?  The only non-means-tested, universally-implemented social-welfare program in the country, and it’s paid for by the most regressive tax on the books-- remember, not a single penny over the $87,900 income level is taxed-- and conservatives still hate it.  Yes, it’s a quasi-socialist program, but it’s quasi-socialism American-style:  paid for by working stiffs in the middle-income bracket and almost completely unsupported by wealthy wage-earners and the even wealthier folks whose income derives mainly from investments.)

And then think of our gay and lesbian friends, who’ll be needing untold amounts of money for all kinds of legal challenges just to keep the handful of rights of citizenship they do possess.  Think of women who will try, for whatever reasons, to terminate unwanted pregnancies even after the repeal of Roe v. Wade.  For that matter, think of the medical and travel costs involved for such women even now, and think how much worse those costs will get once that last-minute “appropriations” bill is signed, along with its sly little anti-abortion “Federal Refusal Clause” and assorted far-right goodies.  No question about it, our friends are going to be in need this long, long winter, and not all of them can buy those thick woolen socks and high-tech Arctic outergear.

So it’s up to us Democrats to protect our own.  We should create a fallback system for helping out everyone who gets devastated by Bush’s social and economic policies, every family without health care, every elderly citizen fleeced by Medicare “reform,” every gay man and lesb***n hounded by the Fell Legions of the Right-- as long as they voted for Kerry.  The Bush voters, they get what they said they wanted.

Maybe this sounds punitive and mean, at first.  Maybe even (gasp!) divisive.  But think about it for a second:  when we came around this October, knocking on doors and trying to persuade these people that they’d be better off with health care, a sane tax system, and an end to neomedievalism in US science policy, they told us we were traitors.  We said we grieved for the deaths of their children in Iraq, and they told us we were part of the homosexual agenda that’s destroying America.  Why, Tom Frank even wrote that book about how their “leaders” were taking them for fools, and they told us we were arrogant pinot grigio-sipping elitists who didn’t understand real Americans.  So maybe we better take them at their word:  we don’t, after all, really know where their “real interests” lie, and it is arrogant and old-school-Leninist of us to think that we understand their interests better than they do.  When they say they’re less interested in getting their kids inoculated against infectious disease than in getting them inoculated against evolutionary theory, we should believe them.

But when one of us needs help-- that is, one of us who tried his or her best to head off the Bush Catastrophe-- we should step up and lend a hand.  We can’t do it alone; we’ll need to pool our resources.  So while we’re contributing to the ACLU and Amnesty International and NARAL, let’s set aside a reserve of funds for Democrats United.  How, exactly?  I don’t know.  I’m only a literature professor, folks.  But maybe we could get in touch with that George Soros and ask him how we can put together a trust fund of a few trillion dollars.  I hear he’s good with money.

Who’s in?

Posted by on 12/01 at 04:28 AM

  1. Great Idea!  I’m in while I can.  I’m still working full time and, at age 67, collecting SSI.  I figure my SSI will disappear and I can’t keep working forever (having trouble with my eyes).  Raise this year in SSI offset by raise in cost of Medicare, which I expect to disappear.  I can contribute $100 or so to the fund (sent slightly more than that to the Dems for election) if I do it now before I’m not working anymore.  Soros is a good choice to administer such a fund—I figure in about 3-5 years I’ll be needing help big time.  I’ve got grown children and they won’t let me go on the streets, but this is so f***ed up! And sad, really to see the Great American Experiment killed by these greedy, idiots—both those in power and those who voted them in.  Told my partner I wish God would take hold of the country and shake it so these bugs would just fall off my world!

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  06:20 AM

  2. I like the idea.  At one point, back in the 1980s, Fallwell said that our government couldn’t provide all kinds of services for the poor, but the church could and should.  I don’t see where he made good on replacing what Reagan phased out, and - candidly - I tend to doubt Fallwell’s sincerity.  The question is, would certain folk aim legal attacks at such a fund because it was started by uppity liberals?  Could we weather such an attack?

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  07:01 AM

  3. I’m in.  And let’s make it obvious that this is just like the Evangelicals, we take care of our own.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  08:07 AM

  4. Tithe. Forget taxes, forget government. Using only your God-given, so-called free-will, volunteer to give 10% of whatever you take in every year to whoever or whatever you believe in. “Right folks” give to their weird causes; “left folks” to theirs.

    In this brutish and short Hobbesian world you’re on your own dime, Mac!

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  08:30 AM

  5. I’m game, but I’m unclear on how it’s going to be administrated. I’m not giving Terry McAuliffe my money and hoping he’ll implement a nice health-care-cum-pension-system for me. While we’re at it, can we get some measure of, ah, democracy in the Democratic Party? Then I’d feel a little happier about it.

    But really what you’re talking about is an alternative government - I guess this would be a benevolent dictatorship under Soros.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  08:34 AM

  6. I’m in. But don’t forget jobless Dems whose unemployment benefits run out.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  09:19 AM

  7. Count Mr. Karen and me in. We are already hunkering down, divesting ourselves of assets that feed the Ugly Machine, shopping locally from People-Like-Us, and willing to help the worthy. We are so in.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  09:42 AM

  8. Great idea. For the moment, lacking an organization for this, just give to your local food bank and Planned Parenthood.

    Other things we can do: don’t shop at WalMart or other Republican venues. Don’t watch cable TV, pull the plug on it if you haven’t already. Join your local Democratic Party organization and/or DFA and/or other progressive groups. Target a local wingnut of some kind (legislative or whatever) for 2006. Keep at it.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  09:44 AM

  9. I’m ready and willing to stop supporting Republican venues, however, I’m in Dallas where there just aren’t that many options. Walmart is out, that’s a no brainer, and I really really hate their stores anyway. But what are the alternatives?  My location grocery stores are Whole Foods, HEB Central Market, Kroger, Albertson, Target, and Tom Thumb. I figure Whole Foods isn’t a big Republican contributor, but sometimes you need a regular grocery store. What’s the best option?

    Posted by Stacy  on  12/01  at  10:05 AM

  10. I’m in—who do I make the check out to?

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  11:06 AM

  11. I definitely concur with the “selfish” tenor of your post (“protect our own”).  What’s it going to take for Americans to wake up?  Ukrainians are giving us lessons in democracy for god’s sake.  And f’ being afraid if it feels divisive.  That’s what got us in this mess in the first place.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  11:15 AM

  12. Hold on, jedski3000, we’re still working out that little detail!  Definitely not Terry McAuliffe.  Though he showed more life and fight this fall than I thought him capable of, I don’t want him managing our alternative service-provision entity.  Speaking of which, we can’t say “alternative government,” thunder-ten-tronckh, because that would involve secession, and then Bush would declare civil war, and before we knew it, Madison, Wisconsin would look like Fallujah.  I mean, to answer Chris’s question, right now there’s no legal difficulty associated with our setting up an alternative service-provision entity (and hey, maybe we can qualify for federal funding as a faith-based initiative!), but once we build our energy-efficient light rail system in the Northeast and upper Midwest and bar passage to all Republicans, then we’ll need a team of good attorneys.

    But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Let’s see what we’ve got so far:  SSI, check.  Jobless Dems whose unemployment benefits run out, check.  Sorry I didn’t mention ‘em.  Also:  shop at People-Like-Us.  Target a local wingnut.  Planned Parenthood, local food bank.  In fact, any and all attempts at alternative local economies will help.  These are good suggestions.  Now let’s spread the word thru the blogosphere and hope that some genius money manager (still waiting to hear from Soros-- five hours and counting!) shows up to give us some free advice.

    Posted by Michael  on  12/01  at  11:24 AM

  13. I support this reality-based initiative and private organizations who provide services to the reality-based community. Sign me up.

    And I’m glad you’re back, Michael.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  12/01  at  11:54 AM

  14. Great idea—group health insurance would be a good start.  One way would be to aggregate all interested Democrats who can’t get employer sponsored coverage.  Together, we can a) provide insurance and b) provide buying targeted to supporting Democrats (i.e., favor Costco etc.), while c) sharing the health risks, and d) support healthy habits (put out that cigarette for the sake of the country; cycle for Blue States).  Sign me up—there are models, ask Working Assets phone company, A Better World (instead of AAA).  Good thought.

    Posted by Jim Shirk  on  12/01  at  12:18 PM

  15. Great idea, but I’d bet as soon as the Dark Side finds out about this, they’ll try to usurp it for themselves, hypocrites that they are. How do we keep them out?

    Perhaps it’s time to support an Emigrate to a Blue State program for all the Dems stuck in red states. Then we can secede and form our own country.

    I’m starting to think Lincoln was wrong.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  12:41 PM

  16. What we need is for the NHL to start up again.

    Could we somehow switch places geographically
    with Canada?  It’s too cold up there as is.
    Any deal would involve them taking Bush.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  01:10 PM

  17. The first thing we’ll need is a new Constitution.  And I know just the literature professor to write one.  It will confer upon Democrats and Democrats alone the right to administer and manage the fund and to receive its benefits.  Not to mention all the other rights we like. 

    Kos et al are already talking about forming a shadow government.  I say, why only a shadow?  Let’s bring this whole “two Americas” thing to the next level.  Who wants to run for Democratic President?

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  01:19 PM

  18. I’m in too.  We may not even need Soros if all of us pitch in.  What we do need, however, is leadership. And commitment.

    You’d be surprised at what we Dems in red states are up to.  And there are quite a few of us. A little respect, please!

    Petit à petit l’oiseau fait son nid.

    Posted by Bean  on  12/01  at  03:37 PM

  19. Sounds cult-ish to me.

    I’ll be watching you guys.  Like a hawk.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  03:56 PM

  20. A few trillion dollars?  Maybe a few trillion euros or a few hundred trillion yen or some swiss francs.  If we’re going to go to all the trouble of raising this money, let’s not flush it down the pipes by putting it into a crashing currency.

    Posted by  on  12/01  at  04:28 PM

  21. Certainly we should do this in euros.  My mistake!  And we should get into that nice safe, stable currency before all those foreign investors do (you know, the ones who will be holding dollars for another couple of years), while we can still get ten of ‘em for only $13--

    Posted by Michael  on  12/01  at  05:20 PM

  22. I’m in.  What’s a good name?  The Order of the Phoenix is taken.  What about something short and sharp, like “The I Can’t Believe We Lost this Election, What the Hell is That About? Don’t Wait Up For Me Because I Have to Fix This Nightmare Organization.”

    Posted by  on  12/02  at  06:50 AM

  23. Dear Michael, it’s so nice to see you back. Count on a check from me as long as the fallback system protects not only all who *voted* for Kerry but all who *supported* Kerry, the latter group including foreign nationals from undocumented workers to tenured professors waiting for their US passports in the mail. The truly tragic thing about this election is that if all human beings had been allowed to vote we’d have won 87% to 13%.

    So we got WNA (women in need of an abortion), EWB (elderly without benefits), FWHC (families without health care), GNC (gays in need of citizenship), and ANP (aliens in need of papers). Add WWJ (workers without jobs) and YWH (youth without hope) and we got something rolling here.

    Posted by  on  12/02  at  10:54 AM

  24. Don’t forget that not all of us who voted and worked for Kerry are Democrats!  smile

    (Signed, your friendly neighborhood Green.)

    Posted by Rana  on  12/02  at  12:35 PM

  25. What’s a good name?  The Order of the Phoenix is taken.  What about something short and sharp, like “The I Can’t Believe We Lost this Election, What the Hell is That About? Don’t Wait Up For Me Because I Have to Fix This Nightmare Organization.”

    Tighten that up a little and it’s OK:

    “I Can’t Believe It’s Not democracy.”

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  12/02  at  01:31 PM

  26. America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

    Posted by  on  12/02  at  02:16 PM

  27. Stacy & all:
    Check out this site - it lists grocers by state and local & national brands that support progressive/green causes (or at minimum, do not feed the Ugly machine). In addition, it identifies major corporate supporters of both parties and the brands they produce.
    http://www.freenortheast.com/thelist.php - and -
    http://www.freenortheast.com

    Posted by  on  12/02  at  02:42 PM

  28. Check with General Globblog or Max Sawicky to handle the fund.

    I like it - other than the price of admission. It should be for anyone hungry or in pain. Anyone, including people who voted for Bush.  But when we feed Republicans, they get the okra and grits and cottage cheese and tofu and Jello. And they only get doctors in states where malpractice caps exist. I mean, charity has its limits.

    Posted by Kevin Hayden  on  12/02  at  05:05 PM

  29. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not democracy.”

    I like it, but I have two other suggestions:

    1) Radio.  We need to compete with right-wing radio.  I’m not sure what satellite radio offers, but that’s where Stern is going and therefore so will a lot of other people who might naturally be progressive, but aren’t into politics as much.  Money should go there to get a foundation for something.

    2) The Founding Fathers.  When you go to protest events, dress like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  I’m serious.  We should set up a fund to provide these types of clothes to protestors.  Our founding fathers share a lot of ideals with todays progressives, like reason winning out over faith, freedom of the press, and a government with checks and balances.  Identifying with this should be a priority for the next four years.

    And no, I’m not baked right now…

    Posted by thehim  on  12/02  at  07:05 PM

  30. My plan is to import drugs from Canada and sell them here.  Anyone want a flu shot?

    Either that or a bake sale.

    Posted by  on  12/03  at  05:07 AM

  31. Maybe this sounds punitive and mean, at first.

    No, Michael.

    “Punitive and mean” is how I would describe the stuff we’ve all been reading for the past month from all those “moderates” and “centrists” who are ostensibly on “our” side. You know, the infinite variations on “How many of our core values and constituencies do we need to throw overboard to get the wingnuts to understand that we’re really not scary, amoral perverts?”

    Besides, “We protect our own” doesn’t sound at all punitive and mean when you contrast it with the “I got mine, Jack” of the other side.

    Posted by  on  12/03  at  05:47 AM

  32. I’m in with both feet, heart, mind, checkbook, whatever helps. Calls for a cool shibboleth to gain access; hmm, drawing a blank here. And a NAME! Too bad Liberty Fund or Tyranny Response Team have already been co-opted, oops, I mean taken.

    Thanks for writing again, Michael!

    Posted by  on  12/03  at  12:02 PM

  33. Discrimination on the basis of political affiliation?  I don’t remember _that_ being legal.

    Although the thugs in charge would probably appreciate the sentiment.  We get our health care system, they get to convict only Democrats of crimes.

    Posted by Josh Narins  on  12/05  at  03:25 PM

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