Guest Editorial
De-Wimpify the Democrats!
by Celeste

THE DOCILE DEMOCRATS

Jake Tapper, in his article "The Mystery of the Docile Democrats," is correct. The docility of the Democrats is amazing. 

But it is not only the elected politicians; it is the rank-and-filers, too.

Rank-and-filer Dems are furious with the coup d'état, outraged at the Bush junta, and frustrated with their own politicians who seem overwhelmingly concerned with not, under any circumstances, doing anything that will in any way inconvenience or ruffle in the slightest the well-coiffed feathers of the Republicans.

But really, can we as the rank-and-filers Democrats expect anything more from our Democrat politicians than what we are willing to do themselves?

Rank-and-filers may cry out "We were robbed!" and "He's awful!" and "Do something!" Oh, we are great at ranting and making nebulous demands. That way the oh-so-polite Democrats can complain and gripe without ever actually being so impolite as to put themselves or their elected politicians on the spot. That would be much too impolite for us. Indeed. It would be beneath us.

So the straightforward statements and demands seem to elude us. And it is the straight-forward statements and demands that would empower us and our politicians to define our goals and meet them. 

But we would have to be impolite to do that. And that is beneath us.

Do we ever say what is simply the truth and what we really want regarding the Bush political coup d'état? Not that I can hear. And that is why now, two months after the most massive voter fraud in America's history, we still have a fraud who did not win the election sitting in the Oval Office.

Because we don't want to "look like the Republicans." Because we don't want to be impolite. Because it is "beneath" us to stand up for ourselves and straight-out demand that the wrongs be righted.

Even our liberal pundits (both of them) seem loathe to state simply: "There was no vote count. He did not win. Get Bush out of the White House. Now."

Would the Republicans settle for this b-s for a nanosecond? No! Hell, they made up stuff when they couldn't get Clinton. They certainly would not allow the crap that the GOP pulled in Florida go buy with nothing but a perfunctory whimper.

Yet our own politicians have refused to address and prosecute the many wrongs that have been perpetrated against the American voter, and have refused to launch investigations on the at least a dozen past crimes that Bush has done and for which he has never undergone investigation.

But, again, should we expect our own politicians to be more aggressive than we are? Because don't we ultimately vote for people who represent our own beliefs and styles? These are the people we feel comfortable with, so these are the people in whom we have confidence and whom we trust.

We elected people just like us. And our elected politicians are, for the most part, just like us: wimps. 

STANDING UP FOR OURSELVES

Democrat rank-and-filers seem loathe to stand up to the Republican rank-and-filers in the same manner that they assault us. We have allowed the nest of maggots at the Free Republic message boards to assault ("freep"), without repercussion, anybody who supports Clinton or speaks out against one of their pathetic luminaries. We allowed, without repercussion, a gang of pudgy white-boy GOP congressional staffers to violently assault the election offices in Florida and stop a legal vote count. We allowed them to amass in greater numbers than us during the vote count, and they were the more aggressive and vocal, too. The listgoes on and on....

We rely on the national press to publish these Republican atrocities and thus use public shame to curb it, even though it should be quite clear right now that the press, if anything, helps the Republicans cover up and positively spin these atrocities.

We rely on the police and the authorities (whether it's a city's police force, the courts, or AOL's censorship/TOS police) to investigate, prosecute and punish the Repubilcans who assault us, when it is clear that they are not going to do that, and that they tend to turn a blind eye when it is a Republican who commits the crime.

Why is this? Why do we continue to turn to others (our elected politicians, the press, and the police/authorities) to punish the perpetrators when it has been made abundantly clear in the past that they are not going to do so?

And, most importantly, why is it that we, as individuals, will not stand up to these Republican thugs -- whether it's at Free Republic or on the streets -- ourselves?

THE ROMANS DIDN'T WANT TO BE LIKE THE HUNS, EITHER

What I hear constantly from Democrat rank-and-filers is "We do not want to be like them." 

No? I'm sure the Romans said the same thing about the Huns, but because the Romans were unwilling and/or unable to meet the Huns' ruthless and barbarian onslaughts and attacks, the Huns became emboldened, and the great Roman empire basically paid massive -- and I mean massive -- bribes to the Huns in order to be allowed to exist on the planet...and suffered nearly constant humiliation at the hands of the Huns.

Think of the Roman emissaries who had to go to Attila, groveling to placate him, and bearing incredible wealth to bribe him into "negotiating" the latest Hun extortion so that they would not annihilate the Roman cities and outposts. Think of how Attila and the Huns took great pleasure in humiliating these Roman emissaries before they would finally agree to extort them in exchange for allowing them and the Romans to live.

We can think of the Roman emissaries as our own Democrat politicians. Do you think the emissaries woke up one morning and thought, "Gee, I think today I'd really like to go grovel to a bunch of barbarians, eat shit, and pay them a lot of money so that I and my people may live."

No, they did not. But they were placed in that position by Roman leadership and Roman people who were unwilling to confront the Huns in the manner in which the Huns were attacking them. And nothing less than meeting the Huns' ruthlessness, tit for tat, would work in defeating them. 

So the emissaries groveled and paid, and groveled and paid, and the Roman people, the greatest civilization on the planet, lived under the constant humiliation of having to kowtow to and bribe a barbarian -- just to be allowed to live.

Were the Romans unwilling to "stoop" to the ruthless, barbaric level of the Huns? Or were they unable to meet their aggressive ruthlessness and just used the excuse, "Civilized ethical people do not conduct warfare in that manner"?

Whatever the reason, the Romans were able to keep their "civility" and had the luxury of not "stooping to their level," but the cost was the humiliation, degradation, and disempowerment of their people and their society by having to constantly knuckle-under to the Huns. 

And even then, even after all of the groveling, humiliation, and bribe-paying, the Huns sometimes barbarically assaulted the Romans, anyway...just because they could.

THE REPUBLICAN HUNS AND WIMPS LIKE US

This is where I see the Democratic Party now. We, as rank-and-filers, who have been unwilling to "sink to that level," have allowed the Republicans to dominate us and the political theater. Why? Because we have repeatedly tried -- even after previous efforts have consistently failed -- to deal with their street-thug tactics with evolved, dignified political recourse. We have continued to rely on the press and the authorities to stop the Republican atrocities, even though it has been repeatedly demonstrated that they will not do so and, indeed, that they usually join with them to help in the cover-up and to spin the Republican atrocities positively.

So should we be angry at our Democratic politicians for groveling to the Hun Repubilcans when we have given them no other recourse? Have we, by our own reluctance to "stoop to that level" given them no options but to grovel to the GOP?

We elected these politicians because we liked their style -- which for the most part was not that of a street-fighter. We have not, as a group, ourselves been willing to sully our hands by stooping to the GOP street-fighter's level. 

So is it fair for us to be angry at our Democratic politicians for not doing what we ourselves are unwilling to do? If we want our Democratic politicians to change in the way they address the Republicans, then we ourselves must change how we interact on a political level.

THE DE-WIMPIFICATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STARTS NOW!

We need to say straightforward what we want. Repeatedly. If we think Bush did not win and he is fraudulently in the White House, we have to clearly, plainly, and repeatedly say, at every opportunity: "There was no vote count. Bush did not win. Get him out of the White House. Now."

Indeed, everytime we get angry about the concept of the fraud in the Oval Office, we should pick up our phone, dial one of our elected politicians and say: 

"Hello. I am a constituent. There was no vote count. Bush did not win. Get him out of the office. Now."

Then hang up.

If you do this 20 times a day, it will not be too many.

If they (or anybody else) try to sidetrack you by engaging you in a discussion as to whether Bush did or did not win, or why they can nor cannot do what you demand, SHUT THEM DOWN. Tell them: "I am not a politician whose career is based on rationalizing and bending the truth. I am an American voter. American voters know the truth. There was no vote count. Bush did not win. Get him out of the White House. Now."

For every statement they make to try to sidetrack you, counter with: "You are talking like a politician. I am not a politician. I am an American voter. American voters know the truth. There was no vote count. Bush did not win. Get him out of the White House. Now."

In assertiveness training, this is called "The Broken Record Technique." And it is fabulously successful. We need to communicate in every way available to us (phone, fax, email and snail mail -- a very powerful tool now because so many people use email which, while convenient, is done in such massive numbers that it has lost its impact) to our politicians: "There was no vote count. Bush did not win. Get him out of the White House. Now."

SOME THANGS ARE GONNA' CHANGE!

We need to communicate with our politicians that the political environment has changed. The Republican Party in the last decade has turned into street thugs, and our Democrat politicians need to be able to address them in kind. If our elected Democrat politicians cannot rise to the occasion, then we will elect new ones who can.

And we have to be willing to do it. In the next elections, these should be our top three considerations for selecting a Democrat candidate:

1. Do they steadfastly back Democrat ideals (no more Zell Millers or Dianne Feinsteins, please!)? 
2. Are they radical in their party loyalty? 
3. Can they fight as dirty as the Republicans? 

If the answer to any of these three questions is "no," then we need to move on to the next candidate. Period. No more discussion.

And this needs to be communicated to our current politicians in office. They need to know that they are being interviewed for the job all over again, with a new set of criteria, because the Democrat rank-and-filers are no longer willing to be humiliated by a bunch of GOP street thugs.

CALL TO DE-WIMPIFY!

If we want to turn the tide which is disempowering the Democratic Party, and if we want to shift the balance back to where the Dems have the upper hand, we must be willing to be as ruthless as the GOP.

It was Newt Gingrich and his gang of political thugs who issued in the era of the GOP barbarianism. It is up to the Democratic Party -- from the DNC down to the rank-and-filers -- whether we continue to allow them to assault and humiliate us.

We are fortunate in that our new DNC head, Terry McAuliffe, seems to realize that this change needs to be made. We are also fortunate in that we are all plenty pissed off, and the GOP may have finally been politically barbaric enough to push us to the place where we are now willing -- indeed, eager -- to give them tit-for-tat.

So we need to do it. We need to shift our thinking and our belief system when it comes to politics. We need to communicate our new attitude to the DNC and to our elected politicians.

And we need to organize. Organize in groups. Plan your assaults and counter-attacks well. Don't pound your chests and tell everybody what you are going to do; just do it. If you do it well, people will notice. Oh yeah, big time.

I think the rank-and-filer Democrats are plenty ready to rock and roll now, and I think they are organizing. I would anticipate in the next couple of weeks the Republican thugs will encounter a few surprises. 'Nuff said.

Celeste is the webmistress of Political Amazon.

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