War is hell. There's no other way to put it.
And while some people tend to bathe in their sanctimonious nature and cry foul when we compare politics to war, they are wrong. What we face in this country today is a war - for the very soul of this country. And until we realize that this is a war and fight back accordingly, it is a war we are doomed to lose.
The Revolutionary War saw a clash of styles in fighting forces.
Steeped in the formalities of 18th century warfare, the Redcoats marched in straight lines, fired their relatively inaccurate muskets simultaneously, and then rushed in with the bayonets.
They hoped to force the rebel forces to surrender, to prove their own superiority.
But something happened - the outmanned rebel forces ignored the rules of engagement. The colonists coopted the Indian techniques of guerilla warfare and launched surprise attacks. They were tactics that the British thought to be uncivilized. Yet they were effective.
So effective, in fact, that future armies began to use more of these techniques.
The rules of engagement had changed.
Those who do not see the parallels between those battles and what is going on in our political system today are blinding themselves to reality.
For years, Republicans and Democrats were able to bash one another in public, but at the end of the day they were able and willing to compromise. Today, bipartisanship means "giving Republicans everything they want" and a noble compomise means that John Boehner gets 98 percent of what he wanted.
The rules of engagement have changed.
Yet for some reason, there is a sizeable contingent of people who refuse to acknowledge that reality.
With the the Tea Party, the Republicans have figured how to channel the raw, stupid emotions of the most fear-prone in this country and use it to put the most rabid true believers into office.
Controlling one half of the legislative branch, the Republican Party has managed to steer the national debate toward the deficit and away from jobs.
They have managed to hammer home the talking point that asking the wealthy to pay their fair share is somehow class warfare, while thirty years of wealth and income stratification is not.
They have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the very economic policies that pulled us out of the Great Depression are the cause of our current economic woes.
And they have done all of this with the unwitting assistance of a weak, ineffectual Democratic president and a weak, ineffectual Democratic contingent in congress.
The rules of engagement have changed.
What the Republicans have figured out is that from the minority, with a unified front, you can enact your policies against a disorganized majority - effectively giving the minority a plurality. They have figured out that by going full-tilt against the weaker members of the herd, they can get more unity.
The Republicans have figured out that it is easier to herd five cats than ten.
Do I want to see more Republicans? Of course not - especially if they're like the Republicans we have in office today. I want to see what this site calls for - more and better Democrats. But what has become painfully obvious to me is that we can not have more and better Democrats without going for the "better" part before the "more" part.
There have been numerous pie fights here between the pro-Obama faction and the anti-Obama faction. There will be more.
But it is my belief that we will only stop the rightward slide of the Democratic Party by pushing away those who give away the house (I'm looking at you, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) and those who are unable or unwilling to take the fight directly to the Republicans and call them out on the amazingly long list of things they have been wrong about.
Because the rules of engagement have changed.
Actions speak louder than words. And while some people want to place their bets on an eleven-dimensional chess player, I'd prefer to see a three-dimensional ass kicker leading the way for the liberal cause.
Most importantly, we must make the Democratic Party better from the inside.
Therefore, I am proposing that we reclaim a piece of history as our own.
One hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt made an attempt to reclaim the presidency on the ticket of the Progressive Party. The party platform of 1912 called for many things we are still fighting for today.
A national health service to including all existing government medical agencies
Limited injunctions in strikes
The platform also called for states to adopt measures for "direct democracy" including:
The recall election
The referendum
The initiative
Judicial Recall
And the main theme of the platform was an issue that still plagues us today - perhaps more than ever, saying that "to destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
To accomplish those goals, the platform called for strict limits and disclosure requirements on political campaign contributions, registration of lobbyists, and recording and publication of congressional committee proceedings.
A fight for these principles is a fight worth having. But until we recognize that the rules of engagement have changed, and change our tactics accordingly, we won't even get to have that fight.
I'm not a racist. Far from it. I'm not a right-wing troll. I'm an angry liberal who realizes that no Republican President would be able to accomplish the evisceration of the New Deal and our social safety network, but a Democratic president could because there are so many folks who are willing to vote AGAINST the Republicans rather than FOR progressive policies - even when that Democratic President gives away the house.
We need to fight. We need our own counter to the Tea Party that is willing to push the party back to its senses. We need a Bull Moose party to take up the challenge that Teddy Roosevelt laid down one hundred years ago. Because only through a strong commitment to our principles - and not a commitment to "it would be SO much worse if we let them take charge" - will we ever realize true, substantive change.