PICKING THE GRIDLOCK
Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:06:31

I hate gridlock! When I lived in Los Angeles I learned all the shortcuts around the traditional traffic jams; but once in a while I would be caught in a pile up and sit there fuming, taking it personally.

Now I have at least two years of gridlock to look forward to in Washington D.C. Totally unacceptable, but what in the world can I do about it?

Gridlocked in traffic I have  fantasized leaving my car in the jam and walking away. Can I just walk away from politics until the jam is cleared? I won't; but, I think a lot of Americans are going to tune out as the likes of John Boehner, Mitch Cantor and Darrell Issa try to tear down everything Obama and the Democrats have accomplished over the past two years.

There couldn't be a worse time in our history to lapse into a period of contentious, do nothing gridlock. We are in the first stages of a major depression, and need all the stimulus we can pump into our collapsed economic veins.

I see this playing out one of two ways:

• We are so bitter, confused, frustrated and overwhelmed that we give up struggling and let Karl Rove and his posse of demons take control. It's the road to fascism and it's not lined with good intentions, but with no intentions at all.


• We pick ourselves up, climb out of the emotional and financial hole we've helped dig and confront the Corporate American lifestyle and the power-mad plutocrats on every front.

Now, there's a choice, for you. One doesn't take any energy at all. Let the bastards have their way, and we'll get by on the scraps that trickle down from their Gated City On The Hill.

The alternative is a call to total action.We have the wherewithal to force the change; it resides in the simple choices we make every day.

Every time we choose the Commonwealth over wealth alone; every time we choose to live more fully with less, and every time we act as interdependent neighbors and citizens instead of antagonists in a zero sum game we move one step closer to renewing this great country.

I choose to stay in the trenches, because I don't like what's waiting out there in No-Mans Land.