The Calm Before the StormLorenzo Canizares11/22/2022
We are definitely in better shape psychologically than we were a couple of years ago. At least most of us know that there is no hope that we will find common ground amongst almost all in the leadership of the Republican Party to move the country forward. There are few pockets of decency left in the Republican Party, like Liz Cheney, but she couldn&rsquo;t even retain her Congressional seat in the State of Wyoming where her family is an institution, and whose father was once Vice-President of our nation.&nbsp;
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We also know now for sure the Republicans of yesteryear are different to the Republicans of today. Today&rsquo;s legislators in Congress and the Senate who have an (R) beside their name can be expected from almost all of them that they will be siding with any decision that benefits corporations and the uber rich. We, those on the blue side of the equation that understand how important is to be free of corporate influence, are not taken any more by surprise by Republican&rsquo;s legislators&rsquo; greedy behavior.&nbsp;
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The Midterms are almost concluded. The Red wave didn&rsquo;t materialize, and control of the Senate remain in Democrats hands mainly because of the victory of John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. It behooves to pay serious attention to this fact because Fetterman is a Bonafide progressive. And this needs to be recognized so the senseless argument that progressives can&rsquo;t win needs to be flushed down the toilet.&nbsp;
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A victory by Rev. Warnock in Georgia will be icing in the cake and provides a cushion to Biden&rsquo;s agenda from the corporate-influenced Democrats Manchin and Sinema. While we wait for January to come and a Republican takeover of the House with their big dreams of doing great things for the American people like impeaching Joe Biden, thoroughly inspecting Hunter Biden&rsquo;s laptop or following Steve Bannon&rsquo;s lead of adjudicating the 2020 election. The seeds for more malicious ideas are already being planted like using the debt ceiling to blackmail Democrats to make cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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While Democrats are basking on the fact that the midterms were not as bad as they could have been and somehow many think that the battle is over, Republicans have their feet on the ground and realize that the outcome wasn&rsquo;t as they expected but they also realize many of the races were lost by razor-thin margins. The country is almost divided equally between citizens that participate in the political process. This means in plain English that we have to talk to everybody.&nbsp;
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Fetterman; in the very complex state of Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are liberal bastions, and the center of the State is jokingly referred as an extension of Alabama, put into practice as campaign theme &ldquo;Every County, Every Vote.&rdquo; There were no deplorables for Fetterman. The calm before the storm should be a period to get a few things done to make sure that we can, in the next two years, get things done. Bernie Sanders suggests that the Party needs to prioritize that &ldquo;People are hurting, that we have 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck, and many workers are falling further behind as a result of inflation. Oil company profits are soaring, food company profits are soaring, drug company profits are soaring. Corporate profits are at an all-time high.&rdquo;
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Bernie has often been critical of the Democratic party, saying &ldquo;that they &lsquo;haven&rsquo;t tried&rsquo; to communicate to voters the threat of corporate profiteering to the cost of living.&rdquo; In the past many Democratic leaders have been shy of calling attention to Corporate&rsquo;s excessive profits because many of the Party leaders have been or expect to be beneficiaries of corporate contributions as well and sincerely, they look to be afraid of losing that spigot. It&rsquo;s not Manchin and Sinema alone.
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Political analyst, Thom Hartmann, begs Democrats to do something about the sorry state of money in our politics. Hartmann says &ldquo;Democrats have two months before they lose control of the House. It&rsquo;s absolutely essential that they do everything possible to stop the cancer of &ldquo;big money&rdquo; and &ldquo;dark money&rdquo; in our politics.&rdquo; In a powerful article titled &ldquo;Can Congress Reverse the Damage Corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have Inflicted on America?&rdquo; Hartmann provides a luxury of details about the enormous amount of monies that were involved in the political campaigns of the past midterms.&nbsp;
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Here in Florida, there were races for the State House where candidates spent a million dollars! Those jobs are not coveted for their pay of $29,697 per year plus $163 per day during sessions, they are coveted for the influence they can exert. For Republicans is especially important because it can promise their &ldquo;contributors&rdquo; that they will work in tandem to pass legislation that will highly benefit them economically. Such is the origins of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).&nbsp;
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I sincerely believe we have to develop a major sense of urgency to be able to withstand the potential corporate onslaught. We are seeing what&rsquo;s happening around us. We have lost precious time thinking that Greedy Republicans were normal people. Many of us didn&rsquo;t understand that their greed addiction will lead them to support issues that will be economically devastating to many common folks. The Democratic Party sadly doesn&rsquo;t have the structure or discipline to be able to organize people to fight back. But labor unions and community organizations do have the means, the flexibility and the discipline to be able to do so. Most people don&rsquo;t need to be explained that times are rough. As Bernie says when 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, when 30 million people have no healthcare insurance, when food and other essentials become more difficult every day, people need to get organized to fight back and be provided a roadmap to fight for a better future.&nbsp;
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Trump announcing he is planning to run again for president is a clear indication to me that plans for a ferocious populist campaign is on the works. Now that we are seeing hundreds of thousands of people getting fired from good paying jobs in the high-tech industry, we can expect many of those people to be in the vanguard of fighting to support a corporate America interpretation of what ails us. Sadly, the American working class is lacking a class outlook to deal with the problems facing the country. Let&rsquo;s take a page from John Fetterman&rsquo;s victory in Pennsylvania and leave no American behind. Talk to everyone but fight hard against corporate greed and white supremacy!
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