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The One Issue That Will Resonate

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Anita Mabardy

There is certainly no shortage of serious issues regarding the devastating policies inflicted upon this country and the world by the Bush administration.* [See Below.] In fact, there are so many issues that the number of issues itself becomes an issue, making it nearly impossible to unite and organize around one or two issues in numbers strong enough to make a difference. I firmly believe, however, that if America is to survive this insidious, destructive, neocon assault, that is exactly what needs to happen.

There is one issue that ought to be at the very top of the list of issues to address, one issue that should be the cornerstone of any practical assault against the Republican Party neocon agenda, and, most importantly, one issue that will resonate with a vast majority of Americans unlike any other and is, therefore, the only issue that will generate a margin wide enough to prevent future elections from being stolen by corrupt voting machines.

The neocons recognize that, in order to keep elections close and therefore make it possible to continue stealing them, they must keep the populace fractured, distracted, and divided. To do this, they use non-issues like abortion and gay rights, which frighten and/or enrage people enough to vote against their own real self interests.

The fact is, the only division in this country that really matters is the one that deliberately separates most Americans from the opportunities and benefits their country is supposed to offer them, the one that erases the level playing field upon which they are supposed to be able to build their dreams, the one issue that effectively insulates a self-appointed privileged class from the ever struggling masses who are being forced to work harder for less money, to live without health care, to send their children to fight the for-profit wars, and to blindly support the divine right of corporate neocons to control everything.

The only real issue is the insidious, illegal, immoral, ever-widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots." The "haves" have all the money and power, and the "have-nots" have nothing: no jobs, no benefits, no opportunity for advancement, no say about a war that's killing their children, and, in many cases, no right to vote out the criminal elite who have taken everything from them.

This is the issue that cuts through all the FOX generated non-news crap, right to the heart of what really matters. This is the issue that makes people angry enough to think about how they're being used. This is the issue that fires people up enough to unite in their disdain for a privileged class made so by unfair, illegal, corrupt corporate policies and power grabs, by tax cuts for those who already have it all, and by political criminals who avoid any accountability by placing themselves above the law.

It is incredible to me that the DNC has not yet recognized the futility of reacting to the endless diversionary tactics being spewed via network "news" outlets, as opposed to putting together a proactive, aggressive, steadfast, determined, concentrated effort to focus on this issue, the one issue with real potential to bring enough people together to turn things around.

If Democrats continue to dilute their efforts by chasing one Republican scandal after another, if they continue to go in a hundred different (albeit worthy) directions at once, people will just be overwhelmed and will tune them out. Like it or not, most Americans have notoriously limited attention spans and will simply not devote enough time to investigate multi simultaneous issues. It is crucial that Democrats recognize this, and that they immediately adjust their strategy before it is too late.

Anita Mabardy
Boston MA

*Other issues:

Stolen elections via Diebold e-machines with no paper backups, widespread voter suppression tactics

Failure to respond to legitimate pre-911 information clearly indicating threat of attack by al Qaeda

Bush's personal failure to respond immediately to 911 as it occurred

Deliberate falsification of data re WMDs to justify a pre-planned invasion of Iraq

Failure to capture Osama bin Laden by diverting forces from Afghanistan to Iraq

Awarding of no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq

Deliberate, malicious outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, resulting in destruction of the covert network she worked twenty years to create

Katrina, ignoring warnings of coming levee failures by the Army Corp of Engineers, among others

Katrina, lack of timely and effective response, complete insensitivity to the emotional and social devastation

Soaring deficit created by repeated tax cuts for extremely wealthy

Five years of ignoring and/or underfunding education, health care, veterans' benefits, etc.

Deliberate attempt to subvert the balance of powers in the US government by appointing two political operatives to the Supreme Court who support dominance of the Executive Branch over Congress and the Courts.

Deliberate attempt to obliterate the line between church and state via countless judicial appointments who espouse extremist, fundamentalist Christian doctrine

Use of illegal, warrantless wiretaps to spy on American citizens, in particular, political opponents and opposition groups

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION