Jackson County Democratic Committee

I am once again appalled at the so called “compassionate conservative” that preaches a warped sense of compassion.  Why am I not surprised?

Missouri Senate Candidate: VAWA A Distraction

Pema Levy, Talking Points Memo

Missouri Democrats are pouncing on GOP Senate candidate Sarah Steelman’s comment Tuesday on St. Louis public radio that the Violence Against Women Act, a version of which was reauthorized by the Senate last week, was a distraction hatched by Democrats to avoid tackling real issues like the budget.

Steelman was defending herself from comments she made in which she admitted being unfamiliar with the VAWA. “I’m not sure what that is because I’m not serving right now,”Steelman said.

Caitlin Legacki, Missouri Democratic Party spokeswoman, points out that Steelman still hasn’t taken a position on VAWA. “Sarah Steelman’s had nearly two weeks to figure out whether she supports bipartisan efforts to end domestic violence against women and families,” Legacki said in a press release.

On Tuesday, Steelman said the question she received about the law was too vague.

“I think that’s typical Democratic spin and they’re just trying to catch you,” Steelman said. “The guy in the video came up to me and made very little reference to what he was even talking about. But of course I want to end violence against women. I think it’s unfortunate that the Democrats have made a political football out of this thing, which I think is what they keep doing to distract from the real problems that are facing our nation.”

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The years after Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency, an event that marked “A New Hope” for the Democratic Party and the American century,  have witnessed a crippling, dramatic, and shattering resurgence of right-wing fundamentalism and doomsday-predicting, embodied in the resilient Tea Party and a historic ideological polarization that has doomed pragmatic policymaking in Congress. A Democratic reign, wherein the Democrats secured a mandated presidency and comfortable majorities in the House and Senate, gave way to what Obama termed “a shellacking” of the Democrats from a resurgent and confident Right in the 2010 elections. For the past two years, we have witnessed the arrogance of Republican freshmen, the partisan bickering of Senators over legislation designed to keep our sputtering economy resilient, and the unheeded pleas of a President forced to become more centrist and pragmatic due to the disfigured politics of our nation.

As we face a grassroots right wing strike back of unprecedented proportions, our only Hope is to follow Obi-Wan’s sage advice and use the Force against John Boehner (Emperor Palpatine…Jabba the Hut?) and his minions in the Death Star of Congress. It is time to secure liberties and equalities for all Americans in a nation that has become disillusioned with its values of the American Dream and the Equality of Opportunity, a nation that prioritizes the security of the few over the livelihood of the many and the profitability of corporations over the sustainability of our environment. The answer is not more compromise: we must Return, like the Jedi, and summon the same passion and indignant resiliency of the right wing to reclaim the politics of the nation. However, we must not be too hasty: the Occupy Movement is a start of such politics, as it has stormed the streets in protest of corporatism and greed, but it must be careful to not become mired in the same dogmatism and utopic imagination of its right-wing counterpart, the Tea Party. The answer is not the proliferation of further senseless politics, but a careful re-evaluation and reconstruction of our values and the way we perceive politics in America. We must stop and think first before we Act with righteous fury. We must ask ourselves whether the values that our society maintains, of corporate atomization and individualistic competition, must be allowed free reign, or whether we, as decision-makers in society, ought to adopt values that prioritize equality, solidarity, and social justice for all. While the Democratic Party has trumpeted such values in its history, we must remind ourselves, continuously, of the need to keep such values intact so that they don’t become platform placations in a nation in the throes of an ideological struggle. The Right has come armed with accusations of Socialism and “the Death of the American Century.” Our response to such a war of words will determine the course of American politics for the next several decades.

We need to move on, from the Empire’s strike back, into the denouement of this battle of ideologies, into the Return of the Left where Obama (Luke) and Hillary Clinton (Leia) muster the ideological strength and the tenacious courage to reclaim politics in our nation. However, the answer is not necessarily and not always to look to our leaders: we must find the indignation and resiliency within ourselves to ensure the continuation of the Left’s dream. We must question who we are, why we struggle for the values that we do, and how we can help productively help the Struggle. And then we must Act.

Otherwise, we risk the extinction of the Jedi race.

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