"Let's take back the country!" - From whom?

by Rishubhav

Recently I noticed that the Young Sentinel signed one of his posts with "Take Back the Country: Obama '08". Not to single him out; in fact the phrase "take back the country", and its cousin "take back America" have become catchphrases of the liberal/progressive/Obamaite movement. "Take Back America" is even the name of a liberal conference with the stated aim of bringing together "all of the tribes of the progressive movement".

The implication behind the statement is that America has been taken away from the common people, and delivered into the hands of a group of manipulative, fatcat Republicans. And as patriotic Americans it is our civic duty to donate money to the Democrats, and vote for them come November to help "take back America".

Well, at least they got one part right. America is in the hands of an entrentched political class that acts against the interests of the common people. But it is by no means a Republican or conservative dominated group In fact, it might be one of the few truly bipartisan groups in Washington.

Both parties play the patronage and pork games, and they play them well. True their money goes to different people - Republicans pull the pork for corporations and the wealthy, while Democrats do it for special interest groups. If you want proof that Democrats have no qualms about rolling out the pork barrel just look at farm subsidies. The farm bill that the House and Senate both passed in May will cost the government 377 billion dollars over five years, subject the United States to billions of dollars in sanctions from Brazil, raise food prices for ordinary consumers, and help lower the incomes of Third World farmers, all while helping the 2% of the population that farms, a group that already makes an average of $89,434 a year.

So how do we "take back the country" from the lobbyists, politicos, and pork punchers? The one thing that won't help is putting in a donation for the DNC, voting for Obama, and sitting back thinking you've done your bit. The reason that the political establishment got a hold of this country is that we, the people of the United States fell asleep at the switch. We allowed ourselves to be sorted out into Republicans and Democrats, with the expectation that we would willingly pull our chosen party line, and we did. We sat back and watched as a political duopoly emerged, as the parties diviied up the populace so neatly that the number of states that actually matter in any given election can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

So what do we do to get out? First we have to cut off the ambrosia that keeps these parasites alive, the lifeblood that the suck from us - cash.