With All Due (Very Large) Respect

Please read this e-mail from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, then see my comments below. From Sen. Elizabeth Warren: George — If you thought the amount of money spent in the 2014 elections was obscene, fasten your seatbelts because we’re in for a rough ride: Last week, the oil billionaire Koch Brothers pledged to spend $889 million for Republicans in the 2016 elections. Forget for just a moment all the schools we could build, or the crumbling roads and bridges we could start to repair, or the medical research on Alzheimer’s or autism that we could invest in with that ginormous amount of money. The deep-down point is that if we thought the playing field was tilted against us last year, it’s only going to be worse in the next election.  So here we are. We can whimper, we can whine, or we can fight back. Me?  I’m fighting back—and I’m getting started right now. I want to show the Koch Brothers that we’re ready to fight. So I’m asking you to sign my petition now to commit to restoring the Democratic Majority.  The Koch Brothers aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Last week, Republican political operatives linked to Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove launched a new SuperPAC with one goal (and I quote): “To protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority when Harry Reid, Elizabeth Warren and their army of left-wing activists try to take it back in 2016.” The Republicans are right: That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll never be able to outspend the Koch Brothers or Karl Rove on the airwaves, but we can build a grassroots team that’s ready to fight for what we believe in. We can fight, and we can win. We didn’t build this country so that it would work only for the millionaires and billionaires and giant corporations. We will not abandon this country to a bunch of Republicans who say, “I’ve got mine, the rest of you are on your own.” We’re a country that believes we make the investments together so the next kid can get ahead, and the kid after that. And we’re going to take on Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers so that every kid gets a fighting chance. Please help us get started. Names—thousands of names and millions of names—matter. Sign my petition to show Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers that you’re committed to taking back the Senate in 2016 and standing up to the powerful interests trying to buy our elections. We need you to be a part of this. Thank you, Elizabeth Warren ******************************** With all due respect (and mine is very large), this won't work.  In a moment, I will try to suggest what I think can work in 2016.  What Sen. Warren asks for here is certainly good, and even necessary. But make no mistake:  What Fascists like the Kochs are doing, when added together, represents a fundamental shift in politics as we know it in America.  True, we did in fact see huge monies flowing into campaign coffers from oligarchs in 2014.  And true enough, this was seen in 2010 and before. But what we have here is in a new category.  Already, the Kochs' apparent antipathy to Rand Paul is making that tea party favorite seem a less likely candidate.* And just what do the Brothers Koch mean by the new political infrastructure  they have promised?   Are we going to have undercover corporate/political operatives showing up in our towns and precincts advocating stealth laws and ordinances making it yet harder to participate in democracy?  (Think Florida's draconian control laws affecting voter registration groups, for example.) Whatever else we do, let us not be naive.  And, please, oh God, please, let us not be complacent.  The good news is, there are things which can be done.  I have only begun to work on a program in my mind. For now, I suggest consulting sister blogs The Musical Patriot, and Patriot in Exigency.  And, be sure that what I advocate will be legal.  For the time being remember: education is still legal! *I'll get my source up here soon.