Occupy the Tea Party

(Yes, I know I just wrote nasty things about Rick Santorum and that this might seem a hypocritical blog post. I'm still working on slaying that dragon myself. But this thing is just festering in my head and if I don't get it out, well, my head will smell bad. Besides, our politics, our civic conversation does not have to be pretty and sanitized. We're big kids, we can handle jabs and barbs. And if we didn't blow off steam at each other's foolishness, well, then all our heads would begin to smell. So take the words below with as much salt as your doctor advises and know that I reserve the right to swing violently between viewpoints at any time. And so should you. I think open heads don't stink so much.)

Hammered dulcimer (the instrument is the one hammered, not the musician) king, John McCutcheon, has a song called "Christmas in the Trenches" that is lovely and very telling. In it McCutcheon relates the story of World War I as seen through the eyes of a soldier on the front lines. He describes the scene on "the frozen fields of France" when the adversaries cease their firing to enjoy a Christmas ballgame, share a meal, and set aside their differences for a while, at least. When they inevitably return to warring, each man is changed in that now he thinks, "Whose loved one have I fixed into my sights?"

The broader point that this song makes is that war is the chief way that the wealthy and powerful get the poor and helpless to wipe each other out. We do their bidding in the name of some perceived threat, trumped up event, or so-called necessary commodity. They convince us that we must take up arms and point them at someone exactly like us in a slightly different-looking uniform with a funny accent. McCutcheon sings, "And on both ends of the rifle, we're the same."

Which makes me (and others) wonder: What if the Occupy Movement found a way to join forces with The Tea Party? Sure, there are differences, but there are also commonalities. Let's start with perception. Have the powerful led us to believe that all Occupiers are out-of-work, dirty, commie hippies? Yes. And have we been fed the line that all Tea Partiers are racist, heartless idiots? Yes. Is either of these statements entirely true of either side? Of course not. But if we were to ever figure that out it would really be bad for the dreaded "establishment" -- the ones we support AND the ones we do not.

I want President Obama to be re-elected. I also want to clean up the worst elements in our politics -- SuperPacs born of the CitizensUnited decision -- and let our elected officials know that we expect a 23rd Amendment to end this foolishness of "corporations are people". And we'd better get on that bandwagon soon, as now the push is to enable corporations to give money directly to candidates rather than having them be bothered with "laundering" it though SuperPacs. Poor Koch Brothers, so put upon! What an unfair disadvantage for the busy Las Vegas casino owners, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

And I would throw the money-lenders and influence-peddlers of K Street out on their arses. The only revolving doors I like are the ones at the Rockbottom Brewery. Going in is easy, coming out though...

What if we had a spirited soccer match like the soldiers in the song. What if we read our "letters from home" telling each other our stories, explaining our causes, and sharing our fears. What if I could make a Tea Partier see that public unions are vital and do a ton of good? What if a Tea Partier could bring me to understand that there may be a regulation out there that we can agree to disparage? We might come up with a way to grow green jobs while trimming our discretionary spending. We could be honest about our changing demographics -- whether we're discussing the aging population or the increasingly non-Caucasian trends -- and attempt to restructure our safety nets and help our immigrants gain legal status.

We could take on any fight of our choosing with real bipartisanship of a stripe that would scare the bejesus out of D. C. And if we accomplished anything at all we would have done more than the current incarnation of Congress.

We just have to remember that we all have someone out there who loves us, as we all love our country. We just need to scream at each other -- sure, that's part of it -- but when that's done, try to find the places where we can come together. We just need to never let "them" make us forget that "on each end of the political spectrum we're the same."