Democrats vs. the 21st Century Nero

Hoo, boy. Look at those buffoon Republicans over there. They don't have a chance at the White House in 2016.

Yuck, yuck, yuck. Did you hear the one about the Republican Senate candidate who went down in flames over some stupid rape comments? Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Which one?

Oh, that Reince Priebus. He, batshit insane NRA chief LaPierre and that whacky neurosurgeon who got laughed off the front pages are in real trouble. That gets a guffaw.

Now, one might suspect that "Nero" in this modern tale would be the Democrats -- fiddling away as the political Rome burned to the ground at their feet. It's not.

The real Nero, in this The Year of Our Lord 2013, is the combined forces of the Conservative establishment, the Republican Party and their billionaire patron saints. Democrats, as our city is consumed, stand in the wings pointing and mocking the bumbling ineptitude of our rivals.

A stark parallel arises from this tale from Ancient Rome. Indisputably, Nero was a ruthlessly brutal and cruel emperor who is said to have "engaged in every sort of obscenity." He took office with a plan -- a sprawling palatial complex, a Domus Aurea -- but had no room for it in the crowded city. Until a massive fire of dubious origin ravaged the sprawling metropolis, conveniently making room not only for the palace but for an urban center the young ruler had been building in his mind over the years.

For our purposes, I'll admit that no one really knows how that fire got started. What we do know is who got final say in what happened after it. Nero got both his palace and his model city. In our modern analogy, he shuttered or limited access to most abortion clinics, spread "Stand Your Ground" laws like a contagion, re-drew districts to his advantage and wrested control of state legislatures. And, having laughed mightily at Nero's miserable fire response, Democrats now stand by scratching their heads wondering how it is that most Americans support background checks but they can't seem to get those danged laws passed ... even with a powerful tailwind pushing them #Forward.

The danger of nodding off after elections

Following the bruising President Barack Obama put on Willard Romney and his GOP minions, I was determined to not replicate my mistakes in 2008. Yes, he won that time, too, but I, like so far too many other supporters kicked back to take a break after our well-earned victory. That was a major mistake. Our President had no visible backing either from his liberal base or the ConservaDem wing of the Democratic caucus.

The rest of us got caught napping when CNBC financial analyst Rick Santelli set off a Tea Party explosion, exploited by big money backers, that set hard-working Americans into an anti-healthcare reform frenzy that masked an ugly, racially-tinged underbelly. The entire episode put these citizens on the wrong side of their own best interests and amplified the nature of their darkest angels.

It was against this tide that I found my voice, no longer willing to simply wave off the virulence as merely crazy talk. Turns out, my countrymen aren't as discerning as I'd assumed. In fact, they're not just ignorant, they wish to become moreso -- railing against education and, in my home state of Texas, slipping into their Republican platform a plank denouncing the teaching of critical reasoning.

The remaining thinking class woke up one day after a 2010 Tea Party rout horrified at what had happened to our country and determined to take back OUR country. To change our tone, our rhetoric, our patriotism. Someone was surrounded alright, as Glenn Beck posited back in 2009, but unfortunately it turned out to be us -- the sober, the sane, the REAL Americans.

I can't speak for anyone else but I can no longer afford my traditional post-electoral Tryptophan-esque stupor. There's work to be done and I've got to wake up and get to it. I will ask for help but if others around me don't feel the same urgency, fine. I'll do it myself. Don't want to, not my personality, but I will go it alone. I'll register voters. I'll start petitions. I'll educate my neighbors. I'll fight draconian Republican measures. Whatever means necessary.

It's time to get busy and move #Forward. I am.

The vacation that wasn't ... how healthcare popped onto my radar

I wanted to return home to Texas after a much-deserved two-week break -- refreshed, locked and loaded for the political fray, with some very specific goals in mind. I spelled out my top priorities in a post entitled "Starting the good fight." You'll note healthcare was nowhere on my list of priorities.

Life, the 1960s pop reference goes, is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. And so it went this year as my brothers and I stood around our mother's hospital bed Thanksgiving Day as she fought her way back from a semi-coma.

What a difference a day can make. Standing there watching100-plus years of fight take on death and win, I couldn't help but realize how much of a Thanksgiving we were getting in real time. Not only were we privileged to witness Life win over death, we did it in the only state in our Union that has comprehensive healthcare. We would not be a family bankrupted by medical bills nor one that had to stop care immediately after the emergency room. 

There would be rehab, in-home nursing and post-medical services. Sure, there will be the random bill from a lab or so, but thanks to my parents' lifelong labors in a place we jokingly called Taxachusetts, they earned coverage beyond that of their relatives living in other states.

It is inconceivable to me that there still exist families who are not this fortunate: either in the battle of Life over Death or in their choice of homestead. I know of people who have been bankrupted by such medical emergencies and it should not be so in this The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twelve. 

We need Obamacare and we need it enacted for every citizen who works hard, plays by the rules and only expects in return a modicum of dignity in times of illnes. I say we make sure they get that.