With our corrupt warhead sending our youths to slaughter, rushing into an illegal war of his choosing, and with the peace movement for the most part accepting unconditional defeat, it is hard not to feel all but hopeless. Caught in a vicious catch-22 circle, where all hope appears lost, few hold any illusions about the dark times to come as the body bags start piling up to the sound of the loud clapping of the “embedded” ignoramuses.

With our corrupt warhead sending our youths to slaughter, rushing into an illegal war of his choosing, and with the peace movement for the most part accepting unconditional defeat, it is hard not to feel all but hopeless. Caught in a vicious catch-22 circle, where all hope appears lost, few hold any illusions about the dark times to come as the body bags start piling up to the sound of the loud clapping of the “embedded” ignoramuses.

But as the aggressor imbeciles suddenly find their troops being shot at by the very people they claim to be liberating, and as we continue to stockpile every deadly fungus and bacteria known to mankind while demanding our enemies of choice to prove destruction of all weapons that we cannot prove they have, the time has come for a progressive voice and power to emerge through focus not on the differences, but the common ground that we share as human beings and on the understanding that the American people simply aren’t stupid.

We, the people, must challenge the corrupt establishment not on theoretical idealism of the past, but by taking ground on what average Americans truly want and need: physical security, real opportunities, and moral strength of knowing that they stand for what is right. The people are neither stupid nor evil, but rather misled, and we must learn to see the basic human needs and desires and to meet those needs.

We must first beat our default temptation to fight where we (often rightly) disagree, and instead to focus on the common ground where there is little to be debated. On most every issue, there lies a huge and mostly ignored window of opportunity to make vital progress in the space where there is agreement, the space that we can claim for ourselves where no sane opposition would ever consider opposing. Instead of looking outwards, we must look inwards for the answers: asking not them to change, but changing ourselves.

On the economic front, instead of focusing on fighting the conservatives over the power of the multinational corruptorations, we can instead come forward supporting employee ownership of companies, cooperatives and strong support for small businesses. Instead of (rightly) complaining about the deaths of innocent foreign nationals at the hands of our military, we must instead listen to the people and answer the call for security through a commitment to internally rather than externally focused defense.

Most critical is the eradication of the “liberal” label, which while we carry so proudly, is a bad word for most Americans. By calling ourselves progressive rather than liberal, we can once again stand on solid ground where the opposition would have a pretty tough time mounting any kind of an attack. Instead of allowing the opposition to fight the damned liberals who are supposedly ruining this country, we should be letting them sink in the quicksand of trying to argue against progress and improvement of the human condition.

The people are not stupid, and we must stop treating them as if they are. As 401k’s disappear down the toilet, as the body bags start coming home, as doomed to fail policies begin to fail, we must come forward with answers where they are so desperately demanded. The intellectual left has tremendous wealth to offer to the world, but we can only do so if we focus on the common ground, where we not only can agree amongst ourselves, but where our opposition is terrified to walk.

If we are to have any hope of a sane world, we must do what no one else is doing, to listen first, and speak second; to diagnose before we prescribe. Another world is possible, and we cannot afford to lose sight of it by allowing the opposition to continue to pull us into the quicksand.