Partisan Paralysis: Just 'Do the Molly Bloom'

Thus far, how do you feel about the 2012 pre-campaign; the conversation about the jobs creation act?

Or, how does it make you feel to know that if the Republicans decide to continue to say “no” to everything, we will have no tangible, actionable efforts until 2013.

Or, how did you feel about how the health care debate; and, now a few months after, how well has the health care reform been handled so far?

You get my intended direction by now, I’m sure.

Our nation is in decline.

We the citizens must demand that our politicians stop the partisan paralysis.

Everyone needs to start doing the Molly Bloom.

Molly, who? I heard someone ask. Marion Bloom — “Molly” — you know Molly. (Those of you tittering knock it off). Molly is the infamous, life-loving female divine in James Joyce's Ulysses. She is the wife of Leopold Bloom, the middle-aged Odysseus of Joyce’s novel. The novel takes place on June 16 in Dublin; the last 45 pages is one sentence, one increasing crescendo of affirmation. Molly’s resounding "yes" to life, to sensuality, to love, to sexuality, to living. I don't know how many hundreds of times Molly said "yes"; I do know I am tired of the "No's!" paralyzing this nation. Aren't you?

Personally, I’m fed up with, and a bit confused by, the “public conversation” over job creation and infusing health back into our nation. Our Republican Party, and Tea Party, leadership need to follow her lead: stop saying “no”. Instead, they and the country need to start doing the Molly Bloom. And, yes: for those who claim I am not objective enough: lifelong Republican here, disillusioned forever with Boehner, Cantor, and every Tea Party voice. I am an Obama-backing Republican. Keep in mind that I do see the Democratic Party of 2011 as the Republican Party of 1968 – or a closer approximation than what is being broadcast today. I digress, however.

Can’t you feel the paralysis holding us back? Do you know the French term “bricoleur”?

I came across it years ago when reading Levi-Strauss, the mythographer and structural anthropologist. A bricoleur is a tinkerer; he’s a handyman, a mosaic maker: someone who attempts to tinker, to adjust, to bring a more finished solution into being. Our president is our national bricoleur: we need to say “yes!’ and let him do his job.

President Obama, having been forced to save the nation from the sins of the Bush era: hard-to-justify wars, corruption, unregulated, out-of-control financiers and bankers who just lied and gambled with security, etc. The Prez is attempting to serve as our nation’s strategist and our national, visionary bricoleur. Sadly, our current partisan effected paralysis is driving our nation further into its already confirmed decline. The Tea Party and Republicans are the primary appliers of glue, hoping to outlast the President. Yet, they continue to demonstrate no real ideas other than to say “no!” This continued partisan-led national paralysis must stop.

The people with all the money are telling you to keep saying “no!” They would prefer that we ignore the truth; that no one would question them. The repeated no’s, the continued paralysis is tipping the angle of our national decline well past any tipping point from which we can recover quickly.

But, hey! Why would we question the rich and famous? After all they are the wealthy. Hasn’t history proven that the aristocrats, the wealthy elite, the Plutocratic oligarchy (a.k.a. minority) are ALWAYS right? They want us to believe the pabulum they serve up as ideas contains thoughtfulness and truth; they are hugging their own trees. They want us to believe that the president is wrong: this time he is not. We need action. We can no longer tolerate “no." It is time to stand up; to just say “yes”!

Do you know the Molly Bloom? Like Molly, ecstatically, repeatedly, lovingly say “yes!” Let our voices resoundingly say “yes!” Let's co-create a sustainable future, one that highlights inclusion; that demands that we all flourish. Let's stop the politicians and the Plutes, that "cushy" oligarchy from destroying our nation through negation.

Say, “Yes!”