Once upon a time in America, I was one of those creatures you call a Geopolitical Neoconservative. Well, to put a finer point on it, I was a Theoretical Geopolitical Neoconservative Apologist. In fact I got hot pants when George W. Bush introduced the Iraqi woman with the blue thumb who voted for the first time in her life to Congress.
GPT sez:
The Iraqi woman introduced to the U.S. Congress by President George W. Bush was Safia Taleb al-Suhail. She was highlighted during President Bush's State of the Union address on February 2, 2005. Safia Taleb al-Suhail is an Iraqi political leader and activist. During the address, her presence was used to symbolize the success of the Iraq War and the effort to bring democracy to Iraq. In a poignant moment of the address, she embraced Janet Norwood, the mother of a U.S. Marine, Sgt. Byron Norwood, who was killed in action in Fallujah, Iraq. This moment was meant to represent the bond between Iraq and the United States and to honor the sacrifices made in the name of freedom.
But it wasn’t long before I discovered L. Paul Bremer’s CPA and De-Baathification was probably the most inept geopolitical calculation since Dien Bien Phu. But I couldn’t dispute that I like the theory of spreading democracy. Maybe we weren’t such a good role model, or maybe Bremer was just a doofus.
As such a Conservative, I would also do a fair bit of scrapping along the advanced and esoteric parade route of political debates. Sometimes seriously, sometimes for the inherent humor of it all. After all, I wrote hundreds of three panel comics. The legendary blogger Sean Paul Kelley thought I was a genius, but those were the days long before monetization. Hmm, Idea!
At any rate I had an epiphany when I recognized the tremendous domestic cockup of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party coalitions failed to coalesce, especially considering they had mutual enemies. It became abundantly clear that ideologies were rabid, but only partisan groupthink had electoral payoffs. I still couldn’t fathom the moral smugness of the broad political Left. So I picked up some Orwell to sort things out and came to understand more accurately how capitalism stole all the practical thunder from socialism. Basically corporations became soft and delivered everything socialism promised, you know except ownership of the means of production. But that’s another story. Still, I came to recognize, especially with Obama, what Neoliberalism was all about.
My new problem was that I couldn’t reasonably fail to distinguish actual policy wonks of the sort I always respected, like Paul Simon, from a new class of dorks and their flavor of liberalism. So it was barrel-fish easy to dismiss Limbaugh-speak against ‘libtards’ and ‘librulz’. Yet who were these new self-righteous fanatics who went full bore into identity like Gavin Newsom who defied the law of the State of California in order to marry same sex couples? Why was he so different from folks like Jerry Brown and Mario Cuomo? Aha. The old fellows were Liberal, and these newbs were Progressive. The Progressive agenda cared nothing for tradition, they just wanted the power to do as they pleased. It turns out that the wives of billionaires really dig that vibe.
Unfortunately for me who had given up voting and kibbitzing politics in 2008, I was stuck with this reputation of being a Right Wing [insert slur here]. So in demonstrating that my contempt was not for the Left per se, but what a dog’s breakfast its so-called leaders had made of it, I introduced the Cobb Left Party. It’s a thing I haven’t looked at or considered since 2018. I would like to rename it the Dad Bod Party because it’s 2024 and there are few things I would like to see more than a presidential candidate we could call America’s Dad. Somebody like Mike Rowe.
So here are the things I unreasonably expected Democrats to prioritize. It should be interesting to review them in this, an election year:
Recently I got into a debate about what I believe in the context of the disbelief of others that I am anything other than a subtle shill for conservatism. What I ended up doing is mentioning what I think Democrats ought to be doing.
The Cobb Left “Dad Bod” Party Platform
The Cobb Left Party (CLP) is dedicated to the working family. We believe that America is the best home for children and families of modest means, and our goal is to support them as our core constituency. We are the mom and dad party. We are a labor party. We are an anti-trust party. We are a general interest party.
The Home
We believe that children should have two parents and that the two parent household is the best environment for children. We also think that an elder relative in the same household adds an even greater environment for children. Adoption will be made easier. Elder relatives and adopted children shall each qualify as double dependents for tax exemption purposes.
Special federal training will be made available for social workers and police officers. Families with domestic violence complaints will be given priorities and repeat offenders will be removed at once through an accelerated process. Six month subsidies will be made available for victims of convicted abusers.
Representation
The establishment of the CLP as a viable third party in America is a precedent which we feel should not be underestimated. In all ways the division of power has served America well giving multiple avenues of representation and redress for citizens. The CLP will develop a comprehensive set of parliamentary strategies to disrupt the pattern of bipartisan coercion and gridlock in the Congress as well as in the Statehouse.
The CLP will work diligently to reduce the number of ballot initiatives which we feel are an irresponsible method of governance and a bad source of law. In all cases we prefer bills authored by named representatives and sponsored by party majorities.
The CLP will assure that unfunded mandates will not have the force of law as this leads to selective enforcement at the arbitrary whim of executive branches. The CLP will oppose circumvention of parliamentary powers by the judiciary and executive branches and will use its powers to always consider the impact on working families.
Anti-Trust
The CLP seeks to establish a broader set of business options for working families especially in matters of personal finance. The CLP will establish federal regulations for utility banking, microlending and advanced payments systems. We will re-establish the savings & loan industry and restrict the operation of mortgage brokers from designated family housing, a new category. We will prohibit large multinational banks from operating in the home and consumer lending sector.
Corporations with > 50% of their global revenues taxed outside of the US will face regulatory hurdles in their domestic M&A activity. No such company will be allowed oligopoly status in the US consumer market. This is directed primarily at banking, insurance, and telecommunications.
The CLP supports 5G net neutrality, and opens satellite bandwidth for non-neutral communications.
The CLP supports municipal ownership and leasing of last mile fiber optics to be shared by content providers and ISPs similar to the industry sponsored clearinghouse of cell towers and traffic.
Income Inequality
The CLP will support a means-tested taxation rate for the employment of exempt, non-exempt and 1099 employment. Tax incentives will be applied to companies who train and promote non-skilled labor.
The CLP will support labor membership in the boards of directors of public corporations. No less than 25% of board seats must be held by employee elected representatives in all public corporations employing more than 500 employees, having a market capitalization > $1 Billion, or executive compensation packages exceeding $1 million per year. At least one board seat for compensation must be held by such an employee representative.
Labor
The CLP will support unionization of all retail customer facing jobs, in malls, banks, supermarkets, restaurants, hospitality and convenience stores chains.
The CLP supports unionization of e-commerce delivery, warehousing & logistics.
Immigrant Labor
The CLP will simplify guest worker permissions and establish highly regulated industrial zones in which international labor standards will be applied to a maximum of 2.5% of the US workforce. These guest workers will be ratcheted into standard American union scale jobs and excluded from such international industrial work after a period of 3 years. The three year period will grant a fast track pathway to green cards. The CLP will leverage and depend on unions to insure compliance. All US companies wishing to employ such immigrant labor must be closed union shops. Heavy fines and criminal charges for human trafficking will made against non-compliant businesses.
Healthcare
The CLP will establish a consumer outpatient category and provide standardized care for all citizens and families with children up to age 26. Included are the majority of outpatient services including all immunizations and checkups required for enrollment in public schools, basic pediatric care, low cost contraception for voting age adults. The CLP will support retail dentistry, optometry, mental health counseling and sex clinics.
Education
The CLP stresses vocational certification. We support public trade schools, vocational classes in high school and junior colleges. We are particularly attendant to the reintegration of veterans into the workplace. The CLP encourages schools to provide classes that teach students to actually repair and care for campus facilities.
The CLP supports dischargeable student loans and will work to hold universities responsible for co-signing student debt.
The CLP supports the staffing of sports and fitness coaches for municipal public parks.
Homelessness & Gentrification
The CLP aims to redirect federal funds away from large cities and towards smaller and midsize MSAs as well as rural areas where the cost of living is more appropriate to a lower skilled, lower educated workforce. Affordable housing is easier to build in affordable cities. Our aim is to make these new standards of retail healthcare and unionized labor appropriate to the median income American in a broader set of municipalities.
We don't want a service economy of poor people becoming baristas to the rich. We want a working economy of people who can repair their own cars and homes, build their own furniture and grow their own vegetables, chickens and eggs.
Federal Works
The CLP supports large and small infrastructure projects at the state and local level, and will sponsor a nationwide database of street, bridge, sidewalk repairs and civil engineering projects. We will create mobile applications to inform the public of open jobs wherever government money is spent.
All of this, I’d bet a nickel, is more coherent than anything coming out of the parties these days. All are full of vituperation and recriminations that have no bearing on the quality of life for us Peasants. I don’t give a rat’s because I don’t have the energy, inclination or the crayons to explain it more than with the above. But I still think these are all good ideas. Maybe if you spread the word, somebody might get a clue and we can stop lighting candles for George Floyd, calling out ‘baby killers’ and crawling up Donald Trump’s ass. Just saying.
At long last do we have any self-respect and dignity?
Wow. A well-intentioned, central plan to manage just a miniscule number of hugely impactful details, including percentages and timeframes and headcounts, without even mentioning feedback mechanisms that would adjust those numbers to account for, say, change. What could possibly go wrong? (Are there any other important things you may have left out of your grand economic plan?)
Out with the old geniuses. In with the new.
I thought you had a better grasp of the magnitude of what you don't know. (I honestly considered today's date to see if it was April 1.)
ouch.
P.S I take it all back. If I understand, this is a dream you no longer have. Or it's a ChatGPT dream.
But it's not MDCB. It can't be. If it is, I'm stupid. (OK. Even if I am stupid, it's not MDCB.)
I too had dreams like this. But as life revealed its complexities, day in and day out, it kicked my intellectual ass as it does to this moment.
I like almost all of it. May you get the ear of some folks in places where they can make an immediate difference.