On the premise that things have to get much worse before they get better, particularly in the U.S.A., I offer up a basis for a true Deform Movement on these shores. Sink it all!

Do we really need another half-century of following reformist approaches which don't have a prayer?

If you’re really an advocate for the Palestinians, the Lebanese people and the Iraqi people, you’ve got to resist friendships…with about 95% of USers (often called “Americans” as if others in the Western Hemisphere were not!). If you’re in support of those under-attack-souls, you’ve got to stand in opposition to the vast majority of U.S. citizens. On a daily basis. In a very proactive way. Willing to be quite lonely.

Usually when one has to forgo big bucks to get on the underdog’s bandwagon in public…that’s the litmus test. That usually separates supporters from simulators. But there are lots of other fundamental bases on which left-of-center talkers throw in towels.

You don’t need me to review the results of virtually every depressing major poll which --collectively-- paints a profile of Average Red White and Blue beliefs. The actions of Joe and Jane and Jamal and Jasmine --with or without a uniforms on-- pushing the U.S. envelope overseas speak for themselves. And have…for quite some time.

Your basic challenge cannot be how to get this or that one to the electoral polls, can it? Or how to spread the general word, or how to get J, J, J or J to one gathering or another with bells on. The old models of involvement, for efficacious impact must be set aside, oui? New paradigm pee, sí?

Yes. Unless you’re more concerned with socializing and perpetuating obsolete habits than with advancement on behalf of the P, L and I people.

I’m shortening elements here to save time. For we have no time to waste, do we?

For starters, I recommend that readers contemplate the notion that IT IS THE “AMERICAN” PEOPLE. That it is in the sense that people have tried to convince us that it’s not when underscoring that IT IS THE GOVERNMENT NOT THE PEOPLE OF THIS LAND.

I know for a fact that the vast majority of so-called leftists, progressives et. al. have not been operating as if the former, not the latter, is the case. Which, however, can now lead us to Our Watershed Moment. In which we can neither count on great numbers to force what must be forced, nor need more than a relative handful to be successful.

Let me know how it feels after you’ve reflected on that for a full twenty-four hours. You’re going to need someone to lean on. Like the P, L and I people.

One of the greatest liabilities on the left thus far has been the silly practice of making public one’s agenda. As if a solid 95% or so wouldn’t turn on good hearts or sweet action charts…if routines and comfort were threatened. Which is going to have to happen.

Let it happen. Make it happen sooner rather than later. It’s (already) later, and we stink.

Richard Oxman, rmoxman@yahoo.com, "smells to high heaven" in Los Gatos, CA., and welcomes all scents for feedback. Other writing appears at www.oxtogrind.org, offering plans for action in some cases.