Innocent Bystanders or complicit participants?

So, we’re in a hotel in Argintiera, France. We are dead tired, having had a long climb and hike today. We are just settling in for sleep when we hear a guitar tuning up. There’s a market square across the way, and they are having live music tonight! I asked for a new room, but was told that it is just as noisy anywhere in the hotel.

I could endure this if the guitar player knew more than four chords. I even know them – C, Am, F and G, the most overused chord progression on the planet. The drummer is above average, and the lead singer has a low tone David Bowie-type voice. Might as well enjoy it.

So what to do when kept awake by live music? Sirota time! He wrote a really good piece on the Innocent Bystander Fable,this idea that Democrats are powerless to advance a progressive agenda because of mean old Republicans. He destroys the myth in short order. Of course they are not powerless! I take it one step further – they use this as an excuse because they want what they are getting: The Republican Agenda. after all, both parties have the same financiers, so whose policy is it going to be? Voters, or bribers?

Anyway, a comment at the end of the article was so good that I reprint it here:

Because if the President is so powerless then why does it ever matter who is sitting in the White House? If the President is powerless than there is no reason whatsoever to support Obama or anyone else for the office, it would be a waste of time, energy and scarce resources.