Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

This email chain has been around for many years, but is more relevant today than ever.  Corporations are busy behind the scenes, flooding astroturfing groups like FreedomWorks with tens of millions of dollars in an effort to derail the best opportunity we have for reform and progress in a generation.  Their rhetoric pivots around the central themes that ‘change is bad’ and ‘anything the government touches will fail.’

This logic is of course absurd.  We elect our senators and representatives to do the will of the people, and the most ironic part is that corporate campaign contributions are one of the main things that derail our democracy and the effectiveness of government programs in the first place.  If our elected officials are not representing the people in their district, they get voted out of office, it’s as simple as that.

There were massive changes in party composition in the US House and Senate in the last 2 election cycles.  Much of the reason for this was quite simply the catastrophic failures of the conservative dominated politicians (the Bush administration and Republican dominated Congress).  From the illegal invasion of Iraq, to weakening environmental protection, to discarding workers rights in favor of corporate welfare, to the deregulation and other policies that led to this mother of all recessions, conservative philosophy has failed America.

The result of this is has been a resurgence of the left and a re-engagement of more Americans with their political process.  This creates a chance for America to take great strides forward in many areas.  We have an opportunity to enact desperately needed reforms to our health care system.  We have an opportunity to forge a green economy and revitalize our manufacturing base while helping to do our part to combat climate change.  We have an opportunity to level the playing field between corporations and their workers.  We have an opportunity to set things right.

No change is easy.  The regressive party of the past and their propaganda network will be kicking and screaming every step of the way.  They are going to be staunch opponents of everything liberals are going to do that will benefit all of us.  The following is a list of liberal achievements in the US, pieces of progress that were strenuously resisted by conservatives just as fanatically as the changes we seek today are going to be:

1. Interstate Highway System
   It wasn’t Ike’s idea. It was a liberal initiative begun in the ’30s. Ike was a liberal.
2. Almost all of our Labor Laws (and All Child Labor laws)
3. The Marshall Plan
4. Environmental Laws
5. Freedom of Information Act
6. Workplace safety laws
7. Social Security
8. The Space Program
9. The Peace Corps
10. The Civil rights movement
11. Fight against Nazis, Fascism and Totalitarianism
    Wilson, FDR ,Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy. All liberals
12. The Development and Deployment for the Internet (DARPA/HPCA)
13. The Tennessee Valley project
14. Women’s right to vote
15. Universal Public Education
16. National Weather Service
17. National Science Foundation/Basic Scientific Research
18. Product Labeling/Truth in Advertising Laws
19. Public Health Service and CDC
20. Morrill Land Grant Act (land for State public Universities)
21. Rural Electrification
22. Public Universities
23. Bank Deposit Insurance
24. Earned Income Tax Credit
25. Family and Medical Leave Act
26. Consumer Product Safety Commission
27. Public Broadcasting
28. Hoover Dam
29. Pell Grants
30. VISTA
31. Americans With Disabilities Act
32. State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

There has never been a greater contrast between those seeking to improve our country and those seeking to tear it down than today.  The moral highground is owned by progressives, and the negative attactics™ of the conservatives and people like Tea Party Joe will fail as long as everyone who stood up for change last fall continues to stay involved.  This is a once in a generation chance to do make a difference.  Stand up, speak out, be heard.