First, Let’s Clean Out the Stables

by CLANCY SIGAL

Of course, you remember the Greek myth.

The fifth labor that the great hero Hercules must perform is to clean out King Augeas’s stables of shit dropped by 1000 royal cattle who haven’t been cleaned in over 30 years.  Augeas, head of the Schumer-Pelosi Democratic National Committee, hates Hercules who comes armed with fresh new ideas hateful to the long-reigning King.  So the task Augeas sets for the hero is both impossible and humiliating.

But Augeas reckons without the hero’s tenacity and wit.  Hercules takes one look at all the corrupt cattle shit and diverts two whole rivers to wash out the filth.  He then kills the tyrant and gives his kingdom away.

Our New Year starts not today but on 20 January.  There are many good ideas how to protest and which fearless groups to join to defy, obstruct and protest. Bernie Sanders has rallies, Michael Moore has five things for you to do (look it up as his ‘5 Steps Resistance Plan’), and Jeffrey St. Clair’s CounterPunch has ‘20 Groups Standing Between You and Doom’.  There’s other useful stuff out there, too.

We most of us have the same problem of where do we find the time and energy?  And start exactly where?

Meantime, give a stray thought to those shitty Democratic Party stables that haven’t been cleaned out since Jimmy Carter.

In Chicago ward politics, or Stalin’s Russia, we’d call this a purge.  Whatever it takes, feet to the fire, sign a loyalty oath, or “are you now or have you ever taken money from Goldman Sachs?”  Or even George Soros.

You start at the very top of the Democratic establishment and fumigate all the way down, stopping only at a few, a very few, select street fighters like John Lewis, Barbara Lee and, yes, our own proud Pocahantas, Liz Warren.

Leaving the shit in the stable – all this earnest talk of “finding authenticity” “restructure and reform” “regaining touch with working class voters” – guarantees permanent loss.

Absurdly, a lot of energy is going into lining up would-be presidential candidates for 2020.  Four years away!

It only took Hitler a few weeks to cripple trade unions, set up his own court system and get rid of enemies in his own party.

Such an awesome task.  Fit only for a Greek hero.

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Clancy Sigal is a screenwriter and novelist. His latest book is Black Sunset.