DON'T FIDGET. FIX IT!

We hear it all the time: from columnists, from poll results, from teabaggers. "The government is broken." "The government can't do anything right." "Government is the problem, not the solution."

Gimme a freakin' break already!

What, the people are starving? Traffic is paralyzed? The mail never arrives? You don't get your Social Security check anymore? Medicare isn't paying up? Grass is growing on the national highways? Water doesn't come out of the spigots? Criminal gangs have taken over the suburbs? Terrorists are blowing up our cities with impunity? Just what exactly are they talking about?

Government in fact works pretty well. By no manner of means perfectly, but probably better than we have a right to expect, considering that it is run by human beings. And yes, there are long-term problems with everything. But we have addressed those before, and we will again.

Something is broken. But that something isn't the government itself. It's the political system. And it has been broken deliberately, by design.

Something is broken when lobbyists call the shots and corrupt the Congress with their influence and their contributions. Something is broken when earmarks go forth regardless of merit simply because the legislator has seniority. Something is broken when candidates win by a process of stigmatizing that shuts down thought ("He hates America," "She loves tax increases," "He's soft on terrorism," "He's a San Francisco liberal," "She doesn't like men"). Something is broken when they can destroy opponents' reputations with lies and half-truths and distortions and thereby drive good people out of the arena of office-seeking so that professional politicians get to dominate it whether they are any good or not.

Something is broken when one of our two major parties refuses to do anything realistic about major problems that are before us and instead concentrates on making sure that the administration fails and is humiliated and hated.

Something is real bad broken when it takes 60 votes to pass anything of significance, when 50 was meant to do it and always has.

Something is broken when a single senator can keep unemployment checks from going out. Then what you have is the opposite of majority rule: an anarchy in which any can defeat all.

When till recently have we seen such a ploy as an opposition legislator yelling "You lie!" while the president of the United States is addressing the Congress? Something is broken, all right.

We ought to be angry about this racketizing of our political life. And especially progressives ought to be angry, because they have won the right to govern and are being prevented from doing so by a conspiracy that has taken root in the other party and in a segment of the population, funded and coordinated by large and selfish economic interests like the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

It is time for the filibuster, "senatorial courtesy," and other tools of obstruction to be revoked. They were useful in more civilized days. I know some say the Dems will need these gimmicks if the Repubs get back in control one day. But I say letting the rightists rule when they have a majority is less problematic than letting them rule when they are nowhere close to having one.

The Democrats must summon the resolve to get healthcare through. Then they must get the rest of their agenda through.

If they do, we the people won't have to choose between the Democrats' failure to achieve and the Republicans' unwillingness to achieve, where the latter looks like strength and the former like weakness.

We can instead contrast the Democrats' achievements with the Republicans' unsuccessful attempts to block those achievements, a much clearer choice and one likely to break the spell of negativity that we find ourselves under now.