President Obama spoke to the people of America on Saturday. With the campaign season for the fall election heating up, his message was focused on the insidious effects of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Citizens United case. The President cited the recent “flood of attack ads, run by shadowy groups with harmless sounding names.” He contended that the people deserve to know who’s behind these campaign ads, and argued that the Disclose Act, which is being blocked by Senate Republicans, is an effective device to accomplish that end.

Legislation that’s directed at greater disclosure by donors, the Disclose Act would require, “special interest group officials to physically appear at the end of campaign ads they sponsor, acknowledging their campaign contributions.” It would also prevent foreign run entities from interfering in our election process, undoing another detrimental side effect of Citizens United. The bill was already passed by the House, with 2 Republicans voting in favor, along with all but 30 Democrats. But the legislation has been stalled since it reached the Senate.

Falling into the prevalent pattern of Senate dysfunction, the Disclose Act is just another bill to find itself the victim of Republican obstruction. Needing one more vote to gain cloture and avoid filibuster, Americans will not gain knowledge of the people behind the campaign ads unless Democrats can get at least one Republican to break ranks and put The People above the Party.

Asked for comment on the legislation, Mitch “Tax cuts pay for themselves” McConnell offered more nonsensical blather. According to McConnell, “The president says this bill is about transparency. It’s transparent all right. It’s a transparent effort to rig the fall elections.” So, in the Senate Minority Leader’s own words, informing voters of who’s paying for campaign attack ads somehow amounts to rigging the election.

I’m sure that Senator McConnell had no intent of supporting the President’s position, but based on his own comments, it’s hard to refute what President Obama had to say regarding Republican opposition to the bill, “This can only mean that the leaders of the other party want to keep the public in the dark.” The President added that, “They don’t want you to know which interests are paying for the ads. The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.”

The November election will be laced with illegitimate attack ads of all sorts, and those ads will come from both sides. This has long been the case, and now the problem has been magnified by the Citizens United decision. The Disclose Act is essential legislation that can’t prevent the ads, but can at least inform the voters who’s behind them. It’s like truth in advertising 101, and the Republicans want no part of it. That fact alone should call their position into question.

Concerned voters need to speak out and make sure their representatives understand that We the People want to know. Voters want transparency. Big-Money has already hijacked the American government, and the Supreme Court, through Citizens United, has given them yet another avenue to exert their will. Corporations are not people, and in the long term, our nation needs reform to undo the damage of this decision. Such reform is already underway in the form of a constitutional amendment carrying 74 cosponsors in the House. People can also voice their support at Free Speech for People.

Like campaign finance reform, the Disclose Act should have nothing to do with partisan differences. The fact that it is being debated along party lines should be sufficient cause to make people stand up and take notice. Citizens United was anti-democracy at its very worst. To fight against its reform is un-American.

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and DNC chairman, wrote an op-ed piece on Monday where he decried conservative publicity tactics and urged Democrats to stand up for their convictions. Dean cited several recent ploys where “the Fox News Network [had] failed to report the full story or relevant facts.” With regard to instances like the new Black Panthers, Van Jones and the entire Shirley Sherrod fiasco, Dean suggests that, Fox indulged “in race baiting in order to exploit people’s fears and crank up the fringe of their audience.” But Dean’s message isn’t about the evil of these practices; it’s about the appropriate response by Democrats.

According to Dean, Democrats “are not tough enough.” Dean’s prescription for resurgence by the Democrats is to “stand up for what we believe in and stop trying to make deals with people who cannot be trusted to make deals for the good of our country.” Republicans have clearly defined themselves and taken a stand as the party of big business. If the Democrats are to avoid a one-sided loss in November, they’ll be well served to follow Dean’s advice and leave compromise at the altar of progress.

Those who think that supporting incremental change somehow moves the issues forward are sadly mistaken. All that the spirit of compromise does is move the center further to the right. Those Democrats who support this approach are responsible for the pathetic reality we now have where what the Republicans themselves would have passed 30 years ago is now celebrated as a Democratic victory.

Voters need to wake up! So long as they support this dynamic, the line will keep moving to the right. And so long as it moves right, the Republicans will retain power. What’s needed is for the Democrats to truly differentiate themselves — that’s the only way the line will ever be moved left again. Democrats need to fight on principle, EVEN WHEN THEY WILL LIKELY LOSE! This is how a platform is defined, how Democrats can communicate who they are and what they stand for.

The American middle class wasn’t created through compromise; it is being destroyed through it. Obama is compiling a great legislation record, but a brief look at the history will show that Jimmy Carter was responsible for a significant body of legislation too, yet he created the climate where Reaganomics was able to take root. By contrast, FDR took a bold stand and created the middle class.

The climate of our time begs for a little more FDR and a little less Jimmy Carter. FDR has no problem taking a stand as evidenced by the words he shared on election eve 1936:

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

It’s time the Democrats help take government back from “organized money.” And until and unless they take a real stand, they’ll just remain a bunch of Republican supporters who are helping to move all legislation to the right.

If the Republican campaign message for 2010 was something like, “Yes, we know that we caused all these problems in the Bush years, but we’ve learned our lesson, and now we are offering these new ideas to fix things in the future,” I would understand (if not agree with) the equating of the problems with Republican gains. But that’s not what the Republicans are offering. Rather, the GOP campaign message for 2010 is essentially the same message as the Bush years, only more militant (and more wacky, thanks to the Angle-Paul tea party influence). Their pitch is built around deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, and less government, the very things that got us into this mess in the first place.

Mitchell Bard, Huffington Post

The Republicans have blocked everything in the Senate; the only plan they ever have is tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, cuts to social programs and privatization of government. They follow their strategy of running up deficits when in power as if it was a natural law, and then they suddenly become fiscally responsible when in the minority — a simple yet effective Republican tactic to defund liberal programs. They support big business, not the people, and they aggressively exploit the middle class and the environment to forward the greedy agenda of their corporate overlords.

This is all indisputable fact. It’s readily apparent to the most casual observer, yet somehow the Republicans are actually able to get elected . . . why?

It’s either because the Democrats are complicit in hiding the truth from the American public, or because they’ve yet to figure out that elections aren’t about issues — they’re about perception.

Perception is reality, and the Republicans have mastered spin. They have no shame! They will say anything, twist anything, and run to devise a scheme to cover anything said. They’ve not a care about the facts. By contrast, Democrats try to win debates politely. They offer rational arguments. It’s the rare exception when somebody like Reid says the GOP is purposely trying to make things worse.

IT IS NO SECRET that the GOP represents government by sabotage. Their platform is “government is bad,” and they routinely do everything they can to make that true. Why isn’t this message a resounding battle cry for the Democrats? If it was, it might actually be newsworthy by media standards, and the people just might discover the truth.