Rainy Day, Dream Away

[H2O Man]

Exiled in the Imaginarium of the Democratic Party (Part 1)

I remember a time when I received notice that a group of people intent upon exploiting the resources of the natural world had decided to join The Wilderness Society. This was not because they had any interest in advocating for sane environmental policies. Rather, they planned to hijack the organization, so that they could say, “Even groups such as The Wilderness Society endorse our proposals.”

I remember, during the years immediately after the theft of the 2000 presidential election, when rabid republicans began calling the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party.” Why, I wondered? An old friend (actually an old book, which I have had a long friendship with) informed me that this was the resurrection of Senator Joseph McCarthy's original tactic to somehow discredit the Democratic Party. Why, I wondered, would current republicans attempt to revive the bi-product of McCarthey's alcohol-poisoned mind?

I remember watching the events unfold on television on the morning of September 11, 2001, when people were saying, “Everything has changed.” It seemed similar to November 22, 1963, in that it was a moment in history that everyone would remember in the context of where they were. A decade later, I try to remember where our nation was, in order to understand how it got to the point it is at now.

Most of my political thinking was rooted in growing up in a family where my father, like the vast majority of his extended family, were Irish-immigrant, FDR Democrats. My social thinking was defined by my mother's extended family's tribal values. A cousin who braved running the Democratic Headquarters in a rigidly republican city in 1960 would be arrested six times, and told, “Your kind isn't wanted here.” A relative on the other side of the family would be among the group that built the foundation for the “Head Start” program.

With a somewhat liberal father, and a communalist mother, my “teenaged rebellion phase” would lead me, at times, to involvement with some fringe groups. By “fringe,” I am not placing any value judgment on their/my beliefs or tactics. Rather, I am simply saying that they were beyond the “democrat-versus-republican” concept of American politics. I had no interest in trying to “get ahead” – whatever that meant – by donning a suit and crew-cut.

However, even way back then, I identified myself as being allied with the Democratic Party in most ways. LBJ's “Great Society” struck a cord: having experienced very real, often humiliating poverty as a youngster, I identified “poverty” – and not poor people -- as the enemy. Having experienced the destructive force of “-isms,” I knew that black, brown, red, yellow, and white people all belonged to the only race: the human race. Ladybird Johnson's efforts to make America beautiful were in line with my thinking on the environment. And even on the issue of war, there were politicians with conscience: both Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy were moved to oppose President Johnson's immoral policies in Vietnam.

Like so many members of my generation, I was repulsed by the thought of Richard Nixon being President. Yet I was encouraged by the belief that “no man is above the rule of law.” I thought that the citizens of the United States would ever allow such a creep to obtain the status of President again.

Throughout my adult life, I have always placed great value on my right to vote. I have voted exclusively for democratic candidates for President. Even if the party's eventual candidate was not the person I endorsed in the primary season, I have never been tempted to do anything but vote for our candidate.

That person tends to set the tone for the Democratic Party. It's not that I believe any single politician is somehow perfect. None is. But, in general, they represent the overall political and social values that I prefer. Even with imperfections, they have been both distinct and far superior to any republican candidate. Progress on important issues rarely has come about at the pace that I want it to, but yet it comes.

But in the months and years since that theft of the White House in 2000, the majority of those democratic politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and also including President Barack Obama since taking office in 2009, have not been agents of positive change. Rather, they are excuse-making weaklings, at best, or allies of the corporate forces that have subverted democracy in America.

When I contact their offices to express my opinions, I rarely get the impression that my views are valued. But when re-election time comes around, I get dozens of phone calls, e-mails, and letters in the mail. My investment of time, energy, and money is sought after. Just not my opinion.

There comes a point where I can not betray my core beliefs. I cannot support any politician who supports hydro-fracking, or exploiting the tar sands. I cannot support any politician who advocates extending, much less increasing, the US military adventures aimed solely at securing the resources of another land. I cannot support any politician who pampers the obscenely wealthy, while punishing the poor. In fact, I have a hard time believing that politicians complicit in these crimes somehow belong to the same political party as I grew up in.

That certainly does not mean that I will ever vote for a republican. I won't. Nor will I support those advocating republican positions. And I accept no responsibility in the outcome of any election in which they are involved in. And polls that suggest that 108% of registered democrats disagree with me are not going to sway me even a fraction of an inch.

Likewise, I am not invested in attempting to convince anyone in the Democratic Party to support or oppose any politician and/or position, simply because I may. Let every man and women do what their conscience requires.

[NNN0LHI]

1. I have been listening to a lot of Jimi Hendrix lately too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PczW76rpTbM

[H2O Man]

3. The current flooding here

is worse than the summer of 2006. Lots of damage to towns and villages in upstate NY. Three of the four bridges nearest to me were "out" by mid-afternoon yesterday.

A good day for Jimi.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I wish you all the best in trying to recover from that

It has got to be traumatic experience to live through.

:hug:

Don

[malaise]

2. K & R

for another very thoughtful post

[mmonk]

4. This:

"And polls that suggest that 108% of registered democrats disagree with me are not going to sway me even a fraction of an inch."

is probably a little misleading (these polls).
Whether a true reading or not, it cannot move one in good conscience. There are times which require speaking one's mind, even if the corresponding silence is deafening. One must live by one's conscience.

[Octafish]

6. Thank you, H20 Man.

Great and wonderful family, Yours. And a fascinating story...

Agree with every observation, from "Poverty is the enemy, not the poor" to stopping support for any politician who advocates the theft of another nation's resources.



PS: Please know that I am grotesquely overweight, like a krill-stuffed baleen whale at the end of summer, and can sustain the rigors of extended emaciation much better than a hard-headed skinny sway-do (thanks JEdgar!) hippy smart guy.

PPS: Henrix rocks.

Starfish and giant foams
Greet us with a smile
Before our heads go under
We take a last look
At the killing noise

[robdogbucky]

7. Inspiring writing again, H20 Man

Will there be any further interviews done for DU as you have done in the recent past?

Great stuff as usual. Don't know how you manage to stay above the fray, but kudos.

BTW, I had a similar background, poor, Irish Catholic Unionist family, etc. My experience through all those years has been flavored thus:




It’s just that so much of it seems now to be psyops in large part for as far back as I can remember;


Truman defeats Dewey, Yellow Peril, McCarthy, cold war warms up, Eisenhower over Stevenson, Operation Mockingbird, Sputnik, Kruschev’s shoe pounding, birth of NASA, Nixon’s Checkers speech, Camelot, Bay of Pigs operation, CIA, Operation Northwoods, Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy assassination, Oswald, Ruby, CIA, Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard, Gulf of Tonkin incident, McNamara & Johnson’s Vietnam war escalations, War on Poverty, The New Society, King assassination, James Earl Ray, 2nd Kennedy assassination, Sirhan Sirhan, The Selling of the President 1968, Kissinger & Nixon’s Vietnam disasters, George HW Bush heads CIA, Air America, golden triangle finds US homes, winning hearts and minds, CIA, Nixon’s War on Crime, Mexican heroin epidemic, Project Intercept, Wounded Knee 2, the Martha Mitchell Effect, Watergate, national protests/public opinion shift forces end of war, Ford’s pardon, Ford’s War on Inflation, College of Americas, CIA, fall of US puppet Shah, Iran Hostage crisis, Khomeini , Reagan, wages begin 30-year erosion, removal of Fairness Doctrine, PACs, lobbyists increase influence over both parties, deregulation, eternal tax cuts begin, War on Drugs, covert wars in Central America, CIA, Ollie North, Iran-Contra/Ollie North Israeli weapons, cocaine, Lebanon barracks bombing, unquestioned US support for South Africa/apartheid, Israel/Palestinian occupation in UN votes, AIDS appears unabated, homelessness appears unabated, crack epidemic appears unabated, Bohemian Grove, Carn-St. Germain, Reagan Rose Garden deregulations, Savings & Loan disaster, cold war begins to end with Gdansk/Walenska, ends with collapse o f Berlin Wall, Yeltsin faces down uprising, Intifada in ME again, Bush 41’s Desert Storm, Bush v Saddam, Read My Lips Loses, Black Hawk Down, 1st World Trade Center bombing, USS Cole bombing, embassy bombing, John Tower dies, Ron Brown dies, Murrah Building bombing in OKC, Ruby Ridge, Waco Branch Davidians, Contract on America, Monica’s stained dress, opposition to & interventions in Bosnia-Herzegovenia ethnic cleansing, repeal of Glass-Steagall, John Kennedy Jr. dies, Ariel Sharon “visits” Temple Mount, Intifada, 2000 Republican riot at recount in Florida, Scalia court decision in Gore v Bush, 9/11, CIA, Bush 43’s illegal wars get going, War on Terrorism, Strategy of Tension, permanent reinstatement of military industrial complex, transformation of surplus into deficits, disaster capitalism, shock doctrine, attack on 2-party system, consolidated media ownership, ideological cleansing of US bureaucracy and government departments, Paul Wellstone dies, “no civil wars” in middle east, “no recession,” in US, endless tax cuts planned, one party dominance planned, endless war planned for middle east, insurance, banks/Dow Jones collapse just before elections, inevitable Obama win, relentless attacks on Obama’s efforts to revive economy from 30+ years of bipartisan abuse, banks bailed out, health insurance companies bailed out, Obama unable or unwilling to fulfill campaign promises, dashes all hope for change, renditions continue, DADT continues, tax-cuts for wealthiest extended again, funding for illegal wars again, Deepwater Horizon, Unions under attack, Middle East Spring unfolds, Fukushima, Libya invaded by coalition of capitalists, Bin Laden executed without trial, world economies suffer under disaster capitalism universally,….




My first awareness of political consciousness was going into the voting booth with my Grandpa, who voted for Eisenhower because he believed all the anti-Adlai Stevenson propaganda (immplying that AS was a communist sympathizer or worse) and Gramps thought Ike was an honest man and a true war hero. He did admonish me that republicons have never been the friend of the working man, that he always votes Dem. He didn't that time, with me at his side. Looking back on how my Gramps was turned around I see how it is done.

Then the assassination of JFK while I was a freshman in a Catholic HS, and the aftermath was definitely sketchy with Ruby killing Oswald on national TV. It was a total shock to have the high of Kennedy getting elected, the first campaign I ever worked on and then to have Camelot end in such a brutal and violent and mysterious way. I believe the seeds of my personal cynicism were planted that day.

Then the VN war, the 60s, the 70s, on to the surreal nature of the 80s and 90s, and finally down the timeline crapper to through the 2000s and now into the second decade of the new century. This progression does not look promising.

Sorry.


As the naturalist Gregory Bateson advocates, "Look for the pattern that connects...."



Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky