I feel unsettled and testy today. Listening to NPR this morning didn’t help; a story about conservatives in Kansas had my blood boiling, then left me feeling helpless and at a loss about what to do. Not that I try particularly hard, but I simply can’t identify with conservatives. I hear the shit that comes out of some of their mouths, and I’m baffled. Some congressional candidate was motivating the crowd with the statement that when Obama says “Yes, we can,” “We’ll be there to say ‘No, you won’t.” THIS is ideas? THIS is progress for our country? But progress isn’t what’s wanted by these Americans. It’s the opposite; it’s the “return to the America we know we can be.”
What America is that? I have a vague sense of dread about what it would be. My sense is it’s an America where there are no rules for fat, old white men and plenty of rules for everyone else. Enforced “morality” – mine, not yours. Yeah, the good old days. I suppose the difference from 1955 is that now we have the new “feminist” conservative women, who believe that they won’t be stuck back in the kitchen. And maybe they won’t, unless of course they find themselves pregnant at 17 and severely challenged to fulfill any personal dreams they might have had.
I know I’m rambling, but I just hate the situation so much and don’t know what to do about it. Sure, I vote, but that doesn’t count for much these days when there are more stupid mother fuckers with the right to vote than I can shake a stick at. I’d volunteer for a candidate if I thought there was anything I’d be asked to do besides pass out fliers – not high on my list of fun or useful activities.
One bright spark: when I visited my dad this summer, that old Republican told me he, too, was disgusted by what passes for being a Republican these days. He delivered this golden nugget to me by telling me how unpleasant he finds it to be around his siblings these days, because they are the worst kind of knee-jerk, Fox news-loving drones who do no more than spew the latest anti-Obama crap. “They don’t think,” he said. “Sometimes I actually agree with the Democrats.” This from a man who told me when I was 15 that when I “grew up, [I’d] be a Republican, too.” I’ll cling to that.
4 comments:
Long time reader, very very infrequent commenter.
Just wanted to let you know that you aren't alone in these thoughts. I completely agree with what you're saying.
As a matter of fact someone I know linked to a Fox and Friends transcript from Monday where they compared Jimmy Buffett to Hugo Chavez. Buffett gave a concert in Gulf Shores, AL to support the businesses that are suffering because of the oil spill. During the concert, he said that it was caused by issues in the Bush administration (likening it to having Dracula running the blood bank). They seriously compared that statement with Chavez calling Bush the Devil.
That kind of thinking scares me to death.
Katy in DC
No kidding. Since when did self imposed ignorance become a virtue? Since when did improving our situation become a threat? Maybe since forever...it seems humans DO have a propensity to stick with a known negative rather than risk change in hopes for a better tomorrow. But we have to pull together and stick to that hope for the better tomorrow - even when the extreme conservatives and their "manipulation by ignorance and fear" tactics make us want to throw up our hands and become expatriots like so many good Americans-turned hopeless Americans have in the past.
If this means passing out fliers, I say pass them. I knocked on doors in the last election for Obama - in the most conservative neighborhood in our town. It may have helped - our state went blue! But every day it is a renewed battle against ignorance. It seems like ignorance could win. And that scares me. But we gotta fight, somehow. If not, we are part of the problem, NOT part of the solution.
Fight, girl. Keep it up.
It's alright. I don't even consider myself a GOP anymore. Of course, I'm not no Democrat, but the GOP isn't representative of a lot of my views. Also, I can't forgive them for Sarah Palin. I should probably call local headquarters and formally resign, but then I wouldn't get to vote in the primary.
Wish me luck for when I go to my high school reunion this weekend, where I am bound to be surrounded by packs of rabid Republicans. If I hear the word "Arizona" uttered in any conversation, I am going to just walk away. Straight to the bar, probably.
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