So what's the difference?, or, The ravings of a simpleton... [View All]

[JustJoe]

What does it matter if the Repubs or Dems win the White House
or the CA gov race or any office? What's the difference between
the most basic Democrat and the most basic Republican? And what
does that have to do with how people are relating to other people
here?

My father was a quiet Repub and my mother was a little quieter
Democrat. I dont remember being forced to think along any
political lines, not blatantly. My first politics was
Ike and Stevenson. Ike was OK, but kind of off, kind of distant
or something. Stevenson was more interesting to me. He seemed smarter,
smart, he had a sense of humor, he spoke as if he were enjoying
himself. I could imagine sittiong around talking to him about
tjhings. Ike was OK but I couldnt imagine being in an interesting
conversation with him.

Then there was JFK and Nixon. Nuff said. And the best of the
bunch since then to me were Carter and Clinton. Johnson was eaten by
the war and a cutthroat wheeler-dealer to his roots, but even then
in his major non-war efforts he showed he cared about poor people and
people of color (at least in this country). And maybe he was just
a good enough man to be properly torn apart finally by that war.

On the Repub side were Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush & Bush. I
wouldnt want to have a conversation with any of them. I
wouldnt want to be friends with any of them. I cant imagine
connecting with any of them on a deep human level.

What makes a Republican a Republican? What makes a Democrat
a Democrat? I mean fundamentally. Down there in the core.

To me, it's this simple: Democrats care about other people
more. I wont say Republicans dont care about other people
but when push comes to shove if it's a matter of money vs.
people, as it so often is in politics, the Republican
will grab that money and squeeze the people by the neck.

That is so simplistic, so unfair, and has so many exceptions
that it might be a kind of a sin to even say it. If I was arguing
against myself I could counter with exceptions and qualifications.
But I'm still saying it because that's the fundamental difference I
see.

Democrats care more about people--other people, besides ourselves--
than the Republicans do.

That's why it's important, isnt it---that some Democrat get
in the WH and get those other awful people out of there? It's
not just ideology, it's not just intelligence (Bush is dumb as
mud but some of those Republicans are plenty brilliant), it's not
only race or gender (at least a few women and blacks are in power
now), or even money exclusively--look at all the millionaire Hollywood
liberals.

Democrats care more about poor people, about working people,
about gay people, about minorities, about women, about people
who arent Americans and who live in other countries.

And yet you'd never know it by what's been going on here.
Some of it is no doubt outside disruptors, but the enemy
seems to me to be more likely within. Within where we forget
why we care so much about this candidate or that candidate.
Within where we hook into our candidate or issue and forget
why it matters, get our ego hooked in there so deep that it's
more like yer pa and my pa stuff than who's going to be the
most important and powerful person in the world.

Within where we forget that at the heart of all this
frantic passion is that basic fact--we care more about
other people. And if that is why it's important--to get
somebody in there who cares, for God's sakes--then why
isn't that just as important here? And now?

If we want somebody in there who is going to fight for us,
for the people, who's going to rise above himself or herself for
the common good, then what are we waiting for as far as
putting aside our childish selfishness ourselves right
now? Why cant we live up to the ideals of the candidates
we are so ready to struggle with passion to help win the
office of the President? Otherwise, if we just put ourselves
and our own hurt and rage first all over the place here,
it just seems like such a betrayal of everything we say
we believe in, such a degradation of everything we say we are.