Monday, June 22, 2009

Decent and enlightened Republicans

I thoroughly enjoyed Leonard Pitts, jr.'s editorial this morning (republished in the Spokesman-Review) about what the Republican party was commencing to do wrong when it came to expanding its own base and trying to make that long climb back into power. Namely, being a little too prepared to continue to alienate what ought to be a natural constituency—African-Americans. His column is definitely worth reading for the anti-racist rant that is the message he puts forth. And his appeal to decent and enlightened Republicans to tell their party about what ought not a party platform any longer; precisely: using racial and racist overtones against this nation's first African-American president.

It brings to mind a quite clumsy and laughable letter published in the Coeur d'Alene Press of recent vintage, where the writer complained about the current administration in exactly the manner that Pitts had decried. Being happy with a GOP president who could balance a Dem Congress (but he was also white, wasn't he?), who "kept them safe" (not really); who only spent "millions" (that is around a few 0s off of what the last administration had actually spent) as opposed to Obama's trillions. But who wouldn't have been treated as both "racial and a radical." Well, let's put it bluntly, that racism was behind Rush Limbaugh's encouraging the GOP to go to the polls in open primary states and vote for Hillary Clinton. Had Clinton won the Dem nod on overtly racist votes; not necessarily would she have become president because the same racists would have been equally appalled at the idea that a woman might just ascend to the highest office of the land. Vote for the woman in the Dem field of presidential wannabes only because that "black man" scares the heck out of these people. And let us also put it bluntly that Dems weren't holding TEA Parties during the last administration because they were absolutely scared spitless of how they would get treated if they did. As indeed both radical and anti-American. They got that jammed in their collective faces anyway over the last 8 years for any number of reasons. So if the writer could claim now that Democrats were out protesting excess spending by the current administration; perhaps so. But it is also safe to say that they could more safely protest the current administration than they could have the last one. And that anyone on the political spectrum could more easily protest the current administration than they could have or would have the last one. Because, this administration at least is more democratic in nature. Even though it did have valid questions for the motivations of the TEA Party activists. Well now, it would be good for the writer to have gotten the Spokesman-Review and had a chance to read Pitts' editorial; that would answer a few questions. The GOP is infested with racist hold overs; they and the religious activists are about all that is left of the party's base. In short, the TEA Parties were driven in part by racism and radicalism. If the Dem president had been white, would there have been TEA Parties? Probably not. The last time there was a Dem majority in Congress and a Dem President—Bill Clinton, no TEA Parties were held at all. So, seems to me that what scared the heck out of these TEA Party participants and had them organizing their opposition to the current administration was indeed based on race. And TEA Parties weren't in vogue when this country was in more difficult times back in the 1930s when FDR got sworn into office. How about that. After all, an activist gvt was hard at work trying to bring an economically crippled nation back into full production. The same as now. FDR was all about excessive spending to put people back to work. The same as now. The GOP lack of gratitude for FDR's helping them to achieve a middle class and higher status would only appear decades after the fact. Unlike now. Afraid that unless the TEA Party participants can really prove otherwise, race was a factor in why they organized their protests.

But, I would like to offer a couple of corrections now as to Pitts concepts of conservatism: when racist "states' rights" proponnents get called "conservative," what's "conservative" about being a bigot? Christ was a Semite, people go to church to hear the teachings that initially came from a Semite; then they go out and demonstrate nothing but hate for anyone who doesn't look like them, think like them, hold a political or religious philosophy different from their own, or even behaves differently from how they behave. The people who proclaim themselves to be biblical literalists; yet do not value their own book so as to actually live up to its teachings in their own lives. The same people, ladies and gentlemen, who'd attack the enlightened and decent as "liberal." The time that pure hatred gets called "conservative" has to be scary to anyone. The time that "love your neighbor as yourself" an erstwhile Christian commandment if there ever was one gets attacked as "liberal," as though something nasty lay underneath it; that says a lot about what has become the radicalization of the GOP. Why would anyone truly conservative go against what he says he values most? Who's actions and behavior can only be destructive of the canons of his belief? He wouldn't. In short, someone who happens to be truly conservative would be both decent and enlightened. As of now, they truly don't exist among the GOP.

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