Tag Archives: Right-wing politics

Trump Inauguration and Our Division

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Yesterday, something happened in my country I never thought would happen.  Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President.  This has put the “right wing” (conservative) of the political spectrum in complete power of our government leaving those of us who support the “left wing” (liberal) scratching our heads in bewilderment.  This election has brought to a head a culture war that has building steam for decades and now the venom is so intense that I don’t see any immediate solution other than to hope that the fractious Republican Party and their mentally unstable leader will continue the internal meltdown that has been going on for decades.  And that would be a Pyrrhic victory as our country desperately needs a viable conservative voice.

I am one of those who has always been cursed with seeing at least two sides to every conflict, and sometimes more.  In this intense battle of collective wills, I’m passionately behind the liberal cause but I have been in the conservative camp for about half of my life and can see things their way.  I see that they have every right to see things through what I would call their very narrow view point but we liberals have the right to see things through our less narrow view point.  And here is where religion has gotten involved as conservatives have an enthusiastic support from evangelical Christians and their interpretation of their faith grants them the firm conviction that their view of the world, including politics,  is “right” because God is leading them.  I owe a lot to this background of religious fervor and understand the ardor.  It provides the basis of my very deep current faith though that ardor of my youth has taken a different direction which allows me to see that God is “big” enough to include different perspectives on this and all matters.  (God is so “big” that words like “big” are foolish!”)

Being right is such a pyrrhic victory.  For “right” is always determined by an external reference point and eventually one group’s definition of the term conflict gets in the way with another’s.  (Sounds a bit like marriage huh?)  Any group, any cause that gets too carried away with being “right” brings to my mind Isis; for there we have an example of what happens when “right” is carried to an extreme.  Isis has absolutely no doubt that “god” is leading them.

Here I have not provided an answer.  That is because I don’t have one. And that brings to my mind the profound wisdom of T. S. Eliot:

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. (Four Quartets)

 

The Real God of Congress–Getting Re-elected

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The following is a copy of a letter I will send to one of my state’s senators, Mark Pryor:

I was disappointed with your vote on the gun legislation earlier this week. I have no doubt that you are a good man, a “good ole Arkansas boy” like I am, like your wonderful father raised you to be, but I feel strongly that you have surrendered to the god of, “What will get me re-elected?” I know as well as you do what the right thing to do was but you caved in as many good men and women did. If I’d been in your position, it would have not been easy to “do the right thing,” as the pressure must be immense. But the real pressure comes down to that God that most of Congress bows to, “What will get me re-elected?”

But, I will not vote for you again. And a lot of friends of mine will not vote for you again. I don’t know who we will vote for but it will not be for you. I will even vote for a Republican if he/she demonstrates conviction and ability to thwart that demon of “re-electability.” We need people who believe in something and “re-electability” is absolutely nothing.

The best example I have seen of this courage was demonstrated by a Republican governor last fall. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey jeopardized his entire political future to accept the assistance of President Obama in the aftermath Hurricane Sandy, right on the brink of the Presidential election. He has not been “crucified” yet…at least not fatally. But many in his party vehemently oppose him as he did not bow to political pressure on that issue and was seen on video and in photo’s “palling around” with the man Republican extremists hate with a passion. I will never forget the demonstration of courage that Governor Christie offered.

I hope that you serve out your term with more integrity than you demonstrated on this issue. And, given your parentage, I know that you have it in you. I know the pressure is immense but we pay you to handle that pressure. And you know what the right thing to do is. Let me re-emphasize that I’m sure you are a good man. You would have to be given who your father is. But good men and women do not always do “good” things. But you and your colleagues are in a position where “the good” needs to have priority in your motivations, not something as lame and immature as re-electability.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

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Chicken Little’s apocolyptic warning never ceases to be relevant.  For, anytime a natural disaster such as earthquakes or tornadoes threaten, the doomsayers crawl out from under their rocks and announce, “The end is nigh!  The end is night!  It is a sign of the end times!  Jesus is coming back soon!”  Glen Beck was one of the best at this, as apocalyptic doom was a stable of his chart-laden dog-and-pony show.

Now sooner or later one of them is going to be right.  For example, a mutant gene could run amok and wipe us all out.  Or some right-wing crazy with a nuclear weapon could annihilate us all.  The heavenly bodies, all so routinely dancing with intricate precision, could suddenly hiccup and this simple little planet could be smashed into the cosmic gruel it used to be.  And, the scientists say that one of these days this universe will stop spinning, will grind to a halt, and sink back into oblivion anyway.  See, we are doomed!  We are all going to die, individually and collectively!  And, when it does happen, someone will be shrieking, “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  At that time I hope they all feel good about themselves and get appropriate tv news and talk-show coverage!

But these apocalyptic nut jobs just need to get a life and stop terrorizing people with their cosmic insecurity.  You see, this is all about death and death is something we have a life time to prepare for.  Someone in mental health has noted, “Those that are afraid of death are afraid of life.”  The issue in death, the “sting of death” spoken of in the Bible, is just our fragile ego sensing its finitude and realizing that it could be snuffed out like a candle at any moment and will, at some point, meet that fate.

And I’m not ready for my own little “flickering candle” to be snuffed out.  I want it to continue to burn brightly for years.  But, I’ve accepted that this is not going to happen and have determined that the best thing to do is to accept this fact, to trust my Source which gave rise to me in the first place, and to busy myself taking care of hearth-and-home and trying to offer something to the world.  It would be self-indulgent and spiritually immature to constantly bemoan my death or the death of the species.

Thousands of years ago Aeschylus noted this insanity, simply noting, “The gods created disaster so that the people will have something to talk about.”