Letters to the Editor
AJCalhoun
Published Letters: 959 Editor's Choice: 127
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Mett the New Boss, Same as Yada Yada...
[Read the article: Bye-bye, bullies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There can be no question that it has been immensely satisfying to watch the creepiest, ugliest bunch of Dem-bashing, utterly oblivious right-wingers go down in flames. As a Republican I can maybe feel even better than most here at Salon, because it is as though an enormous and very visble cancerous growth has been removed from my ideological soul, not to mention my American essence. I can breathe better already.
However...the bullying from over on the left has begun already, and is every bit as unattractive and unproductive, potentially, as what has been going on with the right for the past quarter century and especially the past 12 years. It didn't happen in a vacuum and neither is the instant placing of "demands" on the part of countless lefty special interests, each proclaiming to represent the Democrat "base." The very use of that word (base) has become onerous, and to hear it from the lips of those who would now dictate to their potential benefactors (in the interest of all of us) gives me that sensation I get when the elevator stops between floors.
From Planned Parenthood to Organized Labor to the ACLU to...well, you name it, it's issued its orders. Never mind that the new gang has an ambitious First Hundred Days agenda in place already and it addresses most of the issues which have been made into "demands" by various left-leaning organs of progressivism. The ugly, bully-like statements from each of these groups echos the attitudes of Big Oil, Coporate thugs and the Religious Right, which pretty much drove the Republican party into the ground while insisting each was a part of that party's "base", causes a mild nausea and vague anxiety. Am I the only one feeling this?
I don't want to see our new strength (and by "our" I refer to that which belongs to all Americans and of which we have been deprived for the past 12 to 25 years - responsible and self-respecting leadership in both houses)eroded by 1960's style lodging of "demands" by the entitlement-minded left, any more than I would welcome "demands" from the fascist-inclined right, as we have already had ample opportunity to observe how effective this can be when applied against political ambition. We (yes, we - I know I helped) elected earnest, honest, and inner-directed people to replace the demagogues who had rolled in their own shit in the pursuit of power and control - and, I repeat, that did not take place in a vacuum. The Peanut Gallery is going to have to abandon Jim Webb-like rhetoric such as "We will hold their feet to the fire", a reference rooted in the practice of torture and in the same league with Webb's "..knock their soft teeth down their...throats" remark referring to how easy he felt it was to bully liberal Democrats. They didn't cave in to Webb and his ouvre. Let's hope they don't feel any more of an obligation to the bullies who live in their own basement - where the "base" belongs.
A word to the wise guy over there on the left: shut up and let "your" candidates work a little before you start lodging demands and making threats. It's disingenuous as best; at worst, it sounds a lot like what we just flushed out of power. So yeah, just shut up...and dance.
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Maybe the South Needs the Democrats?
[Read the article: Do Democrats need the South?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is THAT possible? Is it possible that the moral imperative which the Democrats claim to possess could benefit we benighted people of the south? Probably yes, a lot of us might. "The south", as Brother Dave Gardner, used to like to say, "May not always be right, but by God, we ain't never wrong!" This article offends, even when Schaller has his facts straight, because they are only cited, it seems, to offer as proof that the south is a disposable region. And had Jim Webb not eked out a narrow win over that fool George Allen, Democrats would not now own both houses of Congress, but it DID happen, and close don't count 'cept in horshoes and hand grenades. He WON! He won because a few more than half the voters voted for him. This is SIGNIFICANT.
No wonder the Democratic party, which once owned the south, is now an object of derision and distrust. With people like Schaller ready to launch a second Civil War to detach the south entirely from his beloved northeast, midwest and west, the only reason to even tolerate the existence of us bunch of hillbillies, Kluxers and inbred stumpjumps is because it gives people like Schaller someone to look down upon from his ivory tower. Your contempt for part of the nation while embracing the rest of it explains the continued presence of Confederate flags and "Fergit Hell!" bumper stickers, let alone southerners voting for the morally handicapped. Better the devil you know than the one who spits on you.
Way to kick off the new regime, dork. Just dismiss the people who stand to gain the most from your moral superiority, don't even bother to launch a mission down there, just keep on laughing up your sleeve at all of us down here below the Mason-Dixon, which line, of course, describes the northern border of the southern state of Maryland, as blue as they come. Smooth. No wonder the hoopies dislike ya'll so much. You are exactly what everyone hates the most: a self-important, arrogant elitist - and a god damned bigot, to boot.
I worked hard to persuade countless fellow Republican southerners to pull themselves out of the gutter by pulling down on the lever in the voting booth, and enough of them did to give us Jim Webb, Martin O'Malley and a few others. This is the thanks I get. This is the reason I'm still a Republican.