Letters to the Editor
-
Thank you, Wil
for this little gem which as clearly and concisely gives us a microcosm of our country today.
I fear this cold civil war we are living with can never be resolved....unless liberals totally capitulate to the madness around us...and cede the battle to the dark side.
Alas, that is not a viable auction, and so there will be those who refuse to take a principled stand will claim that there is extremism on both sides.
Our families are being torn apart. Our country is divided. And every day is a battle for sanity....because it is just too damn easy to win by appealing to the worst instincts of a frightened people.
-
Bill O'Reilly has claimed my dad, too
And it grieves me every day. My formerly fun-loving, loose-living, country-club Republican dad now firmly believes every spittle-flecked utterance that comes out of O'Reilly's mouth. We don't talk politics, ever, because our basic disagreement about the nature of this country are now so profound that there's just no point.
-
Merry Christmas
I try to avoid holidays with my husband's family because of all the right-wingers there. Last Thanksgiving my sister-in-law, who is in her 50s and believed ending Terri Schiavo's life support was murder, got into a screaming argument with my husbands 80-something aunt who believes people have a right to determine what sort of end of life care they receive. This is the same sister in law who screamed at the same aunt about 20 years ago for buying one of her kids a hand held electronic adventure game that had D&D in the title then turned around two years later and it was fine if her kids played those sorts of games and whose teenage son wore a graphic tee shirt featuring an aborted fetus to a family 4th of July picnic and the same woman who screeched at my husband that I am not a Catholic, that she knows Catholics, and I am not a Catholic, despite my never having received a certified letter from the Vatican stating my Confirmation had been revoked. Scumbuckets. At the family gatherings I attend I do not participate in discussions about controversial issues but I am still the families Uncle Wayne, the member who is shunned. Literally. Shunning is an in thing among many fundies and for several years this sister-in-law and her husband shunned me in their own home and elsewhere. One year I did interject when their 22 year old son, who was then a senior at Purdue University, lept all over the same elderly aunt defending the sale of flesh shredding bullets to the general public and I was being a smart-ass toward him, very sarcastic, and the sister-in-law attacked me to the point where she was physically threatening, screaming about how she is raising her son, who, apparently, dragged the umbilical cord off to Purdue with him. Her mother defended her by saying she was menopausal but she's apparently been menopausal for 25 years now. I swear when the older relatives all pass away I will never attend holdidays at their home ever again and if I or my spouse ever start showing the sorts of Mad Elephant disease demonstrated by the parents in this story I hope my children do the merciful thing and Kevorkian me.
-
Speaking of "Pod People"...
...are WE next? My fear is that we are not immune to the same forces that drive people toward the political right with the passage of time. Is it, in fact, the effect of fear engendered when, owing to whatever success we achieve in life, it results in having "something to lose"?
So, what if Wil's Dad from the '70s could come speak to the current-day Rick Wheaton? (Sort of a personal experience of "Yesterday's Enterprise" --- sorry, had to get in a Trek reference!)
Thanks for the touching article, Wil.
-
Christmas thanks
Dear Wil,
I need to add my thanks for your writing. It resonates. It's a real gift.
Merry Christmas dude and thanks for bringing a tear of laughter and reflection to my eye.
- a guy perhaps a bit like you (and add a decade),
Chris
-
The Sixties All Over Again
I appreciate the sentiments in this article, and dislike Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh almost as much as the author does. But before we liberals credit the invention of divisiveness to Rush and Bill we ought to look back. After all, they didn't start the "war" on Christmas. It is surprising to me that people would file lawsuits to get Nativity scenes removed from public areas and even try to get "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and expect conservatives to just shrug it off. I am a rare bird I guess, a liberal Christian from the Deep South, but even I am a bit uncomfortable with what looks like a concerted attempt to remove all traces of religion from public life.
I was just an infant in 1968, but my understanding is that things were pretty divided then. It's just that the liberals had the upper hand. We had people burning bras and throwing jars of human blood against public buildings. Businessmen were selfish royals, police were fascists, and we were told never to trust anyone over the age of thirty. Meanwhile this over thirty set, which was composed of World War II veterans and Depression children, was quietly building the economy and society we have now. Liberals may not have liked these people, but they created most of the great corporations and institutions that pulled us out of the doldrums of the 70s and gave us a more vibrant nation in the 80s and 90s.
Again, I would never defend Rush and Bill. But liberals had their Jane Fondas and Abbie Hoffmans and John Lennons, none of whom were kind to their opposition in their day. Things burned out in the 70s with Sid Vicious and Ted Kennedy -- people taking a good idea to its sterile limit, leaving the public behind. Rush and Bill will do the same. People thought Joe McCarthy would never end.
The main thing liberals need to remember is that the worst conservatives have to offer is no worse than the worst liberals have to offer. For every Hitler there is a Lenin. For every Rush Limbaugh there is a Huey Long. The name of the game is tolerance. If the majority is tolerant, the imbiciles will fade away. I can't see how you get to tolerance by hating the far right, as foolish as they may be.