Several years ago, a pitiful stray cat came to our back door searching for food. He had been beaten badly so he trembled uncontrollably, much like a person with Parkinson’s disease and he was dirty and emaciated. He was too frightened to allow us to treat his wounds, but with patience and gentle words we persuaded him to eat a tray of food we placed on the porch. Much to our relief, he returned the following day and soon became a regular visitor, trudging up the steps three or four times a day searching for food, eating frequent meals because he was not well enough to eat more than a small portion at a time.
It took months to win his trust; much of that time was spent sitting on the porch talking to him while he sat at the bottom of the steps cleaning his paws. Eventually we established a comfort level that allowed us to touch him and occasionally pet him. Last fall we were thrilled when he found the courage to eat his meals inside our utility room, which made it easier to care for him on winter days when the weather was cold and rainy. Some days he lingered after eating his food, enjoying the warmth of the small room, resting on a bed we placed in the corner. Our hope was to make him a permanent member of the family, but he never felt comfortable enough to enter the house.
He showed up today, hungrier than usual, and because it was a beautiful day in southern California, I sat outside with him as he ate. I was pleased to see that his coat was clean and shiny, his once emaciated body now bordering on pudginess. He seemed perfectly content to sit at my feet, eating tuna and salmon with gusto.
As I watched him eating, I thought about the first time he walked into our lives, a small, injured cat that no one wanted. A less patient person might have considered him a lost cause, but today, I was thankful he was alive and I realized I had grown to love him very much. His story may seem insignificant to someone who is not an animal lover - especially when compared to the economic crisis that is consuming our country - but I feel his story contains a larger message for progressives because in its simplicity, it represents the compassion that drives many progressives, it speaks of the value we place on life, no matter how insignificant.
While I was watching him, I thought about the life I have lived, much of it spent feeding hungry animals, nurturing poor people, fighting cruelty and injustice, struggling against racial inequality, and championing a thousand humanitarian causes that have broken my heart more than once. And eventually that train of thought led me to affirm my beliefs in liberal values and to remember why I am a proud member of the progressive community.
I was not raised to be a ‘bleeding heart’ liberal; my roots were deeply embedded in the southern-fundamentalist-bigoted-hate filled-ignorance that played such a key role in driving our country to the edge of disaster.
On the night John F. Kennedy received the nomination to become the Democratic presidential candidate, I watched the convention on TV with my father. He seethed with anger and hatred, shouting at the television, condemning Catholics, liberals, and the ‘unpatriotic cowards’ who controlled the Democratic Party. But, I silently listened to Kennedy speaking, convinced I was listening to one of the greatest politicians to ever enter the American political arena. His message was a voice of hope that resonated inside my heart like nothing I had heard before. That was the night I became a liberal, and believe me, I was punished for making that decision. I became persona non grata in my own family at the ripe old age of fourteen, an outcast who was treated as an embarrassment; a disobedient child who was scorned for tarnishing the family image.
I’ve never regretted that decision even though it came with a heavy price. Like many of you, I have been bullied, threatened, and taunted because of my beliefs (including being called unpatriotic because I believed the Iraq war was unjust) but I never took the criticism to heart. I knew who I was and what I stood for; I knew I was willing to fight to protect my country till my dying breath, so the name-calling was meaningless (just a distraction that bullies have used since the beginning of time to demean those they can’t defeat).
My journey as a progressive has taught me that there are good conservatives, just like there are bad liberals; there are compassionate Republicans and too often there are cruel Democrats, but in general I have learned that conservatives tend to value wealth and objects more than people, while liberals cherish all types of life, no matter how insignificant. Conservatives tend to view other people as extensions of their own egos, seeing people only in the context of how they can be used, while progressives champion individual rights willing to trust each individual to determine his or her own fate.
I know it is unpopular to be called a progressive in some circles. That is because conservatives successfully demonized the word ‘liberal’ by corrupting the meaning of compassion and empathy. Their motives were not altruistic; they redirected public attention from their unbridled greed and corruption to gain power and fill their bank accounts with tax payer dollars; once they gained control of the media, they changed the national focus from ‘the human cause’ to a host of degrading and intellectually bankrupt fiats that have been an embarrassment to our nation. Unfortunately, much of that deception was created in the name of Christianity, using the teachings of Jesus - who was the epitome of kindness - as a shield to fuel their unbridled greed and ambition. But no matter how it is packaged, hate will always be an abomination, greed will always be a vice that erodes the soul and corruption will forever destroy anything and everything it touches.
Compassion and empathy – the original building blocks of the Democratic Party - are the reasons I choose to be a progressive. I value life more than money; I care when people are starving, I am concerned when a mother in the ghettos doesn’t have enough money to care for her children and I am offended when people are forced to live in tents and elderly people are deprived of the medical care they need to survive old age with dignity and respect.
I even care about a stray cat that reminds me it is more important to be humane than it is to sell my soul for millions of dollars in corporate bonuses.
UPDATE: Thanks for the recs everyone. I'm overwhelmed by your kindness.
UPDATE II I'm a little overwhelmed by the beauty of the comments. Thank you for your kindness and thank you for sharing your stories. There is another cat that comes to my door each evening at 9 p.m.; she crawls up in my lap and rubs her face against my face and all of the bad in the world disappears. The odd thing about this story is that I've always been a dog person; but once I took one of these gentle little creatures under my wing, I've never looked back.