Fools rush in, so here I am.
Very glad to be unhappy
I can't win, but here I am
More than glad to be unhappy
- Lorenz Hart
To be a liberal blogger in our current political environment is to live in a constant state of seething anger.
Every election cycle I say to myself, "This can't possibly get any worse." Yet it does. Every time a Republican candidate for political office, or one of their fearless leaders in the House or Senate, or Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck opens his/her mouth and says something utterly untrue or ridiculous, I think to myself, "No one could possibly believe that." Yet they do. By the millions, it seems.
I recently spent a week up on the North Shore of Lake Superior, a slice of Paradise that was unknown to me before I moved to Minnesota. I assiduously avoided reading the news or even scanning the web for headlines. It was blissful!
I was so much happier! Not just because I was on vacation, but because I was not immersing myself in the sordid, tragi-comical world of the U.S. political culture, and trying to bear witness to the daily assault on truth, fact and reason that passes for conservative discourse.
This week, as I began to catch up on the news and jot down notes and thoughts for my blog, I became aware that my mood was deteriorating. Yesterday, I bit both my daughters' heads off for no good reason - a sure sign of inner turmoil. Fortunately, I was able to make things right with apologies, hugs and kisses. But it sure drove home the point.
To be totally engaged in today's issues and to commit oneself to the kind of change this country needs is a painful endeavor - at least for someone like myself who tends to get rather intense about these things. I am not known for my Obama-like cool. It is literally bad for my health. Yet I keep at it.
Why? Because I am self-deluded enough to believe that I can have a miniscule influence on our nation's political and social discourse; and to believe that if I send even the tiniest ripples of truth and reason out into the foul sea of lies and slander that American politics has become, maybe - just maybe - it will make a difference to somebody.
Yesterday, when I recommended a boycott of Target because they are using corporate money to run political ads, several readers responded by saying, "Boycotts rarely work." Perhaps. But doing nothing never works. That much I am sure of.
It helps to see a few politicians on the left expressing their outrage and calling out the Republicans for their hypocrisy and cynicism. Bernie Sanders gave a blistering speech on the floor of the Senate the other day about the Republican plan to repeal the estate tax. The full text can be foundhere, but this is the gist of it:
...[L]et me make a contrast here with regard to Republican philosophy. They believe that it is a good idea to give a $32.7 billion tax break to one family worth $86 billion, but when it comes to providing $35 billion for an emergency extension of unemployment benefits to some two million Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, the Republicans are just not there. One family gets almost $33 billion in tax breaks, two million working class Americans get nothing. Maybe that makes moral sense to somebody, but not to me.
I recommend reading the speech in its entirety. It's a very strong argument - and one the GOP seems incredibly adept at deflecting.
In the meantime, I must try harder to cultivate some cool.
For more from Bare Left, please visit: http://bareleft.blogspot.com