William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene I (Shylock)
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
The four hundred years since the appearance of Shylock, a creation from the mind and pen of an author whose name I am barely qualified to type, have not been kind to him. To be compared to Shylock in our modern era would not normally be considered a compliment. Yet Shakespeare reserved one of his better monologues for this character; a speech, nay a plea for understanding from a man few thought worthy of that amount of compassion.
Shylock is, however, much more than a greedy and selfish man demanding his pound of flesh. He speaks as one from a persecuted minority and all that entails. He pleads to be heard and treated as a man, just like any other. More than that, he was judged by one in no position to judge him, and robbed not just of his profit, but of the monies he had advanced against his better judgement. Shylock is a complex character.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
It is common, some would say that it is but human, to paint those we oppose and who oppose us, as lesser. Indeed a very good case could be made that, in some respects, our political opponents are lesser. Not less human, not less worthy of all the same rights and privileges we would take for ourselves, but lacking in something less easily defined. Empathy, compassion ... it is not unheard of to hear at least some members of our society described as sociopaths. I may even have been guilty of leveling that charge myself.
One can look at examples such as the actions and speech of the Scott Walkers, Dick Cheneys and Ted Cruz' of this world, and point to their venality, their lies that seek to disadvantage the poor in order that the rich may be further enriched, and make a very strong, almost unarguable case that they lack the basic decency that is a key component of humanity. It is a measure of a society that it cares for its elderly and sick, that it educates its young and seeks to provide opportunities for all as equally as can be managed.
By this test most industrialized nations have work to do, and America has more work to do than most. Despite the much-vaunted, and valued "freedoms", the reality for so very many is not living up to the hype.
We live in a time when the sharp contrasts in political thought and opinion are as divided as they have been since the Civil War. We have passed through a time when the income inequality was smaller, and the opportunities for ordinary folk were greater. It was a time, fueled by the Socialist policies most of the people are still very proud of, were implemented. When Trades Unions were at their most effective. When wages and productivity rose, and America built a nation, and a middle-class that was the envy of the world. I'm confident that all was not rosy in the garden, but compared with the gradual dismantling of the protections that has happened since around 1980, it was a time of optimism.
This was accomplished by Democrats and Liberals. There is not a single advance I can think of, that helped ordinary working people of all races and colors, that was not opposed by Republicans at the time. They have always been the party of wealth and power. Yet it was also a time when the wealthy were not as obscenely rich, nor as powerful as they are now. Republicans did help with some of the gains that were made. Democrats could "work across the aisle" and be effective. Republicans opposed the policies from a principled, if incorrect (my opinion) standpoint and they would not be welcome in the Grand Old Party today.
Yet if we are to maintain any real semblance of our current political system, and make it work for the people, we have to work with those who will oppose us. Not the aforementioned trio. People like that are beyond redemption in any sense of involvement in public life. They need to be rooted out, exposed and cut adrift; and we need the Republicans to do it. Politicians have lost control of the political process. They have ceded the power, by and large, to those who have the wealth to corrupt them. Part of that is their own damned fault. They make the laws, they appoint the judges, they take the money and it has corroded their souls, and the country with it.
Democrats and Republicans both need to accept that they have played a role in this, a role they are still playing, because until they do they will not find the resolve necessary to make the required corrections. If they ever will.
There is no equivalence here. This is not a case of "both sides doing it". One side has done it, and that side is the red side. The fault that can be attributed to the blue opponents is broadly that they didn't do enough to halt the slide into Oligarchy, and they are still, with a few shining exceptions, not doing enough.
In the end it is my firm belief that we will win through. We will win not because we have the policies right now that will make the difference, and certainly not because we have the elected representatives with the vision and drive to see the battle to its conclusion, although we have a few. No, we will win because we are right, and because we are better than our opponents. Sounds arrogant and presumptive, and probably lots of other things so to demonstrate why we are better I want to show you an example.
Earlier Annettek published this Diary. It was an accurate critique of Chris Christie. Just one of many, well written and presented, and justly well received. Christie is a man whose world has, or is about to come crashing down around his ears, and he brought it all on himself.
Few among us have much sympathy for the travails of Governor Christie, and he doesn't deserve any. He has blustered and bullied is way up the greasy conservative pole, and now the coefficient of corruption, with the help of some Democratic gravity, is sliding his ass back down. Apart from the specifics of his case, this might just be another example of Republican mendacity finally catching up with the perp.
This Diary was, however, remarkable for something else. Something that surprised me on first reading, and gave me pause for considerable thought. The User we know as HoundDog chimed in with this comment. HoundDog is a well-known and well-respected Diarist. He has been very critical of Governor Christie in the past, and I fully expect he will be in the future. This, however, was something different and it struck a chord as it tugged at something I have been thinking about for a while. Here is the comment in full and you can read the whole thread behind the link:
I don't know anna. I barely know my thought.
what are your? I just hate seeing people suffer. I felt bad for him during that White House Correspondents Dinner even though I thought Joel McCale was hilarious and his send up of Christie's response to Bridgegate was devastating.
I wrote that post about Christie being gracious about taking a joke so I could slip in the dagger of a complete transcript of Joel McCales stinging jokes which some though were just downright mean, and I actually caught serious flak from a couple people here for showing sympathy for this "dastardly criminal who deserved what he got."
So now I feel sort of embarrassed and like I should apologize for wincing when I imagine him suffering.
Heck, I get an ill feeling when they put down dog with rabies. I can't help it. It doesn't mean I don't support the decision. Just that I remember that used to be a puppy dog who is still inside there some place and who doesn't know what has and is happening.
Maybe I'm projecting because that's how I feel a lot of the time.
Whatever, so what are you thinking?
A committed liberal and progressive making such a remark was as astonishing as it was gratifying. HoundDog was not concerned for the political future of Chris Christie, but
he felt bad for the man. If it is your personal belief to wonder What Would Jesus Do? then as a Christian you would understand that you can hate the sin, but love the sinner. Christie invokes those feelings in people. Whether he does it by sleight of hand, or because there is something about him that reaches out, I do not know and it's not the point. The point is that as we are on the side of those who claim to care for and about people, it was really rather nice to see a fierce critic caring about the man.
That is what sets us apart. That is why we are different in a real and visible way. That is why we are better, and also why sometimes progress is slower than it otherwise might be. In other words, if we behaved more like Republicans we might get more done .... but at what cost to ourselves?
We can argue about the specifics of the example, and clearly some in that thread wanted to and took a different view. My point is that HoundDog voiced his finer feelings for the person that is Chris Christie. He isn't alone in his view that many Republicans are people too, we just have to remove form public life the ones who are not. We talk about how the Overton Window has shifted far to the right. There are specific policies and decisions that have allowed this to happen. If we can rid America of those who fail to display, maybe even fail to feel, any of the human emotions about suffering, then that window won't need much of a shove to start moving in the right direction.
That one comment, and a couple of the replies, reminded me why this English Socialist actually feels he has a political home in this place.
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