"Dime a que árbol te arrimas y te diré quien eres." Roughly, tell me what tree's shade you seek and I will tell you who you are.
Abuelita was full of old sayings. Whenever she saw you doing something not quite good, she had a saying for it. And to be sure you "got it" she would repeat the same saying over and over whenever you were around her. Sometimes she would not say it directly to you, but if you were in the room she would say it so you would hear it. I could be watching TV or talking to someone else and out of the blue, I would hear her say one of them. I would glance over and she would be looking elsewhere, not missing a beat on her rocking chair. Creak-creak, creak-creak.
This particular saying was a warning that to be a good person, associate with good people. I was a teenager at the time and she apparently did not approve of some of my friends, or simply was passing on old knowledge to steer me in the right direction. She cared.
Lately and often, I hear her high-pitched but soft voice come from the back of my head, and I even hear the rocking chair, as I see what is happening with the Republican party.
I've written about it on a few notes in the past, here and elsewhere, but with less simple grace and eloquence than she had.
I've been politically aware since the late 60s, and even though I was always liberal, and I was opposed to the policies of the Republican party, I never saw the degree to which many of their supporters now resort to lying, fear-mongering, threats, and even physical violence as they do today. It's in the news - you've seen it.
Yesterday a new Harris Poll came out that looked at Republicans' views on President Obama. This is not the first poll to report these amazing findings. Here are the results:
- 67 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is a socialist.
- 57 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is a Muslim.
- 45 percent of Republicans agree with the "Birthers" in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president".
- 38 percent of Republicans say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did".
- 24 percent of Republicans say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."
What reality do these people live in?
- They don't even know what a socialist is, frequently equating them with fascists and communists.
- The belief that he is Muslim is clearly based on his skin color and the fact that his father was a Muslim, even though he converted to Christianity when young, way before being Muslim was so suspect to many. It is also a justification for a belief that he is "not one of us", which is a racist sentiment.
- That he was born in Kenya, even though a Hawaii birth certificate exists and has been made public, and even respected conservatives have acknowledged, is again a veiled racist motive.
- When they equate him with Hitler (Hitler!!!), it shows how little they know what Hitler did.
- And the Antichrist belief can only be attributed to the evangelicals who profess that the end is near, and again it has racist overtones.
Why do these people believe this?
Well, many of them are downright racists, whether or not they publicly acknowledge it. They have not had a national movement that they could belong to in a long time, since the times of George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, and Jesse Helms (all "Dixiecrats" whose heyday was in the 60s after the Civil Rights struggle). But they have been simmering in their bigotry all these years, and now they get a national platform through a media machine that elevates sensationalism and magnifies the molehill into Everest.
Many others, besides these troglodytes, are easily-influenced low-information country bumpkins, clinging to their guns and religion because of fear of change. They are also frequently at the command of bizarre evangelical cult leaders, many of whom lead lives in contrast to their pious views (Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, et al). Gullible, but generally innocent. They are akin to the Taliban.
Another main current that I see are the fierce individualists. These say they are intensely self-reliant and don't need any 'gubmint' telling them what to do. Some of them are fed up with politicians (there is merit to that) and have decided that there are no solutions to that problem (there are). Some of them have been "wronged" by government (e.g. imminent domain, regulatory laws). Many of them believe government has grown too big and is delving in areas it shouldn't (some merit to that too), however, they don't see the dichotomy when it comes to issues such as a woman's right to choose, equal rights for gays, separation of church and state, etc.
Then there is the set that follows the Libertarian credo blindly, again with exceptions when convenient. These are anarchists to a point. Even though they don't admit it or want to acknowledge it, their ends lead to places like Somalia, where the strong are in brutal charge and the weak are at their mercy. These are the folks that complain about the free-loaders and the lazy people, and the ones who take advantage of "the system". Sadly, there are those who do that, but in reality they are such a small percentage in number and in fiscal effect that to attack them is like flicking off an ant on your arm while standing in a nest of vipers. But the sensationalist media happily showcase the obviously despicable. These folks carelessly ignore those whose misfortunes make them rely on the public trough, choosing instead to focus on the parasites. This is a very un-Christian stance. There will always be the lazy and the freeloaders; but these government programs they vow to dismantle are not designed for them - if the lazy were the only reason for public programs to exist, they wouldn't. Reasonable people would not support them either. These people would throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And this is the worst part: all these factions are being controlled by the savvy corporations and Wall Street, whose only aim is to make money. Greed drives this movement from behind the curtain while playing the Mighty Wurlitzer. The Wizard does not care about these peoples' needs; they are merely tools to their ends. These puppet-masters own these unfortunates through the immense power that unbridled capitalism affords them. Ever since the dismantling of regulation and oversight of market forces, at the behest of Saint Ronnie (Reagan) and followed by Gingrich et al, they have craftily shoe-horned themselves into think-tanks, bought and consolidated media outlets, and carefully framed the issues while playing to the fears of these people. With their vast cash reserves, they can buy politicians. And now, the recent Supreme Court ruling gave them even more direct power over election outcomes. It is truly sad that these people, many of whom base their ideas on arguably worthy ideals, are duped into working against their own interests.
Now back to Abuelita and her tree.
I am not painting all Republicans in these putrid colors. I have close family members and friends who are sane, good people, and are also Republicans. I admire some of the principles the GOP stands for, like fiscal conservatism. It is a necessary control on unbridled leftist tendencies to sell the family jewels to help Junior cross the street safely.
But I womder where they have gone on vacation while their party is hijacked by people with such aims. The ideals of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are buried by the vitriol and hate that now cloak their party. As a result, the party base has retreated to the South and rural states - an untenable long-term strategy. Their answer to everything the Democrats (who were legally elected with large majorities) are trying to do to get the country back on its feet is NO. And the country is in need of solutions at this time, with a severe economic crisis domestically and two expensive and difficult wars overseas, as well as a dangerous outlook brewing in places such as Iran and North Korea, and of course the rest of the Muslim world as a result of the Israel/Palestine conflict. In the past, the art of compromise and cooperation moderated lawmaking and gave us stability, growth, and world prestige and power. But these mad dogs have taken the GOP into a corner and all they can do is snarl. Country First? It seems a cruel joke now.
I beg my sane Republican friends and family to get some spine and rid their party of these parasites. Go to your precinct meetings and marginalize these people. Tell other sane party members about the harm they are doing your party and your country.
The Republican tree can have some nice shade, but it shades you badly now.
[crossposted on my Facebook page for my Republican FB friends and family - posted here to preach to the choir]