Just the ramblings of a person who cannot grasp why anyone is NOT a Democrat. (I'm in my late 50s and female and raised in the South, that's with a capital S.)
What I see happening in my country in the past years since Bush was "selected" is incredible in my eyes, but what's more incredible are the people who don't see anything bad happening to the country of my birth, the country I pledged allegiance to as a child, the country that my kin fought and died for in wars since it's beginning, the country that in my youth stood against the march of communism with ideals and ideas that really worked!
My Political Background so to speak
Dad and Mom were Dems who despised Ike and thought FDR and Truman were supermen. I campaigned for Wallace (really!); didn't like JFK but cried and cried when he was killed and didn't believe the Warren Comm; I never cared for LBJ (Texas is NOT the south to me, it's just Texas). I grew to hate the Vietnam war when I lost my fiance, not by death but by emotional trauma. I liked Nixon, liked that he got us the hell out of Vietnam, liked his global awareness and his intelligence, but mostly for getting us out of Vietnam, and I really thought Watergate was a sham, that Dems had done approx the same, but then at that time I didn't realize the "cover up" was the biggie in that. I thought Ford was just what he was, an unelected President and that bothered me a lot! I liked Jimmy Carter and disliked the press portrayal that he was an uncouth idiot, came to the conclusion that he was a good man in a bad town and not able to get much done in that environment. Reagan - I have a mentally retarded cousin who said it all; he called him "Actor Reagan." That's what he was to me ... all act. People seemed to ADORE him because he put his hand over his heart and cried at the national anthem. I do that too, but I most certainly do not have the credentials to lead this country. I came to conclusion that the Republican party liked Presidents who were like kings, a figure-head to send out on pompous occasions while the real running of the country was hidden from view. In one sense I was a Reagan hater cause I just grrrr'd when I saw him or Nancy on TV. Bush, not as bad as Reagan, but somehow came across as "shifty eyed." Clinton - I voted for Perot. I just went by general impression. And ... I proudly stated that I voted the MAN, not the party. That was back before I realized that it was Republicans that came up with that statement and they ALL voted party!
In my younger days I was very active in church, attended a Bible school, but married and became absorbed in trying to make a go of my marriage. I kept quite a few Christian friends and it was they that made me aware of the intense hatred of Bill Clinton. I had not voted for him, really knew little to nothing about him except that he was from Arkansas so figured he
wasn't that much. (I was way absorbed with bigger issues to care.) But listening to my Christian friends talk about Clinton in such hateful terms put me to looking and listening. In my job in the Fed gov't, I had the pleasure of being in on one telecon with Al Gore present. And he came across very funny, personable, very smart, etc. But then in public he was like a stick.
By 2000, I was so sick of all the Clinton crappola that I didn't really even care who won the election just so I would not hear any more blow job stories! But that's when I really got "wound up", torqued, dismayed at the loss of Democracy in my country, and I look back at that election as the beginning of the end of my country; but I still hope that we will survive the latest scam of the Republican party. 9/11 happened and Bush proclaimed that he now knew his mission as President. I thought to myself, well shit o'mighty, you should have had some idea of your mission 9 months ago; what WAS your mission for those 9 months??
What I really came to detest is all the "talk" of values
like as a Democrat I don't have any values. I have plenty of values and ONE of them is that I don't call a person my "friend" and secretly tape her telephone conversations as she confides her secret heartbreak to me. People tell me that I'm pro-homosexuality and I think to myself, well I'm as hetero as they come so I don't get it! I worked with several homosexual, gay, lesbian, whatever people chose to label them, and found no problem ... just expected them to "get out behind the woodpile" with their private doings the same as I'd expect of a heterosexual. I know what the Bible says but I really detest people "whipping out" the Bible on certain sins while they cruise right over the ones they're guilty of. Never cared for goody two shoes people!
People tell me that I'm pro-abortion when I'm not, I'm pro-choice. And as a woman, I think it is a VERY difficult choice AND I think that women are not given adequate information about the possible consequences. I mostly think that if it were MEN who carried the babies in their bodies, abortion would not be an issue! I think we need to look for new and creative ways to deal with "unwanted pregnancies."
.... the thing about the prayer in school and the Ten Commandments that people are bitching about ... I don't remember saying prayer in school and neither does my husband who is several years older. We sang some songs, said the pledge of allegiance. I was aware that kids were simply not learning as much in school, and who could miss the growing chaos on school grounds ... but I didn't attribute that to lack of prayer and still don't. In the South, it WAS a very commonly held belief (and I think it still is, but I'm not there any longer) that intergration would lower the level of education in order to accommodate those who had not been afforded the higher level of education. I think "school vouchers" is code for desegregation and I think that many people secretly think that it's the mixing of the black and white kids that led to all the disrespect of authority, followed by episodes of violence. As for the issue of The Ten Commandments, I have a whole huge rant on that .... posting rules doesn't equate to following rules.
As I got older and older, with fewer and fewer raging hormones, I came to believe that it was the TV that changed the lives of school aged children .... it did mine. My world came to include things and people that we never associated with; I saw and heard things that I had been protected from; and the content seems to be similar to water in that it seems to steadily go downhill. I mean, reality TV? If people want reality, turn the damn TV off!
As for sex in the White House, didn't care to hear anything about it .... didn't like it and wouldn't have been able to tolerate infidelity in my marriage (at least I don't think I would, never had the opportunity to test that theory out thank goodness). But quite frankly, I could at least understand the drive to copulate ... but I don't comprehend the desire to get more and more and more MONEY, to take from another for my own gain, to step on others to elevate myself.
The Big Issue For Me and Why I'm a Democrat - Racism in this country, racism that is "alive and well" but that "good people" deny having, racism that is spoken of using code words. I was raised by a bigot to be a racist, but being a woman I'm slightly more sensitive to be treated as "less than" someone else just cause. My country was founded using slavery; it prospered using slavery. It tried to put a patch on the issue with rule that blacks counted as one-fraction of a person. It patched the issue with emancipation. It patched the issue again with the civil rights campaign and the '60s changes. But we've failed to accurately and honestly and openly deal with the real issue of racism - what it does to people on the inside.
I think it was perhaps the issue of racism that was the leading reason I came to almost idolize Bill Clinton. He sees it, he grew up with it, he doesn't sweep it under the rug, he wants to find real ways to combat it, he sees the damage that it does to us all. At least, I think he does!
I voted for Kerry, but quite frankly, I don't think he was going to deal with racism in this country. BUT, Kerry would NOT have got us into Iraq; he got shot at enough to know that war should be the last resort; he doesn't walk around like a little bantee rooster thinking he can "whup up" on everyone when in reality, he will get his butt kicked. Kerry started off with a bang with his reply to those who criticized his "regime change" statement, but he sure finished with a fizzle! What a huge disappointment!
I'm looking and I'm hoping that a man of the people will rise to meet the challenges we now face in this country - I don't see him now. It may be time for a woman President ... as in Hillary. It seems obvious that we need and want a military leader, as in Clark. I'm still looking and hoping!
