For those of you despairing about the nasty tenor of elections today, the ugly partisanship of politics, the polarity of the press: Be happy you weren’t around in the 19th century.
Fox News vs. MSNBC? That was nothing. The early 1800s were known as the “Dark Ages of Partisan Journalism,” says Gil Troy, a history professor at McGill University. Too much talk about Cherokees? Big deal. The fight between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, in 1800, got so ugly that Abigail Adams despaired that the shenanigans could have “ruined and corrupted the minds and morals of the best people in the world.”
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"Jackson was accused of ...having an illegitimate marriage, because his wife, Rachel, had been divorced." / / / EDIT! / / / No, Jackson was accused of bigamy because his wife, Rachel, had NOT been divorced. And technically it was true since the paperwork was never completed.
I'm aging myself here, but during the coverage of the 1956 Democratic National convention, a delegate interviewed on camera said that the party would never nominate Stevenson because he had been divorced. Times change for most of us. Some folks refuse to change based on ideological dogmatism. That's why we have politics. Some even opposed participation in WWII, an event that as much as anything united the country.
You know what? I don't care about the 19th century. I'm tired of vicious bloggers spitting out words like, liar, hypocrite, traitor etc. all from the safety of their cellar. I'm tired of pols appearing in one location promoting a policy and then appearing in another denying they ever said it. I'm tired of juvenile cellar dwellers lambasting the poor as if they weren't even their fellow human beings. I'm sick of let them eat cake or the even more philosophically ridiculous, "it's my money." Does anyone even recognize how stupid that statement is. Your money? What like your air, your food, your earth.
It has gone beyond politics to become a death match between those who want to share existence to those who want to own it. It really shouldn't matter who wins the Presidency because one would hope whoever won would want to act in a way that is beneficial to all of the people. But we're not there yet. We are still seeing which of the greedy kids gets the most donuts. I've been through 15 presidential elections and as far as public behavior goes this is the worst. It's really gotten to the point that it is embarrassing to be an American.
C'mon, Attaturk. Grab some java and cool down. You sound like Michelle! She spent her lifetime not being proud of being an American. About your "my money" diatribe, I take serious exception to having anyone call "my money" something else. I broke my butt saving the few nickles in my right pocket and they are definitely mine. So get your hand out of my pocket, please. I cannot recall anytime I have "lambasted" the poor and my highschool education let me down trying to remember what member of the aristocacy spoke those petty words, "let them eat cake". furthermore, why am I a "cellar dweller" because I am so simple minded that I believe Americans need jobs more than food stamps and Obamaphones?
It might be more accurate to say that, rather than things getting worse lately, they are getting back to how they have always been, vis a vis acrimony and partisan polarization. We went through a small window of time in the twentieth century that saw serious crises (the Great Depression, two world wars, the cold war) and politicians and an electorate that recognized there were greater, external threats to our freedom than interpersonal squabbles. Those lessons have been lost and forgotten, or never known at all, as exemplified by so many posters online and by how easily a crowd becomes a mob.
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Lots of us have Indian blood. You don't see the rest of us checking the box and taking opportunity away from those it was intended for. Democrats should be the first people to understand Liz's sins here and Democrats should have been the first people calling her out for them!!
. . . . and "lots of us" have sat down to talk with kings and queens, but you don't hear us bragging about it to make ourselves sound more important than we really are.
Obama has ripped the scab off of every social wound this country has, all in a lost effort to be re-elected. And America is much worse-off for the effort!!
FoxNews has ripped the scab off of every social wound this country has, all in a lost effort to be relevant (and to gain ratings). And America is much worse-off for the effort!!
"Profox" Let me first state that I lost my respect for the American power structure in the rice paddies of Vietnam. I lost my respect for the American people with the rise of the religious right and the faux patriotic Tea Party. I try very hard to retain my cool, but the diatrabes of some accusing their President of lying or of being a traitor go one step beyond and after awhile I grow weary of it. I never accused Bush of those actions although I must admit I have called Cheney a liar, but then more than half the known world recognizes him as one.
As to "your money" it is a philosophical statement. It is in fact merely representative of the total resources of this nation. A part of which you have been able to enjoy in order to earn "your money". Libertarians like to live in a fantasy in which some of us go to war, but not them and it doesn't count as something they must pay for. Libertarians like to believe that they have earned what they have at the cost of nothing to no one else. It is of course a delusion. You get a job because someone else didn't, perhaps because you are smarter or know someone. Many Americans believe they "earned" their social security but the other guy is a leech.
It is the new breed of American, one that began back during that war and has grown as time has past. An America that believes it is in conflict with its government those who work in it, those who defend it, those who make it possible for you to "earn" "your money". As I said it's a philosophical statement. Just as a good portion of the money I have is "your money" and the money of other tax payers and my own money that I have contributed to the nation. It's not really socialism it's called Civilization. A term that, probably not in my lifetime, but not much after will no longer apply to America. We are in decline and it is our greed and selfishness that is leading us there.
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A statement of fact is not a slur. I described what a portion of the American people have become and I have no interest in your hyperpartisan whine. I have no great love for Obama and even less for Romney. Your idea of intellectual action is to merely come to the screaming defense of the party that supports your beloved "monopolies" and pillars of power that support your great vision of a purified America.
I would never deny you or "profox" to speak their peace. They can scream their support for the America that you and others degrade and insult at every opportunity and then say, "Oh what a patriot am I." A patriot who slurs his President his commander-in-chief and then says it is appropriate because others said it about your favorite. Spare me your hypocrisy, your outrage. You represent everything in America that has been lost.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
For a wild discussion, google the stories on Republican Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia. The LA times comment string is great. .........Broun is an MD and member of the House Committee on Science and Technology. But he recently made a statement supporting creationism and that what he was taught in medical school, along with a lot of other science came from the pit of Hell......I'm amazed that the Globe didn't pick up on this story........check it out, Joanna.
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Certainly "system" in all of your hypocrisy defend Broun by blaming Obama. You speak of hypocrites. Look in the mirror.
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Dear Attaturk, I blanched in dismay and was saddened to read your words. Vietnam changed a generation of Americans like you and me. Every soldier in every war since our revolution left part of themselves behind.. For many, it was their very lives. Our freedom to disagree was purchased in blood. America is not a power structure. It has survived because we fight to guarantee your right to disagree. America is strong because we listen to each other. For us to ascede to every whim of government does not mean we are in conflict with it. We are not a new breed standing against our government. We stand up for change as a process for our love of it. If that were not so, leaders like JFK, who sought to change us would be vilified. He sought the changes in our government that inspired us to travel to the moon. I grieve for your lost respect for America's power structure because you are an integral part of it and stand at its core.
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"Profox" I would disagree. The nation has for many years been on a spiral of falsehood, faux patriotism, and fear inspired for the most part by one party but with another sharing in its promulgation. To infer that JFK would approve of the voices that come from the Tea Party, the religious right, the far left is to besmirch his memory and his beliefs. To believe that JFK or Bobby Kennedy would give credence never mind listen to those who deny science, who deny the future is to slander both. No I can accept disagreementover political philosophy over what direction a nation shall take. But to watch as science is denied, religion is exallted and its beliefs imposed upon the people is not a country that I recognize. This government, these state governments, these politicians who publicly state they wish to prevent certain segments of the population to vote represent nothing of an America that I can even recognize from my youth. How pray tell are the politicians who would deny a "veterans job bill", who would reduce veterans benefits and impose cutbacks within the VA people I should respect. No, I've seen this before after the close of our glorious war. Politicians undefunding the VA so badly thatt they were merely warehouses. It is not a political issue it is a philosophical one. The people would send these young men to war and then whine at the cost to the taxpayer to care for them. What is it that govt. asks us to ascede to, to pay the taxes necessary for the benefits that the public desires, to pay for the infrastructure that the nation needs. No, the public has abandoned its obligation to this nation. You may be dismayed but I am dismayed with a people who no longer feel responsible for their veterans, for their poor, for their elderly, that is not what I believe JFK stood for, he asked,
"What you can do for your country."
The answer today is nothing, get out of the way, the President is a "liar" a "traitor", a "sympathizer" with our enemies. No, spare me, This nation in decline is in decline because it's people no longer see themselves as a part of something. They see their govt. as their enemy. I probably won't see the ending of it, but I guarantee you it is the Tea Party, the religous right, the far left, the political zealot that in the end will wreck this country.
The power of your vote is submerged in money and corporate power. No, I have tried to have objective discussions only to be given "politics" a pox on your politics. You know who is crushed by your smaller govt., your cheapness, people. Just like our casualties of long ago, this nations body politic forgets in the end it is about real people.
Now that's a rant.