Tags
character, Democrats, dualistic thinking, founding fathers, John Edwards, judgment, Politics, Republicans, values
Richard Rohr would suggest that’s a good thing. The more questions than answers thingy. It may be more a matter of not having seen the sun in over a week, or the fact that I don’t have the right size knitting needles, and it’s too far to travel in questionable weather to get them. Or it may be the obscenity of the loss in Massachusetts and the ugly irony of it all. It may be because of how John Edwards managed to lie boldly and regularly for so long with all of us thinking him a great guy.
So I don’t know where it is coming from, but I surely have more questions. I’m trying to relax into the unknowing and be okay with that. It’s not easy I tell you. I’m a product of my Western culture which is answer oriented. But at least I’m convinced that such dualistic thinking is primitive, best left to the fundies who wallow in torturing words into ideas that give them “answers,” that offer the pretense of security they crave.
The Contrarian and I have been engaged in a friendly disagreement about the Democratic Party and politicians in general. I’m leaning toward a complete disengagement, figuring that the great unwashed get what they deserve and blindly yammer for. The Contrarian sees things as more or less the norm, and life goes on. I’m practicing my Hamletic “to be or not to be” weighing of alternatives.
The Contrarian argues quite rightly that poor President Obama has barely completed one fourth of his presidency and it’s grossly unfair to write him off yet. I rely on what is becoming increasingly clear: namely that the attention span of the average dull American is about six months. Fair to produce sufficiently, and they are frenetically off to find a new “savior.” Forget that no human person could accomplish much in our rusty, barely functional government. It’s self fulfilling prophesy if there ever was such a thing.
For those who tout to heaven the importance of “doing what the Founding Fathers intended,” I offer this: they never expected that a two party system would develop. And if it worked a 150 years ago, it sure doesn’t work now. The “umbrella” needs be too large, and thus the platform is meaningless, only reflecting the opinion of some barely 50% of the party faithful. Worse, they never envisioned career politicians and that their first adherence is to whatever will keep them employed.
The two party system is outmoded, and no longer serves any purpose but to those who feed from its trough. They represent only themselves. The Democratic party is chock full of traitorous Dems in name only. Traitorous in the sense that they will vote their re-election before they support the platform of the party they claim to be part of. In fact they are Republicans who for some reason, so far, find it still convenient to call themselves Democrats.
I’m ready to find some purity I guess. I would like to vote for someone who actually believes what I believe. I’m more and more convinced that we’d get better government should the party with the most votes be FORCED to compromise with other parties to form a working majority. We might actually pass a LAW then, instead of passing generic all encompassing crap that hands out pork to buy votes for passage.
I’m appalled at John Edwards. During the lead up to Kerry’s nomination, the Contrarian was a huge supporter of Edwards, and I liked him a lot too. During the last cycle, he continued to push for Edwards and I felt that it was sad there were so many qualified Dems in the field.
His affair was disgusting, not on a personal level so much as that he was willing to derail the road to victory by a scandal of this magnitude. Now we learn even more, how he lied, how he bold face lied, and then admitted the lies, and lied some more. Then admitted them, and lied some more. Now we learn that he tried to bargain his withdrawal from the primaries for either the VP or the AG positions. He paid off a campaign worker to claim a child as his own, when Edwards knew full well it was his. Elizabeth Edwards comes off as no saint either, if you believe the rumors. I might as well, since this kind of behavior seems to go with the territory these days.
I wonder, can I any longer judge character? Is there any character to judge at all when it comes to politicians? Are there new standards I’m unaware of ? Does character have anything to do with the ability to lead? Does truth matter any more? What are values anymore? Is there a correlation between values and good judgment? Can rich people relate to me at all? Have we lost our capacity to be empathetic? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely as they say? Or is it only the type of power that is hard to hold on to that scrambles our brains and makes us tempt the devil to achieve power?
It seems I’m full of wondering. And Richard Rohr says we’ve lost our ability to wonder and live in the mysteries of life. I’m sure wondering, and I find it all a mystery. I guess that means that at least my spiritual life is going strong. Then how come I feel so glum?
Existential Ennui 
Agree with everything you said – and your questions are all very valid. Without these types of questions there is never any progress.
I often think we should go to the parliamentary system as they have in Britain, where you vote for the party, not the person who happens to be the leader. Admittedly the leader has some effect on the outcome but since they only campaign for a short period of time it isn’t as important. In addition they can form coalition governments if no one has a real majority.
Another thing we should go to is runoff elections. If neither of the two main parties got a majority then they’d leave off the smaller ones and run them over again. So, if there were a true progressive running for president, for instance, we would all feel comfortable voting for him because we wouldn’t be as likely to “waste” our votes. (Hopefully there’d also be a rightwing libertarian or something to siphon off votes from the GOP at the same time).
The Democrat could still win if the Progressive didn’t make it because they’d run the election a second time between the two highest candidates. They do this in many other countries and within some local governments in our own (San Francisco for instance).
Certainly right now nothing is working, our system is broken. It’s time for a new constitutional convenition or something to change the status quo, or democracy is not going to work much longer here.
Maui, I’ve often felt the British system might work better. I actually want a government that can actually get something done, though no doubt I would rue that happening when the opposition takes office. Then I want them stymied! lol..
Should’ve said, “another thing we COULD go to” – can’t do both runoff elections and parliaments!
You’re always welcome to come to the dark side, and join us third party voters…
lol…what party is that blisterina?
A few thoughts:
(1) Obama, Biden, Senate chief Reid, House chief Pelosi are NOT Leaders. Especially Obama. He threw his Healthcare reform to Congress, insisting on only coverage for the Uninsured, and no Insurance Company rejection of the ill. Big Money rules in Congress; a More expensive plan favoring bigger payments to Insurance Companies. Money begets Money favors.
(2) Lieberman killed One-Payer Health involvment; He Is Likelly to be Defeated next election for voting Republican.
(3) Republican Initiated Destructions of our Jobs, Economy, morality, Govt Surpluses are NEVER presented by the Democratic Leaders. That is why Brown won; The lack of jobs, Insurance Business oriented Healthcare were Never answered by Democrats. Never. The Extreme Reversal from Clinton’s Booming, Massive Surplus Economy to the extreme opposite by George W. is Unknown by the public.
(4) Big Money rules Congress, Both Houses, and the Presidency, and the Republican Supreme Court Justices in their Rulings On Big Money.
(5) Republican Politiscians with Big Affairs Lie; I admire Edwards, Democrats telling the Truth. Points for That!.
(6) Democratic ‘Leaders’ have Forgotten What the Democratic Party Is about: Against False wars, For the People of the USA.
I agree that the Dems overall have done a poor job of leading. I may write on this tomorrow.
Bush and the Republicans created all the problems. Now they’re doing everything they can to prevent Obama and the Democrats from solving them. It’s so depressing that I can’t even stand to watch the news anymore.
Welcome webrover! I agree pretty much, but the Rethugs are just very very good at creating havoc it seems. Shockingly, the working class Dems are not very good street fighters are they?