One party has no heart, the other no spine

Joe,

Nothing has ever been fixed by conservatives, by definition. You and many others say the thing that I hear back all the time as a pox on both your houses. I see the same corruption as do you, but I don't think there is any support for the thesis that it is equal. There are looters and the looted. Saying that they are all equal will in fact make any solution impossible. All the twelve step programs and all homespun psychology agrees that a first step in any improvement is admitting to your wrongs. Not admitting that other people are wrong. That helps nothing except people continuing to make excuses for themselves and their conservative party.

There are myriad things wrong with the left but when the question is asked, "who might just barely conceivably listen to your views," there is no doubt in my mind. Democrats are screwed up but the problems are at least occasionally acknowledged and sometimes steps are taken to fix a few small areas around the edge. We elected a black president. We did all the Roosevelt stuff. We did voting rights. We did civil rights. Over the dead bodies of Republicans. Hopefully we are about to start to fix health care. Again over the dead bodies of Republicans.

Please stop with the equality stuff. It is factually false and incredibly harmful to those of us still hopeful enough to be exerting ourselves in pursuit of improvement.

Bob
Deerfield, New Hampshire

PS: Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a 'shell' if you will. But my shell isn't made out of a hard protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags.

------

Dear Bob,

Thirty years ago I would have agreed with you. But when I look at the corpo-political machinery that would have to be dismantled at huge pain to the people, and when I consider the deep colonization of the American consciousness by malignant and unsustainable capitalism, I just don't see political parties as the answer to anything. We're in whole new territory now, bubba.

Peak everything and a rapacious economic system that benefits both parties and is the only world both they and the people know. And they don't even understand that world and its extreme limitations fully. Americans by culture are now incapable of creating solutions to their present situation. Partly because the system and thinking is made of all the wrong stuff, and is itself the problem. As in, "the market will solve our ecological problems through 'green capitalism' and by selling green products." LOL!

Unfortunately, we have an economic system and national philosophy based on the idea of every man getting rich. Impossible, unsustainable and bound for disaster from the start. Mankind's entire idea of what constitutes an economy is about to come into question at some point soon. Not just in America, but all the other (over) developed nations too. We cannot manufacture our way out of it, or spend or invest pour way out of it, through a free market "green economy." That's what got us here in the first place. Superheated spending to pump up a malignant economic system that devoured the earth.

No American political party is ever going to admit that. And no party will ever represent the constituencies that cannot speak for themselves, much less raise hell. The trees, the animals, the rivers cannot cry out from their appointed courses, nor the oceans from their beds that, "Hey, we are not your resources. We are the only god damned shot you have at survival!"

I never expect to see politicians tell the people: "Quit buying. Quit using all that electrical stuff. Quit traveling all over the world. Quit driving. Just eat, be happy you are breathing and work to grow your mind and soul and let's see if we can come to understand this ruined world around us and how to heal it -- or at least do less damage. Let us change our entire idea about what constitutes governance, and work and happiness."

That's what it will take.

Especially changing our notion of governance. As long as we define our world ideologically in terms of conservatives or liberals, change ain't never gonna happen in the USA, for sure. Certainly not through politicians. They like the status quo, They depend upon it for their survival. Any new and better system undoubtedly would not include them. Their job is to tell us what we want to hear, not what we really need to do -- which they don't know anyway, but if they did, it would be called leadership. Statesmanship. Vision. Charisma. Intelligence. Intelligence? Well there ya go, folks. We're fucked from the outset.

Real change would mean Americans grasping the concept of humility. Living small, very small, and being of meaningful service and value to one's neighbor. Some guy once said, "You don't get rich doing each other's laundry." I'm now sitting in a village in Mexico watching folks do just that. No, they don't get rich and never expect to. But at least the laundry gets done.

In art and labor,

Joe

PS: Yes there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. One has no heart and the other has no has no spine. But they both work for the same crime syndicate.