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Sunday, January 16, 2011
Remember the elections of 2008? How about the ones in 2000?
“Hanging chards” and one Supreme Court that wasn’t so supreme.
We saw something remarkable happen during the elections of 2008…it was the first time that a Vice-Presidential candidate was muzzled by the party itself. Curiously, John McCain picked her because he thought that she would solidify the Republican Party and bring enthusiasm against a singularly popular Democratic candidate.
The whole scheme blew up on their faces shortly after the convention with the Katie Couric interview. Suddenly it dawned upon these high ranking Republicans that the woman was not ready for prime time and that if they allowed her to voice her opinions (even though many of them shared those) that they would not be able to fool the American voters into thinking that Republicans were reasonable and moderate enough to be able to take the Presidency once more.
What happened next was not just incredible but many of us saw right through Sarah Palin’s actions. She resigned as Governor of Alaska, citing the hostile media and the sacrifices she made for her state were being minimized and criticized. Most Alaskans were relieved to be rid of her and some of us questioned her real motives
While it is arguable that she did not intend to make money out of her half term as Governor and being the losing partner of a Presidential run…she managed to turn lemons into lemonade and began to make tons of money out of this. Sarah Palin soon found out that she no longer had to be isolated and not allowed to speak her mind and also, she realized that the more outrageous and controversial her statements the more money she could make.
This is what others have done and it is a fool proof way to make the big bucks as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh can ascertain. These people know that controversy translates into money and they laugh all the way to the bank…making fools of those who listen to them and who believe their lies.
What about the dubious election of George W. Bush in 2000? Some of us didn’t believe that those elections were won fairly and therefore that mandate Bush embraced just wasn’t there…hell there are some in the left who didn’t think he was elected legitimately.
Turn to the elections of 1964 when a right-wing conservative ran for President and was defeated in a crushing landslide…his name was Barry Goldwater who said that “Extremism in the name of freedom is no vice”…Americans couldn’t swallow his extremism and didn’t vote for him. I wasn’t one of those. I volunteered to work in his campaign and was heartbroken upon his defeat…yes reader; you read this correctly…I was once a staunch Republican. That by itself is not remarkable because the majority of the Cuban exiles were so recalcitrant anti-communists that they became enamored by anything right wing and remain loyal to the Republican Party even to this day.
Even if the assassination of President Kennedy had a profound effect 
on me I still wasn’t prepared to abandon ship. I was in denial and very much confused at that point. I mourned the loss but went on my merry way to continue to support right wing causes.
My awakening came when I was in college at the time the Kent State massacre occurred and I thought that even if I disagreed with the protesters they didn’t have to be killed for carrying a sign opposing the Vietnam war. That incident precipitated a slew of soul searching on my part and a long and painful look at my ideas, philosophy and political affiliation. Across the nation, students protested. At Kent State, where two days earlier the ROTC building was burned down, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd and killed four unarmed students, the closest of whom was nearly a football field away.
Soon more hints, facts, and reasons began to become clear to me. I departed my Cuban brethren and became a progressive liberal. But make no mistake about it; it wasn’t that isolated incident that made me change. I was able to observe how I wasn’t accepted, how I was discriminated because I was a Latino, I had a hell of a time trying to get through college because the funds were not there. I had to work sometimes even two jobs to pay for tuition and books. I realized most importantly where all this rejection and prejudice was coming from: it was almost all from Republicans.
I realized too how most of these people rejected my culture...my language, my food, my Cuban heritage. At that point I wasn't ready do divorce myself from all of that even if they were allergic to eñes and accents.
The Republican National Convention showed the participants to be almost all white people.
Fast forward now to the Republican National Convention in 2008 and as I was watching, the cameras would be fixated on the crowds that consisted of mostly older, white and I assume Anglo-Saxon people. Absent were my brothers and sisters from the black and brown communities…also there were no gay Americans included in this group. The more I observe Republicans act and hear them talk the more I become convinced that they are not acting in the best interest of our country and least of all my own. They are intolerant of any type of diversity and think of themselves as WASPHs (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Heterosexuals) who somehow are superior to the rest of us.
I realized that what I believed to be a DEMOCRACY was beginning to turn into a mirage, a cruel illusion because as I observed politicians campaign and lie to the voters in the campaign trail once they were elected and got to Washington they would already be in the pockets of special interests and the very rich. So that my views on participatory Democracy in America also changed…it was no longer a given but a dream, a struggle to keep it, to strengthen it in order for our country to survive, at least that is what I believe.
Our country was sliding downhill from then on and it came to a horrendous economic crisis to put the icing on the cake that George W. Bush would not allow the masses to eat. I lost my job in 2006 when it was outsourced to Pakistan and then during the economic meltdown of 2008 I lost both my 401K and my pension…which went from $1,070 per month to $5.63. Many people became alarmed and the possibility of a situation similar to the Great Depression of the thirties was all of a sudden real.
I have seen…we have seen a deterioration of our political discourse starting with the emergence of the Tea Party which in my opinion was not really a grassroots movement but an effort supported and funded by some super rich folks like the Koch brothers to stifle and sabotage the Obama Presidency. This movement curiously employs useful idiots, uninformed operatives, and extremist right wing radicals to put a wrench on our attempt to continue with this social experiment we call Democracy.
Curiously too is that most of these uneducated morons don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of and they are championing the causes of the very rich and corporations…we see it in the Health Care debate where we stand to gain, to save money and to offer the uninsured and the public in general access to medical care.
Such is the rancor, the vitriol that these right wing Republicans employ that they don’t hesitate to use inflammatory rhetoric that subliminally encourages violence and the use of 2nd Amendment options. This I find totally repugnant and so should you.
Do you really think that I could ever be a Republican again let alone vote for one?
PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-03-kent-state_N.htm
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1heckofaguy.com/wp-content/photos/goldwater1964poster.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thedarkcyde.net/images/george-w-bush-middle-finger.
