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Dalton
Roberts |
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In politics, we have become a nation of uncivilized savages. Unless we realize the damage this rancor is doing to our national spirit, there is a good chance we will wash ourselves down the drainpipe of history in a whirlpool of venom. I was reminded of this on a personal level last week when I wrote a column on Sen. Ward Crutchfield’s guilty plea to a charge of bribery. In no way did I justify what he had done. In fact, I flatly stated, “To me, there is nothing worse than betraying the public.” Yet I got some of my most vicious mail since dealing with red-hot issues in public office. What could there have been in my column to induce a perfect stranger to call me “a product of another whore constituency.” That was probably the mildest remark made by the foul-mouthed stiletto squad. All because I expressed grief over an effective public official destroying himself by taking a bribe. I suppose the one thing they read was the paragraph asking if agents in the Tennessee Waltz dangled the carrot before an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Nothing activates venom fangs like a real good question that goes to the heart of a matter. Anyone who has followed the news about Attorney General Gonzales knows what a relevant question it was. While nothing in politics should shock me after a quarter century of frontline involvement, the truth is that it did shock me. In my lifetime I have not seen as much dirty politics as in the last few decades. Like a big, black stinking snowball, it gets more rotten as it rolls down the hill. What has created this foul, miasmic fog that now covers the entire political arena? The biggest cause is the hostile degree of polarization in our two party system. On most issues proposed by Democrats, Republicans automatically march against it like Hitler’s goose-stepping army. The same is true of Democrats when Republicans propose something. When those we elect cannot think outside of rigid party viewpoints, effective thinking and political action cannot occur. A two-party system makes us think there are only two ways of seeing every issue. Gone are the days when a liberal Republican senator from Nebraska could lead the way to build a system of dams to provide power to the entire Tennessee Valley region. Sadly, rightwing radicals have demonized the word “liberal.” The real truth is that most elected men and women have both conservative and liberal views. And so it is with most Americans. We are each interesting liberal/conservative mixtures. Since there appears little hope of a viable third or fourth party coming on the political scene, our best hope for sanity probably depends on more Americans declaring their independence of both parties. Thinking people will be tolerated less and less in either party. They don’t want thinkers. They want robots and parrots that just know the words the party wants them to mutter. Without publicly financed elections, both parties sell out to the same special interests. How can we expect change when those who are supposed to look out for us are bought and paid for by others? People rave about how smart Karl Rove is but any idiot knows if you have the money to do polls and see where hot buttons are you can then design attack ads to turn people into angry, hot button voters. They know if they can make us mad enough we won’t stop to think about the big issues like our jobs and economic security, world peace, education, planetary warming, Social Security and all the important things that affect our daily life. They especially fear that you will start to realize what this odious way of conducting politics is doing to the spirit of the people. If we ever get sick enough of it, we will do something about it. If we don’t, we won’t be here a lot longer.
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