Why The Tea Party Concept is Stupid

I've been watching the Tea Party movement with interest and that interest has turned into disappointment. You see, I was not completely happy with the outcome of the 2008 elections. Delighted as I was with the win by the Obama-Clinton ticket (okay, I am pretending she is Vice President instead of all too forgettable what's-his-name and instead of whatever all too forgettable position she really holds) I was not totally thrilled with the majority win in the legislature. There is danger in one group having too much power and there is benefit in a forum where multiple positions are forwarded and discussed and there is good when compromises that make everyone a little better off are made. But with the more or less implosion of the Republican party with their bland presidential candidate and their laughable vice presidential candidate, I was really hoping for a take-back of the party by the people. I was hoping for a resurgence of the traditional Republicans that were for less government and simpler government and accessible government and visible government and for the environment to they could hunt and fish and play in it and were for independence from other countries in the name of self-sufficiency instead of adversorialness and all those old fashioned traditional Republican values. I was hoping the traditional Republicans were going to kick the weird extreme "Religious Right" right out of their party and return to solid constitutional values of keeping government out of our religious life and our religious life out of our government. I was hoping and wishing that the Tea Party movement would be about that and about rallying support for those ideas and for recruiting new candidates aligned with those values and moving our country back to having a two party system that engaged in debate and cooperative or even competitive problem solving and real solutions.

Instead what we seem to have gotten is a motley crew of disgruntled rabblerousers hell bent on bashing Obama and blaming him for everything, including often contradictory things, that they see wrong with our nation.

But let's just go with one of their basic premises from whence they get their name: The concept of taxation, which they seem to be claiming is without representation or without adequate representation or just plain too much or something like that. And their solution seems to be that government is wrong and the process of government is wrong and they refuse to participate. So they get together now and then and insist they are not a political party for the purposes of putting forth candidates and they wave signs and yell and then they go home and brag on blogs about how many of them there were in attendance and write inflammatory pieces on the various concepts that were summarized in their misspelled signs.

But okay, I am sorry, you are NOT taxed without representation. Just because you LOST the elections does not mean you are not represented. No one guarantees everyone gets THEIR candidate in. If you are too lame and discombobulated and fractured to find GOOD candidates, well, it isn't OUR fault you lost. And WE didn't bitch about taxation w/o representation in the 8 years your guy was in the Oval office and your guys had majority rule of congress and senate. We got to work and found some good people to run.

So, we have a SYSTEM and the system works and the system represents all of us all the time even though the balance of whose side is in power may shift, so you ARE represented within this system and unless you are proposing some fixes, well, please shut the hell up.

I mean, unless you are really hoping to over throw the current government and displace the elected officials and replace the current system with your own, the only way to CHANGE anything about the system is to USE the system to change it from within. So no amount of rallying and bitching is going to fix anything. The way to end your alleged taxation without representation is to get down to work and define some platform issues that are real and honest and have broad appeal to traditional Republicans and to edit OUT the junk trash that has corrupted and tarnished and ruined your party, and by that I mean the constant references to religion and the constant attempts to intrude religion into government and the silly Obama bashing starting with the birth certificate nonsense and ending with harsh critiques of every single thing he does. And then find candidates that are willing to run on those core less-government less-expensive-therefore-less-need-for-taxes more-visible-government values and get to work getting them in office, and once they are there, don't let them waste time protecting your oil interests and your war interests, but get them to work on paring out silly laws and simplifying and restructuring and making the government truly representative of the people.

To review, the only way in this country to implement change is to work within the system to change the system. And your silly Tea Parties do nothing to that end. While I support your freedom of expression and to gather, until you get it together and start to work the system instead of rejecting it with silly anti-everything signs, I also support the right of the entire rest of the world to laugh at you.

President Barack Obama

I felt bad that I was not going to watch the speech in real time. I followed the primaries and the election so diligently and watched campaign speeches on-line and was glued to the computer screen on election night. But today, we had to get back home from the lake house in time for the Boy Scout meeting and there was no time to waste. It would be there on-line to watch and savor later. There were tasks to be done in certain orders, like completing tiling in time for dust to settle to allow a last coat of varnish on the stairs before we left. So during the actual speech, I was cleaning mortar from between the tile on one bathroom in order to ready it for grout next trip, or slapping tile on the wall in the other bathroom. My husband and son were sanding the stairs or varnishing while I made a quick lunch. So I finally listened to the 19 minute speech just now, finally read the transcript, and I feel hopeful, confident, optimistic. This is a great country, founded on great concepts, and we now have a leader who will let us shine in that greatness that has been masked and stifled and suppressed for too long. We will see a brighter future for ourselves and our children and their children. This is the beginning of a return to greatness for us, the beginning of a new kind of greatness for us, born not of military might but of work and ideas and building and growing and making and fixing and thinking and talking and inventing and problem-solving and doing for and with each other. President Obama said ". . . it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom." What a great future we are in for!

Obama Day

It is finally here. The day seemed hardly possible back in November, when my computer screen showed he and his family standing in the lights on the stage on election night. He has not disappointed with his cabinet choices and his statements so far. A new age is dawning today.

Happy Barack Obama Day!

The Next President of the United States

GObama!


The 'landslide' that this will be called should not be taken for granted. The popular vote was still too close for comfort. But America has a better chance now for a brilliant future. My kids and I watched this election from three separate locations and talked about it via cell phone.
To quote Jakob Dylan "Something good this way comes . . . "

Two More Days

We were such a modern family, living in our new ranch house with trendy curved shelves at the end of our sleek new blond wood cabinets. One of those shelves held the black plastic radio, which is where I heard most of my news. There was morning news and noon news and late afternoon news on the radio, and the late night news might be on the black and white television, but that was past my bedtime. I would play on the kitchen floor in front of the radio or work on art projects at the end of the kitchen table while the radio played in the background. I guess that is where the first appeals to my born-liberal mind were made, because I remember thinking sympathetic things about Civil Rights workers and equal rights for black people. My values were 'Christian' values back then, formally verbalized in Sunday School class. My Jesus was a loving kind fair person, and of course, black people were people too and would not Jesus want them to have equal rights? Seemed obvious to me. Until I heard sentiments all around from grown ups, how that King was 'stirring things up' and why couldn't those marchers 'leave good enough alone'. It was my first brush with the idea that grown ups could be wrong, because I knew in my heart and soul that the fight for equality was a good one.
And it pissed me off that my friends who were boys and my cousin who was a boy were allowed to ride with their dads on tractors and in trucks while we girls stayed home and watched our mothers do laundry and make meals. It irked me that our friends who were boys had toy trains and toy tractors and toy trucks. I was apparently born not only a liberal, but a liberal feminist.
I heard the news coverage of the Vietnam War and hated it. By then we had a color TV and tame as the images were then, I hated the war, and as coverage of anti-war protesters increased, I was on their side. The liberal feminist was now also a pacifist.
So today, two days before the election of the next president of our country, I worry. On a par with the worry of when ones own child has a cold or is having trouble in a class at school.
There is one right answer for peace, for equality, for opportunity in the coming presidential election.
It is not because one candidate is 'black'. But it is partly because we see him as black. He is half. Half white. Half black. Why do we label him 'black? Why do we label him at all? Because we are still more racist than we should be. But I have hope. Many in my sons' generation do not see it the way we see it. To them, Obama is just a person, and his skin color is irrelevant. They have friends of many shades of skin color and it is irrelevant. They categorize their friends not on basis of skin color, but on basis of shared interests. They have Scouting friends and climbing friends and chess friends and music friends and those interests are the things that friendships are based on, not race lines. So they look at this race and see a man who is for the war and old ways of doing things yet claims to be a 'maverick' against the current powers. They see the hypocricy in that. They look at this race and see another man who has goals and questions and ideas much more like their own. They see a man who does not have all the concrete answers now but is intelligent and eager to gather information and ask questions and try new things. They want new answers to old questions and they want new questions to be discovered. They want the war to end before they have to fight it and they want a clean environment so they can hike and climb and camp in it and they want equal and fair access to jobs and they want our country to be respected again outside our borders, for they have studied history and know how we were once seen to the world. They see the one campaign based on ideas and looking ahead to solving problems. They see the other campaign do nothing but trash the opponent and spread fear of terrorism and fear of socialism and fear of Muslims and they don't like that negativity.
I read the polls and look at the numbers and I see the forward looking candidate ahead by 4 percentage points or 6 points or up to 7 points. I am a little sickened that so few people see the tragedy of the war and the threat to the environment. He should be far far ahead, not just a little ahead! Then I hear that in past elections, the candidate 'of color' has lost some 6 or 7 percentage points from the opinion polls to the voting polls because of their race. Because the people who declared undecided actually intended to vote for the white guy. Because people who felt they 'should' vote for the minority really did not intend to. This scares me. It scares me that this nation could still be that racist. And so, for two more days, I will worry.

Vote!

I voted yesterday. Since I will be out of my home state painting at the new house next week, I was grateful for the ease with which one can do that these days.

But the last couple days I have been thinking too much about this election season and though I try to keep this little blog fun and light and about nature and related things, I just want to get a couple things said.

First, it seems kinda odd to me that in a country where religious tolerance and religious freedom are not only founding principles of our country but the reason people continue to take refuge here today, one side has used accusations about religion as an attempt to insult and discredit. Religion has come up on both sides. On one side, a specific candidate has been held accountable for specific extreme ideas that she holds due to her religion that are in direct conflict with an overwhelming majority of science. It has been suggested that she is not a viable candidate because she believes in those unscientific things and would make policy based on those unscientific beliefs. That seems a fair thing to hold a candidate accountable for. On the other side, a candidate has simultaneously been lambasted for radical things the pastor of his church says, as though any of us really challenges our pastors or is responsible for things they say, and also been accused of being of another religion entirely. Well, I would like to point out that if you are going to claim one thing, you should shut up about the other.
And then I would point out that due to the fact that this country was founded by people seeking relief from religious prosecution, you should stop making it sound like being from that religion is a bad thing. Most of you who are trying to insult that candidate by claiming he is an adherent of that religion are using it as an insult, and it should not be used that way. Making such implications feeds religious intolerance and feeds discrimination and we are a better country than that.

Second, it seems kind of odd to me that when there was a certain party in control for, oh, 12 years, give or take, and then they lost their absolute power just a few months ago when the majority shifted in congress, that certain party would choose to blame all that they claim is wrong with the country on those in power before 12 years ago or those in power after the recent shift in power. To do so would seem to be admitting that nothing happened in the last 12 years. It would seem to be admitting that they, while in power, were ineffective in fixing anything and that they left things so unstable that it could all be wrecked in a few months. Why would that make us want to put them back in power for the next four years? As a parent, it seems like shirking responsibility is a bad thing.

Third, one campaign has been about negativity and fear and tearing down others, directly and by slimy implication and insinuation and plays on words with exaggerations and twists and misrepresentations and misinterpretations. Those things count as lies in my rule book. The other campaign has been about what is good and what we need more of and it has been about ideas and proposals and problem solving and hope and promise and making a better future for an already great country. It was never a hard choice for me. I voted for positive instead of negative.

Whatever side you are on, if you have not voted yet, please do so. Too many people gave time and lives to keep our freedoms intact and to ensure that everyone, property owners or not, male and female, young or old, black or white or any color in between, has that right to vote. The leaders of this country should represent the hopes and dreams and ideals of the people, and voting is one way you can make sure that happens. No excuses! Leave early before work, skip a meeting, take a lunch break early or late, leave work early, watch someones kids while they watch yours. Take a bus, beg a ride, walk. Be counted. Make a difference. Vote, no matter how inconvenient, because it how you, on this historic day next Tuesday, get to be part of the process that makes our country great. Vote!

Three Crows Go Driving

From an entry in the back packing journal dated 6-24-08







Three Crows Go Driving

Three crows go for ice cream
In their Maserati GT S stick shift,
Black of course.
They order a black cow,
A root beer float, and
A hot fudge sundae.

Three crows go to the cemetery
To pay their respects
To the Civil War veterans.
One wonders how much longer before
The country is ‘color blind’.
Another says “I’m optimistic.”
The last says “We’re optimistic
About everything.”

Three crows go to the nature preserve
To photograph wildflowers
They find black snakeroot
In the woods
Skunk cabbage by the stream,
And Crow’s foot violet
At the edge of the prairie.

Three crows speed home
One says “Busy day.”
Another says “Important day.”
Third says “Cop.”
They pull over as lights flash.
Crow at the wheel
Hands over a license.
Officer returns to his car.
And looks ahead.
The Maserati is gone.

Papers drift and tumble
Where the car was.
Officer steps back out,
Bends to pick up the pieces
Three coupons
For the ice cream store,
A map of the cemetery,
A tracing of a crow’s foot violet leaf.

“Yeeeaaaah” comes a caw from overhead
Three crows fly away,
Turn and keel in the warm breeze
then fly steady westward.

Two Kinds of People - Knowers and Learners

I worked for a landscaper once who was doing things the same way he had learned them when he took a few classes in the '70's. Even if I would do a design that included new cultivars of shrubs, for example, he would substitute the old varieties he was familiar with. His trips to the horticultural trade show were mainly to find wholesalers who could still supply these old varieties. He took no hint from how increasingly difficult it was to get those shrubs that perhaps there were newer better alternatives. He knew how to do things and didn't see any reason to change that.

I was awed once to find I was volunteering next to an expert on prairie who was a locally renowned advocate of replacing lawn with prairie. She answered my questions but also asked me questions about my experiences with native plants. She was volunteering as she does every year on that project to gain more experience and see that patterns of how that particular prairie was changing over time. She know a great deal about prairie and is considered to be THE expert by many. Yet she also knows that she will never know everything and that new things are being discovered constantly and she continually wants to learn as much as she possibly can about her area of expertise. And she is willing to learn it from both other experts and also from anyone who has any experience or knowledge to offer.

Such experiences have lead me to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people: People who are certain they know and never seek to learn more, and people who aren't so certain of anything except that there is always more to learn and therefore want to learn more and grow and be challenged.

Which political candidate falls into which category?

Signs of the Times II

Examples of the hand made or custom ordered signs showing support for Obama in his run for president.

Presidential Wishes

Just returned from a stretch of days driving around rural and small town Wisconsin, and I have to say that I am impressed. It is quite one thing to say yes when some campaign worker shows up at your door and asks to post one of those regulation pre-fab curbside signs on your property. That is one way to show your lukewarm support of a candidate. But it takes another level of support entirely to paint your own sign or have your own banner made at the fast sign place. And the number of citizen-made signs out there indicating support of Barrack Obama made me happy and hopeful indeed!

Do We Owe John McCain a Vote?

I have heard it a number of times, from rational reasonable people: "I want to find a reason to vote for John McCain because of his war record." As if we owe him for his service to the country, for his suffering for 5 years as a prisoner of war. Are we that guilt ridden about war that we would make a desicion about who we elect as president of our country for such a reason? McCain, near as I can figure, spent 5 years as a prisoner of war, was beaten several times and tortured several times, and spent most of the time confined in a cell alone. Details are sketchy since he refuses to say much and since he as successfully pushed for legislation to keep all records sealed. So he apparently did endure pain and suffering. Does that mean we owe him the presidency? No. I means we owe him adequate medical coverage. Both physical and psychological. It means we owe him the ability to make a living if the war experience rendered him unable. That appears not to be the case. However, we owe those things to all the other hundreds of thousands of those injured as a result of all wars, then and up to and including the current one. Who endured more suffering? John McCain as a POW or today's soldier who had half a leg and a hand blown off by a roadside bomb and is in a hospital or rehb center today? Can we give that young man or woman a turn at the presidency as well? Sorry folks, I feel some sadness that John McCain had to suffer, and some gratitude that he was willing to serve in the armed forces to 'defend and protect' our country, but no one owes him a vote for it.

Hillary's Speech

I take it for granted. I didn't know that people worked for 72 years to make it legal for women to vote. I didn't know that the right to vote came to women only 88 years ago. Imagine working for 72 years on an idea, to have it shot down again and again and again. for longer than many peoples' entire lifetimes. I have been working intermittently and occasionally and sporadically for prairie restoration and preservation for about about 15 years and I think that is a pretty big deal. I have had a few successes and more than few failures. And each failure about made me give up on it. I cannot imagine the disappointment that must have been in the air with each mounting defeat for the 72 years it took to get women their right to vote!
Yes, I really really really hoped for a woman president in my life time, and yes, I really thought Hillary Clinton had the stuff to be the first woman president, and yes, for quite a bit of the primary season, I really believed it would happen. The disappointment was hard to shake. It is hard to shift loyalty to Barrack Obama. But it is the right thing to do. If this primary campaign had been Barrack against nearly any other possible candidate, Barrack WOULD have been my certain choice. Wait, is David Carradine a Democrat? I might have picked him over Barrack. But I don't think he ever expressed much interest. So I will support Barrack Obama. Because a vote for John McCain is a vote against fairness and equality for women. Any man who would joke that his wife should be in a beauty pageant just doesn't GET IT. Obama gets it. He conducted a respectful campaign against Hillary Clinton. I have heard too many bitter Clinton supporters say they are going to just not vote. I have heard others say they are going to write in for Hillary. The first option, not voting, is a slap in the face to all those people who worked for 72 years to get you the right to vote. Not voting is NOT an option. The second proposal of writing in Hillary Clinton might feel good. But it will be a wasted vote. There will never be enough people doing that to make a difference. You got your chance to vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries and I hope you did, but now is the time to support Hillary Clinton by voting for the candidate her party, the Democrats, will run for president. Now is the time to, like Hillary Clinton, support and vote for Barrack Obama. It is your duty to those people who worked to get you a vote for 72 years and it is your duty to Hillary Clinton and it is your duty if you are someone who thinks '4 more years of the last 8 years' is a terrible idea. Please don't squander your vote trying to make some point. Support Hillary by supporting the Democrats by supporting Barrack Obama for President in 2008. That is how we will make history.

Signs of the Times

Which entry in the Independence Day parade got the most applause this morning?

Was it the firefighters in their death defying aerial acrobatics on tall ladders held aloft by opposing tension of ropes held by other firefighters on the ground, as they balanced in the blue sunny sky to unfurl their brilliant red, white, and blue flags to the cool breeze? Well, yes, okay, it was. They were their usual annual amazing show of daring, skill, and patriotism, and the crowd loved them.

But what drew the second largest applause from the audience lining each side of the street? It was the man carrying a sign that read "This war is not the answer." Everyone, store owners, business owners, office workers, construction workers, farmers, ranchers, students, retired people, all were united in their frustration with this too-long war and the ever-changing morphing slip-sliding reasons we have been given for getting into it and still being in it. Some years on 4th of July as we watch our parades and eat our barbeque chicken and corn and watch our softball games and our fireworks, we are proud of our nation. We used to be proud to be the nation who came to the aid of others in need, who found better means than war to get things done, who was too proud and ethical to use torture, who valued our constitution and the rights of our own people. Now we hang our heads in shame a little as a war we started drags on, as our privacy and other rights have been eroded in the name of preventing 'terror', as we are too distracted and war-impoverished to notice the starving and thirsty around the world.

The mass of those dissatisfied with this war grows, and that will be expressed in how we vote, and that perhaps can get our nation back on track so that what unites us in future patriotic gatherings is again pride and optimism.

Choosing

Clinton or Obama. Obama or Clinton. It is like in grade school when your two best friends were nominated for president of Young Citizens League at the same time. It is like when two boys leave you notes in your locker asking you to the dance during the same class. (Or as I imagine it might be.) It is like when both margaritas and daiquiris are on sale at the same time. It is like when there is both fudge and divinity at the holiday buffet. I want them both.