I posted this on the Old Faceplace earlier:
“Remember all those times liberals called for Shrub to be shot and killed? Yeah, me neither. But we are exactly like the fringe right supposedly. Sure we wanted him to face the music for his illegal and unjust wars, torture regime and fleecing of the American people (and still do). I am just having a hard time remembering when we said it was totally acceptable, and desirable, to march on D.C., arrest, try and execute the president.
Yes, we also thought, like the right does with Obama, that Shrub was an illegitimate president. What happened in Florida in 2000 was a fucking travesty. And yes we formed grassroots organizations, held protests and attempted to put people in office that shared our views. We also ran into the reality that the establishment only liked us when we got people to vote their party into power. But to me that is where the comparison ends.
But time again I hear that the left and the right are the same. I guess people calling for peace and security, for basic fairness and equality, for universal unity, and for environmental sanity are exactly like the fringe right with their racism, xenophobia, misogyny, cruelty and utter disregard for anyone or anything that doesn’t fit into their American exceptionalist world view.
The sad thing to me is that there are so many issues that really do affect everyone, from the degradation of our environment to our crumbling infrastructure, from our economic servitude to corporations to the alarming amount of money being spent keeping the revolving door between those corporations and Congress greased. We are a people who are slowly and steadily getting less educated while being forced to compete for stagnant, even dwindling, wages as our world dies around us.
I would think that we could all come together and demand things change. But that won’t happen because there are those amongst us that see hate and discrimination as good things, who see violence against the ‘other’ as acceptable and desirable, who see the world as a thing to be profited from and not an ecosystem that we are part of and dependent upon.
We, the people of not just this nation but the world, are in this together. We need each other more than ever. Personally I don’t feel violence is ever the answer. Education, civic, economic and environmental responsibility, equality – these are the things I find most important. Threatening to kill those with whom you disagree with, not so much.”
Then I found this on a conservative friend’s wall. In a sense they are companion pieces. I do not address everything in the conservative’s blog entry with my above post, but I do believe I have addressed much of it in previous posts. Perhaps, time allowing, I will bring the two together.
just another vet 