New Year, New Opportunity

Recently a couple of Monona County Democrats invited me to contribute to the blog http://www.idp4.org/blog, twitter feed https://twitter.com/#!/IDP4th and facebook pages https://www.facebook.com/IDP4th for the Democratic Party of Iowa's new 4th District . I hardly feel qualified (I've only lived here for 10 years), but progressives are so rare in this side of the state that I agreed to help. I've felt strongly that the few of us here in Crawford County really need to be better about networking and communicating.

I'll add these links to the right-hand menu of this blog. I can't believe how much busier I've been this year since I started teaching 8th grade Civics, so my contributions may be few and far between, but as I told the IDP4th webmaster, at least I'm more likely to keep my posts below 700 words than I was back when I had a column in the Mapleton PRESS.

If you're of our rare breed ("Blue" in a "Red" district), I hope you'll caucus next week so that we can replace Congressman Steve King with former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack and State House (Dist.18) Representative Jason Schultz with someone like Kasey Friedrichsen. 

Who knows, I may even send up a political cartoon once in a while.

Conservatives vs. Progressives

Not long ago , this Schultz character who's a Republican candidate for our state legislature (District 55) got my Irish up. He's a fellow Lutheran, but he opens every campaign pitch with a Evangelical Religious Right wing diatribe about gay marriage, abortion and teaching evolution and prayer in public schools, while getting government off our backs, out of the social welfare business, stop giving health care to illegal aliens etc. etc.

After a few weeks time to cool off and reflect, it occurs to me that we're both right (and wrong) but also both as sincere as can be. He thinks that it's up to churches and charities to help the poor and disaster victims- not the government, whereas I think it's up to the churches and parents to teach about God pleasing personal and moral choices and to encourage and model prayer- not the government.

However you feel about it, whether you think that government is a means to reform society in preparation of the second coming, like Conservative Evangelicals (Restorationists & Calvanists), or whether you think that government is an instrument for achieving social justice or continuing Jesus' ministry to the poor, the sick, the widows and the aliens, like the Liberation-Theology (AME & Liberal Catholics) you have to admit that the convergence of faith and politics can be very sticky.

You also have to admit that Americans don't know the meanings of our own words. But then, so much of language is semantics.

I thought what follows was a fascinating discussion:

"The labels are somewhat oxymoronic if not paradoxical.

Progressives, for example, like to conserve nature, and historical buildings.

Conservatives like to put up new and more modern buildings after demolishing the old.

Conservatives mostly want to retain historical morals and ways of being: against stem-cell research, and abortion, and gay marriage, and want to retain the Judeo-Christian heritage based on the Ten Commandments.

Progressives want to retain historical cultures, and want the Native Americans to remain Native Americans, and want African tribes to remain tribal, and want each culture to retain its originality, even to the point of not being quite able to stand for women's rights in places like Afghanistan.

Conservatives (like Reagan) wanted to mainstream American Indians, bringing them up to date with the latest developments. Bush wants to mainstream Muslim countries, pushing them into the Democratic 21st century, where dictators disappear, and voting appears, and women have universal rights.

I'm sure there are many other ways in which the two terms aren't exactly adequate to what the supposedly rival groups claim to actually want.

And of course the two great streams have lots of crosscurrents within them.

But every time I hear the terms I giggle to myself at how inadequate they are.

Conservatives actually want progress on certain fronts: they want universal human rights based on Lockean Christianity, and they want to build an aggressive economic sphere that looks to the future.

Progressives actually are quite conservative on certain fronts: they want to retain each culture's wisdom, based on a Unitarian belief that Diversity of ideas is a good thing, and must be retained, and they want to retain the look of the 19th century even in the midst of our business spheres so that some kind of link to our history remains."

Posted by Kirby Olson on http://lutheransurrealism.blogspot.com

Go Blue

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.
- Will Rogers

So... right now the "righties" still run the show. The Dems may have took the hill, but not enough to ever get around a filabuster, let alone a veto. For real change, we need a real majority. If you're interested in taking us in a new direction and you live around my part of Iowa, check out how you can make a difference;

Crawford County County Chair Marcia Bachmann
2916 Highway 30 , Denison Iowa 51442
712-263-4393 (main)
richmarc@longlines.com

Harrison County County Chair Pat Hart Co Chair Norma Coret 606 Walker St Woodbine, IA 51579 712-647-2239 njcoret@loganet.net
1166 Madison Ln , Pisgah Iowa 51564
712-456-2055 (main)
jpathart@iowatelecom.net

Monona County County Chair Kenneth Mertes
26075 Highway K45 , Onawa Iowa 51040
712-423-2602 (main)
kjmesq@willinet.net

Visit Iowa's 5th District Democrat's webpage http://www.idp5.org

Ain't nuthin but a hound dog

The Blue Dogs are a coalition of like-minded Democrats whose primary mission is to promote fiscally responsible budget reforms and accountability for taxpayer dollars. Many members hail from conservative-leaning districts, where liberal Democrats and liberal values are a decided minority.

Yellow dog Democrats were voters who would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican.

I always used to think of myself as a Blue Dog- I found Reaganomics irresponsible, let alone detrimental to the socioeconomic fabric that permitted the middle-class American dream to flourish. But this Bush administration has certainly radicalized me. I always used to be a centrist and wanted to think of myself as bipartisan, independent, even "post-partisan" as so many Gen-Xers thought of themselves. But my patience is worn out.

Ah, but NOW, when nearly 70% of Americans want to impeach Bush and Cheney but the Democrats in Congress refuse to do anything about that and fail to end his trumped up war- I'm beginning to get fed up with them. You know what you get when you mix blue and yellow don't you? Green. What holds me back is that Al Gore might be President right now if Ralph NAder had kept his enormous ego out of the 2000 race.

Grrrrrrrr

Blue Elephants, Red Donkeys

Lets see if they’re really different or not;
Why Blue Elephants made the difference- by a Red Donkey
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Schleswig Leader, Thursday, November 16, 2006 Page 3

Last week a very dear Republican friend of mine sent me an E-mail: “So...Have you calmed down since the election is over and Rumsfeld is out? What is your reaction to the fact that a number of states have voted for protection of/clear definitions of marriage amendments?”
I don’t know... what’s calm? Political and news junkies like me get off on letting our blood pressure boil over pundits, party talking points and politicians. Other people watch football or bet on basketball.

I’m fine with defining marriage as one man and one woman as long as you don’t deny anyone equal treatment under the law. Of course I think that having to pass a law defining marriage as between one man and one woman is superfluous, it’s like passing a law to define the sky as blue, so it was obviously a flawed attempt by extreme right wingers to “activate their base” and get the gay-hating Christians to come out and vote.

Some of us are Christians, agree that the Bible pretty clearly prohibits homosexuality, and agree that marriage by definition is only for one man and one woman, yet we don’t have a huge irrational fear and hatred of gay people and we believe that they live under the same Constitution.

Should Rumsfeld have been removed from office sooner? Heavens yes? Would that have helped Republicans fare better in the election that was just held? Gee Wilikers? Who knows? Is it pretty convenient that since he’s getting the boot now, his replacement (who was pretty involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980’s) will be confirmed by the current 209th Congress rather than the newly elected 210th with a Democratic majority in January? By Golly, you betchya!

You know what? Now is when the rubber really hits the road. It was pretty easy for the Democrats to win a majority. They didn’t have to run for anything. The Republicans were so steeped and soaked in scandal, corruption, hypocrisy, mistakes, extremism, and of course the muck of a miss managed war and a stubborn, Presidency.

Some Democrats would like to think that the voters sent President Bush and the Republicans a strong message, that they’re ready for change. But I don’t put much stock in alleged “mandates.” I don’t think that Liberals have any more mandate than Bush mistakenly claimed when he was barely reelected.

Democrats won because most Americans are centrists. They won because moderate Republicans jumped ship because they got tired of people who talked about compassionate conservatism but really aren’t either.

This election saw a new development. “Goldwater Democrats.” That’s right. Sound like an oxymoron? No more than “Reagan Democrats.”

Growing up in Arizona, I came to see Goldwater, our senior Senator for most of my life as sort of a patron saint. When the shrimp hit the fan with Watergate, he went to Nixon and told him to step down. Goldwater was angry that Nixon had been lying to him.

Now mind you, I disagree on his stand on states-rights in opposition to civil rights, especially integrating schools and of course there was the idea he had about using “strategic” nukes in Vietnam. Nobody’s perfect. But time and time again, I find myself agreeing with him on many things that I used to be able to find common ground on with my Republican friends- things like deficit reduction, government reform and smaller, streamlined government. Not to mention keeping the Government out of your private life.

Democrats won this recent election because, like Goldwater, American voters don’t like lies and secrets and have no patience for ineptitude- not because Americans suddenly all became progressives. Many of the Democrats who won consider themselves fiscal and social conservatives. Some are Iraq veterans who felt abandoned or betrayed.

What the Democrats had better do now is deliver. House Speaker elect, Pelosi promised the most uncorrupted, moral and reformed Congress ever. Its easy to be the “reform” party when you’re on the outside. If they let power corrupt them then they’ll deserve to get kicked out just like their predecessors.

We can only hope that the Democrats will finally put the brakes on the out of control spending habits of Bush and the Republicans.

We can only hope that they’ll REFORM (not raise) taxes in a way that benefits the middle class, not corporations and the super rich. But only time will tell.