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Edited on Tue Oct-07-08 10:43 AM by DrZeeLit
"You guys say that every election"
He gets that gleam in his eye -- that rabid, Rush/Coulter/Hannity gleam -- "Gotcha!"
But I stick to my guns. I am not going to some meek corner to lick my "it's a free country, I'll just shut up now" wounds.
Not this time. Not this election. Not even for the fake peace of my family dinner table.
My answer is YES!, every election -- the last 2 and this one -- has been THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR TIME.
Why? Look around at what is happening ...what has happened. And I could have played the "if" game, but I didn't need to do that.
A laundry list of death and destruction followed -- from natural disasters to banking to credit to homes to jobs to health care to food safety to product safety to education to justice to poverty to trade....
What could he say? He begins to call me names. Me. A sister he has known all his life. And all he has is the same tired OLD Republican talking points. They go on as if we, Democrats, are all still unemployed welfare hippies sitting in the park chanting about Nixon and smoking dope.
But he knows. KNOWS. That I have worked since I was sixteen. That I put myself through three degrees of college education. That I was a single mother. That I ruled out a "high power job" in the private sector for twenty years in trenches of public education. That I'm NOT that stereotype. HE KNOWS THIS.
But still he calls me names. Quitter. Traitor. Terrorist lover. Tax and spend. Big government.
I look at him, sadly, I think. I suppose I must have looked at him in that pathetic "you guys point the finger and it all comes back on you" face. That junior high teacher face. Yeah, I do that. But he's still in junior high -- at least with the name calling.
He says, oh yeah -- you're gonna enlighten the world -- it's all up to you -- you know better -- you have all the answers. Liberal elitist.
We both grew up in the same home -- 3 bedrooms for six kids and two parents. Mom a nurse; dad a teacher. Middle class all the way. Whatever we both have we have worked hard for -- he knows this. Elitist?
Name calling. Head in the sand. The delete button. It's all he's got. He knows nothing else. No - I take that back. He doesn't WANT to know anything else. IT'S ABOUT FEAR. If he's been wrong all this time...he's not a "man." Republicans are nothing if not good soldiers. He listens to those talking points and he falls in line. That IS what they can do very well. They can follow.
But, I point out, what you have sorely lacked is a leader. Bush? Product of those last two elections? What do you like about Bush? Silence.
Which is why we get back to that -- THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR TIME.
If we do not change direction now... if we don't find a transformational leader -- who will inspire followers to join and change with the nation and the world -- then the death and destruction will ripple across this land in ways we never could imagine.
But when I say this, with the love of a sister, he sneers. "I'll be proud to have John McCain as my president."
I stopped. I wanted to talk issues and I could see a bunch of crap coming my way. He's too far gone.
I told him he had ceased to be anyone I would want to know or be related to. Sad, but true.
And this is the metaphor for all of us.
I believe in two paths -- love and fear. Every action is a choice between those two. Love and fear cannot stand in the same place.
It's not that I don't love my brother, but enough of that knee-jerk fear and hatred and lashing out.
We must stand in the face of their fear and chose love.
I love my country. I love more than the flag and the land and the people. I love what we believe in and who we are when we are at our best. I love my country.
This is the MOST important election of our time.
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