One Voice in the Crowd

[Angry Dragon]

One Voice in the Crowd


To start out I am just an idiot American taxpayer and voter and do not know what is best for me. I do not know much about anything. I do know what I believe and I am always searching for new ideas to better refine my beliefs. In doing this I try to be a better person.

That said I will tell you what I see. Both sides have so much fear that they do not know who to direct it at. Everyplace I go I see anger and fear in everyone except the ones that are really making the decisions. They have no fear because they have taken care of themselves and everyone else is trying to catch up to them. The democrats fight the republicans. The republicans fight the democrats. And nothing changes.

As I travel through the internet and through daily life I notice things as best I can. I visit sites where I am not welcome for my views and these differ greatly from my own. I listen and see. I try to gather ideas that are different from my own. In doing that I hope to better formulate my beliefs and to better understand someone else's ideas.

The observations below apply to the everyday republicans and democrats.

Republicans for the most part believe their leaders.
Democrats question theirs.
Republicans worry about change.
Democrats welcome change for the better.
Republicans don't argue among themselves very much.
Democrats fight and argue among themselves a very great deal.
Republicans worry about giving up something so someone else can be benefited.
Democrats try to figure out how everyone can have the same chance and try to include everyone.

If these things I notice are for the most part true then how are you people ever going to really change things?? You are the party of inclusion. The other party is the party of exclusion. It is a lot easier to exclude than include. I only have to find one thing about you that I do not like and I can exclude you. If I am going to include you I have to accept you with all your faults. It is so much easier to only have to be on one page at a time verses having to deal with many pages.

As you fight among yourselves you expend your energy in that fight and have less fight for the real enemy. The real enemy?? You could tell yourself it is the republicans. It isn't. The real enemy is the people in control of this country and government. The government today is just a tool of the power brokers to use to pass laws and regulations that make their activities legal. Until this changes any laws that are passed for the people's protection will just be changed at a latter date. Already the other side is talking about how they intend to win elections and change any health care bill that is passed.

The American people have lost control of their government and I do not know the best or if there is any way to get it back and keep it in the hands of the people. One way I would suggest is that as long as you are the party of inclusion you need to include the republicans that you so hate for their hate and intolerance. It is the people at the bottom that want the same things, just different ways to get them, against the people at the top that have the power, money, control and they do not want to give up any of these things.

There is only one way to gain control for the people at the bottom and that is in numbers. Neither party has enough numbers to get this done, Only by combining forces will this country be back in the hands of the many and not just the power brokers.

Carl Rogers started in the 1960's a form of therapy called the client-centered approach. He found that clients that had therapists that actually heard their clients had a much better rate of success than therapists that just listened. It is out of favor now because it is not something that can be taught, it has to be within the therapist to actually want to hear to their clients. It is harder to do because the therapist has to invest part of her/himself into the therapy. How much are you willing to invest into actually hearing the other side?? How much are you willing to invest?? Are you willing to take the chance of having some of your beliefs being changed or sifted?? Have we all forgotten how to hear our neighbors and only talk to others that believe as we do?? Perhaps we all need to be therapists for each other so we can really hear and see inside of each other.

Until one can actually hear the fears and frustrations of the other side you will not understand them. You will never know what they are really afraid of. Until both sides hear each other this country will continue down the path of self destruct. You decide, either fight the little wars, or fight battles within the big war. The enemy is only fighting the big war with most of the power on their side.

[annabanana]

1. So . . we should welcome their intolerance and bigotry?

(not sure wht you're argueing for here)

[Angry Dragon]

2. I am trying to say

is that we have to hear what their fears are. I know what I want to say but have trouble sometimes finding the words to explain what I think and feel.

Sometimes people are just afraid, have no idea why they are afraid just that they have a fear. Until they run across someone that will actually listen and hear them they have trouble voicing it.

People, I think nowadays feel that no one hears them. Their voice does not count. They do not count, so when they hear Rush talking about Hitler, gays, blacks, socialism and such, he touches on their fears and builds on them. Until someone on the other side hears their fears he is the only one they thinks listens to them. He gives them a picture of what they should fear instead of what they are actually afraid of. They know that they are struggling with wages, health care, any number of things but perhaps they have trouble putting their fears in meaningful words.

[Angry Dragon]

5. An example...

of what I am trying to say.

A soldier comes back from Iraq after losing a leg. He tells his friends that he is pissed about losing a leg. Is that the only thing or fear that he has?? Is he afraid that his wife will no longer think of him as a man, or half a man?? Will his children still love him?? Does he think of himself as less than a man?? Will he be able to do the things that he enjoyed doing before??

Until one sits down and really listens and hears they will not be able to see inside that man and see the things he is afraid of. We have to take the time to hear people.

And yes intolerance and bigotry can not always be changed, but at the very least we have to try and listen to their fears because otherwise they will only have bigots that will listen to them.

[Ineeda]

3. Not really getting you but

I have to disagree on one of your points. Inclusion of all is actually a whole lot easier than exclusion. With exclusion, everyone has their own biases and would exclude a particular segment, causing a rift with those who would include that segment but exclude another.

[Angry Dragon]

7. Perhaps it would have been better

if I would have said that the party of inclusion has to accommodate people for civil rights, gay rights, fair tax, good schools, health care, military, help for everyone, care for elderly, the list goes on. The party of exclusion only has to include people that want to kick the inclusion party out of office or keep them out.

By trying to give everybody what they want energy is expended in doing so. If they marshall their power to one thing the others feel left out and so they get angry and fear that they are not being listened to. A broad base is harder to keep happy.

[winyanstaz]

4. I agree that America needs to pull together...

at lest until we get this mess cleaned up.

[Angry Dragon]

6. We always have to pull together

History tells us that if we pull apart it will just surface again. Back in about 1906 the muck-rackers attacked the congress for selling Senate seats to corporations. They said the Senator from Shell Oil, the Senator from the railroads etc. States at that time elected Senators so they changed the Constitution to popular vote. 100 years later we are back to where we were.