Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Archive for September 2011

The Lounge: Vision Quest Sedona

MOOOOOOOOOOOSE!

Want to go back to Arizona?  For the people who enjoyed the story of Sweetie and my trip the last time, here’s part 2.

When Sweetie and I left Arizona the last time after our Grand Canyon excursion something told me we would be back and soon.  As we were driving out of Flagstaff the last time we were there I couldn’t get over the distinct impression that there was something more for us to see and accomplish in Arizona so when Sweetie suggested that we go back to Arizona and Sedona for their vortexes it felt like part two of the two part series.

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Sweetie and I are travelers of the afternoon and evening.  No matter how hard we try we can’t get out of the door before about three in the afternoon, so for a drive that should last 8 or 9 hours we almost always choose to run from the sun going and chase the sun coming home and this trip was no exception we didn’t head east in earnest until about 3:30.  Sweetie is the foremost car trip outfitter in the land.  When we take off for a road trip our car can feed a dinner party in luxury and entertain a room full of kids even though it’s just Sweetie and I on these trips my Boo has us prepared.  We had a fabulous meal, all the munchies and sodas anyone would want, plenty of water and ice, and the Sweetie magic bag that contains everything from extra socks to the ability to almost perform surgery.

BARRIERS & BRIDGES: On Being Called a Racist

This is part of a series of suggested essays from Dkos exploring the issues set out in Denise Oliver Velez’s diary this Sunday Race and Racism: Barriers and Bridges.

One of the joys of returning after a week’s absence is to see that the issue of racism on this site and further afield has come into sharper focus. As I explained in my boycott diary, race is not everything, but anti-racism has been key to my political awakening and adult life.

But enough of that. In this diary I’m writing as a straight middle aged white man, and I want to explore what it’s like – as a straight middle aged white man – to be called a racist.

This is something the majority of commenters on Kos must have feared, experienced and witnessed – and a bit of self analysis on our reaction to that is probably overdue.

Maybe the US Veto of a Palestinian State Would be a Good Thing…

My last name is of Jewish origin and I am of Lebanese descent on my father’s side.  I grew up with both a Star of David and a Christian cross hanging over the fireplace mantle in our house.  And although we never made it to the alter, my first fiancée was Jewish.  As I naively look backwards in time through my rose colored glasses, I like to think that my life reflects the state of affairs among many Jews and Arabs before WWII. We come from the same genetic stock and have been intermingling for thousands of years.

To diminish and demonize the other side, is to diminish and demonize ourselves.  

WAYBACK MACHINE: Fox News Belittles and Mocks the Canadian Military. UPDATED

Originally posted in March 2009, this diary actually was one of the few that helped create an international incident of sorts.

Both President (Barack) Obama and Secretary (Hillary) Clinton have expressed the U.S.’s gratitude for the commitment and sacrifice of the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Canada has been a steadfast and capable partner on the ground in Afghanistan since 2002, and we are grateful for its contributions toward achieving security in that country,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement Monday that was issued in response to the Fox broadcast.

What with the war in Afghanistan still going strong, what follows is the original in its entirety.

My Favorite Book: A Feminist Ethic of Risk

Among much other political work I was involved in at the time, I was active in opposing the Gulf War in 1991.  As a naïve 20-year-old, I thought the huge crowds that protested the war would be able to force the government to adopt a more peaceful strategy.  It turned out that the planners of the war had already factored popular opposition into their strategy.  In the aftermath, I felt disillusioned, kind of stupid, and generally defeated.  I started to think, “what is the point of all the political work I’m doing if it’s futile?”

Then I read A Feminist Ethic of Risk.

I Don't Think We're Going to Pass Anything for Awhile

Hello, fellow Meese!  It’s been too long, please forgive my absence.  I’ve spent the last year or more just agog at how craven yet simultaneously audacious our friends across the aisle have been.  I’m beyond disgusted, and more than a little disappointed.  I’m pretty nearly ready for war, and if any of you remember me or my general political demeanor, that’s not the Reaper you likely recall.

I VOTE NOW

Did anyone see Bill Clinton on the TV this morning with Christine Amanapour? (or however you spell her name)

We caught the tail end and were glad that we did.

We’re still in Colorado, so TV is limited, as is the WIFI.

And btw, to brag to those in AZ, it’s freaking colder than hell here and we rejoiced that the sun came out today!

We’ve had 3 straight days of rain and snow and hail.

Love when it rains in Arizona, but when it rains here – not so much.

Former President Clinton said something that we’ve never thought about, and believe me, my husband and I discuss politics way too much and think about it way too much.

Bill Clinton said that Republicans ran on attacks and fighting at NOT working together or compromise and they were elected to do just that, and so they are doing just that.

Pretty much he said that we’re going to have to be hurt a lot more before WE THE PEOPLE change things in Washington DC.

Goodness, but it was so good to hear former president Clinton.

And I’ll never forgive Clinton for NAFTA.

My mother used to always say that “they’re all crooks”, and my mother was so right.

My father was a very dominating man, and he came over illegally from Quebec, and served during WWII and even received a purple heart and silver star, yet he never became a legal citizen and every single time that we went over into Canada, he had a very hard time coming back.

As kids, we were stopped for hours on the Ambassador Bridge on the way back from Canada and into Detroit.

My mother’s family came over from Austria, and my mother was born here, and she remembered her parents studying for tests to become American citizens.

My mother never wanted to vote and I remember my father coming home from work and asking her if she was ready to vote and an argument would erupt, with much yelling by my father, and my mother always said to him – “what’s the use because they’re all crooks” – and my father made my mother vote and that turned me off voting for a long time.

Don’t get me wrong, because I loved my parents, but my father was so domineering, and I had 2 brothers out of 3 that were gay, and one of those brothers, he tried to beat the gay right out of him.

I used to hide under the bed and I cannot tell you how much that affected me. Not to mention how it screwed up my brother that was beaten with wooden boards and my mother used to ask my dad afterward if there were nails in the board.

I am crying while writing this truth.

I still cry to this day remembering it all.

My father did teach me a lot of things and my father loved me, as the only girl and the youngest in my family.

Even though my father treated my mother as less than him, he pounded into to my head to never let a man rule me and do that to me.

And my brothers hate me for that.

They hated that my father talked to me and told me that men are not better than women – so imagine my life growing up and witnessing different.

I witnessed my father yelling and browbeating my mother to vote, and witnessing my dad beating the hell out of one gay brother, and witnessing my older brother who hates us all.

LMAO

Families are very complicated things.

I do not know how to say this right or left as the case maybe.

I’ve still got to say, and I know you guys are going to hate me for it, but the Democrats are in on it, too.

We’ve gone beyond whereby the Democratic Party was the party of the working man, whereby the Democrats are weak, which leads to me to believe that they are in on it, too.

Did you ever think in your life time that you’d hear Democrats placing Social Security and Medicare on the table for cuts?

The Great Realignment: The 1928 Presidential Election, Part 1

This is the first part of two posts analyzing in detail the 1928 presidential election.

The second post can be found here.

The Context

In a previous post, part of a series analyzing the Democratic Party during the 1920s, I spoke of how the 1928 presidential election constituted a realigning election.

The 1928 presidential election marked the beginning of a great shift in American politics. It was when the Democratic Party started changing from a minority and fundamentally conservative organization into the  party that would nominate Senator Barack Obama for president.

In 1928, the Democratic Party nominated Governor Al Smith of New York. Mr. Smith was nominated as a Catholic Irish-American New Yorker who directly represented Democratic-voting white ethnics. Mr. Smith’s Catholicism, however, constituted an affront to Democratic-voting white Southerners, who at the time were the most important part of the party’s base.

The 1928 presidential election thus saw a mass movement of white Southerners away from the Democrats, corresponding with a mass movement of white ethnics towards the Democrats. This was the beginning of the great realignment of the South to the Republican Party and the Northeast to the Democratic Party.

The Lounge: Adept2u's American Album

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!  I probably should have led my diaries here with this one as way of introduction.  I’ve produced a blog or 200, but this is the one I’ve always been proudest of.

My family was really started by two men, and no they weren’t gay. My Pop got a job as a computer programmer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in around 1968 when I was four years old. This was a tremendous opportunity for him. The list of professions that a Black man could hold wasn’t that long then, and although he had secured a great job as a social worker after college computers seemed the wave of the future.

That’s where he met Jim a man who loves me like a father. He is a White man from Iowa. His eldest sibling was born in the 1800’s. He grew up on a farm the last of 15 children, I can never remember exactly how many. I think my Pop was the first Black man he ever had more than just a brief conversation with, and he is the first person I can remember that is not a member of my biological family. He and my pop shared an office and became like peas and carrots. I used to fantasize and think of them as Bill Cosby and Robert Culp from the old TV show I Spy.