THEM versus US

[OxQQme]

or the other side of that: US versus THEM.

Some FORCE has sure got all us citizens fighting against each other and I realize that *bushco* are the major instigators in this historical scenario. It's for sure a DARK FORCE.

Would any DU're invite a member of the 'other side' to dinner ?

We're just as much Zealots in their eyes as they in ours.

It's hard to believe that our basic needs are so different no matter what persuasion.

Do y'all think this Gannon 'thang' is going to open up some of 'the other side' to the dirtiness of what's going on ?

Lotsa questions in one thread i guess.

Last Q:
What is the dividing FORCE that needs to be overcome to reach out and find common ground ?

Thanks for your consideration.
It just doesn't seem right for our camp to be throwing stones at their camp forever.

Can you say, "Clampetts and McCoys"?

[Eric J in MN]

1. Their side is ok with torture, unnecessary wars, huge deficits,

a president saying he can label anyone an "enemy combatant" and imprison that person for the rest of his or her life.

Our side is against those things.

[Psephos]

6. Right

Using the same stereotyped way of thinking, a cynic could say our side is for standing by while genocide rages (Rwanda), for not interfering with Shari'a executions of women and gays in fundamentalist Islamic countries (Afghanistan), and for blindly supporting the UN even when it is riven by corruption (Oil for Food) and its peacekeeper forces rape local teenage girls (Congo).

And that cynic would be dead wrong. Maybe some of our stereotypes about repugs are dead wrong, too. Think about it.

What the original poster was getting at is important, extraordinarily important. From the dawn of civilization, humans have divided themselves into groups of Us and Them. Kill Them. Protect Us. Starve Them. Feed Us. Blame all evil and malaise in the world on Them, and all goodness and civility in the world on Us. Fuck Them over, no matter what they actually do. Treat Us preferentially, no matter what we actually do. Spit hatred at Them, and fie upon their children. Shower Us with love and blind loyalty, and do whatever you have to for our children.

This deep psychological urge is a leftover from evolution when it was tribe against tribe on a dry savannah, and there weren't enough resources for both.

But times have changed. The current level of invective, ubiquitous conspiracy suspicions, and absolute belief in the evil of the "other party" is no longer political. It is religious. We have our religion, complete with sacred principles no one dares question, and deep faith in our beliefs. They have theirs. Still not convinced? Tell me whether all the death and misery the Protestants and Catholics have caused each other in Ireland is religious or political. Who cares what you label it, at a certain point religion and politics become the same thing. We're right, and fuck them.

The original poster said the current political situation is like the Clampetts and McCoys, but he/she meant the Hatfields and McCoys. No one in that long-running feud even remembered what the original controversy was over, all they knew was that they loathed everything the other family thought, everything they did, and everything they stood for.

I've had enough Hatfields and McCoys. I'm ready to consider something else.

Peace.

[Eric J in MN]

12. You can say that it's just a stereotype, bu they voted for Bush,

which makes it more than a stereotype.

[rman]

13. if they are opposed to those things, then why did they vote for Bush?

what's so stereotypical about it?

why would i want a warmongering torture apologist at my dinner table?

[Blue_In_AK]

2. We have some Republican friends

who came up to visit for a week over New Year's. NO politics was discussed, and we had a good time. I like these people too much on other levels to sacrifice the friendship on the alter of politics. Hopefully they'll come around as ** continues his downward spiral.

[LisaLynne]

3. I have similar friends.

I like them for a lot of other reasons. As long as they respect me enough to know not to discuss politics, it's okay. I might be the only liberal they know. At least they get a little exposure to what we are really like, instead of what Rush tries to say we are. At the same time, they help me to remember that a lot of these people are just scared and uninformed.

[Mojambo]

4. Them and Us

One of my favorite songs by Bad Religion

Despite that he saw blatant similarity
He struggled to find a distinctive moiety
All he found was vulgar superficiality
But he focused it to sharpness
And shared it with the others
It signified his anger and misery

Them and us
Lobbying determined through a mire of disbelievers
Them and us
Dire perpetuation and incongruous insistence
That there really is a difference
Between them and us

Hate is a simple manifestation
Of the deep-seated self-directed frustration
All it does is promote fear and consternation
It's the inability
To justify the enemy
And it fills us all with trepidation

Them and us
Bending the significance to match a whimsied fable
Them and us
Tumult for the ignorant and purpose for the violence
A confused loose alliance forming
Them and us

I heard him say
We can take them all

(But he didn't know who they were,
And he didn't know who we were.
And there wasn't any reason or
motive, or value, to his story,
just allegory, imitation glory,
and a desperate feeble search for a friend)

[Martin Eden]

5. Common Ground

We obviously have very much in common with our fellow citizens who voted for Bush -- we want what's best for our families and for our country. I like and respect many of the people at my workplace and on my softball team, and I know that some of them vote straight Republican. I happen to think they are misinformed, mistaken, and misled, but aside from politics there's little difference between "them" and "us."

Our task is to close the political gap, not by meeting them halfway on the political spectrum, but by promoting understanding. You make a good point that we can never get them to accept or understand our point of view while we're throwing stones at them.

The politicians who've misled them depend on the divisiveness of today's political climate. They need a divided populace, with both sides outraged at the other, and in our own outrage we feed into that cycle. We have to be smart enough and in control enough to realize what it will take to win our country back from those who are leading it down a dark and dangerous path.

P.S. It's the "Hatfields" & McCoys

[mandyky]

7. What has separated us, beside this administration is

Right Wing hate radio. Rush Limpballs and his ilk are constantly projecting motives onto "liberals". They have made liberal the "dirty word" it has become.

I am proud to be a liberal, which to me means generous and open minded.

[Desert Liberal]

8. The Rethugs are perfectly happy to be mushrooms.

(please keep in mind that these observations are only about the Rethugs I personally know, and I know a LOT-I live in the Midwest)
They don't mind being kept in the dark and fed shit. I mind that a LOT! I go out of my way every day to educate myself. Rethugs in general think Faux News is perfect and * is the voice of God Himself. They believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Founders were all good little religious zealots just like them. They pick and choose their facts and refuse to see the whole truth if it interferes with their world view. They would rather think everything is hunky-dory because that does not require anything from them. They don't have to worry if they just believe * and co.
They are scared and so choose to stay blind.
We are scared and so choose to stand and fight.

[OxQQme]

9. Bad religion

RAWKS. I've never been able to always understand lyrics through the layers of sound and i thank you for those Jambo.

I wonder if it's genetic to separate self from 'out there'.

We define self by 'I desire that' or ' I want none of that'. We of the left side are sure seeing some of the latter.

Perhaps these events are necessary, to strengthen the desire to have equality and be better for all us earthlings.

This difference factor doesn't seem to be localized in this country as it's visible in all nations.

The Have's and the Havenot's are in all colors and genders.

PS, I sorta knew it was the Hatfields as I was posting, but my mental hard drive is very full and little bit fragmented.

Would somebody post the Seven Deadly Sins ? I know sloth and anger.

[Corgigal]

10. Would any DU're invite a member of the 'other side' to dinner ?

I don't know who you are to ask me this. Tonight however I took a Bush voting active duty air force guy to dinner. He's been having some financial problems and the kid probably needed a nice meal.

Now, here the kick. He can vote any damn way he wants. In fact his voting might personally get him killed when he goes into Iraq in 4 months. The problem is that I have 4 kids that his voting can hurt also and this is where I draw the line. If we don't even draft in their lifetimes I have to worry about the world they will live in.

You are posting on this site like we're all republicans. Good vs Evil, Black and white, we are the more complicated thinking people and understand the most things aren't that clear cut.

Now, why don't you feed someone.

[OxQQme]

11. Corgigal

I wish not to ruffle any feathers.
I am only a person in this world.
I applaud you for your dinner with a bush voter.
DU is my sanity.
I only ask for some semblance of understanding of how we (dems {liberals}) can find some kind of common ground with those who are percieved to be 'the enemy' so we can overcome this force that has taken over our thoughts.


Far from right!

[rman]

14. basic needs

It is indeed hard to believe that Bush voters "need" corporations to be protected from mal practice law suits, it is hard to believe they need a more poluted environment, need a government that lies about reasons to go to war, need media that are propaganda outlets while maintaining those same media have a liberal bias, etc, etc. Very hard to believe.