“We aren't doing the country a favor when we present recent history in a way that makes our system look better than it is. Sometimes the public needs to hear unpleasant truths, even if those truths make them feel worse about their country.”
– Paul Krugman, “Don't Prettify Our History”, The New York Times, August 22, 2005
http://nytimes.com/2005/08/22/opinion/22krugman.htmlWhat Krugman recommends is that we be honest with ourselves about what we have done wrong. Otherwise, we can never grow emotionally and spiritually. We can never improve.
How many of you read
The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck? (By the way, whatever happened to the millions and millions of people who bought that book? How can there be so many fascists in America, since surely no one who read that book, certainly those who took it to heart, could be one of today’s right wingers?) I invite you to get that book out, dust it off, and read it again. Peck said that we all have a “map of reality” in our heads. When the map gets out of sync with the real world, we have to make an adjustment.
Adjustment is change, and change is painful, which is why so many people avoid it. But the more we avoid necessary changes, the farther away our map gets from the real world. Facing the truth becomes more and more painful, and it’s avoided more and more strenuously—desperately, really. The only way to avoid the greater pain is to be scrupulously honest with ourselves and suffer the lesser pain of adjusting the map in smaller increments. The more we become accustomed to making the smaller changes, the easier it gets. But only honesty can get us there.
Right wingers’ refusal to face reality, their belief that reality is what they want it to be, is very painful for them, but they can’t admit their own part in their distress. So they blame US! LIBERALS are the reason they’re so uncomfortable. It’s why they hate us, though they accuse us of hating THEM, hating America, hating the troops, hating George Bush. They project their own hate, and they’re sometimes willing to admit that they want to kill us.
http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/LiberalsShouldBeNICE.htmWe ignore these truths at our peril, friends.
Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.
http://makethemaccountable.com/Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
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