What Really Makes our Nation Strong (Garrison Keillor)

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by Garrison Keillor

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0907-26.htm

<snip>

It's hard for Americans to visualize the collapse of our country. It's as unthinkable as one's own demise. Europeans are different: They've seen disaster, even the British. They know it was a near thing back in 1940. My old Danish mother-in-law remembered the occupation clearly 40 years later and was teary-eyed when she talked about it. Francis Scott Key certainly could envision the demise of the United States in 1814 when he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Abraham Lincoln was haunted by the thought. We are not, apparently, though five years ago we saw a shadow.

We really are one people at heart. We all believe that when thousands of people are trapped in the Superdome without food or water, it is the duty of government, the federal government if necessary, to come to their rescue and to restore them to the civil mean and not abandon them to fate. Right there is the basis of liberalism. Conservatives tried to introduce a new idea - it's your fault if you get caught in a storm - and this idea was rejected by nine out of 10 people once they saw the pictures. The issue is whether we care about people who don't get on television.

Last week, I sat and listened to a roomful of parents talk about their battles with public schools in behalf of their children who suffer from dyslexia, or apraxia, or ADD, or some other disability - sagas of ferocious parental love vs. stonewall bureaucracy in the quest for basic, needful things - and how some of them had uprooted their families and moved to Minnesota so their children could attend better schools. You couldn't tell if those parents were Republicans or Democrats. They simply were prepared to move mountains so their kids could have a chance. So are we all.

And that's the mission of politics: to give our kids as good a chance as we had. They say that liberals have run out of new ideas - it's like saying that Christians have run out of new ideas. Maybe the old doctrine of grace is good enough...

[OneBlueSky]

1. Garrison has been doing a LOT of anti-BushCo writing lately . . . n/t

.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Yes, and it's great stuff...

...he has a way of making his point that really stays with you.

[GCP]

2. He's one reason why I subscribe to Salon.com

His columns are always excellent - and more so just recently.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

3. He's never disappoints...

Here's one of my favorite essays by Keillor from the Summer of '04...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0831-02.htm

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

5. Another good one from Summer of '04

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-02.htm