America. I can't find you any more.

[cornermouse]

last night while watching the Spitzer scandal and looking at DU, I started wondering when we (apparently including democrats) became so puritanical. If we used the standard we're applying today (including posts here on DU last night), JFK would have either never become president or would have been impeached and hounded from office. Let me remind you that JFK was president during a time period that was definitely not liberal.

I live in an America today that has been pulled so far to the right that there is now a sizeable faction of the population who truly believes McCain is a liberal. Meanwhile, on the other side of the political fence resides another sizeable faction who apparently truly believes Hillary recommended McCain for president. I wonder why we only "group think" and when we lost the ability to reason and to think independently.

I went to my favorite website, DU, who I think of as a microcosm of the democratic party and found many, many people bashing and slashing Chelsea (democrat, remember?) for daring to support her mother, with all the enthusiasm and meanness that I had previously only seen and heard from hard core republicans. Indeed, I've seen people use the republican mantras against Hillary as well, but at least she's actually the candidate. I've also seen people displaying obvious sexism here and since I'm living in a part of the country which is among the worst in the nation for wife and child abuse, I wonder where we're going as a nation. There is a total lack of respect for other people's individuality and privacy and multiple attempts to force people into one camp or the other of the two remaining candidates.

I've seen people cheering about sharply rising gas prices without any thought or apparent concern for the people for whom this is truly a hardship. I could go on but time is short and I have to leave. I just look around and can't help but wonder and fear at least a little because I don't know where America has gone and if we'll ever find America again.

[Stuart G]

1. Is it America that is lost, or the media?

[cornermouse]

3. It's America.

The media may be an accomplice, but in the end it's America.

[Stuart G]

4. The media might be trying to portray us as more puritanical..

I am not sure I always believe what I see on TV. Or even here. Are we really more puritanical? I doubt it. More people accept gay relationships now than ever before. There is as much divorce as ever. But this nonsense is a smokescreen for a failed leader and a failed media. I may be wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time. But the biased media does not want to admit that it has almost never called the asshole in charge ..........." a lier" IT would rather talk about....." Spitzer and the whore."

[Birthmark]

2. America is long dead.

It won't return in our lifetime, either. For that, honesty would have to be respected. It's not. Facts are thrown out as quickly as spin, based on the convenience of the facts to one's viewpoint. In such a climate, capable self-government is impossible for very long.

[Stuart G]

5. America's death report may have been premature..

Perhaps so, but I wouldn't bury the corpse, unless you are sure there is no life..Throughout this country there seems to be..well a stirring.......

[Birthmark]

6. Aw, that's just nerves.

Corpses snort and twitch and all kinds of stuff.

Make friends with your neighbors. Society's going local!!

[lapfog_1]

7. JFK...

his womanizing and cheating were well known by the press corp.

They had a "gentleman's agreement" that the President could pretty much do what he wanted and would not pay the price in the news for it. Had someone broken that... with pictures and everything, I'm pretty sure it would have ended his Presidency too. If you buy into a bit of :tinfoilhat: then one of the reasons to kill JFK (by the CIA) was not his womanizing, but WHO he was womanizing... in particular an East German girl was one of his many conquests (Ellen Rometsch)...



I haven't seen anyone slashing Chelsea up... but whatever... she isn't the teenage girl anymore... As for using "republican mantras" against Hillary, I think it's much more like Hillary is using them against us. In fact, I don't consider Hillary a Democrat anymore. Period.

And that sexism charge is getting to be so old. Not to say that there aren't a small number of anti-Hillary people who are, in fact, sexist or using sexist language... but there are just as many Hillary supporters using racist remarks (like Ferraro today "if Obama wasn't a black man...") and THAT's not coming from folks here, but people that still have some pull in the Democratic Party.

[cornermouse]

8. Right-o.

I know I always look for a candidate who votes present rather than leaves a voting trail for others to attack him through. Not that it would be a clear indication of an ambitious or calculating nature or lack of actual principles or anything...:tinfoilhat:

[lapfog_1]

15. The "present" vote is SO last month...

Hillary has dropped that in favor of "not ready to be C-in-C, like me and my good friend McCain".

Didn't you get the memo?

[ET Awful]

9. Let America be America again.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

- Langston Hughes

[1monster]

10. I love Langston Hughes. I only really discovered him when I was teaching a Senior English class a

while back.

You can download a book in pdf format of most of his poetry here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/langston-hughes/

Cross

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If I ever cursed my white old man
I take those curses back.
If I ever cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well.
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm going to die
Being neither white or black.

Other poets peoms and pdf books available here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poets/

[boobooday]

11. None of this represents a new development

Puritanism? Been there, done that, brought it with us, bring it out like a club when it suits our purposes.

Robust, vitriolic political debate? Yeah, that's the good news.

Sexism? Certainly nothing new, and it's a topic because a woman has entered the presidential race (a step forward!).

You forgot racism, but that is, and has always been there as well. Two steps forward, and one step back. Sometimes vice versa.

It all sounds like America to me.

America is not lost, she's right there in your face, the way she has always been, and maybe even getting a little better.

[ThomWV]

12. Please ignore my usual morning nastiness, but maybe you're mistaken, maybe not

My first inclination was to go Rah Rah and agree with you completely. Then I remembered something, anytime Americans are polled about their beliefs we come up a much more liberal country than our lawmakers and newscasters would have us believe. I have no special knowledge or insight about this, I'm just saying that I recall the reports of how liberal we actually are when asked about policies one at a time, but you're certainly right, we get news and pass laws that would make you think differently.

[stellanoir]

13. The tone of your thoughtful post is reminiscent of the most

powerful thing I've scene written in years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/please-dont-go-back-to-s_b_3865.html

Kudos

[selador]

14. puritanical?

cmon.

look, i don't think prostiution should be illegal.

but this is not about puritanism

nearly every jurisdiction in the WORLD criminalizes prostitution.

the exceptions are few and far between

are ALL these countries "puritanical"?

[truedelphi]

16. Your words resonate here.

Spitzer's life is undone by a misdemeanor of a crime.

And we actually need him right now in NY state to put his wisdom in financial matters into play - the country's fianncial centers are in a mess right now.

And how mean is it to bash a young adult who is out on the campaign trail helping her mom??

Or to ignore that spiralling gas prices hurt those who need to commute from the booniees into town.

[JackRiddler]

17. Actually, the sex stuff is not just the right...

It's a combo of puritanical reaction to an increasingly pornographic society, *and* the decline of the old-boy male privilege that keept reporters silent when dealing with "respectable" people. Back in the JFK days, it's true that governors didn't have to worry about reporters going through their underwear, but black boxers still had to fear a real lynching, if they were caught with a consenting adult white woman. And male privilege and press discretion didn't keep JFK's brains from being blown out in the coup d'etat of November 1963.

Actually, it's the same America as it always was, only more so. Try telling it to the Cherokee, seriously. We need to get over our mythological past and build a democracy in this country for the first time in its history.