Conservative rule has damaged our hearts and minds.

[MonteLukast]

How Much Damage Has Eight Years of Conservative Rule Done to Americans' Psyches? from AlterNet.
IMO, a must-read column; for its facing head-on the extent of the damages Bush and friends wreaked on our hearts and minds.

But I would submit, an even greater form of damage right-wing rule has wrought:

Co-option and corruption of thinking and ability to love.

Love, but only for those who live up to a certain political and personality standard.

Family, but only for those who adhere to rigid gender roles and heterosexual status.

Saying your highest company value is integrity, and then marginalizing your employees who have integrity, making them subservient to corrupt leadership or removing them from decision-making authority altogether.

Completely distorting the meaning of responsibility and respect for one's elders-- using it as a tool to force your will on your children and loved ones.

Contaminating happiness and joy itself; sending the message that to be happy, you must turn a blind eye to human suffering, close your mind to the consequences of your actions, shut down your imagination, and stop thinking so damn much.

The right wing has taken so many pleasurable and fortifying things about humanity, and poisoned them; so that we cannot indulge in them without getting that bitter aftertaste in our mouths, without feeling compromised.
We cannot indulge in positivity anymore without feeling some hidden negative effect.

What's the antidote?

I can't claim to knowing all the answers, but I can offer some suggestions that hopefully will help.

We can start by no longer going by words alone. Always take that closer look, to see that the actions match the rhetoric.
(Remember, Coloradoans, the anti-affirmative-action Amendment 46 is promoted by a group called Colorado For Civil Rights... and the odious Amendment 48, which would criminalize millions of women for using birth control, is promoted by Colorado For Equal Rights.)

We can, and should, examine our own unconscious biases, and be wary of any time "gut feelings" are exalted. Pay attention to the context, as in the point before; to make sure gut feelings are not used as an excuse for discrimination, exclusion, or poor planning. Gut feelings are highly useful for keeping out of danger, for instance. Let's keep them in that arena.

And lastly, this one's huge: we have to start building a workplace culture that does not punish workers for having their own opinions.
More and more, the average American is finding it costly to disagree with the boss-- even in off hours. Those 40 call-center employees are but a first step on the road to a freer workplace. They are certainly not typical of the American worker: when you threaten loss of a job, loss of a promotion, or reputational damage as a consequence of non-compliance with company policy or workplace culture, you can make the average American do, literally, anything.
It's going to take a lot of hard, sustained work over entrenched opposition, and over many years, to correct a workplace that punishes the honest, uses intimidation freely, and keeps sexism, ageism, and classism in place by rewarding the already-rich, already-well-connected, young, beautiful, and white.

I'm not sure exactly what to do-- beyond a systematic honing of our courage and critical thinking, and banding together to become stronger against those people and policies who "nicely oppress" us.
It will take a lot of imagination and thinking on our part-- feel free to make suggestions.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Recommended - we have so much healing to go through...

...after the last 8 years.:(

[AllieB]

2. Actually it's the last 20+ years.

With the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, right-wing hate radio whipped up this hatred and divisiveness. It was really bad under Clinton too, and the media was complicit. It will take many years for us to get through this.

[blm]

3. OTOH....I never believed this nation would elect a black Democrat for president in my lifetime. Bush

deserves a helluva lot of credit for being SO DISGUSTINGLY AWFUL that the majority of the people were against the GOP nominee long before we even knew who it would be.

THAT is the silver lining - that - and he exposed the utter bankruptcy of the GOP and its fascist agenda so that no other Bush will ever be able to get into the WH again.

[bobbolink]

4. Talking about the incivility of this society is popular. Actually DOING something

about it isn't.

Quite a lot of years ago, I realized that "Road Rage" came about during the Raygun years. We all had to "get ahead", "get the edge"... in other words, one-up each other.

As a society, we used to do a lot more listening to each other. Now, it's just a matter of "SHUTTING THEM UP"... the more quickly you can do that, the more superior you are.

Its about being "TOUGH", not "sensitive", oh no, not that! The list goes on and on....

Can you imagine.... say with the Middle East... the idea of diplomacy being to OUT DO each other? What kind of peace would that bring? No, diplomacy is learning to hear the commonalities, and to hear each other, and to come to a common consensus. For the sake of peace.

The really sad thing is, liberals have played into this. It isn't just the RW that is TOUGH and HARD and confrontive... liberals do it too, and to each other. Rather than hear each other, and actually BRING everyone to the table, it's a matter of outshouting each other, and using not a small amount of humiliation to do that.

Are there no liberals who are road ragers?

Are there no liberals who shut out those who they are threatened by?

THAT's the loss.

We've become them.

[MonteLukast]

5. Yes, myself included.

I get VERY impatient with those who prefer quick decision making. Who live and die by the first impression and the gut feeling. Who put emotional comfort first, which I blame for practically every social ill in the country from racial prejudice to the Bush foreign policy.

I have a hard time seeing such people as doing anything but contributing to a meaner, more apathetic, more insular country. I wish their line of thinking would be marginalized.

But that would be doing to them what they do to us.

How exactly DO you love someone whose philosophy could undermine everything you've worked for?
Around such people, you're not a bold visionary but a harmful disruptive influence. You're not an activist but a whiner. You become a different, thoroughly ineffective person in interaction with their philosophies.

"It takes two to tango" cuts both ways, very painfully. You're not a good communicator unless you have good listeners. Interdependence can hurt; it becomes a game of perpetually waiting for your life to happen, perpetually waiting for permission to take any action at all.

It's one of the scariest thoughts I know; and it makes me understand why the Repugs would fight it so hard.
But we don't want to work it they way THEY have been working it.

[bobbolink]

8. You're asking all the right questions. I wish I had all the right answers.

I'm struggling with the same things you are, and I suspect a lot of us are.

We want peace, yet how do we make peace with those who are out to destroy us? We learned from Kerry that, sadly, turning the other cheek only gets us murderized.

I'm dealing with a lot of this with the prejudice I face all the time as a homeless person. Trying to nicely refute their ugliness (and often it comes from "progressives"!) doesn't sink in with them... they're inoculated.

Mainly what I was referring to is how those of us who consider ourselves peace people have absorbed the ugliness and turn it on each other, too. I can say truthfully that I get as much ugliness from "progressives" as I do from conservatives. That is what is so distressing.

My only idea I have is that we somehow need to build a safe place where we can be with each other, and actually listen to and support each other.... nurture each other, so that we can strengthen our ability to withstand the ugliness and not become ugly ourselves.

We truly need the best of each other to bring out the best in ourselves.

Thank you for a thought-provoking post... I really REALLY wish we were discussing this deeply, and coming up with some directions to take, because I believe it's of utmost importance!

:yourock:

[Winterblues]

6. Republicans swagger and say "It is better to be Feared than Loved"

The Republican Cult is a sickness/blight that infests the earth.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Speak for yourselves.

[liberalla]

9. Kick & Rec

This looks good - but I have to click the links later. (Gotta get to sleep now!)

:kick: