Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

June 16, 2012 Martha Thomases 20 Comments

When I was a girl, and my family would visit New York over the Christmas holidays, my dad’s two uncles would usually spend a day with my sister and me, taking us to Chinatown for lunch and maybe to the Museum of Natural History, where the dinosaur bones would scare me.  As we took the bus uptown, we would pass all sorts of construction projects, and my Uncle Aaron would say, “New York should be a pretty nice place once they finish it.”

At the time, I didn’t know that was a joke.  I thought it was something that could happen.

This week, I realized I had made the same mistake in my thinking about politics.  I had thought that a day would come when, somehow, all the arguments would be settled and we would agree.  We’d settle on a solution and do what needed to be done.

As you know, that hasn’t happened.  It won’t.  There’s too much money to be made in discord.  As long as nothing gets done, the people who are rich will stay rich.  The people who aren’t rich will still spend money trying to get rich.  When there are two teams playing against each other, you sell twice as many jerseys.

Which is probably why there hasn’t been more attention to stories like this.  A person I don’t know, with whom I probably disagree about all sorts of stuff, left the Republican party because, in its current state, it refuses to compromise.  It refuses to acknowledge the patriotism — hell, even the humanity — of people with other perspectives.

“But Democrats do it, too!”  objects the peanut gallery.  “Bill Maher (or Jon Stewart, or Rosie O’Donnell) said something nasty about Sarah Palin!”

It’s not the same thing.  The people on the right who say vile things are, quite often, elected officials, not entertainers.  Joe Wilson is an actual member of Congress.  Whatever you think of Bill Maher, he is not employed by the Democrats.  The GOP elects actual Nazis to its party.

While we argue that both sides do it, the joke  is on us.  We’re working like dogs, stressed out about our jobs, terrified we’ll get fired and lose our health insurance.

It’s killing us.  When it doesn’t kill us, it makes us miserable, denying us time with our families and friends.

Tomorrow is Fathers’ Day.  It’s my first Fathers’ Day with no fathers in my immediate household.  There is no amount of money that I wouldn’t pay to have them back.

Which is why I’m not a Republican.

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Media Goddess Martha Thomases acknowledges that there are Republicans who love their Dads, and knows quite a few.  However, she points out that their policies work against having the time to enjoy them.