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Healing the Divide
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Before I get on to the topic of this column, I feel compelled to re-run the quote by "moral majority" pioneer Paul Weyrich about his goal to stifle democracy through voter suppression. “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." This type of thinking has led to the cultural divide in this country. Anyone who holds this view really needs to examine their thinking as to what democracy is and what it means to them to be Christian.
There is something truly wrong when a woman like Shirley Nagle of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan plays a nasty campaign trick on innocent children who are trick or treating in her neighborhood. She asked them who they would vote for & if they did not say the candidate her choice, she told them, “No candy for tricksters & liars.” In response the children would turn to their parents in terror and confusion. I can’t think of anything more reprehensible than such mean spirited treatment of children. What legacy does this type of action by an educated adult leave to these children? The answer is fear & division.
Right now I am literally almost sick with anxiety about the election on Tuesday & the fighting it could bring. I am sure that I am not alone. Until 2000, I never paid attention to politics. After seeing democracy undermined & an election stolen, I became totally disillusioned. When the fighting began at that time, I had no idea of the cultural divide & how polarized both sides were. I was not aware how right wing fundamentalist Christianity had become such a strong presence in this country, or what a threat it posed to democracy.
I’d hoped for a better eight years than what we have had. I remember George W. Bush saying that he would appoint a bipartisan cabinet & then he didn’t. It seemed that each day there was more fear mongering & a greater quest for power & control by people calling themselves Christians. My country all of a sudden was not recognizable as I become more afraid for my own personal safety”: with 9/11, anthrax scares, terror alerts, etc. I became so numb to it, that I stopped caring. I just felt if they were going to kill me that I’d be glad to have it over, to not have to go through all the fear & negativity.
I am not a fighter. I never have been. I have always run from a fight, especially when the level of anger escalated & the threat of violence seemed possible. As I child, I remember a very heated political discussion in my family. I was so scared that I ran out crying & told an elderly neighbor about it. She was not able to help. I went back home & said, “Can I say something? Instead of arguing about this, why don’t you do something about it?” All of a sudden there was levity & everyone laughed at my simple honest question.
This has been such a long & intense campaign this time around. Honestly, it is the first presidential campaign I have followed. It will most likely be my last. Hearing the attacks, the anger, the hatred, the vitriol being spewed is not my cup of tea. To see people so divided & so angry at each other makes me ill. This is not a football game. We are not rival teams. We are in this together. I heard someone say on a political program the other night that terrorists don’t have the ability to take us down as a country. But they know that we can destroy ourselves by having our own civil war through all of our infighting.
The past eight years have been really challenging for everyone. It seems like there are two underlying issues here that keep us polarized as a country: fear & greed. Both of them are powerful motivators. I saw the fear in people after 9/11 & the greed during the real estate boom. These two things have put us in the mess we are in right now. It’s time for all of us to learn the lessons. We are never going to agree on everything, but can’t we just agree on the basic principles of the Declaration of
Seeing the anger, the racism & the divisiveness brought on in this election by the supporters of the candidates & their positions has made me almost sick. To hear & read to the anger & judgment of some who call themselves “Christian”, yet want to discriminate by passing Proposition 8 astounds me and makes me lose faith in any type of organized religion. I will never forget when Rodney King came out during the
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