Guest Post: My Way or the Highway…
July 8, 2013

 
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I’d like to welcome guest blogger “Grant in Texas” for taking over posting duties for me this week as I shuttle back & forth between home and the hospital to tend to my ailing mother. I know it is unusual for a host to hand the reins of an entire blog over to one of its visitors, but I hope you, Dear Reader, appreciate Grant’s time & effort as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you. If you too have some experience writing and are interested in sharing your ideas/rants/concerns with the rest of the world, drop me a note (information below). Also, your words of support for Mom have been most appreciated. Thanks. – Mugsy

 
Watching Fourth of July celebrations on PBS, NBC, ABC….in D.C., NYC, and Houston respectively. I feel some sadness, little joy this year. Maybe in part due to my fighting cancer for 8 months now and uncertain if I will see another Fourth, but mostly sad for the state of our nation that has become so partisan. I have lived through the rancorous times of the “do nothing 80th Congress” under President Harry Truman, marched in civil rights and anti-war demonstrations during the tense 1960’s and yet don’t believe I’ve ever seen this nation I love, so divided as it is today. We now know that on the night of President Obama’s first inauguration Republican leaders were plotting to obstruct him at every turn, fearful that any perceived Obama victory would help him be re-elected. The GOP mindset was that it was more important to keep many millions of Americans miserable, jobless and poor for at least 4 years, than to allow Obama to enact any of the programs on which he was elected. How “patriotic”! Now conservatives continue their obstructive ways, seemingly hell bent on preventing a positive legacy for Barack Obama in the history books. The right lusts over power, and instead of smaller government desire to increase their hold over Americans on social issues like invading the sanctity of our medical offices.

I have been reading blogs, commenting on several of them since the mid-90’s. I avoid right-wing sites, spending my time on “progressive” blog-sites. However, often there is not much difference between trolls on the right and those on the far left. I have been attacked, eventually run off a few “liberal” sites because I was suspected of being a DINO. My feeling is that even the most conservative of “blue dog” Democrats is better to have in office than most any Republican. I don’t cope well with ideologues, whether right or left. I was raised in a very activist moderate Republican family and didn’t vote for my first “D” until age 33, for Sen. George McGovern. I left the “Party of Lincoln” when Nixon relented to advisers like Pat Buchanan whose Southern Strategy actively invited racist Dixiecrats, embittered by LBJ’s Civil Rights agenda, to come on over to a welcoming GOP in order to turn the old Democratic South into a new GOP stronghold. I couldn’t stay in the party any longer and as I’ve told many, I didn’t leave the GOP, it left me.

I was moderate as a Republican and still a moderate as a Democrat as I enjoy WINNING. I chose to register as a Democrat in 1972 as the party has a history of inclusion. I wanted to belong to a party that looks out for the “least among us” whether we be old, sick, minorities, women, children, immigrants, gay, etc. But I also fear too many on the left would rather just be “right” than have real power in our government. I was attacked by Nader supporters in 2000 who smugly bragged that they didn’t care if they were the reason Bush was elected over Gore as they had “clear consciences”. I guess their hallowed conscience remained “clear” during Bush’s “Shock and Awe” and feel no guilt over 100,000 dead Iraqis, and thousands of American military.

I’ve had left wing attacks on my comments recently because I don’t chime in rebuking President Obama on various issues. I don’t agree with everything the President has done but I have never been of the mindset, my way or the highway. I am not an Obamabot or “bot” of any kind. I often don’t criticize Obama because I am not privy to his daily security briefings, but do feel he has helped keep our nation safe. He has wanted to close Gitmo, and make good on other campaign promises but has had an obstructionist Congress that most always opposes anything he comes up with even though some of his programs are the same the Republicans once promoted themselves. But that was before they were consumed with hatred for our first black president, and yes IMO, race hate drives many in the GOP.

Lately, I have been chided for not joining “progressives” over the Edward Snowden fiasco. (Editors Note: M.R.S. likewise is of the mindset that Snowden took FAR more classified material than he could possibly have read, released it to sources without determining whether or not that release might be dangerous, and continued to release information out of spite & personal gain. For those reasons, Snowden qualifies neither as a “whistle-blower”, nor as a hero. – Mugsy) It’s as if a real “liberal” should either support Greenwald and Snowden or needs to shut up. I have to laugh at the strange bedfellows both right and left supporting them like Rand Paul and Michael Moore. Greenwald has his army of supporters who will attack anyone who takes an opposing viewpoint. The article below gives me déjà vu of those days I was attacked for not supporting Ralph Nader.

As a child of WWII, I remember early on the slogans like “Loose lips sink ships”. I understand a need for having classified information that younger generations don’t appreciate (even though I think way too many have security clearances). Can you imagine what might have been the results of the Normandy invasion if we had had the mindset of an Edward Snowden back then?
 


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July 8, 2013 · Grant in Texas · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Guest Blogger, Partisanship, Politics, Rants

2 Responses

  1. fastfeat - July 11, 2013

    http://s192.photobucket.com/user/fastfeat/media/Signs%20of%20the%20times/texassign.png.html

  2. cunning linguist - July 13, 2013

    Thank you for your thoughts Grant, and I wish you well on your fight. Mrs. linguist is in the same situation, and every day brings a new situation it seems. If anything, it has changed my perspective somewhat. Rather than focusing on the daily tribulations and aggravations, I’ve learned to look at each day as a gift. Her situation has forced me to reckon with my own mortality, and the harsh reality that none of us get out alive.I wish you many more joyful days, where smiles and laughter override other concerns. At this moment, my grandchildren are behind me, playing with their Legos (without fighting for a change), and I shall now make my cup of coffee and just enjoy watching them for a while.Be well, friend. Likewise to Mugsy and his mother.

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