Soapbox

There's an old expression: 
    Never under-estimate the ability of the Democratic party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

   Well it's about to happen again. But this time what's at stake is not just the rise or fall of a political party. Because of the candidates running on the Republican ticket this year, a defeat could really be a defeat for millions of people: education standards subsumed by religious dogma, higher education unattainable for all but the most wealthy, abandonment of our infrastructure, institutionalized persecution of minorities, turning away from perfectly viable clean energy in favor of dirty fuels, letting our last chance to mitigate the global warming disaster slip away… maybe even world war.
   And democrats are sniping at each other.

   When George Bush was elected (selected) I was disappointed but I said "How bad can it be? Some bad policies will get enacted, but tides tend to go out and come back in. We'll survive."
   And there was an economic melt-down, a roll-back of the clean air and water standards that were finally making a difference, narrowing of reproductive rights, the validation of "faith-based science"… and oh yeah: the war.
   The war that cost trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, tens of thousands injured and traumatized, and destabilized an already volatile region and directly contributed to the ongoing disaster that is the Middle east: Syria, ISIS and the collapse of the once proud, educated nation of Iraq into a heap of burning rubble.

   Then the tide began to turn and Obama was elected. Despite a congress that declared that their primary job from day 1 would be to deny him a second term by whatever means necessary, he dragged the nation into a slow, wide turn back the other way. Despite  daily calls for drug testing poor people and making children work in exchange for a free lunch and turning victim-blaming into a lofty moral perch: despite people who cheered at the idea of letting people die of treatable conditions if their boss doesn't want to give them health insurance… changes were made. Some small but splashy- some quietly splendid.
   It's far from perfect. Things still aren't great. When faced with only hard choices, bad compromises were made.
   But while a really loud, entitled minority continue to scream that they are being oppressed every time they simply aren't allowed to make other people live their way, overall the attitude of the nation has turned toward progress, toward negotiation over confrontation.
Toward tolerance and common sense.

   And now another election has come. This has been called Silly season, but silly is too benign a word for what is going on.
   The Republican candidates, by and large, consist of idiots, bullies and the crinimally insane. They validate every angry, hateful, exclusionary resentment that people frightened of change can harbor. Religous concentration camps? Just the suggestion takes the breath away.
   The democrats have 2 candidates with a lot of experience and strong, forward-looking ideas. Great!
    The devil is in the details.

   I have a candidate that I prefer and plan to vote for, but who it is doesn't really matter. Because I-  a political junkie, don't feel like I can talk about either candidate on social media. It's like jumping in the middle of a family feud- a really nast one.
   A large portion of the democrats have formed a circular firing squad and have begun blasting.
   I can't even stand to scroll my Facebook wall because of the near constant barrage of bitter, accusatory, locked-and-loaded sniping going on from both sides.
   I long ago learned not to try to push back against any of the extreme (and often inaccurate or thoroughly debunked) postings, to suggest a more reasonable (fact-based) interpretation. I know I will be jumped on and accused of being blind, of being ill-informed, of not caring about Issue X.
   And now I cannot even join in a conversation on a reasonable post by a reasonable friend without *their* friends going on the attack-  "Oh trust me- the other side is the one doing this!", "typical corporatist defender"  "You must be a troll!"
   This candidate once said this! Yeah- well that candidate has a supporter who said that! She took money from them! He voted against that!

   Sheesh. Can we just agree that both candidate have strengths and weaknesses, and that we, with our different outlooks, have different priorities in what we are willing to overlook? Can we respect that other people probably have read and considered the same issues,and respect their decision?
    No. We can't. Charges and counter-charges– she rigged the system! He keeps lying abouut who supports him! How can you not see it?!? Here's a hint: if someone makes a request to tone down the general incivility out there and you counter with I'm happy to get along- it's the other candidate whose supporters are out of bounds but what can you expect from people that support him/her…  then yeah, you are exactly who they were talking about.
.  
   It's World War Bernillary out there, and I can't stand it. Now I don't even read anything that anyone posts about either candidate– I see "Bernie Sanders" or "Hillary Clinton" and I just scroll on past. Honestly, I move away even faster than I do with the bizarre "Type Amen and god will bless you with money!' religious posts, because commenting, or even investing the energy to read it is just as useless.

   I want to shake people. I want to make them understand: it's not just "a democrat in the White House" we're talking about in 2016. We're talking about the Supreme Court, and all the ways they can harm- or help America. It's a possible rollback on freedom of speech, of religion, and of the basic idea that a government by the people and for the people should help take care of the people. 
   SO much is at stake, damnit, and half of the progressive population is alienating the other half, and both sides are aliienating the moderates. The majority of America wants to move forward, and if we just walk together we can continue this imperfect, erratic but important progress we have begun.
   Or not. Or fucking not. We can remain strident and inflexible. We can keep talking about write-ins and third party runs to keep your  precious damn ideology pure and unsullied from condoning his lack of a coherant plan here or her hawkish friends there. We can attack and destroy both candidates before the Republicans even turn their sights on them. 
    I hope that zealots purity gives you comfort in the long days ahead, so that when President Trump or President Cruz plunges us into another dark ages, as climate-driven storms sweep the globe, the sniping, uncompromising, my-way-or-the-highway democrats can look around proudly and say 
   "Hey, WE built that!"

Blossom went after Tucker this morning.

   It has been a few weeks since I saw anything but the occasional… lets say "bossiness" from her. I thought she had worked that all out. They sometimes share the lambswool dog pad in the evenings while we watch TV.
   But I have gotten lazy, and stopped watching for 'claiming' behavior, where she tries to keep him away from me, which seemed to be the genesis for most of the problems between them in the past.
   We were all 3 in the front room and I was reading something on the computer and suddenly she was on him like a fury.

   Tucker tried to back out of the room but Blossom would not stand down. I lept to my feet and ran shouting after them as Blossom actually took him down the stairs in a roiling ball of fur and teeth.
   I caught up with them at the bottom and managed to get hold of her collar- she was still attacking!- and yanked her away. She immediately became compliant and walked quietly to the crate with Steve.

   Tucker was injured this time. Not seriously: a few tiny nicks on his nose and a scraped area high on one front leg that  still oozes a bit and no doubt stings but doesn't look bad. But it is the first time she ever actually laid a tooth on him- and that upsets me. Always before I thought she was just trying to dominate him, but not to really hurt him. This time, she bit.
   We're going backward.

   My trust and confidence have been injured too. I'm afraid to have them together now. Every time she even walks over to him I get anxious. This evening, after they ate, she started over to check out his empty bowl- a normal occurrance- except she darted her head in instead of just casually walkng over.
  Or did she? Was I imagining it? I grabbed her collar and pulled her away and put her back in the crate until I got Tucker upstairs and gated in the bedroom.

   Dopey me. I had this stupid idea that we were going to ride in like white knights and rescue Blossom, and  help her heal her emotional wounds, and wow what great dog people we are, aren't we? Pat yourself on the back, Trace!
   But I have used every trick in my small bag of tricks, and while I thought it was going well, i guess it wasn't. I don't know how to do this after all. I can't spend the rest of their days keeping them apart! Are they ok together when I"m not around? Is it safe to leave them alone if there is no human in the house for Blossom to 'claim" and fight over? I have always assumed so, but…

   As I sat with Tucker gently cleaning his scrapes and telling him what a fine, brave boy he was to let me do it, I started to tear up.
I love Blossom. She has a good heart, and is so affectionate… maybe she just needs to be an only dog. Maybe she needs a home where she gets all the love and doesn't have to share.
   But just the thought of finding somewhere else for her to live, making her start all over one more time, makes my stomach hurt. I feel like one of those people who adopt a Russian orphan and then it turns out the child has all these terrible adandonment issues and scream and break things and set fires so the parents give the child back.
Ick. 
   I don't want to do that. I feel like I have failed a sweet dog… but really, I don't know how to do this any way other than the way I have been doing it. And that doesn't seem to be working.

The wind does not howl.
In silence it hurries to tomorrow
outrunning all regrets.

Grass hisses annoyance at its passing
Dead leaves chatter and call to one another
of where the wind has been.
Windows and shingles shudder and gasp
and demure that they do not dance.

A few years ago, during the height of the Iraq war, I wrote a song that said:
          How can you just stand there?
          Don't you feel ashamed?

   I keep thinking of those words now because I am feeling the same head-banging, gut-tightening frustration, anger and shame I felt then about people cheering for torture and death. This week the source is the reaction of so much of America to the idea of the U.S. accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees- – a reaction encouraged on by the fear-mongering of the GOP presidential candidates.

    Governor John Kasich, who just recently said that he would welcome the refugees, now says no. No to a few dozen Syrians, mostly widows with children and orphans screened for months by the State department, because they're a danger to Ohio.
    Widows.  And orphans.  To Kasich, simply being born in a part of the world where terrorists are– even though they hate the terrorists more than we do!-  makes them all too dangerous to be allowed into America, the home of the brave.
    Please. Ohioans are in more danger from the guns people bring to Walmart and drop on the floor or leave in the public bathroom!
    And oh by the way, he also wants, as president, to create a new government department of Judeo-Christian values, to spread our superior morality to the world. I assume those values he brags about include sending widows and orphans back to refugee camps in a war zone?

                                                    dangerous refugees! 

    Former governor and candidate Mike Huckabee, after working himself in a tizzy about the danger that the America-hater Obama is putting us in by bringing over his 'Muslim friends', tried to bury the racism of his remarks by pointing out in fake concern that those middle eastern people have different customs and habits, and how could they ever feel comfortable and  blend in?
     "People who come from a desert environment" would have their lives disrupted if they were sent to some place like Minnesota!
    Because coats are not a thing for immigrants. And because fleeing from a bombed-out country while being chased by madmen with guns is far less disruptive than trying to find your way around in a new country.

                                       Why don't they just stay in their own country?

    Marco Rubio compared not saying the magical words "Radical Islam" to not calling Nazi's Nazis. And of course "Just say NO to Syrians" is his advice too.

    Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush think we should be only allowing Christian refugees in… because only Muslims cause problems. No seriously- Cruz says to keep the Muslims away but claims there is 'no significant danger' from letting Christian refugees in. Well, perhaps the death and destruction caused here by Christian shooters and bombers is somehow kinder and gentler than the Muslim variety.
    And it's not as if the Constitution has anything to say about discriminating based on religion anyway. So please- continue your bid for the presidency under a constitution you obviously don't believe in.

    Chris Christie of New Jersey says his state will not even take orphans under the age of 5 because "nits grow up and become lice". Well ok- actually that is what the US military said of native American children when ordering soldiers to kill the babies too, but the sentiment is apparently still alive and well in New Jersey.

    Donald Trump not only doesn't want those terrorist refugees in here, he thinks we need to close mosques in America, because 'so much strong hatred is coming from there'. Really? The strong hatred I see seems to be coming from the Republican party. Oh say, now that only the "good", Trump-approved houses of worship get to stay open in America, can we close down the Unitarians too? They show up at an awful lot of peace rallys. And those Episcopalians keep ordaining gays and making Jesus cry.

    Not to be outdone in the competition to see who can slam the door the loudest, a lawmaker in the Tennessee GOP has come forward and said that not only will Tennessee  mobilize the National Guard to keep out any new refugees (er, actually, states legally cannot do this) but he wants them to round up any who have already settled there, throw them on a bus and take them back to immigration.
   Because we learned absolutely fucking nothing from the Japanese-America internment shame of WW2, when so many hard-working citizens were dragged away from their homes and locked up like criminals- for the crime of having a particular ancestry.

    And because that whole "melting pot" thing doesn't apply any more. The only good Muslim/Syrian/dark skinned person is one that isn't here.
    Time to take the big green statue down and ship her back to France because we don't want her kind of liberal, America-hating tripe polluting our country.

    I am horrified and ashamed that so many people are so afraid of difference that they would send refugees back to face death… and then bitch because a clerk at a store said "Happy Holiday" instead of Merry Christmas to them.
    Because Jesus is Soooooo important to them that they're ready to abandon not only the constitution but everything Jesus actually said about refugees and welcoming strangers  in order to make sure that only people who look and think and pray like them are allowed in Jesus's country of America.

    I know that the brave lawmakers who are willing to defy the President, the constitution and basic human decency to protect the Mighty U.S.of A. from some refugees imagine themselves to be Gandalf, heroically standing up to the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad dum, howling~ 
                              "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!"

    But really, they are just George Wallace at the schoohouse door, facing down a couple of kids who wanted to go to school and vowing "SEGREGATION FOREVER!!"