in Kos' latest diary, Republicans want a united America! As long you're white, male and rich,looks young to me. Even if he isn't, he has counterparts at rallies who are pre-teens or younger, carrying signs made by their parents, with no exposure to even the thought that what they are doing might be hurtful, hateful and wrong.
I grew up a Democrat because of my parents, but I like to think I stayed a Democrat because of their encouragement of curiosity and because of my education, which required my to question premises and prove points. I'm pretty sure that any indoctrination, intentional or not, that I experienced was tempered by an encouragement to be open-minded.
As I see it, that is a fundamental difference between left and right. After all, a classic conservative likes the status quo, so any question is a threat. A religious conservative can't tolerate questions that contradict divine writ as he or she sees it. A fiscal conservative similarly views deviations form Adam Smith to be heresy.
It's no wonder that public education is always on the conservative chopping block: it is out of the direct control of ideologues, unless they are able to dominate a school board.
This gives makes me wonder, once again, about a problem that we, as progressives, all face: it is inconsistent for us to both believe that our opposition is brainwashed and hold them accountable for everything they do.
Unfortunately, in politics, the winners of battles are often those who manage to stir up their own base's passions better than the other side. This works in the short term, but practically ensures that the same battles will be fought again and again.
The more difficult task, in terms of time, energy and endurance, is to change the attitudes and assumptions of a larger majority. This requires outreach, recruitment and persuasion, and it is hard.
But I think it's worth it. Great sea changes in attitude require ground-up and top-down efforts. For all of recorded history, for example, chattel slavery was a fact of life, viewed at one end of the opinion spectrum as normal and unremarkable, and on the other shame that, unfortunately, could not be changed. Of the last two centuries, however, in much of the world, through efforts on the grass-roots, spiritual, and political levels, attitudes changed permanently to the point where no sane person, no matter how racist, would seriously advocate the re-introduction of slavery.
The same sea change is required for poverty, which is often viewed as either normal and unremarkable or as an unfortunate but unchangeable reality.
But it will take more than occasional wins in unending political trench warfare to do this; it will require changing minds. I hope we can do it. I think that we can. I'm sure that we must.
Let's make one constant goal be to show the kid in the picture that he is better than he knows.
