The Democrats I know
Most people don’t remember how desperately poor the country was during the depression. My mother and father were children during that time. They grew up next door to each other. My mother’s brother Jim, played on the same ball team my dad did. They and their group of friends played piano a little too late into the night at my mom’s house. That same group of friends who caddied golf, and scrounged for money, finally ended up in WWII. They all came back a little worse for wear. They were happy to come home. In the fifties, they built the suburbs, quite literally. The title greatest generation it is well deserved. The amazing thing is, they never let what they fell into control their lives.
What created the greatest generation? It wasn’t just what was thrown at them. I think more than anything, it was what they learned to appreciate. They had nothing but the very thing that could give the most strength, the church, community, family, friends. They stuck together. My grandmother’s cousin, Margaret, died at age 90 and the big church she attended was full. The wake lasted 2 days and people were filing in continuously. She wasn’t famous. She was ordinary. But she was always there. Always. She gave. AND she also made you understand that to survive you have to work. Her generation gave my parent’s generation that nudge, my generation too. Margaret’s and my grandmother’s grandparents came from Ireland. You work to survive in the new country.
This is the democratic principle. It’s the way it’s always been. The Democratic party isn’t the party that hands out money. It’s the party that gives you the chance to make it.
Republicans have diluted the political process for their own gain and the gain of the wealthy. One resent example is health care. The Republicans want to get rid of the ACA. Who would benefit the most from this debacle? The wealthy would.
The Democrats are fighting to strengthen it. The thing is, health care gives security to a family. And that family, no matter what befalls them, can continue on. With solid health care they don’t make decisions based on food or chemo. Rent or diabetic medicine. And when someone dies, they haven’t pulled the family into poverty in the process. Death is a sorrowful process. It shouldn’t be one that crushes the family unit too.
On the other hand, the Republicans, the skinny ACA. The ultimate in cruelty by the Republicans was to take the vulnerable in this nation, and the unsophisticated, and convince them that Obamacare was bad while these people depended on the ACA. When it was about to be lost to these folks, they suddenly realized the ACA and Obamacare was the same thing. I can only imagine what a gut wrenching moment that was. They’d been had. The party they trusted was the party who’d been conning them out of survival. Everything they’d learned to despise, like the welfare queens, had done an about face. The wealthy who made more money in one day than these people made in a year, were taking the government handouts. Their children lived off the family dividends while Republicans pushed for Wall Street loopholes. What poor or middle class family can afford to put money into a retirement fund? In the meantime work pensions are stolen by vultures instead of protected. The companies generations of families worked for, use tax dollars for subsidies. This is great if the community prospers, but in many communities the days of the company as part of the town’s identity, are long gone. And in many cases so is the company. They take the subsidies and use the money to move to Mexico or China or wherever, for the cheaper labor and no unions for worker protection.
How have the Republicans accomplished their insidious breakdown of community, family and even church? Money. Power. Greed. People are willing to give up a lot of their morals for those three things. Even church leaders will turn their back on the teachings of the Lord. And these people will do anything to keep what they gain. That’s exactly what the Republicans have been doing for generations. One of the tried and true strategies is one that works the most insidiously. They use white against black, liberal against conservative, straight against gay…clean water against a good paying job, whatever it takes. These God fearing Republicans even use the the unborn child against a woman’s right to her own body. They fight like a banshee for the child, until the child is born. And like everyone else, the child gets abandoned.
Where’s the progress in this? For instance…coal is dead. It’s dead. You have good strong, hard working families. They could be working in the green industry. Instead, Republicans stand before the nation and say climate change is a hoax. It’s the ultimate in cruelty.
FDR and the Democratic principle fought tooth and nail to pull us out of the depression and get men working. They created work for young men. Unions protected workers from overwork, underpay, unsafe conditions, pensions and a forty hour week. All those these things boosted the community. These weren’t hand outs. They created security. They allowed my parent’s generation to work and move beyond a devastating depression. We need this now. We desperately need it.