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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAfter the Gold Rush
"There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
I was thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie
Thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie" -- Neil Young
Sunday morning started like many mornings do. My cousin called to complain about the price of a push-lawn mower he bought to tend to his mother's lawn. A cup of coffee later, the dog and I ventured out to feed the cats, chickens, new chicks, Guinea fowl, wild birds, and the fish in our pond.
The dog is fine with the large Koi -- well over two feet -- swimming around her legs as she wades in the water. But when a school of small sun fish come to investigate, she jumps out and runs back to the house. It takes me longer, of course, to make my way back. It is becoming the warmest day of the year, and so I will work in the medium garden, where I grow herbs and spices for cooking and canning.
While re-setting some of the stones, I find some flint artifacts I had placed there to decorate 27 years ago. I question why I put a number of good quality, whole projectile points there, before remembering a former inhabitant complained I had too many artifacts and books in the house. The dog gets excited as my younger son drives up the driveway.
He and I went out to walk two small fields, where he found four projectiles, and I found two. While the ones I found were complete, two of his were not. However, they were both Kirk serrated points, a very old (9000 to 6000 years before present) type that I have only found one of, back in 1987. We talk about how amazing it is to hold something that old, a part of the human history of this land.
Being old and feeble, I'm ready for a nap when he drops me off. I had just got comfortable with the dog getting comfortable laying her head on just the right spot on my legs, when the phone rang. It was my older daughter, calling from Boston. She said that she had to run something by me, to get my opinion.
She had just come from a rally to celebrate the growing strength of unions. There was a good sized crowd, consisting primarily of people in their late teens and early twenties. There were also city and state politicians attending -- all Democrats -- who she said appeared to go unnoticed by the crowd. Now, my daughter knows them, as she has worked for one, and has worked with several others. She's currently volunteering with a couple of their campaigns.
She enjoyed listening to the speeches while interacting with the politicians and their staff members ..... until one union leader on stage -- who she knows and likes -- said, "It's time that we recognize that the Democratic Party has ignored us. We need to look in another direction." That upset my daughter, who is on the left wing of our party. What did I think?
My daughter knows that I am at the very left of the Democratic Party, and that over my decades of life, I have broken bread with figures from Angela Davis to Abbie Hoffman to Mark Rudd. And that, among many other social-political activities, I've invested a heck of a lot of energy in campaigning for Democratic Party candidates at all levels. Indeed, since she was a little girl, she and her younger sister often joined me in campaigning door-to-door.
I reminded her that, in my opinion, it is not just a matter of what you think about issues, it is a matter of what you -- and those you work with and support -- can actually accomplish. Now, that includes a recognition of what forces you are up against. That I doubt any party member has been 100% satisfied with every Democrat in office in the county, and that even the very best ones have flaws and imperfections. There is an old Irish saying, I reminded her, that a saint is but a dead sinner who's life has been edited and revised.
Yet to accomplish things -- including both advances, as well as defending against the opposition to progress -- the Democratic Party is the best option available to us. That "looking elsewhere" is not a rational option at this time. I noted the states seeking to deny women their right to health care, specifically abortion. And how the Democratic Party provides the only option to the madness of the conservative christians who want their religious beliefs imposed upon others.
"What can I do?" she asked. I told her that what I do is to try to serve as a bridge between the Democratic Party and the Left. The Iroquois word is "ahskwa," meaning in this context the human bridge that unites people of like mind on important issues. She laughed and said, Now don't die any time soon, Old Man. I need you around to remind me to trust my own instincts." I told her I plan to live to 125, and we ended our conversation.
The next phone call I got was from an old friend, who is a Hubert Humphrey Democrat. A Walter Mondale supporter. So you know he is delighted that Joe Biden is president. "Have you seen the news?" he asked. I hadn't. He told me to turn on the news right now, to see the horrible news about a leak regarding the Supreme Court.
I was hoping it was a lie.
Doc Sportello
(7,521 posts)Well done.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)Another friend of my generation -- a more conservative Democrat -- contacted me this morning to ask "can you believe these assholes?"
Doc Sportello
(7,521 posts)Never broke bread with Abbie, Angela, Jerry or Neil but saw all of them speak and Neil play with CSN and on the Harvest tour. We've come a long way - a lot good and a lot bad, but the overriding theme to me is that we are still not holding the powerful to account. And the assholes are getting more assholish, to put it nicely.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)Abbie was the most fun to hang out with. Of course, I was younger back then. Both Angela and Mark Rudd were more serious people. I've never met Neil, but have seen him in concert a few times. My brother met him at a house party on the west coast, and said he was fascinating to talk to.
One of the things that seems different to me today is that republicans have no shame. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed like the worst ones would, upon being exposed, decide to spend more time with their families. And the republican base wouldn't constantly vote for the most unhinged of human beings. They would be ashamed to be publicly identified with a Trump yard sign, for example.
Doc Sportello
(7,521 posts)You're right, in the past some would skulk away while some like John Dean saw the light. There was at least some agreement on shared values. The repubs of today have shattered Rousseau's concept of a social contract as a foundation of democracy, which I believe it is. I don't know how it survives without that, or what exactly can be done to fix it.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)Conflict resolution and reconciliation require that both sides believe the other is capable of rational thought and honesty. We aren't there, at least not on a significant scale. I had more faith when I did conflict resolution in the county jail group years ago. There might be one sociopath who lacked that capacity, but in time, the other inmates recognized that they didn't want to be like that. Today, we have the cult of Trump, with the shared delusions that replace rational thought with poison.
dweller
(23,632 posts)in the Constitution so I expect to not have the right to them in the near future
no sarcasm emoji here
✌🏻
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)My father used to tell me of the struggles that his generation, and the one before him, had when they tried forming unions. Our family had a lot of people working on the railroads -- hardly rare for Irish immigrants. The more insightful among them recognized that the owners sought to pit the Irish against the Italians, and local history is full of donnybrooks -- to use Dad's word. Thus, the struggle to unionize, to protect everyone's rights.
I think "the owners" are doing much the same today.
bigtree
(85,996 posts)...my dad was a Hubert Humphrey Dem.
I like to recall the time I got my knuckles cracked by a ruler and stood in a corner at day care when a man on the radio said Johnson wouldn't run, and that Nixon was likely to win and I wouldn't stop bawling about it. Nixon creeped me out.
"I was hoping it was a lie."
Dad was told about it, and the next day he bought me a Humphrey button as big as my little head, and I wore it proudly on my shirt to day care. (probably played with it 'til it broke).
I'm almost certain that's why republicans will always get my scorn (among other things, of course). It's just ingrained.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)me thinking of conversations with my father about politics. He grew up in an extended FDR Democrat family. One of his aunts, who was among the founding members of the National Telegraphers Union, was huge on Leland Olds, from the time when FDR was governor of NYS. Olds was an important supporter of railroad unions, and worked well with FDR from then until FDR was president.
Dad was an LBJ Democrat, complete with a few contradictions. It was while in Congress that Johnson led the fight to get rid of Olds, who was accused of being a dreaded communist. Dad said FDR had to sacrifice him, because even eing accused of being a communist or socialist poisoned one's career. Dad said LBJ would have been at least as great as FDR, if not for Vietnam. As one of Dad's many brothers served in the ONI in SE Asia, he knew that FDR would not have supported the French in Vietnam after WW2, but that Truman got our country involved. Dad was unhappy in early 1968, when LBJ removed himself from the presidential race. He did favor Humphrey, because he considered RFK unlikely to win and serve a full term.
So it is ingrained in me, as well! I can remember watching Nixon on television, and thinking he was slimmy. At the time, I thought my father had coined the phrase "I wouldn't buy a used car from him," though I later learned it was a popular saying among Democrats. Dad said Humphrey would have won, if he separated himself from LBJ on the war even a week earlier. And the polls did get mighty close, once he did.
Ah, what might have been!
bigtree
(85,996 posts)...probably something to do with getting hired as a personnel specialist (hiring black folks) at Johnson's realization of Kennedy's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, fleshing out what Kennedy's 'Affirmative Action meant for the federal government, among other endeavors.
Dad was like a lot of college educated blacks under the GI bill who found opportunity in the federal government in Johnson's time (even though I'm sure Johnson would have regarded him as a 'Nigra' like I heard him refer to newly hired Carl Rowan several times on tape recordings).
I know, I just don't let things like that go.
Despite being a complicated, often strange fellow, LBJ did do a lot of good things. Obviously not in Vietnam, though. But good on your Dad.
Your post reminds me of how people are products of their time. I certainly remember "Nigra," from LBJ and other white folks that kind of blended two other words.
My father was born in Nutley NJ long ago. When he was three, he was playing on the porch in the winter-time. A black person was walking by, and Dad was excited and yelled, "Hi, Little Black Sambo," from the only exposure to a non-white person. The fellow walked up on the porch, and tossed Dad head-first into a snow drift. For many years, despite having black friends in rural upstate NY, he remained uncomfortable about those from cities. It wasn't until we were working on my brother-in-law (from NYC) and sister's house, and one of the city fellows was unnerved by ants under a rock, that he recognized that we all have our quirks.
Kid Berwyn
(14,903 posts)About that image
https://www.popspotsnyc.com/afterthegoldrush/
Truth, H2O Man. Its the glue that holds all the love together.
Im a Kennedy-King-FDR-Thomas Jefferson liberal Democrat and no amount of propaganda, peer-pressure or pimply bottomed Pampers-wearing TikTok wannabe swill will change my mind.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)I love that album. Neil has a wonderful way of expressing himself. I think he is second only to Lennon.
At times when we are up against it, I remember Chief Waterman saying that sometimes, it has to get very bad, in order for people to make it very good in response. We have that potential, and need to apply it in the November elections. That, of course, won't be the full solution. But without it, our chances of recovery become remote.
spanone
(135,831 posts)K&R