[Vision2020] Re: Robin Hood

Mon Feb 14 08:07:34 PST 2005

Joan offers several cogent, thoughtful reasons why she's a Democrat, while 
at the same time acknowledging some trepidation about the current state of 
that party.  I, after doing much soul-searching over the weekend, have come 
to the conclusion that I'm a Democrat because, by and large, Democrat women 
are better looking than Republican women.  Is that shallow?                  

                            Carl Westberg Jr.

>From: "Joan Opyr" <auntiestablishment at hotmail.com>
>To: "David M. Budge" <dave at davebudge.com>
>CC: Vision2020 Moscow <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Re: Robin Hood
>Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:06:03 -0800
>
>Dave asks, quite rightly, why (oh why) am I a Democrat?  It's certainly not 
>because I love the current incarnation of my party, AKA Republican Lite.  
>(No taste; unfulfilling.)  In short, my party affiliation is like my 
>appendix -- largely vestigial.  Still, I remain a Democrat, for the time 
>being, because . . .
>
>1. I believe in organized labor.  And, yes, I am well aware of how corrupt 
>the Teamsters have been/are; so, too, the AFL-CIO, the UAW, the Garment 
>Workers Union, and so on, and so on, and so on.  Nevertheless, I have lived 
>in union states and I have lived in so-called right-to-work states, and I 
>know that there is power in a union.  There is no power in a state 
>employees' association.
>
>2. I believe in the ongoing need for affirmative action.  I laugh in 
>people's faces when they speculate that Colin Powell could win the GOP 
>Presidential nomination in the South.  As a native Southerner, I know what 
>people tell pollsters, and I know what they say when they're with an 
>all-white crowd; never the twain shall meet.  Not long ago, a small 
>delegation of white women in my mother's office (a state office) took it 
>upon themselves to call a meeting with her supervisor regarding an upcoming 
>job opening.  "Let's hire someone white this time," they said.  "We've 
>already got enough of them."  As much as I wish there were such a thing as 
>color-blind hiring, or gender-blind hiring, there isn't.  A quick flick 
>through the Fortune 500 CEOs tells me all I need to know on that score.
>
>3. I believe in a basic, fundamental, social safety net.  I believe in 
>universal access to healthcare, and that that access is a right and not a 
>privilege.  I do support means-testing for Social Security; the program was 
>created to provide a basic standard of living for those who had spent their 
>lives working like Georgia mules; it was not to supplement the retirement 
>incomes of (sorry) stockbrokers.  I do not support raising the retirement 
>age or cutting basic benefits.  Why?  Because, once again, minority workers 
>lose out.  Black and Latino people in this country have an average life 
>expectancy nearly a decade lower than their white counterparts; they also 
>experience higher infant mortality rates.
>
>4. I'm a New Deal, Great Society, social, racial, and economic justice and 
>broad support for public education type.  The Democratic Party of my long 
>ago youth used to support these things without apology.  Education used to 
>be more important than educational testing.  We didn't succeed in 
>eradicating poverty, but once upon a time we proclaimed that as one of our 
>fundamental goals.
>
>I am, by and large, a Howard Dean Democrat.  I'm a social liberal and a 
>fiscal conservative.  I identify with the term "progressive" though I 
>recognize that I don't fit the classic definition of that word.  That, in 
>short, is my answer.  But let me just throw out a few other positions I 
>hold: I don't think the Pentagon needs a 4.8% increase this year, 
>independent of the costs of the Iraq War (which Mr. Bush has conveniently 
>segregated into a separate spending bill).  I don't tend to support 
>unfunded federal mandates, which Republicans and Democrats alike have sadly 
>embraced.  I think that unchecked, enormous inherited wealth is a danger to 
>a healthy democracy; it creates a defacto ruling class, an American 
>aristocracy, as worthless and self-absorbed as the European aristocracies 
>our political ancestors abandoned and rejected.  I like target shooting and 
>deer and elk hunting, but I don't like the NRA.  I'm a fan of wild wolves 
>but I'm friends with many ranchers.  I don't support large farm subsidies, 
>but I like small farmers.
>
>I freely admit to many logical inconsistencies in my thinking, to taking 
>large leaps of faith on very little evidence, and to preferring to select 
>my friends from the variety mix.  Gay, straight, Republican, Democrat, 
>Jewish, Christian, Evangelical, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, atheist, agnostic . . 
>. and stockbroker.  I enjoy nothing more than a good, well-reasoned 
>argument, clever wordplay, and a fair fight.
>
>Now, about your Yiddish -- I'm Jewish by choice and by patriarchal descent. 
>  My father's family is Ukrainian/Jewish; my mother is a lapsed Southern 
>Baptist WASP.  So, I shall give this translation my best shot -- sticking 
>with your cruel anti-Googling rules -- and we shall see what we shall see.
>
>"Bubby kvetched that the moyle was shikker while the mishpucha noodged to 
>get at the nasherie."
>
>Grandma bitched that the man who performs the circumcisions was drunk while 
>the folks jostled one another to get at the buffet.
>
>How's that?  Perhaps I should confess that I have a Jewish literary agent  
>Who lives in New York.  In Lower Manhattan.
>
>Oy,
>Joan Opyr/Auntie EstablishmentGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer 
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