Will Radicalization Split The Republican Party?

Can the Republican Party survive the division within their own ranks?  I’ve been wondering this for quite some time now.

As I’ve watched the recent debates and studied the laws (and the lack there of) coming out of our current Republican controlled Congress – as well as the ensuing rhetoric – I can’t help but wonder why the Republicans are moving so far to the right. 

I know all too well about the Tea Party movement that created an acute awareness of our burgeoning national debt.  And I agree that the Tea Party was the catalyst of the ultra-conservative shift to the lunatic fringe by many members of the aforementioned party.  But what most people are forgetting about is that there are still a number of conservatives who don’t buy into the radical rhetoric of the new far-right.

These ‘left-behinders’ are still conservative in all their rights.  They still believe in the core foundations of the Republican Party.  But I have noticed that they are in a conundrum.  They disagree with much of what the Democratic Party holds dear but they also disagree with the severe turn in their own party’s objectives and priorities.

At one time the Republican Party was revered for its fiscal and moral conscientiousness.  Many turned to them to be the adults in the room.  But lately, there has been a new voice rising out of the party that embodies name-calling, irresponsible decision-making and divisiveness.  I have noticed a new normal in the party that projects their failings onto the opposition.   They seem to have the ideology of ‘If we accuse them of doing this first then it will look silly of them to accuse us, won’t it?’  Well, those who are paying attention aren’t falling for it.

I’ve watched over the past year as accusers of presidential candidates – paid-off victims of sexual harassment, abuse and lurid affairs – have become vilified by the party that they report to still endorse.  There are those who were critical of Clinton during the scandal with Monica Lewinsky, (including myself) however, the Clinton Administration and all others involved in his reelection campaign, never diminished or abused Ms. Lewinsky in the way Herman Cain’s alleged victims have been.  For that I have to respect the former president.  It doesn’t let him off the hook for his indiscretions in office, though.

And yet, with another scandal looming, we have apologists standing at the caution tape, ready to viciously decimate his former spouse for telling her side of the story.  Additionally, Newt Gingrich’s recent comments in the South Carolina debates show nothing but disdain for people of color and the poor, painting them all as lazy and unwilling to work for their sustenance. 

What was more appalling than his words were the cheers and the standing ovation he received from the audience in attendance.  They, meaning Gingrich and the audience, had disregarded the fact that only 29% of food stamp recipients are black.  Why didn’t he tell whites that they should prefer jobs or food stamps also?  Do we really need to ask?

Additionally, if you take a close look at Mitt Romney, you will see a man who has gone from a moderate position to one who protects companies whose fortunes are won at the expense of the laborer, numbers of people being disenfranchised and sent to the unemployment lines so that his corporate-raiding company – Bain Capital – can shift profits to the Cayman Islands to effectuate tax evasion while amassing billions. 

It is mind-numbing to think that Mr. Romney has an economic plan that would give even more tax-breaks to companies like Bain, as well as their benefactors – such as himself.  Tax breaks for the rich while increasing taxes on the ones who can least afford to pay more – that is anyone making $40,000 a year or less – is not a plan in which I can imagine any truly fiscally responsible conservatives emphatically embracing.

Even more radical shifts have occurred within the party on a more local level.  State government interference in elections in Michigan with the assistance of a new Emergency Manager Law has allowed the Republican Governor to throw out the results of any city elections if they don’t like the outcome and replace the elected officials with a dictatorial and appointed (not elected) representation.

The shift to change elections laws under the unproven guise that there was previous election fraud, has been under close scrutiny and many states have repealed these republican-endorsed changes.  Ohio and Maine are the first states to come to mind in circumstances such as these.

Then there’s the driving push to desecrate Collective Bargaining Laws in many of these individual states.  Most people who’ve been keeping an eye on this matter need only google Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker or Ohio Governor, John Kasich.  

In watching this I tend to think of my friends who are staunch republicans in the traditional sense of the word.  I was shocked last year when I found out that a close friend who is one that falls within that conservative group had voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections.  Both my husband and I were floored.  Now, my husband once was a died-in-the-wool-Republican.  But, after what he has witnessed over the past decade, his mind has shifted to the more moderate position of an unaffiliated voter.  But many of our friends haven’t made that move.  And yet I see their feet becoming restless and I wonder how long it will take before they do. 

There are still a number of conservatives out there who don’t cheer allowing a person without health insurance to die, don’t enjoy listening to candidates insulting the poor by ignoring our child labor laws so that they can put their children to work, and haven’t blamed the black community for the number of people on government assistance.  There are actually some who abhor this type of behavior as much as the rest of us.

The inordinate number of signatures repealing Republican Governors and Republican-legislated laws, shows a discontent unlike any this country has seen since the Civil War.  What is more shocking is the number of Republicans who have also called on their party’s legislatures to knock it off or face retribution.  And these people still consider themselves republicans.  But their horror at the insensitivity and radicalization of the new Republican Party has echoed that of the rest of us; moderates and liberals alike.

I can’t help but foresee that the Republican Party has no other recourse but to separate into the more reasonable and moderate faction while leaving the radically divisive members to their own mechanisms.  In doing so, I anticipate an exodus of the surrounding disenfranchised voters who have thusly voted democrat out of necessity and even have changed their political status to ‘unaffiliated;’ resulting in a return to the party of responsibility for these wandering, homeless conservatives.  I may be wrong but, then again, it’s only my opinion.

Little Miss Potty Mouth

I read an article today about an episode of the ABC television series called Modern Family in which a young girl uses an expletive during a wedding.  As you can imagine, the whole idea of a toddler swearing on television created quite a stir.

It wasn’t because the word remains in the final copy that airs this evening, because it doesn’t.  The comment is not only bleeped but the girl’s mouth is also pixilated so that you can’t read her lips.  It also isn’t even that the girl is required to say the word because she isn’t.  What she actually says is ‘fudge’ at that delicate juncture in the show.

Regardless of the facts of the matter, there is an organization called the No Cussing Club that has raised a stink and wants ABC to pull the episode.  Their goal is an admirable one; to remove profanity from television.  And I agree that it makes it difficult for parents and caretakers of young children to monitor what they are exposed to when it is so prominent on the boob-tube.

As a Philosophy major I’ve had a different opinion on swear words in movies and television in the past: I just didn’t think about it.  I knew that my mother has always disapproved of certain words more so than others.  Whenever I heard the ones that she vehemently objected to, I could envision her reaction as clearly as if she was right beside me.  But my reaction button was not as sensitive as hers as my reasoning was less visceral.  And then I had my daughter.

One day I received a call from my daughter’s kindergarten teacher saying she had used profanity toward another child in her classroom.  Then the teacher repeated her words.  I nearly swallowed my gum.  They weren’t actual swear words but they were, nonetheless, offensive.  And although profanity didn’t faze me, I never use those types of words in my home and neither does my husband.  I was stunned, and somewhat amused. 

Imagine our shock when we realized she learned this phrase from watching a movie that was considered kid-oriented.  And yet, it didn’t stop her teacher from looking at us like we were trailer trash.  It was the most difficult school year to wade through after that regretful day.

So I felt the need to weigh-in on the controversy surrounding this show since I, myself, have been there with so many other mothers and fathers.  My opinion on ABC going ahead with the episode:  Good for them!

The episode is about dealing with the issue of a child that has uttered her first cuss word and how the parents — who in this episode just happen to be gay — decide to deal with it.  I have no doubt there will be many funny moments and that there will be some type of resolution to where they will, hopefully, find a way to curtail the potty mouth of their young daughter.  And to those who are up in arms over the subject matter of this television show, I have only to say this:  This is not a show for kids!

When you consider the subject matter of the entire series you can only shake your head and wonder why groups such as the No Cussing Club would even be concerned.  The issues they deal with on a weekly basis are an adults-only type of naughty comedy.  If a bleeped word with pixilation is the worst thing you find to complain about in this series then you haven’t been looking hard enough.  And the idea that we should censor more than we already have, curtailing freedom of speech, is another right I’m not willing to so easily infringe upon regardless of my parental status.  Instead, I have the opportunity to shut off the TV and pull out the old stand-by, a rousing game of Apples to Apples.  Because we still have control over the content on our TVs if we take the time to really pay attention.

Besides, when it comes down to it, as far as swear words are concerned, my opinion is that they are merely letters we’ve given sounds to, and in certain groupings have given meaning to.  It’s what we decide is in a word that makes it good or bad.  And if we take a look at it and say to our kids: this is a word that you will come across throughout your life and there will be people telling you it’s bad.  It’s best not to offend them with it, but it really has no power over you if you give it a better meaning and ignore what another person’s intent is in using it against you.  It helps to make your life just a little easier.

And it truly is intent more than the word that we find offensive.  In the instance of the young girl on Modern Family using this expletive, well, I can honestly tell you that ABC, as well as the shows writers, is not pretending that her intent in saying the word has any malice attached in the traditional use of the term.  I say this as honestly as I can say that when my five year old daughter called a boy in her class ‘penis breath’, she did not intend for it to be anything other than an expression of her frustration at him for tossing all of the markers into a drawer without their caps on.  But it’s only my opinion.

To Pee Or Not To Pee...

My brother-in-law, Ken Millman, served in and retired from the US Navy several years ago.  This weekend he asked me to weigh-in on the controversy surrounding the picture that surfaced this past week showing a group of Marines urinating on the corpses of deceased Taliban fighters.

I assumed it was because he knew I had served in the Marine Corps many years ago.  Both of us have a different point of view from the general public when it comes to matters of military, our opinions of those photos will differ as well, as our experiences have been very unique.  But I must write this from my perspective as this is my blog, right?

The first thing to consider is that these Marines were doing nothing unusual in a wartime situation.  When I was in the Marines the Vietnam War had long since ended, but it didn’t mean there weren’t any veterans of that war still serving in the Corps.  I’d met many veterans of Vietnam and had the opportunity to hear an overwhelming number of stories of their battles and their exploits.  I can tell you that none of them were pretty. 

There were stories of soldiers collecting fingers, ears or teeth from the dead in order to make a necklace.  Posing next to the bullet-ridden body of a North Vietnamese soldier was more common than not.  I doubt there was one person who left there without at least one photo.  There were also the stories of torturing those who feigned friendship while leading these Americans into a Vietcong trap.  Many of these evoked memories compelled vivid pictures in my mind that were less than inspiring. 

As I listened I realized that I couldn’t understand what they were feeling and probably never would.  I had never been in a war and there was no chance I ever would be.  

At that time in American military history, women weren’t allowed to deploy.  Yet, I was one of the first women Marines to go to combat training while at Boot Camp.  It was early in 1981 when I enlisted and at that time they were still sensitive about how women Marines were treated.  While in combat training, a controversy arose when some of the women were treated for hypothermia after rappelling in wet camouflage uniforms on a day when the temperature was below freezing.  It also happened to be the day when all the top brass and major news stations were there.  Needless to say, they immediately scrapped the program and pretended like it never happened.

Men were less of a concern to the Corps.  They were trained to be fearsome killers who could slit another man’s throat while dying of pneumonia.  And although women Marines were meant for more professional positions—free a man to fight, they said—we were still trained to kill if necessary.  When patrolling the flight line on guard duty, we were reminded often that you don’t shoot to wound, you shoot to kill. 

We were also reminded regularly about the battles in which the foes of Marines were so frightened because of the nearly animalistic way they fought.  It was during the battle of Belleau Wood that they were given the name Devil Dogs for the way they growled as they charged into the woods.  The Germans were so afraid of these hounds from hell that some ran in the opposite direction.

During combat, it’s fear that causes the enemy to hesitate and creates an opportunity for victory.  This is driven into the heads of each and every Marine even prior to them enlisting.  So you may be asking me at this point: What does that have to do with them desecrating the dead?  And I would answer: It has everything to do with it.

During a time of war our soldiers and Marines endure the most degrading and infuriating of circumstances than anyone can imagine.  At times they are forced to sit in the filthiest of conditions and wait to be shot at or blown up by a home-made bomb.  They watch as their best friends and their respected leaders are being killed in inhumane ways.  They hear of their comrades being kidnapped and then murdered by the enemy.  The only way for them to survive is by swallowing back the fear because they are fighters, killing machines, created and sanctioned by the US of A. 

In our current style of mechanized war, it isn’t often they get to see the faces of those they killed, who were trying to kill them, and who may have killed many of their fellow service members.  And you must understand, in a time of war, one of your own fallen Marines becomes very personal.  It isn’t just a friend or a leader, but a brother or a father.  It’s a sister who was blown up in the hum-vee.  It’s a mother figure who used to make sure you took care of yourself, ironically, before you went off to risk your life once more.

As our ability to kill in more efficient ways evolves, our inability to detach ourselves from the animalistic instincts that help us to survive stay static.  We can’t expect them to do the unthinkable—take another person’s life—while maintaining the decorum of a person whose hands have never been dirty.  We don’t stand in line any longer, waiting for the other side to volley, before taking our turn at cutting down rows of soldiers.  War isn’t a gentleman’s game.  It’s a vicious battle that strips the human side of anyone who experiences it, sometimes for a moment, many times forever.

So my opinion is that you can’t send our men and women into battle such as this and expect them to remain civil.  After all, this is war we’re talking about.  If the worst thing that happened to the corpses of those Taliban members was that they were whizzed on, they should consider themselves lucky.  I'm sorry, but that's my opinion on it.