[Buddha-l] the 22 vows

[jkirk]

On Friday 22 June 2007 11:09, jkirk wrote:

> As dilatory but persistent enforcement of civil rights began to affect
most (if not all of) their lives, the extreme anger has dissipated,  many
became open to Dr. King's emulation of Gandhi by excercising passive
resistance, and today a huge number are Republicans--(you will be pleased to
notice, Richard)--a signal developement of a political party that to me has
represented oppression of all but the rich for at least a >hundred years.
-------------------

I think the Republicans have been favoring oppression for at most 45 years.
As I remember it, the Democrats were the party most associated with racism
and opposition to progress towards racial integration. (Remember the line in
the John Prine's song about his grandpa: "He voted for Eisenhower, 'cause
Lincoln won the war." It was the Republican Lincoln who got the credit for
freeing the slaves, thus delivering the defeated Southern states to the
Democrats.) The Progressive Party grew not out of the Democrats but out of
the Republicans, the party associated with conservation of resources,
breaking up monopolies, promoting racial integration, getting rid of
political corruption and so on. It was the Republican Eisenhower who first
warned us of the military-industrial complex. Most of my ancestors of the
20th century were simultaneously socialists and Republicans. Hell, even I
was a Republican until 1964. The big shift occurred when 1) Goldwater
delivered the Republican party to anti-progressive libertarians, and 2)
Johnson delivered the formerly Democratic South to the Republicans by
backing racial integration.

Our next president will be Dennis Kucinich, a closet Buddhist. (He is a
vegetarian who meditates and opposes war; how much more Buddhist can a guy
get?)

--
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
==========================
Ok, you got me on the chronology. I was dating from after Lincoln, about 100
years + to now--forgetting about Teddy Roosevelt going after the monopolies,
etc. By the time FDR got elected, the monopolies were back with a vengeance,
as was opposition to labor justice and a whole bunch of other goodies that
the Repugs supported and FDR opposed. (I'm not saying FDR was a saint. No
politician is, nor could be.)
I'm for Dennis Kucinich too, but fear he's too saintly to make it as a pol.
I did try to get our local county Dems. Com. to invite him to give the
speech at the annual Ada County Kennedy dinner fund-raiser in Fall, on the
grounds that the Idaho vote doesn't count for anything in national
elections, so why not go for the most interesting candidate?  Bet they
don’t'--instead they will invite some party hack-type, because Idaho hasn't
a prayer of getting any of the big-time candidates (not that I'd go to hear
any of them).
The Democrats we now have running Congress, as best they can with a slim
majority, are so like Repugs that I've lost track. Since they got in, it's
been tit for tat time: lots of committee investigations of emails and who
lied--when we know they all lied. (Wasting time getting back at the attacks
on Bill Clinton's lies. As my favorite bumper sticker says: "Nobody died
when Clinton lied.") 
Instead, the majority of we citizens who repudiated Bush and Co at the last
election expected these Democrats to end the war in Iraq and pass
legislation rescinding the Bush attacks on civil liberties, close down
Guantanamo, etc. Depressing as hell.
Obligatory Buddhist content: if veggie/meditating Kucinich got elected, this
country might stand a chance.
But he'd be ruined.  
Joanna


 

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.6/862 - Release Date: 6/22/2007
3:04 PM