Category Archives: Racism

Impeach Obama?

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In the fantasy world of right wing crazies, the impeachment of President Obama is becoming a greater possibility. For example, Michele “Batsh*t Crazy” Bachmann recently told viewers of Fox News Channel that President Obama has “rewritten the Constitution to serve his own purposes.” First, I doubt that Bachmann has ever actually read the Constitution. Second, the “evidence” she used to support her claim is the Affordable Care Act (ACA)…a bill passed by Congress, signed by the president and upheld as constitutional by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

Some evidence.

Bachmann isn’t the only mental hospital escapee making such claims. At Tea Party rallies throughout the US, it’s common to see people holding “Impeach Obama” signs or verbally calling for the president’s impeachment. Even worse, numerous Teapublican congressmen have suggested that impeachment may soon be “necessary.” To justify their calls for impeachment, they point to manufactured “scandals” such as Benghazi.  But, unlike his predecessor who ignored numerous warnings prior to 9/11 and led our nation into war under false pretenses, President Obama has done absolutely nothing to warrant impeachment. And, just one year ago, voters had the ultimate opportunity to remove him from office.

It’s called an election.

Unfortunately for Teapublicans, they lost…badly. Nevertheless, Teapublicans continue to blame the president for their own failings. They ran up the debt with their wars and tax cuts and blamed it on Obama. They collapsed the economy and blamed Obama for unemployment. They created the debt crisis in 2011 and blamed Obama for the damage done. They have used the filibuster to nullify many of the president’s initiatives and to block many of his appointments and nominations.

They cry that Obama “refuses to defend our border” despite the fact that the Obama administration has doubled the size of the Border Patrol and invested billions in a border fence. They forced our government into sequestration then howled when the cuts resulted in long lines at airport screening. Most recently, they shut down our government then blamed Obama for parks and monuments being closed.

They continue to complain that Obama was foreign born (he was not) though their most vociferous whiner and presidential wannabe, Ted Cruz, was born in Canada. They attacked Obama for attending a “radical” black Christian church yet claim he’s a Muslim (as if that’s something bad). They howl about the start-up issues with the ACA website despite the fact that they have done everything in their power to sabotage it. They not only withheld much of the funding needed for its creation, Teapublican-controlled states refused to implement their own health insurance exchanges, forcing millions more Americans to log onto www.HealthCare.gov to find health care coverage.

Now Teapublicans are back home holding town halls and giving speeches about the evils of Obamacare. They are also inviting people to bring their “horror stories” about Obamacare. One can only imagine that they will spend their last 8 working days of 2013 reading these anecdotal, and likely false, stories into the congressional record and voting to repeal the law for the 48th time. And don’t be surprised if, next year, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Paul Gosar and others use these stories as the basis for impeachment.

Knowing that impeachment is doomed to fail unless they gain control of the Senate, Teapublican congressmen are also continuing their attempts to destroy the Obama presidency by refusing to negotiate a budget and refusing to raise the debt ceiling which would force the US treasury into default. Never mind that such a move would have severe and long-lasting consequences for the world economy and our nation’s ability to borrow. It might even cause the world to replace the dollar as the world’s prime currency. But in the minds of many Teapublicans, such realities are dwarfed by their dislike for President Obama.

Teapublican hatred has no bounds.

Let’s Try To Become The Nation Our Founders Imagined.

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In reading The Untold History Of The United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick (a gut-wrenching, powerful and well-documented book), it’s clear that, contrary to what we were taught in history classes, the US has long been a cruel and greedy empire.

For more than 200 years, we have engaged in wars of choice with no other purpose than to capture territory and extract resources. We have brutally murdered, tortured and subjugated indigenous peoples, all the while patting ourselves on the back for bringing them “Christianity” and “civilization.” We perfected mass murder and water boarding in the Philippines. We forced China, Japan and Korea to bow to our wishes for trade. We exerted our will in the Caribbean and South America in order to claim their resources and protect the interests of our corporations.

We occupied Cuba, Dominica, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama and the Philippines. After World War II, we occupied Germany, Italy and Japan. We have sent our troops to every corner of the Earth and have long ruled the air and the seas. According to Stone and Kuznick, “by 2002, we had some form of military presence in 132 of the UN’s then 190 member nations.” And, by my best estimates, we have been at war for all but 33 years of our history.

Why? It mostly has to do with business.

We forced our will upon nations in order to control their gold, silver, copper, aluminum, rubber, sugar, fruit, land, even drugs. More recently, on behalf of our industries, we have pursued oil in the Middle East. We helped to overthrow democratically-elected governments in Chile, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. We supported and trained death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. And we have bullied almost everyone else.

All the while, we celebrated our victories along with our good intentions.

Is it any wonder, then, that our people have long admired the Romans? In reality, we are them; a power-hungry nation of avarice and cruelty. Like the Romans, we believed that the gods or, in our case, God was on our side. We called it Manifest Destiny; the God-given right and responsibility to govern all those people we considered incapable of governing themselves. Of course, “those people” just happened to be people of color.

We have become the kind of empire our forefathers fought to escape. The Founding Fathers had high ideals; that all people are equal and have a right to life, liberty and happiness. Yes, many held slaves, but many wrestled with that fact and sought a way to end slavery while holding the states together. For example, although he was a slave holder, Thomas Jefferson wanted to bring slavery to an end. In recognition of the complex politics of the issue, he likened slavery “to having a wolf by the ears. You can neither hang on nor let go.”

We can’t change the past, but we can change the future. We must strive to be better; to lift people the world over out of poverty; to support and restore freedom; to end hunger; to rein in greed; to help educate children; to create jobs; to increase the sustainability of our all-too-fragile planet.

We may never be able to end wars, but we should make them increasingly rare. We should have a strong defense, but we cannot and should not be the self-appointed police of the planet. That was never the intention of the Framers. Rather, they believed that we should be an example to others; a model of liberty and justice for all.

We haven’t been, but we still can be.

Hallelujah! Pass The Hate And Ammunition!

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While perusing my local newspaper, I ran across a curious item. There was an ad for a gun show at a local community church. That’s right, a gun show in a church! Doesn’t everyone know that Jesus Christ and AR-15s go together like wine and crackers; blood and flesh? After all, guns and ammo will help tens of thousands of Americans meet their maker sooner than later.

More seriously, this represents a disturbing trend. More and more religions have aligned themselves with the military. Churches praise those who died in battle. One church I visited even placed a monument to fallen soldiers in the courtyard leading to the sanctuary so the congregation would be reminded of the glory of war every time they go to church.

I long ago rejected organized religion, but I still remember my childhood church praying for peace. The congregation would never have considered allowing its facilities to be used to sell weapons. There were no monuments to violence. My, how things have changed!

Even more disturbing is the tie between some religions and racism, and the tie between racism and guns. The Ku Klux Klan was born out of white “Christian” churches. Today, many Aryan supremacy groups still use the Bible to justify their hatred for others. Further, a new study published in the science journal Plos One has linked racism to gun ownership. A research team led by Dr. Kerry O’Brien measured levels of symbolic racism in relationship to gun ownership. The team reported, “For each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% greater odds of having a gun in the home, and there was a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns.”

According to the team, the results were “consistent with other US data showing that white males display the most opposition to gun control, and greater support for liberalisation of gun laws.” The team also found that “higher education levels were associated with lower odds of having a gun in the home.”

Maybe someone will conduct a similar study exploring the links between guns and religion, or hatred and religion. I suspect the findings would be both depressing and frightening.

New World Order Paranoia Is Nothing New.

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Reports that the shooter at LAX may have been motivated by the so-called “patriot” movement and the New World Order conspiracy theory should come as no surprise to anyone. Fears of a New World Order have been around for decades. Some even believe that our Founding Fathers were part of the conspiracy to create a global government. Some imagine that Freemasons were at the heart of the conspiracy.

Such conspiracy theorists have become more crazy and violent over time.

It was a combination of anger toward what they considered a “tyrannical” federal government, racism and fear of the arrival “black-shirted, jackbooted thugs” that inspired Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Fear of a one world government has inspired militias and other domestic terrorist groups for many years. And, more recently, the New World Order conspiracy has been embraced by the Tea Party, Libertarians and substantial numbers within the Republican Party.

Here, in Arizona, I’m reminded of the so-called conspiracy all the time. Newspapers carry letters to the editor that stridently warn of the United Nations. Tea Party meetings rail against our president who, in their words, is trying to usher in an era of UN domination…ie, a New World Order. They warn of the impending arrival of black helicopters. Even the marginally more mainstream Republican Party meetings often host speakers who espouse this nonsense.

Indeed, the three state legislators who represent my legislative district are UN conspiracy advocates. So, too, is my Tea Party-backed congressional representative.

In particular, these Tea Party parasites…er, “patriots” fear Agenda 21, a UN initiative to make our world more sustainable through such radical ideas as city planning, sustainable farming practices, new sources of alternative energy, forest management and environmental preservation. The tinfoil hat crowd is also opposed to the new international treaty on arms control. The treaty is intended to control the sale of weapons to radical governments and terrorist groups. Yet the right wing crowd is convinced that it will lead to confiscation of their handguns, assault rifles and buckets of ammo by UN troops. Of course, it won’t. The treaty specifically states that it does not impact the laws of sovereign states. But truth and reality have never found a home in the tiny minds of the Tea Party.

Not surprisingly, the people who are most fanatical about the conspiracy are the most ardent gun “collectors.” Many, encouraged by the National Rifle Association and a variety of “reality” TV programs have amassed substantial armories. Such irrational fears combined with modern weaponry will inevitably lead to more violence.

“A Holocaust In Slow Motion.”

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That’s how one interview subject described our War on Drugs and mandatory sentencing in Eugene Jarecki ‘s film, The House I Live In. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, but I only recently had the opportunity to see it, and I can tell you I left the screening feeling as though I had been eviscerated.

Seeing the reality of how our nation deals with issues such as poverty and race will not only shake your belief in our justice system. It will make you question the ideals of our nation.

As the film shows, our justice system has long been used to oppress certain groups by separating them, confiscating their property and concentrating (incarcerating) them. From our nation’s very beginnings, the group most notably affected by the system is African-Americans. But the system has been used against other groups, as well. For example, laws against opiates were created to punish Chinese laborers who began taking manual labor jobs away from whites in the 1800’s. Laws against cocaine were created to punish African-Americans who began taking jobs away from whites in the early 1900’s. Laws against marijuana were created to punish both African-Americans and Mexican-Americans who were taking jobs away from whites in the 1900’s.

Things actually got worse for these communities in the 1970’s.

That was when President Nixon announced the War on Drugs and directed all levels of law enforcement to attack drug use. Nixon’s war also included substantial resources for drug treatment. But that changed in the 1980’s under President Reagan. Reagan cut funding for treatment and pushed Congress to institute mandatory sentencing guidelines which forced judges to hand down draconian sentences for minor offenses. In other words, he took the ability to judge out of the hands of judges and allowed the system to more easily target African-Americans who were increasingly being displaced by layoffs in large manufacturing plants.

With the introduction of cheap crack cocaine, the laws were changed to include the so-called 100 to 1 rule – it took 100 times more powder cocaine to be charged with felony possession than crack cocaine. You see, since crack cocaine is cheaper, it tends to be used by poor African-Americans, while powder cocaine tends to be the drug of choice for upper middle-class white people. Of course, this rule led to our prisons being disproportionately filled with African-Americans. (The laws have recently been changed to a standard of 18 to 1 under the Obama administration.)

Law enforcement agencies were further encouraged to focus on drugs through laws that permitted them to confiscate property – cash, vehicles, even buildings – used in drug crimes. As a result, many police departments have begun to rely on this property in order to finance their operations. That, in turn, led to even more focus on drug crimes.

When President Clinton pushed for the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law, judges were bound to level draconian sentences against people convicted of three offenses, no matter how minor the crimes. This led to so much prison overcrowding, it opened the opportunity for corporations to build and operate prison complexes at substantial profits.

Our white population was relatively unaffected by the War on Drugs, other than the occasional interruption of drug supplies and exposure to the scare tactics used by politicians to get elected. That changed with the introduction of methamphetamine. Suddenly, a large number of poor, unemployed white people became drug users and were eventually sent to prison. This created yet another source of revenue for the prison industry.

Most of the prisoners now languishing in prison on drug charges are non-violent drug users and small-time dealers. They are disproportionately minorities, even though drug use for minorities is about the same as that for white people. (According to Michelle Alexander who wrote The New Jim Crow, as many African-Americans are now in some stage of our “justice” system as there were slaves at the beginning of the Civil War!) Most prisoners come from poverty. Most grew up in deplorable circumstances. Many were unable to find jobs that would allow them to support their families. Most sought to escape their misery by resorting to the use and sale of drugs. Many have had their families torn apart, leaving children without mothers and fathers, and likely perpetuating the problem and creating future sources of income for the prison industry.

As one law enforcement officer said, “We may as well make it illegal to be poor.”

What are the consequences of our failed War on Drugs? Taxpayers are forced to pay enormous sums to house, feed and care for our prisoners. At the end of 2012, we had 1,571,013 prisoners in the US, more than any other country. We have 176 prisoners for every 100,000 of our population, surpassing every other nation on Earth, including China, Cuba and Russia.

And how much has the War on Drugs reduced drug use in the US? Zero, zip, zilch, naught, nada!

Meanwhile, we have painted ourselves into a corner. We have built entire industries upon the War on Drugs. We have police, judges, attorneys, prison guards, and corporations that rely on a steady stream of offenders to fill our courts and our prison beds. We have manufacturers dedicated to designing, developing and building weapons systems for the drug war. Even if we can elect politicians with the will to change the system, a large portion of our economy has become dependent on the system. It’s much the same as our war culture. If we ever decide to quit outspending other nations by a hundred, a thousand or a million to one to feed our bloated war machine, our economy could be devastated.

Give into our better nature and we will not only return thousands of people to their families. We will put thousands of people out of work. And what will become of those prisoners who are rightfully returned to society? Many of those who were non-violent when they entered prison have been forced to become violent in order to survive prison. How will they support themselves? Many have little education and few desirable skills. Many will be forced back into the same environment that led to their problems in the first place. Most will be unable to find a job, especially when unemployment is already high.

In order to fully address the problem, we will have to create jobs that pay a livable wage. We will have to fund treatment programs, along with education and training programs. We will have to reduce or eliminate poverty. We will have to rebuild entire communities. We will have to improve public transportation to expand the area in which these people can seek jobs. We will have to change the way we police those communities. And we will have to give judges the latitude to mete out justice…real justice.

America, land of the free? Not yet.

A Nation Of Crises.

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Every day I receive dozens of emails and letters asking me to help save the oceans, save the environment, save children, save wildlife, save food stamps, increase the minimum wage, stop voter suppression, stop global warming, stop the pipeline, stop racism, stop the attacks on women’s rights, stop the attacks on education, stop the attacks on science, demand gun control, end hunger, end poverty, etc., etc., etc…

It’s all very depressing.

Of course, these are all very real and serious issues, and the organizations asking for help are well-run and well-intentioned. They deserve our support. But I finally realized that all of the issues are related. They are all the result of corporate greed and ideological candidates supported by billionaires and big business.

Our oceans are being destroyed by greedy oil companies and by large, commercial fishing operations. Our air and water are being polluted by corporations who would rather dump toxins into the environment than sacrifice a portion of their profits to clean up after themselves. Poverty and hunger are the result of corporations who are more intent on rewarding investors and executives with large bonuses than paying workers a livable wage. Global warming is the result of corporate-backed congressmen who prioritize subsidies for oil companies over subsidies for alternative energy sources.

Many chronic health issues and diseases are the result of corporate farming practices and food processing companies that intentionally poison our food in order to increase profits. The attacks on science, education and voter rights are designed and paid for by large corporations in order to maintain control of our government. The lack of funding for social safety nets such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are the result of corporate fraud and abuse, as well as tax loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Almost every one of our problems is the result of large, multinational corporations and the billionaires who run them treating the Earth as a source of commercial resources and people as commodities.

Since I can’t afford to donate to every good cause, I’ve decided to donate to candidates who place people above corporations.

I will vote against candidates who support corporations that pay employees a minimum wage while paying CEOs millions; that damage our environment and our food supply. I will vote against those who accept large donations from such corporations regardless of which party they represent. I will not spend another dime to purchase products and services from corporations that harm our citizens, our nation and our environment.

If corporations only care about money, I will deny them the thing they want most. I hope you will consider doing the same.

The Legacy Of Lee Atwater: How Republicans Became The Party Of Racists.

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Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, LBJ famously said that, by signing the bill, the Democratic Party may have lost the South for a generation. Not long afterward, Republican strategist Lee Atwater formulated the Southern Strategy, which encouraged Republicans to express their racism in more subtle ways in order to win elections.

“You start out in 1954 by saying N.…., N.…., N….. that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states rights, and all that stuff… All these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites,” said Atwater.

We’ve seen these dog whistles for racists play out in Republican politics ever since. Indeed, they’ve never been more apparent than now that we have an African-American president. Instead of using the N-word to describe President Obama, they use “de furer” [sic]. They portray him as a clown. They push for “3 strikes and you’re out” laws that fill our prisons with minorities. They support “stop and frisk” laws in our cities. And they pass restrictive voter ID laws in order to suppress minority votes.

I could cite hundreds of examples mostly generated by the “Grand Old Party” of the South.

Eventually, Atwater recognized the damage he had created. On his death bed, he apologized for his actions. But the Republican Party that embraced his views hasn’t. In fact, on what may well be the Party’s deathbed following their forced government shutdown and potential US default, much of the Republican Party, expecially its Tea Party parasites, is still clinging to Atwater’s advice.

May those who continue this strategy rot in the same hell as the Confederacy.

The End Is Near?

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All across the Worldwide Web, you can find websites, blogs and videos announcing the impending “End of Obama.” Some have been created by fanatical Christian groups that are convinced President Obama is a Muslim. Some have been created by white supremacy groups and other racist thugs who dislike the color of his skin. Some have been created by fraudsters determined to scare you out of your money.

We have pundits predicting the demise of democracy if Obama is allowed to implement his agenda. (Never mind that Obama was democratically elected – not once, but twice.) They predict that he will single-handedly lead us into economic disaster. Some of these predictions come from right wing radio hosts looking to scare up higher ratings. Some are pushed by right wing politicians determined to scare people into voting for them.

The two things that connect all of these dire (and unfounded) predictions are fear and hatred.

This is really not a new phenomenon. We’ve had doomsayers for centuries. But nobody actually took them seriously…until now. They used to be the subject of ridicule and smirks. They used to stand on street corners holding signs and shouting to themselves until the people in white coats put them in straight jackets and carted them off. They used to hide deep in the woods never to be heard from again. But now we make TV shows and movies about them. Worse yet, we elect them to office.

Today, we have people such as Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz and Tea Party caucus leader Michele Bachmann warning of the end times. We hear dozens of bombastic right wing preachers and televangelists predicting dire consequences if we don’t do as they say and send them money. We have TV “reality shows” rating the ability of “Doomsday Preppers” to build bunkers, stash food and map escape routes. We have gun “collectors” storing arsenals of weapons and ammo that would put the armies of many small countries to shame. We have Tea Party fear mongers warning of UN troops in black helicopters coming to take away our freedoms. And we have right wing billionaires funding TV commercials warning that “Obamacare” is the “end of liberty.”

Is this really what Americans have become as a people? A nation of ninnies afraid of a shadow – especially if that shadow is cast by a black man? Has the “land of the free and the home of the brave” become the land of the hateful and the cowards? If so, we better commission someone to write a new national anthem.

The generation of my parents fought the Great Depression and World War II with the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ringing in their ears, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” If they were called The Greatest Generation, what should we call the generations of today?

Rebels Without A Brain.

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Sunday’s demonstration of anger, racism and stupidity at the WW II monument revealed far more about those speaking than about our government shutdown.

Waving the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia (aka the Confederate flag), holding “Impeach Obama” signs and hiding behind a few hundred veterans, Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz, failed VP candidate and former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, and Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch demanded that President Obama put down the Q’uran and resign. “I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Q’uran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out [sic],” said Klayman.

They decried the exploitation of veterans for political purposes even as they exploited veterans and the WWII Memorial. “Our vets have proven that they have not been timid,” said Palin, “so we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.” And in an equally absurd show of hypocrisy, they blamed the shutdown on the president, even though the Teapublican-controlled House passed a funding bill that denied funding for “Obamacare” knowing the Senate would not pass it and the president could not sign it.

Still, it was the waving of the Confederate flag in front of the White House that rightfully drew the most criticism by the media and many Americans. This is not only the flag of secessionist states that tried to rend our nation apart, resulting in the deaths of 650,000 people. It is the flag of racists, having been proudly flown by slave-owners and those who continued to deny equal rights to African-Americans during the days of Jim Crow. Even to this day, it is the symbol of white supremacists.

To fly this racist symbol in front of the White House currently occupied by the nation’s first president of African-American heritage is not only clueless and tasteless. Since it represents the Confederacy, it borders on sedition!

Everything You Need To Know About Today’s GOP In One Button.

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In case anyone could confuse Teapublicans for reasonable people, it should be noted that the following button was offered for sale at the California GOP convention: “KFC Hillary Special – 2 Fat Thighs, 2 Small Breasts, Left Wing.”

Wow! Just wow!

This is from the party that claims to respect women all the while they try to invade their bodies, restrict their access to contraceptives and take away their access to health care. Imagine if Democrats put out a button that pondered whether or not Mitch McConnell can look past his gut to see his penis. Or a button that pondered the size of John Boehner’s testicles. Or a button that pondered whether Michele Bachmann’s brain is bigger than her mouth. Oh, wait, I think Michele has already answered that question.

But don’t get the idea that the GOP is merely offensive to women. They seem to delight in nasty attacks on all groups. They have created equally offensive materials against minorities, gays and anyone else who opposes their narrow-minded agenda. For example the same GOP convention that displayed the Hillary button offered buttons that read: “I still hate Commies even after they changed their name to Liberals.”

This is the sort of stuff that makes political compromise virtually impossible. You can’t seriously negotiate with someone who openly disrespects you. And those in today’s GOP have made it abundantly clear that they have absolutely no respect for anyone who opposes them. They compare gay marriage with bestiality and incest. They call the working poor “freeloaders.” They attack minorities who demand equality for “playing the race card.” They dismiss environmentalists as “tree huggers.” They call President Obama a “socialist Kenyan Muslim” and worse. They call scientific evidence a “hoax.” They even call public education “socialism.”

At the same time, they portray themselves  as the “real patriots.” They wrap themselves in the American flag and wave their pocket copies of the Constitution. And they threaten to “use their 2nd Amendment rights” to enforce their narrow-minded point of view.

Now imagine trying to negotiate important issues with these people. Do you really think Democrats and Progressives can have an adult conversation with them over the future of our nation? It would take a far better person than me.