Festooned with tri-cornered hats, waving their “Illegals Go Home” posters and munching down corn syrup laden foods in one hand while parading guns of every caliber in the other hand – came the Tea Party Chicanery. It infuriated us. It made us laugh. Then it enraged us with its civil disruptions. It was Code Pink in reverse.

So, where do they come from? What do they really want? Who is behind this caterwauling circus? We have to go back to the 1940’s to understand how it all happened and why they believe that they are in their “right” mind.

We came together to a place of safety many years ago after World War II. Our cathartic struggle had left us exhausted for just awhile. Then we picked ourselves up out of the dust and we went about rebuilding our home.

Even in the dawn of the post war era though, you could feel the separation we had inherited, that the war had only interrupted, the layers of mistrust of the “other.” It did not take long and we were back at each other’s throats.

Red scares and lynchings turned into witch-hunts, blacklists, sit-ins, peace demonstrations, riots, beatings, murder and the “culture war.”

We came to two paths in the swamps of Vietnam and we diverged, never to meet again, until now. Through it all we wondered if they were in their right mind? How could they not want what we wanted? In their hearts they knew they were “right” – or so they said.

We are the two siblings of America Agonistes. On the Left are the Liberals and on the Right are the Conservatives. On the left are the Progressives. On the right are the Reactionaries.

We are a family at war with itself; each defiantly convinced that we are in our right mind and that “they” are dangerously deluded. The battle is fierce and the casualties are mounting.

However, on both sides a few are awakening to a broader picture. Somewhere beyond our view we are being watched. And now, we have come to discover that we are merely the extras in a drama orchestrated by the 400 – Crony.

Our friends and family on the right wing of American culture, politics and economics have been played. What they believe is their “Right” mind is a cheap Carny trick. The Orchestrators have seduced them like any good con artist, flim-flam man or grifter – through the manipulation of their greed.

They have been convinced that back long ago there was an American scene that was White, Christian, Independent and Righteous in its Manifest Destiny. They have been told that the “other” will rob them of their imagined heritage and destroy the world! They have been convinced that if they act brutally and immediately then they will not have to share the world with the “other,” the inferior people.

And the greatest seduction of all – they have been promised that if they give all of the money in the world to the top 1%, the 400, the Orchestrators, Crony, then they will be taken care of. All that is necessary, all they have to do, is to vote to “End the Government As We Know It.”

Any thinking person knows that selling the government to private interests is the end game for Crony, reversing the American Revolution. A divided people are being conquered from within.

For our part, on the Left, we have been emotionally strung out on War and Peace for so long that we have lost our connection to the everyday commonalities with our neighbors. We bought the Culture War as hard as the Right.

It has mesmerized and occupied our efforts as well as theirs. We have been played as well as them. We came to see them as the “other” as much as they see us that way. Therein lies the key to our liberation!

What if we could find a way to reach them? Libertarians want to end the Foreign and Drug Wars. So do we. Conservative farmers want to save the land and the water. So do we. Hunters want to save the wilderness. So do we. Everyone wants an infrastructure that works. What if we could find a way back to the future, together?

Are we not the collaborative force of change that benefits all? Are they not part of the “all?” What if the focus of all of our anxieties can be directed to the Orchestrators, to Crony? What if we can help them to disenthrall themselves from the illusion of a past that never was and awaken their courage for a future that must be?

I am convinced that if we can regain our “right” mind then we can help them out of their “Right” mind. If we can overcome the failure of imagination and lack of perspective that has been induced by the fear and greed fog spewed from the organs of malfeasance on Wall Street, in Advertising and across Mass Media we could break the chains of perpetual conflict.

No, not everyone can be reached but all we need is enough of them and us to create “We.” Then we Connect the Pain and Organize the Gain

Yes, dear reader, out there somewhere, we can all be in our “right” mind and then we can all get “right” with our world and ourselves.

Further…

Brad Parker

Valley Dems United, Margy Murray, Editor