Life From Both Sides

I have been wanting to get something off my chest for quite a while. Thanks to a syndicated newspaper writer's compelling column my sleepy unconscious began to clear cobwebs from thoughts collected there for many moons. As the thoughts began to surface I started to organize them into what I hope you will find a thought provoking essay.

Violence was the topic of the Glen Garvin column. But not the run-of-the-mill 'man shot to death outside popular night club.' Garvin wrote about the violence motivated by political fanaticism and how the "one side" unethically uses the tragedy du jour to smear the "other side." The piece was written as if Garvin was as sick as I am about the incessant finger-pointing and shrill voices of righteous indignation on one political side declaring the other side's nefarious political tactics responsible for inspiring crime. His retrospective on politically driven violence, dating back from the '60's to the present, clearly built a case that Nancy Pelosi's recently implied contention that Conservative ideology is at the root of it all is categorically wrong. In fact, Garvin pointed out that during the past 45-50 years that Conservatives and Liberal lunatics have been wielding the firearms and detonating the bombs. Life from both sides share this dark ignominy, from Jim Jones (Lib) (cyanide laced Kool Aid in Waco)to Timothy Mc Veigh (Con) (Oklahoma City FBI bombing), etc.

While Glenn’s column was focused on the result, the violence, it is my nature (from my 30+ years in management) to solve problems by first examining the causes, in this case, the who or the what that were unintentionally propelling these insane people to seek violence as a satisfying form of self expression. So, permit me to begin the discussion by casting my ironic vote for the politicians, undeniably the who that unwittingly and/or unintentionally cause this specific violence problem. I'll explain.

To better understand my charge, one only has to listen to some of our political leaders' speeches that promise to 'fight' for their constituents and then implore same to 'get out and fight' for their g-d given rights! And, 'don't ever allow my opponent (the devil incarnate) to take your rights away from you and your children!' And, the coup de gras, 'You must not allow him to continue with his irresponsible social policies that betray your trust and undoubtedly will keep you from attaining your American Dream!' A bystander might witness raging anger on some faces and fire shooting from some of the ears of the faithful. The speech has produced the desired result. The good news is that voters are motivated to action. The very bad news is that the candidate is either unaware or unconcerned with the evil that his words can elicit from the emotionally unstable.

As we know, everyone's elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor. So a few of these fanatic followers who hear these belligerent and personally threatening words will take them literally, act them out, and as history shows, the result can be very ugly when a sociopathic tendency is stirred.

Back to Garvin's look at life from both sides. Might as well face it, America's political parties, strategists and candidates from both sides have, over decades, earned their seamy reputations. In fact, it has been commonplace for many voters to refer to politicians as "the lowest form of life on the planet." I know I do. And I define "lowest" in the pejorative sense, not the directional.

Try to imagine working at a career in public life where, on a daily basis, in order to be successful one must compromise one’s principles that were instilled during childhood by parents, teachers and Judeo/Christian religious leaders. Disregarding one’s principles should be unacceptable in the American culture, especially in national political circles where all have attained higher education. Period. Power and money should not be the all important, because when politicians pursue these choices as their personal holy grail, without fail they join the political majority who attain the ignoble “lowest form of life” distinction.

The harsh reputation sticks because the electorate believes that politicians are elected to lead them to a better life, not to destitution or paths of personal destruction. We would like to believe that the people we elect are well intended public servants and will act in our best interests even if it places their re-election in doubt. Seriously, are you able to name one such selfless man or woman of the people currently serving in the US Congress? Neither can I. The polls bear witness that they are not admired.

Today's politicians are obviously driven to build a career in public office, but not necessarily a career that will benefit you or me. Again, it is their narcissistic need for power and money that consumes them, not your well being or their own attempt to raise political behavior from the gutter. This is not revolutionary thinking to those who are aware, but most voters are simply too busy trying to make the rent payment to become politically informed; and to a ruthless win-at-all-costs politician the uninformed voters have a bull's eyes on their backs. It is the uninformed who are easily exploited materially or manipulated emotionally. To a politician the public trust means nothing when an election is at stake. I still shake my head when I see those who, like teenaged girls for a rock star, are overwhelmed with emotion for their candidate. Unfortunately for the masses, charismatic genius is sometimes dangerously irresistible. History has proven and will continue to prove this to be a political truth.

You might conclude that my cynicism is over the edge. So be it, but I have lived through politically motivated tragedies, the Kennedy and MLK senseless assassinations. Who could have created the kind of negative political energy that drove some maniacs to these ends? Could it have been the politicians in the ilk of Nixon, Gingrich and several other major office holders who were forced to resign? Then there were Clinton's disgrace in the Oval Office, and Bush 43's embarrassing judgments and a persona created by his inability to communicate? These people did not deserve pedestals. Yet many were placed up there even though they all suffered from seriously antisocial human failings. What they all had in common was their choice to have placed personal interests ahead of the well being of the people they were elected to protect. All made poor judgments, bad choices, and caused millions to suffer to varying degrees.

But perhaps the most egregious actor of them all, though, was FDR. I never cease to be puzzled by what I consider the undeserved adulation for FDR. Not wanting to lose his voter support, FDR sided with the polls and, in what could have been the single worst political decision in history, he said no to Churchill's 1938 plea to enter the War in Europe to stop Hitler. Think about it. FDR's broken ethic enabled him to choose his political career ahead of the threat that would eventually result in 40 million dead in WW2. Had he joined Churchill, Hitler possibly would have been stopped at Munich, and the term "death camp" might not exist. A friend's father fought in Europe. When asked what he thought of FDR his reply was "He was an anti-semitic bastard. He knew about the concentration camps, did nothing and worst of all hid it from us. I was in the army in Europe and didn't know until we liberated the camps. He should rot in hell. You see you touched a sore point for me." Still think I'm too cynical, I don't think so.

Did you know that the Etruscans settled Florence, Italy circa 800 a.d. and organized the populous with a representative form of government much like ours? Every adult citizen was required to serve one year in the government but then had to leave office for at least three years before returning for another one year term. The Etruscan leaders believed that all politicians could be corrupted, thus the one year term with no possibility of a political career, a wise plan to operate a clean government. Conversely, in America we encourage young adults to attend universities to study political science and law with the sole intent of a political career replete with its temptations, power and money. Once exposed to it, fledgling politicians become involved and, too weak or inexperienced to resist, sadly they are often corrupted. Regrettably, the result is that our otherwise good system of government is drawn even further into the inefficient, unethical mess we call our Congress and Presidency.

Power and money...we have all seen well intended people destroyed because they made the untoward choices of dirty, unethical politics for power and money over public service. There can be no excusing the behavior that violates the public trust. For this writer the acid test is to ask “would I want my children to grow up to emulate that behavior?”

If one has a difficult time being objective about this truth, I suggest speaking to someone older and wiser. And if your particular circumstance is that you are already quite elderly and have no one “older and wiser” than yourself, try to find someone younger and wiser to set you straight. :-) Understand that it is a shame to go through life so naïve or oblivious that one does not realize when one is being taken advantage of or has been the catcher of the lie thrown by a politician.

Is it any wonder, therefore, when one of the unstable, fanatically “loyal” flock takes the path to violence, a path to which he was unconsciously “directed” by his leaders irresponsible, perhaps careless words?

The American political system requires that we vote the President and Congress into office. It’s a good system and contrary to what many say or believe, the system is not flawed. It’s the candidates who are flawed because of their malevolent personality traits, low standards of ethics, and wrongheaded career objectives that can drag the system further down toward even worse levels of corruption. Whether or not the violence is a consequence of a politician’s flaws is of no consequence to said politician. It’s only about his career. Oh, how Americans yearn for Etruscan-like term limits!

Finally, I Have Looked At Life From Both Sides Now and it is clear to me that our leaders on the left and right have, by their unprincipled actions, set the tone that has led the descent to the depths of politically motivated violent behaviors.

We can only hope that our leaders will soon understand it is their responsibility to solve the problem and begin the ascent toward an ethical renaissance in the United States Congress by each member, regardless of party, cleaning up his/her own act.

Albiwan..
ps- thanks to Judy Collins for Both Sides Now..