Today is the 22nd of January, the Day of Speaking according to the USC. It's hard to believe, but after enduring three weeks of January, we still have some 10 more days (including today) to go. At least the brutal cold snap here in the Deep South is finally letting up - today's high temperature is forecast to reach a balmy 49°.
Everyone's speaking - they're posting their words and ideas on whatever Elon Musk is calling Twitter nowadays, or on Zuckerberg's Threads, or on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChap, TicToc, or whatever. People are talking on the radio and on television, on Fox News and on MSNBC. They're talking on any number of internet web sites.
Everyone wants their opinion heard, everyone believes their opinion is correct, everyone thinks their ideas should be acted upon. And that's the problem.
No one's listening and no one's willing to compromise. Look at our politics: the Right believes that the Left is gravitating toward the radical fringe of Maoism and Marxism, and in response are themselves moving further to the right toward the lunatic-fringe extremes of authoritarianism and fascism. And that movement, in turn, is causing some on the Left to counteract by actually embracing the very doctrines and ideologies they're accused of following, and the reverse is occurring on the right. We are moving further apart with no ground in the middle, and not coming together.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't think by any means middle-of-the-road political views are the best, or that we should aspire toward mediocrity. It's fine to be a Marxist, and if you think your "America First" beliefs aren't racist and bigoted, I'd love to hear your reasoning. But we can't assume that because we believe something, the whole world has to snap into accordance with our beliefs.
Look at the current state of Congress. The Democrats want more funds allocated to help support our Ukrainian allies in defense of their homeland against Russia, the Republicans want stricter policies on immigration and more funds allocated for border enforcement. But both sides refused to budge and reach some compromise measure - it's all or nothing, and nothing is what they're accomplishing. I know that's an oversimplified take on a complex topic, but I ask you to focus on the larger point of talking without listening.
For many, many years, I worked for a very conservative company, and many if not most of my co-workers were strict Republicans and staunch conservatives. But you know what? After working with them, I came to like many of them personally, considered them my friends, attended their weddings, and consoled them through divorces. We ate lunch together and we would have beers after work. I'm still in touch with many of them today.
We talked and we listened, and I know that they did not consider themselves to be racists, or homophobes, Islamophobes, or whatever, even if some of their beliefs and the policies they supported were, at their core, racist, homophobic, etc. They did not consider themselves to be racist because their whole identity wasn't solely devoted to hatred of another race and to its elimination, even if the candidates and polices they voted for increased inequality and were based on racist assumptions.
They weren't racists, but they couldn't see past Obama's ethnicity and couldn't understand how he had any appeal to voters beyond "Vote for me, I'm the black guy." To be fair, I couldn't see the appeal of McCain or Romney beyond, "Vote for me, I'm not the black guy."
We disagreed on much but we still found middle ground to respect and like and befriend each other despite our differences, and worked together toward common project goals. I don't mean to oversimplify more than I already have, but I wish Congress and others could do the same. Okay, one side's saying "Black lives matter" and the other is saying "Make America great again." Cool, whatever. Now can you children sit down and pass some legislation to fund Ukraine and to work on a comprehensive immigration policy?
It's your motherfucking job.
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