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An Open Letter to Our Children: |
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by Frank Stec
Email: lwkwafi (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
09 Nov 2004
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A letter to let them know what happened this fateful election, and our hope that writing this letter was all for nothing. |
Open letter to our children:
Well kids, I would like to say that we did everything that we could to prevent the current state of politics, but that may be stretching it too far. It is true that we organized turnout to be the highest since 1968, but that didn’t change anything (besides, it should be at least that high every election). They organized around fear and hatred, plain and simple. I always had higher regard for decency in America, but fear and hatred of terrorism and homophobia organized more people than we could have expected.
What nobody wanted to talk about was this culture war the Republicans engaged in throughout the election. I don’t want you to sneer too much. Those Republicans are a tricky bunch. But you must give it to them; they organized quite effectively. I’m sorry that we didn’t stand up to them and call them out, as they are so apt to scream “class war” when Democrats, liberals or progressives mention anything regarding equality, like social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and welfare. What’s that? Those programs don’t exist anymore? Again, I am sorry.
We should have called them out. “You are all a bunch of hypocrites!” should have been the appropriate response. Instead we decided to stay positive and tried to organize people ourselves. We should have pointed out that this administration desires government out of the lives of people, yet paradoxically they want an amendment to ban gay marriage. Is that not government involvement in people’s lives? Certainly it is not for the better of the country.
The politics of division, and in this case homophobia, went unchallenged by the Democratic Party. Even the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, said he was against gay marriage, but not civil unions. We should have pushed for someone that would embrace everyone, without regard to sexual orientation. The message should have been clear: America for all. It seems that the beacon of freedom is no more. It seems that the light that once led the way has flickered out. And it seems that city on a hill has begun to slid into the water.
This country seemed to have come so far in accepting homosexuals that the vehement attack on it through 11 ballot initiatives against gay marriage passing almost universally shook us all to our core. Perhaps we have mistaken tolerance for acceptance. But fear not, children, for tolerance can only lead to acceptance in the long run.
As President Lyndon Johnson said when introducing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the mission of this government since its inception has been “to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.” On almost all of these counts, our government is moving backwards. I hope it does not get too far by the time you read this. I am a truly optimistic person. I know that love will conquer hate. And this is not an unobtainable ideal, because this love lies within each of us. We just need to tap it on the shoulder and wake it up.
I’m not sure you know how woman’s right to choose could be lost. Sometimes history books are not the best at giving you proper context. Well, it all comes down to the ability of the President to appoint justices to the Supreme Court for life, and in 2004, this very issue was on the line. The Chief Justice was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and two others have been sick for some time. This allowed President Bush to appoint 3 justices who desired to control a woman’s body, without any concern as to whether or not these women desired to bring a life into this world and care for them as they could. A time machine by means of a Supreme Court case.
You must be asking yourself, “But how could this happen?” The conservatives were able to own the language game and framed issues that made positive qualities like progressive taxes, where the richer a person is, the more s/he pay in taxes (since they have more surplus income), as a burden that needed to be leveled out. In the end, it was regressive tax cuts that overburdened the poor, middle and working classes, and eventually bankrupted the state governments.
That is why you cannot go to a public school anymore. They just kept cutting the funding for it at the federal level, yet they simultaneously demanded the schools spend millions on tests that did not help you learn anything. That is why there is no health coverage for the poor and elderly that cannot afford private health care plans. That is why your right to privacy no longer exists. The administration that talked a game of ‘the smaller the government the better’ continually extended its reach into our library records, credit card receipts, and our health records before giving people insurance.
This country began a great shift with Franklin Roosevelt as it adopted the ideals of modern liberalism, which said that a government could be a positive force in changing society for the better. Liberals are the ones that brought a social net to this country. One that helped those that fell upon hard times. One that fought discrimination against Blacks in the South. One that assured everyone had an equal right to vote. And one that protected those the market rejected because they were not wealthy.
There is no need to romanticize the past as utopian, because we surely had our problems. It was just our belief that civil dialogue and compromise could help to solve our problems. Because in the end, they were not Liberal problems or Conservative problems. They were not Coastal problems or Heartland problems. They were American problems, and only together would they get solved.
Yet in came the politics of fear and hate, and out went civil dialogue. If we had all been able to sit down and talk out our differences, we could have made some progress. It was not expected overnight. No, we knew it may take years, even generations. Because even now our parents were coming into contact with homosexuals, and were realizing there was nothing to be afraid of. With time, more people would have come to this conclusion. It’s the rational conclusion to talking out problems. First its tolerance, and in the end its acceptance.
So I will apologize only one more time. I’m sorry for letting it get this far. But just know that we didn’t stand still and get trampled on. We regrouped and dug our heels in. We knew that it is only with determination, cooperation and an optimistic outlook that we could begin the fight back to the top. We started the fight with the hope that you could continue it. We have realized this culture war involves us all. We didn’t want to fight it at first, and we didn’t see the attack coming. But now we are aware of the situation, and it is in your hands that we leave it. We know your generation is wiser than ours, and that it is with you that we can achieve the balance of love and acceptance, finally.
So with that in mind, I depart. Maybe this letter will all be for naught. Because we just hope that the only thing people remember about 2004 will be the Red Sox finally winning the World Series.
one love,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you feel the same way, send it around to five people.
frank |
See also:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/stec/www/Open_letter_to_our_children.htm
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This work is in the public domain |
