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Dear friends, family, loved ones, Liberals, Democrats, Progressives, my brother in law, Sam, and my cousin Joe: I am sorry and you were right.
These are not easy words for anyone to utter, much less a Righty from South Carolina, or a recovering righty, that is. Even though I've been in recovery for 8 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, right wing-nuts are always right in your face, in an I-hate-you-if-you-disagree sort of way. Hence, this letter of amends to all the people I've lectured, scolded, called 'libtards' ranted and raved at, and otherwise annoyed during my 30 plus years of "right-wing" politics.
My recovery program urges a fierce moral inventory, a cleansing of heart and mind (kind of like a "forgiveness tour" but without the scary dictators), so here goes:
To my brother in law, Sam, for blasting you in that Chinese restaurant for voting for McGovern, mea culpa.
To my cousin Joe for calling you a traitor when you became an Book Store Owner, started holding a real job (as opposed to most of us South Carolina types who are government lobbyists, political advisors, security consultants and black water apologists), and became a progressive, my bad.
To my goddaughter whom I told when she was l0 years old that Democrats were bad, Republicans were good (yes I really did say this), and who got confused and tearful because she lives in a suburb where most people are Democrats, kid, what in the world was I thinking?
To my righty conspiracy wing-nut friends, with whom I agreed that libtards were un-American, we were wrong.
To those potential friends whom I dumped when I found out you were liberal, your gain is my loss.
To all those columnists and editors whom I harangued with angry letters and e mails, sorry, sorry, sorry.
And finally to me, Beth, for installing you for the last 27 years in the right-wing nut cult of the bible belt, where Susan Vaughan Smith of Union, SC was convicted on July 22, 1995, and sentenced to life in prison for murdering her two sons (Newt blamed it on the liberal culture). Turns out Newt was wrong and she had been molested as a child by her Republican County Chairmen stepfather.
I didn't know any better. I thought the whole world lived in areas where people spoke dirty, called people names (libtards, dam Yankee) where aggressive behavior is allowed because the perps are victims of the liberal elite, and where you can easily get cat called walking down a street or eating in a restaurant at noon. (By the way, with the righties now in charge, expect more poverty, crime, anti-union right to work laws and a lower standard of living to be coming soon to a neighborhood near you.)
Given that the media is pretty much controlled by corporate America (good luck finding a progressive book in your local "independent" book store or hearing a Liberal speak anywhere), you didn't know that a party of grownups even existed that didn't advocate screaming at others as the preferred mode of communication. So to my dear Beth, apologies for what I put you through, what I deprived you of, and my pledge to do better.
Cousin Joe, Sam, et al, you may be wondering how I did a l80 in 1 1/2 years. How did I go from a rabid, sanctimonious Righty whom you steadfastly avoided at family gatherings to a fan of Maddow, Big ED, and Keith Olbermann? Recovery encourages us to share our story, so here's mine:
In April of 2000, I saw a new client, a bright and sensitive young woman who came in looking like she just escaped a war zone. In some ways she had; she had innocently shared with others at her job that she voted for McCain rather than Bush in the 2000 South Carolina Primary. Immediately she was being targeted for abuse that put her in fear for not only her job, but her life.
We both suddenly became aware that something had grown really dark in the Republican Party. I started hearing about many other incidents where loyal Republicans were being physically and emotionally threatened for supporting McCain. A woman in Columbia had her front window broken because it displayed a poster of McCain. Karl Rove, a Bush aide, claimed McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. (Rove was recently placed as a commentator on FOX, illustrating another disturbing trend: the deafening silence about what Olberman has dubbed the new "thug-ocracy.)
An acquaintance had her car broken into, and the only item stolen was a No Bush bumper sticker. My local greeting card store sold very flattering cards about Bush, insulting ones about McCain, and a McCain "nutcracker." When I complained, the young male manager literally laughed in my face.
Cindy McCain was called every vile name in the book by both male and female George Bush partisans.
The Conservative Republicans under the leadership of Carl Rove, by ridiculing McCain, his wife and their adopted child, were acting like arrogant snobs. The party had changed, I had changed, and the differences looked irreconcilable.
The final straw for me was when a close friend flew into a rage at me when she learned I wasn't supporting Bush. The political became personal when she began impugning my character. Worse yet, she tried to intimidate me into changing my mind by threatening to dump me.
Suddenly a light went on. The big tent of the old republican party was dead and gone (if it even existed to begin with except in my imagination). The Republicans had morphed into a power hungry Thought Police, and I was done with them. My new motto in life: don't PC on me.
So this is my letter of amends, and I hope that I can be forgiven by all whom I've offended. I knew not what the heck I was doing. But now the problem is: how in the world does one be a Liberal these days? How to stay brave and committed when Liberals are being targeted, punished, and shunned on a daily basis? How to sleep at night knowing that the country I have finally come to love may be torn apart from within by a massive Tea Party revolution?
I guess I'll just have to do a step one, as we 12 stepper's call it, and turn it all over to my Higher Power.
Love,
Beth from Columbia, South Carolina
CHECk out http://www.thenation.com/article/dirty-tricks-south-carolina-and-john-mccain for some back ground info!
"What Bush did to McCain in the 2000 S. C. primary"
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?forum=8&topic_id=522&az=show_topic
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/28/us/defending-smith-stepfather-says-he-also-bears-blame.html
