A Preemptive Strike-Reply for a Post-NeoCon World

^{(I’m traveling tomorrow, overseas.  I’ll be out of touch all day, and that’ll be a damn shame, as I love this place.  So I decided to post this now, and see if anyone liked it.  I wrote this exactly 2 years ago tomorrow, just after the midterms, because I felt we were going to win big in 08.  We had to win.  And I needed to be prepared, or something like that.  I’d forgotten about it until today when I heard Rove the pundit blathering nonsense to the ‘faithful’.  Neocons for some odd reason still believe they have relevance, still believe they hold power.  This is how I envision dealing with them.  Their mouthpieces, their valued pundits…well, they’re another story.)}

Hi.

My name is ___.

I know you.  

You know me.

The passage of time and our mutual close proximity to each other on the job is what makes that possible.

That and nothing more than that.

(This is an intervention)

I think we can agree that we have known each other for quite some time now.

For your part I know what you think of me, and have actually, many times, brought yourself to speak out loud the “L” word and send it my way.  It has been your highest insult, and I’ve always thanked you for the sentiment.

Because it’s true.

For my part, after careful observation, I can safely say that you are a born-again-make-it-up-as-you-go-along-denounce-anything-different-as-scary-’cause-you’ve-been-told-by-some-stiff-cranky-messianic-old-whithered-white-man-that-it’s-alright-to-hate-lie-defame-cheat-condemn-criticize-and-denounce-in-the-name-of-the-lord-in-voices-that he-and-only-he-hears-by-god’s-will-pseudo-christian-neo-conservative who has been stunned to silence by the results of the recent midterm elections Obama victory.

Silent, until just now.

As I write this I don’t know what it is that you will say to me but I know in my heart that eventually it will come to pass that you will not be able to stand it any longer and will just have to bleat out something.

I also know that the sentiment you will send my way will not in any form be an original thought of your own.  It will be a variation of some old stock party line.

But, for once, you won’t be comfortable with saying it.  It will be an exploratory probe, a left jab to see how I’ll respond.  A left jab with no right cross to back it up.

Call it a learning experience.

As I write this I believe that you and your ilk are circling wagons, creating new talking points and redefining your snappy repartee.

You must do this, for you believe you have no other choice.  You believe it because you have no frame of reference for your current, sad position:  An arrangement of the feeble.

You’re just beginning to discover that the patron saint of hate, Ann Coulter, never told you how to talk to a liberal when that liberal holds power.

You’re just seeing how your champions of war-mongering and lies, Bill-O and Rush the Comedian, are either now championing partnerships or deserting what they call a sinking ship because they weren’t listened to, weren’t heeded, didn’t win, cause the commies won, oh, god, we’re doomed, blah-blah-blah-blah.

Your knights are leaving the conservative round table, and they’re leaving because in order to exist in the present political world your party of the chosen must for once learn how to say “please”.  They’re leaving you because they know people who say “please” are civil.  They also know that civil citizens cannot hate enough, cannot discard the beliefs of others qiickly enough, and can’t cast away the rights of those who disagree with them enough.  For these champions, it is the only belief they’ve ever had, the only truth they’ve ever known, the only path they’ve ever trusted.  They can’t get enough of it.  They thrive on it.  They live for it.  They cannot exist without it.

The “it” is power.  And the champions believe they, and only they, deserve “it”.  And since you failed to deliver “it” to them this time, they have only your backs to sink their claws into to get to at least some form of ‘it’ until they can initiate the ordered process of hate once again.

You’re learning many things now.

You’re discovering how it feels to be ridiculed and vilified for have “different” views… ideas and beliefs still safe to have only because of the constitutional guarantees that come with living in this great land that we all call America.

I won’t ask you how it feels.  I don’t care.  I already know how it feels.  I’ve been on the sharp point of that stick for some time.

But I’ll give you this for free:  With ideas and beliefs all streets are two-way.

(I’m sorry, was that your brain shrieking just now?)

Ok, consider this:  I’ve seen rats abandon a sinking ship… I really have!  They have no mercy for what they leave behind, just as your champions have no mercy or forgiveness as they leave you in the wake of defeat for terrible new waters and a better place to kill and feed.

You’re learning what it’s like to be stepped on, spat upon and have your face jackbooted into the foulness of the dirt.

Those wearing the jackboots are your leaders, your friends, your pundits, your fellow ‘true’ Americans, and, man, are they pissed at you.

Could it be those who are raining down the sulphur upon you are not liberals, but your own anointed champions, vicious in their new and growing hatred for what they decree an abject rejection of all they deem right?

The Pharisee Nouveau calling from without for the condemnation of your mortal soul for the heresy, nay, for the crime so brutally handed down to them.  In other words, dude, you didn’t get them the power they crave and live on and now you’re the one who’s to blame, cause someone’s gotta get blamed and it’s not going to be them so it’s gonna be you…

Well, you get the picture.  Frightening new things you’re learning now.  Like, what if feels like to be thrown to the wolves.

And so, an intervention:  At least from my POV:  To how far I’m willing to go:

I will work with you, if you are willing to work together by fixing the failures of the past.

I will listen to you, if you are willing to speak with honesty and the capability of listening past your own thoughts.

I will hear your ideas, if you are willing to try to believe that I already know not all of my ideas are jewels.

I will consider your vision for our country, if you are willing to realize that compromise is usually the best course of action when dealing with the safe welfare of

all 300,000,000 of our country-men and women.

I will treat fairly that which you hold sacred, if you are willing to accept as fact that the majority of the world doesn’t believe at all in what you consider sacrosanct.

I will see to your world vision, if you are willing to find humility in the view that the rest of the world, which outnumbers you 5,000 to 1, doesn’t see it your way and that that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I will consider you an equal, if for nothing more than that is what I believe you are, regardless with how you may feel about that or me.

But will I trust you?

Not yet.

Will the world trust you?

Definitely not yet!

You have proven that you know nothing of sharing power or how to use that power wisely.

I’m not certain I do, either.

Maybe that is the one lesson that we all must learn.  Regardless, I trust myself to learn that lesson long before you do.

Hence, this intervention.

For the both of us.  Maybe for all of us.

The time for “snappy repartee” is past, my friend.

Put those thoughts aside.  Put your hatred away.  I don’t deserve it, I won’t accept it and your efforts at it are now beneath you.

I know deep down you are a good man.

It’s time to get to work fixing the wounds of a world we all must share and live in.

And we can’t get it done without you, your ideas or your resourcefulness.

You can’t get it done without us, either.

Enjoy the intervention.  I know I will.

It’s time for all of us to learn some new things.