fredag 26 juli 2019

Political views have consequences

A recent exchange on my son’s FB page between him and a man, whom we consider family, because of whom he married, caused me to think about how we deal with family and friends with whom we disagree fundamentally, politically. For many years, we enjoyed a close friendship with a couple, a friendship so close that we saw them as family in every way except blood. Unfortunately, the man died all to soon, leaving behind his wife and two wonderful daughters. After a few years, his wife found a new love, and we were very happy for her. As we got to know him, we gradually realized, that his political views are much more conservative than ours, than those of his new wife, and certainly very different from the man he replaced. This is the man who in the exchange with my son displayed a political view that I find abhorrent. How do you deal with someone like this?

For many years after I moved to the US at the age of 24, I was very disenchanted with the US political system, but I was busy making a living, raising wonderful boys, and, as critical as I was, and am, of US politics, it somehow felt a little distant. The ascendancy of trump (I can’t bring myself to give him a capital T), and, even more, the movement of the republican party to the extreme far right, has changed all that. The political development in the US the last decade, has made me look at politics in a completely different way. As much as I feel that politics have changed, it’s also a fact that I have just been sensitized to a political reality that is by no means new. Racism is not new. Xenophobia is not new. Huge gaps between rich and poor are not new, although the differences are certainly increasing in an accelerated way. Gerrymandering and repression of voting rights is not new, but the current republican party has raised it to an art form. The influence of money in politics is not new, although its most extreme form has now been sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Some of the consequences of this political system are millions of people without any meaningful health care, no universal vacation time, no universal sick time, no legally required parental leave, no legal rights (well almost none) for employees, a thoroughly insufficient safety net. And it’s only getting worse. The US has never been a democracy in the strict sense, and is only becoming more and more undemocratic. I don’t disagree with those who say that we live in a plutocracy.

All this has had a fundamental effect on how I view and relate to other people. If you support trump, you support racism, xenophobia and increased inequality. Why would I want to have anything to do with you? You are hurting other people and you are hurting this country. Others may be able to live differently. There are certainly examples of couples with very divergent views. James Carville and Mary Matalin, Kellyanne and George Conway. That would never have worked for me. Not in the past, and certainly not in these polarized times. And the same goes for friends. If you support racism, you’re not my friend. If you support the extreme politics of the current republican party, you can’t be my friend. I don’t want you as my friend. Not even on Facebook. I scared away most conservatives from my FB page with my posts and comments, and I removed the ones who didn’t get the message.

I’m curious how others handle this. If someone supports trump, do you just ignore the fact that they are part of making racism more acceptable? Do you ignore the fact that they support a thoroughly immoral, evil person? I’m only using trump as an example because it makes it easier to see, but in my mind, the current republican party is no different. And even more pointedly, what difference does it make if the person is family? Is it OK for family members to be racists?

fredag 15 mars 2019

Climate change - a series of unfortunate events.

Climate change - a series of unfortunate events.
https://medium.com/@Mattias.Lehman/climate-change-a-series-of-unfortunate-events-ac17c79e2383?source=friends_link&sk=889ac0b97d3e92697f9839092da60c78

söndag 10 mars 2019

Reparations is Part of the Political Revolution, Bernie

Delar med mej av min sons politik.
Reparations is Part of the Political Revolution, Bernie

"Reparations is part of the political revolution, and Sanders can’t settle for dreaming big about everything except for black America."