SENTIENT TIMES Feb/March 2001

Doing the Right Things
Without Making Someone Wrong
By John Darling

Watching this election, recount and confirmation process÷and the impeachment of Clinton earlier÷shows me that we've become a highly polarized society, which is bizarre, because, at the same time, we're evolving into a homogenous society preoccupied with the same creature comforts.

So why do We hate Them? And how come They are always trying to stick it to Us? Can we believe this stuff? Is this real? Or just some Us/Them game that's been going on since the beginning of history, as a way of lending meaning and direction to society and of legitimizing the use of power by those who gain it?

Us/Them has always been with us. It's a game about power. Even tribal peoples do it: We're the "good" people, they say, the tribe over the next hill is sort of ok and we can sometimes marry into them; the tribe over the second hill is "bad" but it's ok to enslave them and use them to widen our gene pool; and the tribe over the third hill are cannibals who despise us and can't wait to destroy us and everything we stand for.

Each side creates whipping boys, red herrings and straw dogs to beat up and demonize, so as to energize the base of support and legitimize its leaders. But, oddly, each tribe is living for the same comforts÷hunting and gathering the same herbs and game, having babies and hoping for the best.

It's common psychology that we all try to disown our darker impulses by projecting them on others. But, in rare moments of honesty, we know the dark impulses are inside Us and we get tired of repressing them and feeling guilty. That's what a straw dog is for. We dump our nasties into him like a pi–ata, rant about how sick and depraved he is, get the masses hysterical, then vehemently whack him÷and burn him for good measure÷and then feel so much better!

In back-to-back elections, I supported conservative Goldwater in Orange County, Calif., then Bobby Kennedy in Oregon, so I've known Us/Them from both sides. The beautiful thing about these two presidential candidates is that they both had the intelligence and political will to use power while scarcely spinning and demonizing others. It was a joy to watch them "tell it like it is" and I loved them.

Since then, I've seen the Right's demon-bag fill with fetus-killing feminists, gays, drug-crazed hippies, antiwar traitors, rapping crack gangs, gun control, illegal immigrants, tree hugging eco-terrorists, the decline of family and those sick, perverted Clintons.

The Left's straw dog has filled with fundamentalist tv preachers, nuke-loving hawks, earth-raping loggers, ranchers and corporations, radio talk show demagogues, the militia, wife/child-beating crackers who love Bud and country music and those election-stealing Bushes.

Notice how you vote with your tv remote. When They come on, you surf. When We come on, you feel warm and affirmed. If the marketers ever wire our remote (they will) so they can read our surfing, they'll know all they need to know about us.

Before the big changes of the sixties, you'll recall the Right's straw dogs were communists, uppity blacks, unions and FDR. And the Left's demons were commie witchhunts, heartless Wall Street capitalists and Nixon.

The Right was inconsolable when commies went away and even more so when it became taboo to demonize blacks in any way. But the Right hardly skipped a beat. They created a new Them÷dark, foreign, menacing, fearful÷out of feminists, gays, immigrants, gangs and other outgroups. And, in one of the most stupefying political feats of the 20th century, Reagan and a raft of radio talk show hosts and tv preachers got the blue-collar, country-music set in bed with Wall Street and the Pentagon · with whom they have nothing in common. If only the country-music set knew that, deep down, Republicans don't care at all about abortion or any of those explosive social issues. It's the money, stupid!

Politics rarely is about issues or "doing the people's business," although that happens sometimes. It's about power, money, fame÷and belonging to and fighting in defense of the tribe÷Us. All these can be drug-like. We practically have to become philosophers to avoid their spell. Like drugs, these are exhilarating at first, give pleasing flows of brain chemicals, become addictive, you need larger and larger amounts to get the same hit and end up not filling the emptiness inside.

The hate in politics can also be drug-like. We hate in shorthand now, feeling satisfying camaraderie or disdain at the Christian fish/Darwin fish on the car in front of us. Our new sniff-test. Self-righteous indignation at The Other is ever the first agenda item in what passes for political discourse.

The Right thinks it has the right to endless vengeance because lewd, smirking Clinton beat impeachment and whupped Gulf War hero George Bush; because Anita Hill trashed Clarence Thomas and de-legitimized office sex games; because Bork got Borked; because the Left finally did get rid of evil Nixon and because JFK really did steal the 1960 election.

The Left thinks it has the right to endless paybacks because well, somebody killed JFK, Bobby and Martin and the Right sure wasn't sorry; because Nixon beat Humphrey on a promise to end Vietnam, then kept it going for five more years; because of Kent State; because Reagan stole the working man by teaching him to hate uppity women and gays; and because George W. stole the 2000 election÷right on tv.

But all this is stupid. It has nothing to do with the people's business now. It's gone on too long and if we keep believing in all this rubbish, something really bad might happen.

The polarization and self-righteous hatred of Them is illusory, because we're all mostly the same. We all want our TV, SUV, CD, beer and margaritas, good sex, Costco card, two or three pretty good marriages in a lifetime, kids who grow up ok, and real estate which we work for all our lives and makes us rich for nothing. We're all conditioned aphids performing and conforming on the same matrix of rewards and punishments. We pretend to our heartfelt political views to give us the illusion of free will.

There's been progress in one area: it's so easy to see them lie now. Because of cable and 24-hour news, we've all learned how the game is played, how to spin, how to ignore questions and stay on message, how to talk slow, poignant and caring about your family, how to mouth key phrases which are focus-group tested to cause a flow of satisfying brain chemicals in targeted voters.

It was disheartening to watch my own candidates, Gore and Hillary (my bargain-basement replacements for the Kennedys and King) lie like this. George W. seemed more real (he wasn't) so he wins.

All these office-holders are working for contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and PACs (political action committees), not us. The PACs÷right and left÷are like the new barons, the aristocracy in the Dark Ages. They pay for the candidates and spend the time with them, not us. We watch it on tv.

The new president wants to "rebuild" our sadly depleted military and deploy Star Wars, not because we're going to have to fight anyone, but to shift income to investors. We all know that.

The 50 percent who don't vote? They're actually not indifferent, stupid or lazy. Most of them are repulsed by the lying and choose to focus on better things in life.

Please forgive my cynicism. The truth hurts÷but only at first÷then it frees. The truth is that if you believe in Us/Them, you've got a leg in that swamp of suffering that's pulled down humanity through 5,000 years of civilization.

The truth is that democracy is not a simple, clean or brief process. Politics has been called "the art of making friends." It forces you into compromises, because it forces you, after many hours and years of work, to hear Them and to move into empathy. When I work in politics, I'm constantly amazed at how I, a liberal, come to actually respect and care for conservative folk. I grow comfortable, begin to joke, breathe, listen to them. Fear leaves. They stop being "Them" and I gradually come to see how, given the same circumstances, I might easily slip into Their shoes.

Yes, Nader's candidacy made President George W. possible, and may again. We should have a parliamentary system with third and fourth parties, who, when they get enough support, use it by forming coalitions with the big party. But we don't. The Far Right took over the conscience function of the Republican party and the only way Greens will stop destroying the Democrats is when Greens successfully achieve the same kind of role in the Democratic party, with a center-left message about peace, nature, health care and education under a debt-free budget.

Don't worry, abortion (with pill) will stay legal, we'll run out of darker, poorer cultures to beat up on, we'll end capital punishment, gays will become ho-hum, the family will thrive, guys will get bored with their guns, all borders will be thrown open, we'll find a sane way to live with nature and growth (after Nature takes us through a good couple of eco-nightmares) and there'll even be peace in the "Holy Land."

And then · we'll face the real challenge: can we do the right things without having to make someone wrong?

John Darling M.S. is an Ashland writer and counselor. He worked many years as a political reporter, legislative assistant and campaign press secretary in Oregon.

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