Can't We All Just Get Along?

It's tough watching the news these days. Everyone's so mad at each other, nobody is getting along. It's a travesty. I think that what the pundits are doing is treason. Undercutting our country, causing dissension, bringing fear to our living rooms is treason, in my humble opinion. We used to have two parties, and that was bad enough. Now we have multiple parties, the Tea Party, the GOP, DEMS, Green, Independent....we just keep fractioning off and pretty soon we won't be speaking to each other at all.

When did we become such haters? Are these the same people that had flowers in their hair in Haight Ashbury back in the sixties? I think it is. This is the flower power generation, the Summer of Love generation. This is the generation of brotherly love, the age of Aquarius and everyday people. Is this what all those drugs back in the 60s did to us? Maybe we shouldn't have stopped taking them. How did a generation of people who worked so closely to organize anti-war efforts and marched against the Viet Nam war and heard the I Have A Dream speech in an age when there was no Internet get so angry? Why are we fighting with each other?

Can you imagine a country where everyone gets along, where everything is working, and we are all looking out for each other? What must it be like to live in a country like, oh, I don't know, Switzerland or Norway or Denmark where things run smoothly and there's enough for everyone and the government has to work on lofty goals like keeping the arts alive instead of whether a rape victim is allowed to get an abortion and if so, who pays for it? Our country used to be amazing.

It's amazing that less than a hundred years ago, black people couldn't sit at the lunch counter, and now we have a black president. It's amazing that we stood together as one voice on September 11. It's amazing that America is only 200 years old and still working things out, yet we respect and celebrate the diversity of our nation. Why can't we see that?

We are no longer the best country in the world. We aren't even in the top ten anymore. Our kids are failing at everything, our military is all but defeated by a country so small most people can't find it on a map. The United States of America is a wholely-owned subsidiary of the People's Republic of China.

The Today Show has been doing a segment on the death of civility over the past week. Civility is dead. When I see our president being portrayed as a clown, as Hitler, and being called such vicious names, I want to lay down and die, but not for this country. I wouldn't lay down and die for a country that disrespects the office of the president so very much. You have every right to say you don't like him, his politics, his name. But he is still our president, and anyone with any class at all knows you don't talk about the president in those terms. I hated Bush but I respected him as my president. He was a terrible president, but he was a president.

Yes, civility is dead. We can't all just get along. It's too late for that.

Friends in High Places

It was the events taking place in a small courtroom in Palm Beach County last week that sent me to the polls yesterday. I wasn't going to bother to vote. With the current political climate and all the negative ads, I wanted to put my head in the sand like an ostrich and just hide it out. But when Judge Debra Moses-Stevens awarded custody of 20 dogs to Animal Care and Control last week, I finally saw a victory in our favor. So maybe, I figured, just maybe our packing the courtroom did have an effect on the judge. Maybe she did take into consideration how important the lives of these animals are and ruled with kindness and a human heart. So maybe our being there made a difference, and maybe our voting makes a difference too. Of course it does.

With the results of the 2010 election comes good news and bad news. The good news is we've elected a Palm Beach County judge who will be an asset to animal advocacy. Marni Bryson is an "animal lover" and if she is seated as a judge in criminal court, maybe we will finally see some justice for animals being served.

On the other hand, the bad news is we lost Ron Klein, who, as a congressman, voted 99% in favor of the animals when he could. His humane scorecard was incredible. It's too bad we have replaced him with Allen West, who, for all we know, doesn't give a damn about animals. But maybe he'll surprise us.

Bad news, too, that Amendment Four did not pass. The big developers now have free rein to rape and pillage every last acre of green left in the state without having to first ask the community if that's what the community wants. Power to the people? Not in this case. Power to the powerful is more like it.

I know, I know, I sound like a single-issue voter. Guilty as charged. While I should be more concerned about my party. I'm not even sure what that is anymore. I was a Green, but I think I had to change my affiliation to Democrat to vote in the presidential primary.

I used to think the most important thing is for MY candidate to win. Now I believe the most important thing is that everyone votes. America is a "majority rules" place. How do we know what the majority wants if nobody votes? Maybe I lose, maybe I don't get my way. But that's not as important as the people speaking with one voice. I'm glad Obama is president, I'm sorry things are not going as planned, I'm hoping the GOP winners will extend a hand across the aisle. I am tired of our country being torn apart. I hope we can get some important work done and put egos aside. We all need friends in high places.