Monday, July 24, 2006

Dad was a Tory

I remember when I called my dad a "tory." It wasn't because of any one issue, but was my youthful assessment of his overall attitudes. Usually when he got angry his eyes would bug due to an overactive thyroid condition, you could easily imagine steam coming out of his ears. But his response was different; I had cut him to the quick. This Revolutionary War re-enactor, member of Lamb's Artillery attached to Morgan's Rifles in the Continental Army; a supervisor employed by the National Park Service at Washington's Headquarters in Morristown, looked hurt & sad. He understood exactly was I was saying; that temperamentally he would have sided with British power. I'd hit a nerve. I could not imagine Dad pledging his life, fortune (if he'd had one) & sacred honor to a revolutionary cause. But I also believe he would have been a Unionist (if not an abolitionist) during the Civil War. That conflict would have been an affront to his belief in orderly & cautious change. He was not in sympathy with radical revolutionary aims & claims, left or right. As conservative as he was - even bigoted within the walls of his home, as much as he despised anti-war demonstrators & hippies, he never sounded like a fascist, & I never called him one. He lived long enough to see Reagan elected, but he definitely did not come from the religious right base of the GOP.

Contrast this with the rabid Bush/Republican apologists. They rationalize the worst ineptitudes, idiocies, war-mongering, & assaults on the Constitution by the presidential junta; worse than that, they consider them always the correct actions. It takes no great leap to imagine them as Germans supporting Der Fuhrer as he & his Nazis cranked up the levels of terrible lunacy year by year, notch by notch until it was OK that one's Jewish neighbors lost their freedoms & livelihoods & ultimately their lives; as the mentally & physically handicapped were categorized as imperfectly Aryan, therefore expendable; they would have heil'd Hitler's radio speeches while Germany's treasure was poured into a military-industrial machine obviously designed for aggression. All the while quoting Christian scripture.

Thinking about this because every-so-often I chat on the phone with a super dittohead, have to steer the talk away from anything even slightly political, & regret how the Republican ascendency in 1994 & the vicious unending attacks on Bill Clinton brought her views into the "mainstream." It still astonishes & upsets me that someone I used to love being around considers presidential peccadillos, queer marriage, & "liberal media" to be worse than Iraq, New Orleans, or any of the other tragic debacles & incompetencies of the GWB era.

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Comments:
You've got your "Tony." (my first blog post). I totally understand, except, I can no longer talk to my Tony.

On an aside, it's shit ass hot here, damn it! The power has been going off all night. Luckily, I'm at a metro intersection which needs to be up and running, so I'm somewhat confident I'll only experience hours at a time without power, as opposed to some that have been without power for days.

Regardless... damn... it's hot!
 
At least the LA heatwave broke, tho I imagine it's still an inferno in the central valley.

My friend is over 75 now, used to be surrounded by artists, poets & musicians 20 or 30 years younger, she's always saying how she doesn't see these people so much anymore. Of course not - because if you keep sounding like Bill O'Reilly your friends stop believing you when you claim not to be a homophobe or racist.
 
So, would over 75 be a qualifier in the "tony" dialogue? As in, they're so old, it's not worth the fight?
 
Yeah. I have few friends - not close ones - who support the war in Iraq even without WMD; regime change types. But they're more libertarian-right. I warn them it won't matter: keep supporting Christo-fascist Republicans & they'll end up in the same Happy Jesus Holiday Resort for reindoctrination, without their doob, porn, head-banger bands, & micro-brew beer.
 
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