SavageDem

"I don't belong to an organized political party – I'm a Democrat." – Will Rogers

Category: Human Interest

  • I’ll Take Personal Dignity for $400, Alex.

    The blockbuster news yesterday of the resignation of Best Buy’s CEO Brian Dunn – and subsequent fall-out indicating that there are “personal misconduct” issues that led to it – made me wonder: would you rather be a relatively anonymous middle-class person or a publicly-disgraced rich person?

    What is the price of personal dignity? Would you trade the security of never having to work again for the loss of respect of your family, friends, co-workers, and general public? Granted, the public’s memory is short, but still…

    I’m pretty sure I’d keep (what’s left of) my personal dignity and wallow in the (rapidly vanishing) middle class.

  • Lazy Single Black Drug-Using Welfare Queens Are Stealing Your Money

    I got sucked in. Again.

    I work with and sit next to my co-worker, who is male, Caucasian, middle-aged, and right-wing. He would argue this last adjective, as he frequently reminds me that he’s been “a Democrat my whole life and voted for Obama.” But he’s right-wing. As you shall see. We occasionally get into lo-o-o-o-o-o-ong debates over social and political issues. I’ve learned to – usually – save my breath. But this time I couldn’t help myself.

    I have to take blame for this instance. I emailed an article to my co-worker – let’s call him “Mitt” – that was designed to torque him a little, being a list of charts recently released by the government showing how the economy has been improving the last two years. Although Mitt never really reviewed the charts or data, he refuted them immediately on account of the article about the charts being published by The Atlantic. This then led to a hour-and-a-half debate – just when it was time to go home – over issues of government, bail-outs, poverty, birth control, drugs, moral decline, etc.

    The thing that made Mitt the most angry was when I said that there is a direct correlation between poverty and increased crime rates, and that the way to reduce crime is to reduce poverty. “Being poor does not make you a criminal! I came from a poor family, and I had morals!” Here’s the thing: he did not come from a poor family – he grew up middle-class in Minneapolis in the early 70s – and doesn’t understand what true poverty is.

    Mitt thinks the base problem in our society is a creeping lack of morality. An underlying menace. Brought about by the lack of “real” man/woman families, not going to church, not teaching morality…and being black. OK, he didn’t really say that, but the dog whistle was loud and clear. Here’s Mitt’s thesis in one convenient jumble:

    Single black moms have lots of kids with deadbeat dads who aren’t held accountable for child support by the government via DNA tracking and then take scads of government welfare money which raises our taxes and leads to having no impetus to ever get a job and not having any responsibility and using all that cash to buy drugs and liquor which leads to more crime but using birth control is bad because the Pope says so and immoral so we shouldn’t offer birth control and sex is only for procreation but since they are so lazy they sit around all day watching all those TV shows that advocate immorality and then have more babies and no work ethic.

    Mitt is actually a very smart person. But he’s so convinced of the overwhelming populace of these fictional freeloaders that he is impervious to facts. His lack of exposure to people of color and over-exposure to Faux Fox News makes him fearful of the different. He is a poster-boy for the fear-driven I-work-hard-and-anyone-else-can-do-the-same-to-get-a-job-and-be-successful all-regulations-are-bad-the-market-will-regulate-itself I’m-not-a-racist-but-people-with-different-colored-skin-scare-me crowd.

    These people sadden and worry me. I’m saddened that some people are so fearful that they let themselves be unwittingly led by hatemongers. Worried that so many of this type of person end up – usually by virtue of inherited wealth – in our political system. The thing that gives me hope is evolution. Gradually these people are dying out, to be replaced by a younger generation with more acceptance and open-mindedness. We can see the course of history, and how over the long arc of time we’ve inculcated acceptance of different classes of people: Jews, Irish, women, atheists, Protestants, etc. It hasn’t been perfect. We’re still fighting the battles for women and different religious groups. And we still haven’t fully accepted – as a society – blacks, Native Americans, and homosexuals. But it’s coming. The old white males and fundamentalists are becoming less and less relevant. And I think that this trend will continue.

    We shall overcome.

  • What Lucky People Do Different

    This article gets at something that I’ve observed personally multiple times in life: it seems to take a crisis for most people to crystallize what’s really important in their existence, and that state of mind only lasts a short while. If we can learn how to open our minds, follow our intuition, and “tap in” to that feeling more regularly, we may find our true calling and more joy in life.

    Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool that I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  • A Mother Fights Back Against Homophobia

    Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

    I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

    My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

    You simply must read the full text of this letter to the editor. Sharon Underwood from Vermont penned this wonderful response to homophobes back in 2000 in the Valley News out of White River Junction, VT.

  • Go Undercover at Gay-to-Straight “Conversion” Camp

    This is a fascinating bit of investigative journalism. Writer Ted Cox masquerades as gay to see what goes on at a gay “conversion” camp. He finds – as any sane person might expect – that it’s a farce, as there is nothing to be “cured.” It infuriates me that these sick bastards feed on obviously troubled people who have been made to feel as if there is something wrong with them.

    An excerpt:

    It was the first night of “Journey into Manhood,” a 48-hour weekend retreat designed to help gay men become straight. In that room, about fifty men — some thirty “Journeyers” and fifteen staff members — sat on the carpeted floor of a ranch lodge two hours outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Most of the men, except for a few of the staff members, struggled to overcome their attraction to other men.

    Sometime during all that holding and touching and singing, while I was cradled in the Motorcycle position, I felt it: the unmistakable bulge pressing through his tight jeans. It was the first time in my life I had a felt another man’s erection.

    Full article here