Month: December 2017

Kim Otterson posted a comment on this website.  I feel that these comments require discussion.

Here is the first comment

[Todd County DFL] Get In Touch!
I attended the DFL caucus to support Bernie Sanders. It was my first experience with party politics. It will also be my last, at least with one of the 2 major parties. I was impressed with the people at the caucus. Lots of good ideas, lots of idealism. I was pretty skeptical about any of that surviving to the state level, much less the national one. This past week, your national party apparently decided they had the right to remove my duly elected senator for their political convenience. I get it. It was a messy situation and looked like it might drag on forever. He was still MY senator, not theirs. HE represented me. THEY don’t. I think we need to respect the ideals this country is based on, including those that allow us the defend ourselves and face our accusers. I’m beyond angry, I’m furious. As far as I can see, the mess we have in this country today traces directly to the fact that this country is controlled by two entities, funded by the rich, who don’t really care about the people, or the ideals this nation claims to aspire to at all. I hope we can find a way to get out from under their tyranny.

I replied with this

Are you suggesting a 3rd party?

John

I then got this email back

It took a bit to figure out who this was from. I’m guessing you’re referring to my irate email to the Todd Cty DFL, so I guess it’s safe to reply.

If there was a way to make a third party work, I think it would be an option. I’m not sure there’s a way to make it work, unless you have as much money as Ross Perot did. Because, in the end, money is what politics in this country is about. Personally, I’d like to see political parties banned and come up with some other way of nominating candidates. So the regular people actually have a voice. I don’t see that as a realistic option either, because the people in power certainly can’t be expected to limit their own power.

I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a situation that the founders anticipated, but didn’t really want to talk about openly, where the government is pretty close to being the real enemy of the people. I’m not sure what we do about that. I think we in this country tend to think we’re pretty safe from the kind of upheaval we see in other places. Maybe that’s a mistake. When you push people far enough, and render them powerless enough, some give up and give in and some get angry and fight. I’m not advocating revolution either, yet, but there’s a vast well of anger out here and ignoring it isn’t likely to make it go away.

What I believe is this, for all the wonderful idealism I saw at that caucus meeting, you guys are part of the problem, whether you realize it or not. Maybe there’s a way you can be part of the solution too, but I honestly don’t see how.

Forgive me while I go all “conspiracy theory” on you for a second. We’re at a strange place right now. The whole sexual harassment thing is at a point where it’s not considered politically correct to challenge an accuser. The thing at the moment is to accept their word with no question or proof. That’s not actually the way our system is set up to work, and for good reason. The Washington Post vetted the women who accused Roy Moore fairly carefully. Did anyone actually do that with Senator Franken’s accusers? I’m not saying they’re lying or that he didn’t deserve to get fired. I honestly don’t know the truth of this situation and neither does anyone else, other than the people involved.

When you consider that, in my lifetime, we’ve had a sitting president tapping the phones of his opposition (LBJ and Nixon, at least, if not others) and authorizing burglaries of opponents, and we’ve had the Russians creating what I can only think to call “fake news” in an attempt to influence events in this country, and we have a president who I’m sure has no moral compass at all, is it absolutely out of the question that someone, somewhere, might use the fervor of the moment as an opportunity to make a Democratic Senator look bad and cause a lot of drama and uproar in the process? If you were going to pick a Senator for that treatment, you MIGHT consider checking out the background of one who had a career as a comedian, with sort of questionable humor, and who’s already faced some controversy on the subject of things like sexual harassment., because he might be an easy target. Again, I’m not saying this is what happened, but I sure hope someone somewhere is checking out the possibility. It’s so easy to manipulate facts these days (maybe it always has been) that I don’t think we ought to take things at face value, if they’re things that matter.

When I was younger, I’d see things coming from the government that I didn’t understand and figure the people making the decisions were smarter and more knowledgeable than I am, and let it go. There were times when I wondered, like the first incarnation of trickle down economics, but I thought I must be missing something. When we invaded Iraq, I had a good friend who was a conservative. I told him I hoped, in the end, he was right and I was wrong but, to me, it looked a lot like a dog chasing a bus. He did 2 tours in Iraq and 1 in Afghanistan. In our last conversation, he sounded more like his old self than he had in several years. We actually joked about politics and I got my chance to say “I told you so!” He shot himself a couple weeks later. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Iraq war since then. Turns out I was right about it being a stupid, poorly thought out idea, where the people at the top failed to listen to the people they had available who actually had a clue. And I was wrong that the people running the country were actually smarter than they looked. They weren’t. I’m in the middle of H.R. McMaster’s book, “Dereliction of Duty” right now. I guess the one thing I can say about our government is “At least they’re consistent”. I don’t figure there’s much chance that anything I say to anyone about any of this is actually going to change anything, but I’ve decided that, in remembrance of my unofficial adopted brother, and all the other’s who’ve died over the years because of the mindless stupidity coming from Washington, I’m going to at least speak up when I can. Even if it doesn’t matter, at least I can do that.

Thanks for the reply. I’m interested to see if I hear back from the state or national party. I’m guessing I won’t, or it will be a form letter that suggests no one read what I wrote, or thought about it. but it doesn’t hurt to try. I appreciate your question.

Kim

To Which I replied

Thanks for your reply. If you want, can Ipost the last email on the site.I think it could spark some conversation.  I could have your name on it or anonymous.   I prefer to work in the system, because the alternatives we have in the Republican Party are so bad.  To get my vote a candidate must :

And Finally

Sure, go ahead & post it. Conversation is good, we need way more of it. And, your can use my name. Is like to be part of the conversation.

I agree with your criteria. The one thing I’d add is that prohibiting abortion AND limiting access to birth control makes no sense and I have to wonder what motives the people who seem to think it does. (Unless they’re Catholic. Then  at least i know where they’re coming from.)

So, Do YOU have anything to add!!!!