Election 2008: Come Together, Right Now, Over "We" -- A Prayer for Bipartisanship

Filed under:

He roller-coaster he got early warning

He got muddy water he one mojo filter

He say: "One and one and one is three"

Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see

Come together right now over me.

-- The Beatles, "Come Togther"

Steven Van Zandt describes a musical culture that has lost touch with its common roots. He has a way to counter all this, at least where music is concerned. He's drawn up a high school music curriculum that tells American history through music. It would introduce students to Muddy Waters, the Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. He's trying to use music to motivate and engage students, but most of all, he is trying to establish a canon, a common tradition that reminds students that they are inheritors of a long conversation.

-- David Brooks, The Segemented Society

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.

-- The Battle Hymn of the Republic

To a superficial observer, the U.S. Civil War of 1860-1865 was fought between two rival camps, one which favored slavery and one which opposed it. Educated Americans know that's just not so.

There were four camps doing battle during the Civil War, and only one stood morally against slavery. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wasn't in that camp, which was comprised almost exclusively of people who today are called "neo-cons" and especially "the religious right." Their anthem was "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and is filled with references to God, Christ, the gospel and the holy obligation to "die to make men free" just as Jesus "died to make men holy."

The far larger camp opposing the rebellion was comprised of secular folks who fought not to free slaves but simply to stop the insurrection, the treason, the betrayal of the Constitutional bargain. Lincoln, the leader of this movement, once said that he would hold the union together by any means necessary,and if he could hold the union together without freeing a single slave, he would gladly do so.

They were all Republicans.

On the other side were two camps consisting of Democrats. One of these believed slavery was morally right, mandated by principles now universally seen as racist and repugnant in civilized America. The other simply felt that the government in Washington DC had no more right to dictate policy to Americans than did King George III of England, against who a revolution had been fought which they saw as being little different from their current struggle.

That's right: 150 years ago, today's political parties were the mirror images of what they are perceived to be doing today. The Republican Party stood for centralized decision and racial justice; the Democrats stood for federalism and racial intolerance. All hell then broke loose, quite literally.

And yet, even while this war was being fought, the worst war in American history, a war that took more American lives than all other wars America has fought in its history before and since combined, America held truly contested elections. In 1864, with the war raging at its bloodthirsty worst, Lincoln (who had become president in his first election with less than 40% of the vote) stood for reelection against one of his own generals, George McClellan, and beat him by only 400,000 votes out of 4 million cast, just 10% of the total. McClellan publicly excoriated Lincoln without mercy throughout the campaign. Had Lincoln lost, nobody doubts but that he would have handed over power. Far from being weakened, America instead went on to bestride the globe like a colossus, and remains in that position to this very day.

In what other country could such a thing even be imaginable?

In 1800, America's fourth presidential election, the sitting president John Adams was defeated by his bitter rival Thomas Jefferson. The two men despised each other viscerally, and everything the other stood for. Nonetheless, Adams stepped down and let Jefferson take power. When Jefferson came to the end of his second term, rather than seek a third he bowed to the advice of George Washington and he too stepped aside. They created an example of democracy that the world is still struggling to emulate after two centuries.

Isn't it time the two political party camps began to recognize how much we have in common, and how much we can learn from each other, and to begin focusing on how mind-bogglingly great our nation is, and to begin working together in its best interests rather than serving the interests of our enemies by fighting each other? After all, it was the Republicans -- and the religious ones, at that -- and not the Democrats who defended the principle of racial justice when it counted most. Isn't it time the moonbats stopped castigating the religious right, and started congratulating them? The country, and Harvard University, was founded by them after all. And it wasn't the Democrats who tried to crush one part of the country under its dictatorial jackboot, that was the Republicans. Isn't it time the neo-cons stopped attacking the Democrats as if they were the second coming of Stalin and started doing battle with the real Stalins of this world?

It was Richard Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency and was able to talk to China, not the so-called "liberals" on the moonbat left. And it was Bill Clinton who balanced the federal budget, abolished welfare and enacted free trade, not the so-called "conservatives" on the neo-con right. Why must we see the similarities between the parties as a bad thing, calling for a third way (like the bizarro lunatics Ross Perot and Ralph Nader??) rather than as a good thing, showing our common ground.

The America of 2008 will be surrounded by psychotic enemies, from the maniac Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to the lunatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran to the madman Vladimir Putin in Russia -- to say nothing of the Communists in China. Isn't it time we acted like we know that?

A horrifying story from Pajamas Media blogger Ron Rosenbaum shows how the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany might have been avoided with concerted timely action, but the warnings were ignored. We could have avoided the first cold war if we had dealt more effectively with Bolshevism when we were first warned of its peril. There are simple steps we can take to deal with mutant freaks like those to be found in Venezuela, Iran and Russia, if we will only apply ourselves.

Let's not make the same mistake twice. Democrats and Republicans should be able to easily find common ground on the issue of promoting democracy and American values in the world, so they should stop bickering and start doing it. Our future depends on it.

Social Bookmarking:
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | reddit