When faced with this challenge, I went to my trusty dictionary, which defined “culture” as “the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.”
Having just survived another election season, I decided to explore the cultural divide that makes politics so nasty. What is it that makes people resort to backstabbing, mudslinging, and mean-spirited behavior when it comes to making a political choice? Aren’t we all striving for the same things, just traveling different roads to get there?
My news feed on Facebook is a good place to get a snapshot of an America divided. Although some of my friends are fanatically right-wing while others list completely to port, I’m pretty sure that if I created a questionnaire and distributed it among my Facebook friends, all would agree on the same basic needs. The Declaration of Independence sums those up pretty well: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Despite ideological differences, in the end most of us will buckle down and work with whatever the process throws at us. So if we all agree, why is there a cultural divide? What makes the left the left and the right the right?
To answer that question, I decided to go to extremes. For my cultural journey, I chose what I felt to be the farthest right website (RushLimbaugh.com) and the farthest left website (MoveOn.org) to see what they “regarded as excellent” in America – and how they felt we should achieve it.
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Upon opening up the Rush Limbaugh website, my senses were immediately assailed by a dizzying explosion of color, movement and confusion. This is a busy place! Determined to sort through what was advertising, what was content and what was shameless promotion, I checked that my anti-virus software was up-to-date, then began carefully clicking on the various sections of the home page.
The first thing I noticed was that the date was wrong: It was still listed as Tuesday, November 2 (Election Day) although it was now Wednesday, November 3 at 9:30 AM. This concerned me. Nevertheless, I clicked on the first link: “Go Vote, Then Sit Back and Wait.” This appeared to be a transcript of yesterday’s radio program, the gist of which was: “Remember the Limbaugh Rule. Any candidate with a (D) next to his name on a ballot, you vote against . . . when you see an (R) next to a candidate's name, you vote that candidate. You do not seek compromise with those who believe this country is immoral and unjust.”
Okey dokey, that’s crystal clear.
Next, I clicked on the big graphic in the center that invited me to “REESTABLISH CONSERVATISM STARTING TODAY!” along with the slogan “YES, WE CAN!” (Haven’t I heard that somewhere before?) The page opened up to yet another transcript of one of Rush’s shows, this time discussing the Republicans’ chances of regaining the House and the Senate. The most interesting part of this page was the photo of President Obama swimming against the “Tea-Nami."
Finally, I opted to view a video clip entitled “A Time for Choosing,” which was a speech given by Ronald Reagan in October 1964, while campaigning for Barry Goldwater. (Barry Goldwater? Voting for Barry Goldwater was nearly grounds for divorce in my home. My father voted for Barry Goldwater because he was a fellow ham radio operator. My mother was appalled.) I discovered in this video that Ronald Reagan used to be a Democrat. Who knew? I also discovered why he was labeled “The Great Communicator.” The guy definitely had a gift.
It really was quite fascinating to listen to some of the issues that were going on in the early ‘60s. In fact, if it wasn’t for the crackly black-and-white video and the references to Vietnam, Mr. Reagan could have been discussing the talking points of today. One segment of the speech immediately caught my attention, when he stated: “There is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down. Those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on a downward course.”
Definitely food for thought.
I clicked on a few more links, hoping to find a simple, bullet-point list of exactly what principles Rush believes in. I found them in a section entitled “Flashback: The CPAC Speech That Started a Conservative Resurgence.” Here, Rush defines who conservatives are: “We love people. … We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- is potential. … We believe [a] person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. … We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty … and the pursuit of happiness. … We conservatives think all three are under assault.”
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There they are, those basic needs. Seems like the far right wants those pretty badly, just like the majority of Americans do. But does the far left agree? Time to “move on” to the next website.
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The first thing I noticed when I landed on the home page of MoveOn.org was that it, too, seemed to think we were still in the pre-Election Day period. Is there a time warp that has affected both right- and left-wing websites? Or is it just wishful thinking now that the votes are counted and neither side has gotten exactly what they wanted?
Their first, most prominent link, “Save the Future,” had this lead-in: “We just received an urgent message from the future. It's about next week's election, and it's pretty bad.” I clicked on the video link and was instantly directed to a screen that wanted to link to my Facebook profile. Sorry, Charlie. I believe that’s an invasion of privacy.* But there was an opt-out button so I clicked on that. The next screen wanted me to at least give them my name and email address. No dice. Again, I found the opt-out button and was finally able to view the video.
It was quite a show! A fictional warning from the future to vote in the November 2 election … “or we’re doomed,” the video features a frantic woman (probably a famous actress – she looked vaguely familiar) who has just managed to contact the people of 2010 (that would be us) from the future (maybe there really IS a time warp) in order to give us the frightening facts about what life would be like 5, 10, 25 years from now if we don’t vote the Republicans out of office. These included making the government into a giant corporation (RepubliCorp—a fictitious merger between giant corporations and the Republican Party), replacing social security with motivational emails, and having Sarah Palin declare war on Norway. (I can’t make this stuff up. Watch it for yourself: http://cnnbc.moveon.org/?rc=homepage). It was amusing in an SNL way, but I was really looking for something with a little more substance.
Another link on the home page led to MoveOn.org’s 2009 Agenda (more evidence of the time warp). Their top five items included universal health care, economic recovery and job creation, building a green economy/stopping climate change, ending the war in Iraq, and improving public schools. Not too much to argue with there, except – as usual – the means to those ends, which was suspiciously absent.
But I still wanted to know what they were doing NOW. So I clicked on “About” to see if I could get some current facts, preferably without the rhetoric. The only solid information I could get about the organization was this sentence: “MoveOn.org Political Action, one of the largest Political Action Committees in the country, brings real Americans into politics to fight for a more progressive America and elect progressive candidates.”
To my dismay, other links in the “About” section caused the time warp to grow, this time plunging me back three years with a video entitled “2007: As Told By MoveOn Members.” Not terribly interested in history, I tried clicking on “News About Us.” This was yet another attempt to get my personal information, as the landing page was simply a form to fill out that said, “Please enter your request to our Press Office - A real person will review your email as soon as possible and get back to you if necessary.” A real person? If necessary? And who makes that decision?
I was beginning to get a very creepy feeling. I checked my antivirus software again. So far, so good.
Returning to the home page, I was gratified to see that they had finally changed their banner (at 1:30 PM). It now read: “Thanks for all you do, now tell us what you think” and acknowledged that the election, indeed, had already occurred. Thank goodness, we were back in today! It also included a message to members, the synopsis of which was toward the bottom of the page: “We can't stop fighting because we carry in our hearts a vision of Americans coming together to take care of each other and make our country work again. And if we don't fight for that vision, who will? Today, we should all take a breath. Tomorrow we need to get back to work."
That message is certainly commendable. It sounds to me as if the left, like the right, realizes that in order to get anything done, we all have to work together. And while there was no actual mention of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the vision of “Americans coming together to make our country work” sounds an awful lot like the same thing to me.
A link at the bottom of the letter invited readers to visit the members’ bulletin board, so I clicked through. A few comments there – which, for the most part, were thought-provoking and intelligent – really brought home what pretty much everyone in America is feeling in these tumultuous times:
One member wrote: “This is a time when even very intelligent people are feeling afraid, and this election is a good opportunity for us to critically think about how we can better understand and informatively address the economic fears of our fellow citizens.”
And another stated: “Too many progressives are simply [too] sound-bite driven, flighty, and lacking in real patience and perseverance to really get the change we want. If you want real change, stick by your champions, and realize it's going to take *decades* to get this country back on track.”
But this one was my personal favorite: “It's easy to be misled when average Americans spend nearly 8 hours each day in front of the TV or on the Internet. It's difficult and time consuming to hunt for truth.”
You can say that again!
*Ironically, I later found this paragraph on their “Success Stories” page:
“Facebook: Protect Our Privacy!
In December 2008, Facebook took purchases its users made on other websites and made them public on Facebook without permission-- great advertising for corporations but horrible for basic privacy rights. MoveOn formed a pro-privacy group on Facebook that grew to over 80,000 members and was covered by media worldwide. As a result, Facebook reversed its policy—preserving its own integrity in the process.” Where I come from, we call this “hypocrisy.”
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