"It's About Coalitions, Not Purity" Part Forty-Four

"The Chickens Come Home To Roost-George W. Bush's Second Term"

George W. Bush's second term began with the failure of his Social Security privatization plan to get anywhere. In Iraq, a civil war had broken out between Iraqi Sunni and Shia Muslims. Caught in the middle were American, British, and other coalition forces or their assistance groups, as well as a number of private security contractors. Bombings and killings were common, and the whole situation was a mess, as coalition forces also tried to oust al Qaeda units. On top of this, reports and photos had surfaced of various torture techniques used by Americans against prisoners in Iraq. This brought condemnation from many within the U.S., as well as from international sources. This part of the war in Iraq continued to grow in media coverage as time went on.     

On the domestic front, oil/gasoline prices surged to new highs, tapping the pocketbooks of already financially strapped Americans. The number of housing foreclosures were rising ominously, as the further movement of jobs to overseas production facilities, and the subsequent reduction in wages in some parts of the American economy, hung like a dark cloud over the country, bringing a queasy feeling about the storm that was coming. During the campaign, a story broke regarding Republican Mark Foley, a congressman from Florida. The story indicated that Foley had sent sexy messages to teenage boys who worked, or had worked, as congressional pages. Foley resigned about 5 weeks from the election, but the whole matter brought into question how much the Republican House leadership knew about Foley's activities. * Also brewing at that time were separate, but related scandals involving lobbyist and Republican contributor Jack Abramoff (and others), including deals about a casino boat company in Florida, a deal about minimum wage in the Mariana Islands (a U.S. Territory in the Pacific), Native American gambling casinos and campaign contributions. All of these matters are highly complex, but they touched several Republicans in Congress and government, as well as Republican supporters outside of government. Their complexity makes them far beyond this article, but there are many online sources, and also check your local library for books and articles. 

The 2006 midterm elections saw a major win for Democrats, as President Bush's popularity plunged, dragging down many Republicans with it, and the Republican coalition fractured to a degree. Democrats gained 31 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, 6 seats in the U.S. Senate. These Democratic victories often came at the expense of Republican incumbents, and in the Senate, Democrats took seats from Republicans in Ohio, Montana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Rhode Island. Democrats also gained 6 governorships, as well as numerous state legislative seats, and state and local offices. Nancy Pelosi of California became the first ever woman Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

* Republicans, by this point in time, almost all of the conservative bent, had made anti-gay rhetoric a major part of their political party. Here was a Republican directly involved in gay sexual activities. At that time, Dennis Hastert was the Republican Speaker of the House. In the spring of 2016, Hastert admitted that he had molested teenage boys when he was a high school wrestling coach. He was given a prison sentence and a fine.

WORD HISTORY:
Torture-This word, distantly related to "thwart," goes back to Indo European "twork/terkw," which had the notion of "turn, twist." This gave Latin the verb, "torquere," which meant, "to twist, to bend," and its participle form, "tortus," gave Latin the noun, "tortura," which meant, "writhing, pain brought on by injury inflicted to get information or to get agreement to something." This passed into French as "torture," with the same meaning. English borrowed the word circa 1500 from French, but likely with the reinforcement of Latin itself. 

Beyond Our Own Feelings, Empathy

Empathy can be a difficult thing for some people to experience. Those who are very self centered (narcissistic) can especially have trouble feeling empathy; that is, the ability to place one's self into the emotional shoes of another person, so to speak.

We've seen Republican Rob Portman change his views on gay issues, after his son told him he is gay. Similar happened with former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is a lesbian, but Cheney's supportive views go back further than most politicians, who have tended to hop onto the bandwagon as public opinion raced ahead of them on the issue, but at least they hopped. Some prominent Democrats, on the other hand, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, also evolved on the issue, although they hadn't expressed outright opposition to gay marriage, but rather took the more nuanced position of favoring "civil unions," before fully embracing equality. Vice President Joe Biden stated his support for marriage equality right on national television during an interview, getting out in front on the issue, even before President Obama. In fact, there was speculation that Biden's stance forced the President to publicly commit before he may have been fully prepared to do so. Whatever the case with any of those I've mentioned, or others, progressives need to embrace people who come to our side, not find fault with why they chose their course. They evolved, and we should be supportive of that evolution. I shudder to think that I would be forever bound to my views on a given subject from 20, 30 or 40 years ago, or maybe even last week. Being supportive on specific issues doesn't mean you agree with all of their views, as I most certainly DO NOT agree with many of the views of Cheney or Portman. Many people detest Dick Cheney, especially in the progressive ranks, and I'm no fan of Rob Portman, but these men took positions on marriage that ran counter to the opinions of many members of their own political party, including the spewers of hate, whose names I needn't recount. They chose to be fathers FIRST, before being politicians, and Portman's change of heart was very touching, as he talked about his love for his son. That was a father talking.

Similarly, John McCain has spoken out about torture and he has opposed the use of such tactics by anyone, including Americans. He has come into conflict with Dick Cheney and others on the political right, who have claimed that valuable intelligence information has been gotten by the use of various torture tactics, including waterboarding. McCain was a prisoner in North Vietnam for six years, during which time he was tortured by his captors. There's no question that McCain's personal experience at the hands of his captors has made him an outspoken critic of torture, as he can empathize with those suffering the treatment, no matter how despicable they might otherwise be.

Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio in the early 1920s and there's no doubt in my mind that his personal struggle against this affliction, and its crippling aftermath, made him empathize more than ever with America's downtrodden, making him the almost perfect president to deal with the economic hardship of the Great Depression. During those times, so many Americans developed a major connection to Roosevelt as a man who was on their side, in spite of the fact that FDR was a man of wealth. It was a connection perhaps typified by the story of a man present as FDR's coffin arrived by train in Washington, D.C. When asked if he knew FDR, the man answered, "No, but he knew me." What a tribute!   

Do we have to experience suffering ourselves in order to understand the suffering of others? I'm not a psychologist, but I assume they would likely answer, "No, but it helps." How do we convey to Cheney, Portman, McCain and others the need for understanding and empathy for those who are struggling in matters other than those matters they have experienced themselves, either directly or through family members? How do we get them to see the fallacy of giving billions of dollars to people who already have billions of dollars, while so many are treading water or sliding down the economic ladder?  

WORD HISTORY:
Empathy (Pathos)-This is a fairly recent borrowing (early 20th Century) from Ancient Greek "empatheia," which meant "passion, emotional condition." The term was used by English psychologist Edward B. Titchener to translate German "Einfühlung," the German translation of the Ancient Greek word. It comes from Greek "en," meaning "in," and "pathos," meaning "feeling, emotion," with the underlying notion of "suffering." It was used to describe one's ability to put themselves into the feelings of another person. "Pathos" comes from "pathsko," meaning "suffer, endure," which goes back to Indo European "kwenth," which meant "to suffer." In more modern times, the Greek word's meaning took a dramatic turn, although still connected to emotion, as it means "animosity, hatred."