Octopus is Baack (Oh Dread)

So Manta Claus and Santa-Pus hitched up the one seahorse open sleigh and made the rounds. I visited a friend convalescing from surgery and baked a turkey dinner for my 85-year old mother and her 97-year old boyfriend. I returned to the reef late last night.

In the spirit of the season, I want to give everyone a brief account of how Rational Nation and your intrepid Octopus made peace after years of back-and-forth backstabbing. Does this mean your intrepid Octopus has lost his touch? Turned myself into a turncoat and a traitor to the cause? Hardly! Months ago, I left this comment on Shaw’s blog (original post here):

Hyper-partisanship translates into hyper polarization. It colors how we relate to one another. It turns neighbors and normal decent folk into the “other,” the enemy, those hateful liberals or those despised conservatives. It is a function of “identity” politics whose aim is to divide persons with common economic interests into warring factions.

Hyper-partisanship colors how we think. It gives rise to ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING, where a party, a group, a person are either all black or all white with no shades of gray. Very few people in life are either all good (saints) or all evil (devils); yet hyper-partisanship demands that we think this way.

No matter what a person may achieve, the game of politics commands you to ignore the accomplishments and focus on the flaws; spin good deeds into failures or characterize all deeds as evil deeds, despite evidence to the contrary. Demonize your opponent, that is the way the game is played ... Time to break the cycle.

Wedge politics, dog-whistle politics – synonyms for what Noam Chomsky calls ‘atomization’ of the electorate – are attempts to divide large and cohesive voting blocks into fragments and render them inert.  For example, an overwhelming majority of the electorate wants to preserve Medicare and Social Security - more than 82% - a majority that crosses all party lines. However, if you are a Republican political operative hell bent on dismantling the social safety net, how do you divide and conquer this huge voting bloc? By stirring social resentments that pit one group against another; by exploiting all forms of bias with appeals to racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, and anti-Hispanic hysteria. When wedge politics divides large and cohesive voting blocs, people no longer talk to each other, no longer compare notes, and no longer vote their common interests.

We are living in an era of non-stop character assassination and defamation, of political hostage taking, and legislative gridlock at a time when millions of people are suffering. There are powerful corporate interests that want us to be this way – divided – so they can cash in their chips and turn us into serfs. Unless we break this cycle and say “To hell with you, I am not buying this bullshit anymore,” then they win, and our country will wither away as dry wind-blown leaves of Autumn. Sorry folks! Either we get our act together, or we will have no future at all.

Apparently, these comments resonated with Rational Nation who paid me a complement by writing a dedicated post on his blog (original post here).  In his own words:

Conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals can and should remain true to our principles, so should modern liberals to theirs. However, it is time to back away from the wedge issues that both sides of the debate have used to polarize the nation.

I admit.  Bipartisan outreach has always proved difficult due to the burdens of old baggage to overcome. In the past, our community has been trolled and mocked, and our trust betrayed. What makes this outreach different?  I believe RN’s motives are honest and sincere, and you gotta give him credit for patience and perseverance. I have also found that RN responds to kindness and friendship and will repay you a hundred fold, once given a chance.  So RN is willing to fire the conspiracy of media pundits, hacks, operatives, K Street lobbyists, and plutocrats who connive and scheme against us.  I am willing to close ranks with RN and fire them too.  Shall we remain mired in a game rigged to defeat us?  Or shall we take the road less traveled?  To borrow lyrics from an old pop song:

These little town blues, are melting away
And I'm gonna make a brand new start of it - in old New York
And if I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere
It's up to you …

In the spirit of the holiday season, I appreciate RN's initiative.  So these are my two crabs worth.  Heck, I’ll even throw in a scrumptious mahi-mahi sandwich with a side of chowder.  Still skeptical? How about a nice Châteauneuf du Pape to celebrate the New Year!

Dear Sister,
I read our adoption post to my mother last night. She adopts you too (but no crayons on the walls, sudsy romper rooms, or water slides on the stairwell, she says). We’ve been warned.