I know it’s been a while since you entered this, so feel free to take a moment and read what you wrote.

There are 2 points I want to make on while certain factions of the republican conservative movement will disagree with you (in general, conservatives should be stewards of the environment). Then I will make at least one reason why some factions of the democratic party would disagree.

First, conservatives – I will use my most rationale point first, then go into the crazy one. alternative fuels do not make money (yet). There has been a great deal of research into alternative fuels. Every time some brilliant inventor comes up with one, the big oil companies buy the patents and bury it. Eventually, this won’t continue to work, but right now it’s working. When gas prices go up, whether they are Middle East or our own oil, the oil companies make a bundle. With gas prices they way they have been, the oil companies have made record, blockbusting profits. Heck, even places like New York State made a bundle, just on taxes. So even though we are on the brink of disaster, it is not economical for businesses to go green.

Here is my second, more crazy argument (but I kind of dig it) The fundamentalist christians believe that the bible is 100% truth and the word of god. They are looking forward to the apocolypse. According to some, god gave us the earth to plunder its resources. When we have killed all the animals and used up all the natural resources, then comes judgement day, where they believe they are going to heaven and we will be left here with nothing. So actually, according to this very bizarre theory, they WANT all the oil to be used up as quickly as possible.

Here is a dem/progressive argument – Let the republicans keep screwing this up and we’ll get them in the elections (majorly flawed but I think many just think that way).

Here is the second – although progressives support green energy and fuel alternatives, we are unable to put together a coherent argument that will help us win elections. So instead, we stay silent.

I have to admit, now that I typed these, I’m not happy with any of these options.

What do you think?

We need a kinder, gentler world.

This will be very difficult and probably won’t happen in our lifetimes.

The big problem is that neither side seems to be willing to listen to the other. From the previous mentioned entry, the fundamentalist Christians get an entire paragraph devoted to them that is just insulting. I’m sure there are some like that, but I sure know I haven’t met any. Both side lack civility and the lack of civility leads to the other side not listening.

If I say that all the right-wingers are war mongers and the president needs to be impeached, that doesn’t really do anything to open up any dialogue with them They are immediately put on the defensive and mostly likely we’ll end up spouting the party lines.

Commonality is the key. We are all Americans (except for those of us here illegally). We need to stop once awhile and remember that. The guy next to you isn’t the enemy; he’s your neighbor. You may not agree with him on the direction of the country or state or city or whatever, but you’re going to be using the same roads, the same stores, attending some of the same events and that is a whole lot more than you’re mostly going to be doing with someone across one of the oceans. So why not adopt a civil attitude? Why keep old wounds open? I often wonder why so many people have blatantly abrasive political signs on their cars. Do they think they’re going to change someone’s mind with an “Impeach Bush” bumper sticker? Or are they just going to fan the flames of partisanship? Is a sign insulting someone I may admire ready going to help get your way?

I am a conservative, living in Seattle, working in a union shop, but somehow I have no trouble getting along with my co-workers. Jim, for example, my heavily left leaning colleague from Boston and I disagree on pretty much every single issue out there except for the monorail so we use that as a starting point and see what we can learn from the other. Learning…an interesting concept. We don’t try to beat each other’s position down, for the most part, but try to discover what leads us to feel a certain way about an issue. We may tease us other about our political beliefs, but we don’t denigrate the other’s position.

Maybe I’ll write more about accepting responsibility in our country these days.

This is a good goal.