I NOW SEEM TO BE A MEMBER ON A GROWING GENUINE HIT-LIST...
THAT OF THE DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE, even though I am still getting daily emails from what I thought were my newly minted friends, I have grown to doubt their sincerity, so please allow me to begin by saying this:
Folks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Al Franken, to name only a few, have in recent months, desired to keep in close contact with me. My new buddies seemed unable to get along without me, paid more attention to me than my children and grandchildren did; and it was as if I had somehow become a really close pal. So close, in fact, that I even got an invitation to toss-away any Labor Day plans that I may have had, in order to have a BBQ with Barack. Needless to say, I was more than delighted. I was tickled-pink.
I could almost see the members of the Tea Party, with their steel faces and inflamed eyes, their fearful visions and apocalyptic solutions for my future and that of every other American! The collective public faces of my new enemy, made up of the usual suspects: Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, and the Congressional sometimes bible whacker and Constitutional scholar, John Boehner; along with the TV puffball, Rush Limbaugh and the ever-present Sarah Palin, who were now marching in lockstep and pounding the drums with the yahoo crusaders of the newly minted Tea Party.
As for me, I, too, was marching in front of the parade with the Democratic drum of peace and purity and equality and protection for all from evil. That zeal was shaped by the urging of my new friends, the major players in the real world who were foes of those who insisted that God was on their side. A God who was, apparently, not fond of homosexuals or women or abortion or voting rights or other-than-white presidents, was now my enemy, too. This was now the heart of my new crusade. Like the people who once brought us Prohibition (and the Mob), I now had allies with their vision and rules for the entire country. An essential tool for any social change.
It was then that an email from alert@dcc.org came my way, informing me that they were not going to sugarcoat what came next: Apparently, my Democratic buddies were being outspent 3 to 1 by our dreaded enemy, and 365 thousand dollars was needed immediately and that I apparently had not heeded President O'Bama's call to action; then asked me to chip in up to $250 dollars. The explicit subordination of my value was now apparent. If my torrid vision were true, I was no more than a cash cow to those I once thought of as my fellow amigos!
In a lifetime as a man, of growing up in Denver, Colorado, as a student in college and then the seminary in the State of Nebraska, as a Lutheran Minister who moved among some really odd people and downright bigots in Fargo, North Dakota and Roswell, New Mexico; and later in life, after having left the ministry, as I mingled with my fellow drunks and familiar bartenders in the City of New York, I had never in my life felt so betrayed and utterly brutalized.
It was now obvious to me that me and my fellow Democrats would not live happily ever after.
And the kicker to all of this came the very next day: Al Frankin, a man that I had grown to love and trust on Saturday Night Live and had enjoyed reading his book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar, informed me that since I had yet to donate to the cause, I was about to be deleted from his email list. Forget whip, chains and handcuffs: What Al had done to me was an act of emotional and psychic destruction!
Obviously, Al was no longer a man I could trust.
It got so bad that one morning, in the moments between sleep and true consciousness, I thought that I was at the Democratic Convention, happy, full of possibilities, when I took note of other folks staring at me and pointing in my direction. I was confused. They were pointing at my T-shirt, which bore the inscription: "Cheapskate." I immediately began to regret that I had not donated to the cause. I could not begin to forgive myself. But then, it got even worse. Joe Biden walked up to me and hissed in my face: "I emailed you Monday. I emailed you yesterday. Where's the money? It's folks like you that make me ashamed to call myself an American!" And then Hillary Clinton peered at me over Joe's shoulder, adding: "What you have done is even worse than what Bill did with Monica! It's no wonder that Barack gave a shoot-on-sight order if you dared to show-up at the Labor Day BBQ a couple of years ago!"
I wanted to shrivel away.
Disappear forever.
Folks I had once embraced had now deserted me. They would no longer cheer when I entered a room. The illusions of my youth were now forever gone. Perhaps all of this would not have happened if had not wasted so much of my young manhood as a Republican; I had some great good times with them, but could not bring myself to vote for any of them, particularly when it came to Barry Goldwater. Now I was just another aging almost former Democrat.
What I need is a vestibule to open up my own future happiness...
...And I wonder if you would think about making a small donation to my cause?
Folks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Al Franken, to name only a few, have in recent months, desired to keep in close contact with me. My new buddies seemed unable to get along without me, paid more attention to me than my children and grandchildren did; and it was as if I had somehow become a really close pal. So close, in fact, that I even got an invitation to toss-away any Labor Day plans that I may have had, in order to have a BBQ with Barack. Needless to say, I was more than delighted. I was tickled-pink.
I could almost see the members of the Tea Party, with their steel faces and inflamed eyes, their fearful visions and apocalyptic solutions for my future and that of every other American! The collective public faces of my new enemy, made up of the usual suspects: Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, and the Congressional sometimes bible whacker and Constitutional scholar, John Boehner; along with the TV puffball, Rush Limbaugh and the ever-present Sarah Palin, who were now marching in lockstep and pounding the drums with the yahoo crusaders of the newly minted Tea Party.
As for me, I, too, was marching in front of the parade with the Democratic drum of peace and purity and equality and protection for all from evil. That zeal was shaped by the urging of my new friends, the major players in the real world who were foes of those who insisted that God was on their side. A God who was, apparently, not fond of homosexuals or women or abortion or voting rights or other-than-white presidents, was now my enemy, too. This was now the heart of my new crusade. Like the people who once brought us Prohibition (and the Mob), I now had allies with their vision and rules for the entire country. An essential tool for any social change.
It was then that an email from alert@dcc.org came my way, informing me that they were not going to sugarcoat what came next: Apparently, my Democratic buddies were being outspent 3 to 1 by our dreaded enemy, and 365 thousand dollars was needed immediately and that I apparently had not heeded President O'Bama's call to action; then asked me to chip in up to $250 dollars. The explicit subordination of my value was now apparent. If my torrid vision were true, I was no more than a cash cow to those I once thought of as my fellow amigos!
In a lifetime as a man, of growing up in Denver, Colorado, as a student in college and then the seminary in the State of Nebraska, as a Lutheran Minister who moved among some really odd people and downright bigots in Fargo, North Dakota and Roswell, New Mexico; and later in life, after having left the ministry, as I mingled with my fellow drunks and familiar bartenders in the City of New York, I had never in my life felt so betrayed and utterly brutalized.
It was now obvious to me that me and my fellow Democrats would not live happily ever after.
And the kicker to all of this came the very next day: Al Frankin, a man that I had grown to love and trust on Saturday Night Live and had enjoyed reading his book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar, informed me that since I had yet to donate to the cause, I was about to be deleted from his email list. Forget whip, chains and handcuffs: What Al had done to me was an act of emotional and psychic destruction!
Obviously, Al was no longer a man I could trust.
It got so bad that one morning, in the moments between sleep and true consciousness, I thought that I was at the Democratic Convention, happy, full of possibilities, when I took note of other folks staring at me and pointing in my direction. I was confused. They were pointing at my T-shirt, which bore the inscription: "Cheapskate." I immediately began to regret that I had not donated to the cause. I could not begin to forgive myself. But then, it got even worse. Joe Biden walked up to me and hissed in my face: "I emailed you Monday. I emailed you yesterday. Where's the money? It's folks like you that make me ashamed to call myself an American!" And then Hillary Clinton peered at me over Joe's shoulder, adding: "What you have done is even worse than what Bill did with Monica! It's no wonder that Barack gave a shoot-on-sight order if you dared to show-up at the Labor Day BBQ a couple of years ago!"
I wanted to shrivel away.
Disappear forever.
Folks I had once embraced had now deserted me. They would no longer cheer when I entered a room. The illusions of my youth were now forever gone. Perhaps all of this would not have happened if had not wasted so much of my young manhood as a Republican; I had some great good times with them, but could not bring myself to vote for any of them, particularly when it came to Barry Goldwater. Now I was just another aging almost former Democrat.
What I need is a vestibule to open up my own future happiness...
...And I wonder if you would think about making a small donation to my cause?
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