Simply looking one sees the answer.
It's everywhere.
It's everything.
From see-saws to scales to foreign and domestic policies to sociopolitical philosophies.
No need to spin and twist the reality to fit a terrified ideology's desperate subjectiveness; no need to frantically search in frustrated adulthood for what was so obviously absent in vulnerable youth. Resorting to measures that are extreme in nature and possessed of an often jolting dynamic can be useful at times but not when it becomes the de facto response of a dying elephant, it's legendary heartiness finally betrayed by the toxic bile coursing through its veins for decades.
The answer is Balance. And it can be found in the middle.
Keeping a middle perspective allows the widest range of possibilities, the widest appreciation of all points of view and strategies. It offers a chance for true stability in an unstable world and it doesn't automatically exclude even the outrageous or the radical which reside where they belong: on the periphery. Because as we've seen too clearly for too long, when extremists are at the wheel, the car drives in tight, ever contracting circles. The time for experiments in boisterous ideologies is over.
Arlen Specter's move to what is ostensibly the middle, while welcome, may be motivated by purely political interests and will certainly be loudly derided by the shrill dead-enders who make up the shrinking but still pulsing hemorrhoid that is the Right Wing Media. But whatever his reason it is, at the end of the day and the beginning of an era, the smart move and will go a long way toward restoring the imbalance which has only just begun to be redressed. It is a signal for the wiser, though thoroughly cowed Republican moderates to begin their own ideological exodus toward a sensible middle ground.
Again, simply looking one sees the answer. It's everywhere and everything. For even on our deathbed one is irrestibly drawn into the basic truth defining our existence and of the universe itself: balance.
Declare your allegience to truth. March middleward.
But Stanislavski -- here's the point -- often said that these elements weren't always necessary. Even when some were helpful perhaps not all of them were necessary or even useful. He always prescribed chosing what and whether to use any of these techniques on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the actor's need at any given time. To the great inventor of Method Acting, the System was simply whatever was needed to get you through to the desired place. The lesson here for politics and for governance is: ideology be damned. If you're in a position to lead, identify what needs to be done -- ONLY that -- and then do it. Any slavish adherence to unnecessary exercizes will lead to the worst overacting, and when it comes to the folks who hold the reigns of power, it's the bad actors who hold the most potential to create misery for
Look at our Supreme Court for how the pendulum swings. It keeps us honest. We don't always agree, but we do have change only because someone is courageous enough to step way out for what they believe.
We need them how more than ever before. We had become so complacent with conservativism that is look like we are really going left when all we are really doing is moving back to center.
Sanity is seldom found at the extreme end of either side of an issue. It almost always exists where cooler heads prevail. In the middle.
Let us hope.
My point being, the extreme end of a thing is always relative, and so is the so-called middle.
Now that the nation is shifting a bit to the left, the Republican faction seem a bit nutty. The more we shift to the left, the more insane they will seem. . If the drift continues we may even manage to dampen Big Money Lobby enough to rid ourselves of the electoral college. If not, what is now the Ultra Right Wing Republican faction/Party will eventually be replaced by a more moderate group. They may even change their name in order to get rid of the stench of the last 3 decades.
Specter is not Moses showing GOP moderates the way to the Promised land. He's the Omega Man, finally crushed by the shrieking mutants.
Like the helper and suppressor white blood cells of a healthy immune system, liberals and conservatives cooperate in a shifting ratios and balances of power (sometimes in even complete alternation of power). Both are needed, but in different numbers and at different times. Sometimes we do need the (suppressor cell) conservatives to damp down our run-away responses to the ever changing and seemingly ever growing set of problems. But now is an exceptional time. We have elected a true majority government for a purpose: to get the urgent work underway--to begin the healing and rebuilding of our economy, our government, our country, and our planet. Change we can believe in.
The Republicans see this as change they can NOT believe in.. I wonder what would be the compromise, middle-of-the-road position for these unhappy passengers who now are throwing their wooden shoes (and on occasion even some of themselves) under the wheels of Obama's 21st Century Evergreen Express... Throwing fewer shoes..? They should sit down on a bench and be quiet for a little while. It's not their turn any more...
Sometimes I hate being cynical...
All we can do now is sit back and watch the extreme right just crackle and cackle with hatred and vitriol.
Just a suggestion.
A good illustration of how far to the right that the "center" has travelled is a comparison of the domestic policies of Presidents Nixon and Clinton.
Nixon imposed wage and price controls, indexed Social Security for inflation, and created Supplemental Security Income (SSI). He created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and implemented the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program.
Comparatively, Bill Clinton's policies seem conservative: the welfare reform bill, NAFTA, GATT, farm deregulation, telecommunications deregulation and financial services deregulation, all of these things moved policy in a market-oriented direction.
However, extreme poverty offers no more enlightenment than extreme wealth had given him. Then, one day, he hears a passing musician tuning his stringed instrument. At last the answer is clear. Unwind the string until it is too lose, and the instrument cannot play. Wind the string too tight, and it will break. One must seek the middle way.
Like all good advice, it's not always easy to follow, but it's sure worth the effort to try. The Limbaughs, Becks and Bachmanns of the Republican party, are winding that string so tight, no sensible person will want to be near it when it's breaks. Welcome aboard, Senator Spector. Or maybe I should say, Senator Grasshopper. ;)
......Thanks Steven! I needed that laugh! And so accurate too.
As they say, Evolve or perish. The repuglickans refuse to evolve. (Many even refuse to believe in Evolution!)