Politics, Religion and Other Stuff...

By Dan Tolva

Risky reading So how many family gatherings have been ruined by someone bringing up a particularly touchy subject and obnoxiously pressing it until relatives and friends either fled or committed assault and battery? How many Thanksgiving dinners have been spoiled by ugly political conversations or graphic descriptions of various medical problems? Well, Facebook is a lot like those family gatherings, except with a whole bunch of strangers invited. On Facebook, so-called friends do battle every day over all kinds of controversial issues, and things get so out of hand that often the most dreaded penalty imaginable in society today is imposed: “un-friending.” Such a fate befell retired newspaper editor Dan Tolva, whose conservative political bent got him detached from the page of a beloved but passionately liberal granddaughter. As a result, Tolva, who has been posting on Facebook for several years with the object of compiling his pieces for an eventual book, decided to do just that. Here’s the result, Politics, Religion and Other Stuff We’re Not Supposed to Discuss in Polite Society. Most of the topics are volatile enough that this book probably should not be brought to your next family gathering. You have been warned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640820876

Book preview

Sanders Supporters Can Take Heart from 1968

Posted May 26, 2015

This posting is especially for Robert S. Cary, who has been peppering our Facebook pages with posters and writings touting the candidacy of US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Rob and I go way back. We went to college together in the late 1960s, lost contact for years and years, then got reacquainted via Facebook a few weeks ago. Time has not dimmed his passion for social justice and the environment, and self-described socialist Sanders is just Rob’s cup of tea.

I, on the other hand, have taken a gradual but decided turn to the right, having voted for McCain in the last presidential election and George W. Bush twice before that. I’m still way up in the air when it comes to picking a favorite for the White House, but it’s a good bet my eventual choice will be a member of the Grand Old Party.

Still, Rob’s fervent commitment to Sanders and the left takes me back in spirit to the days when, filled with loads of optimism and idealism, we worked so hard for an underdog candidate who ended up rattling the political system to its core before winning a single primary. All across the country, we marched, manned loudspeaker trucks, licked envelopes, and made countless phone calls on behalf of US Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), who entered the presidential fray in 1967 opposed to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war in Vietnam.

Polls before the March 12, 1968, New Hampshire Primary put McCarthy as low as 10 percent, but he wound up with 42 percent of the vote, compared to 49 percent for Johnson. The press dubbed McCarthy’s showing a moral victory. Encouraged by McCarthy’s strong showing, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy entered the race on March 16, 1968, also as an anti-war candidate.

Two weeks later, on March 31, President Johnson shocked the nation by announcing he would not seek nor accept his party’s nomination for the White House. His camp’s internal polling showed he was trailing badly in Wisconsin, the next primary.

On April 2, McCarthy won in Wisconsin with 56 percent of the vote. He went on to primary victories in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, New Jersey, and Illinois. It was the Oregon Primary of May 28 that brought yours truly into the political fray.

In the days leading up to the primary, a bunch of us hippie types from Western Washington College (now university) piled into a couple of vans and headed down to Portland, Oregon, to work for the McCarthy campaign. We had vowed to keep clean for Gene and many of us looked surprisingly spiffy considering our countercultural proclivities.

I really lucked out because McCarthy was scheduled to visit a northeast Portland shopping center in an area I had recently lived in for several years. So I was picked to help man a loudspeaker truck that cruised nearby neighborhoods for several hours before the senator’s arrival. I proclaimed through the truck’s loudspeaker over and over: Come see Eugene McCarthy at Gateway Shopping Center! Come and see the candidate the people found!

Come time for the rally and I was part of the crowd, and I even got to shake hands with McCarthy himself. A few days later, McCarthy beat Kennedy in the Oregon Primary with 44 percent of the vote to Kennedy’s 38 percent.

Unfortunately, despite his six primary wins, McCarthy fell short in his bid for the nomination. Kennedy was assassinated on the evening of the June 1 California Primary, which he had won. Humphrey, favored by the Democrat establishment, went on to win the nomination at the party’s riot-scarred national convention in Chicago.

We didn’t win the final prize, but we put up one hell of a fight.

So even though Sanders is given little chance at this date to topple Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and win the Democratic nomination, Rob and the rest of his supporters should take heart from the lessons of 1968.

As of the last week in May, Sanders was polling at 10 percent behind Vice President Joe Biden at 14 percent and Clinton at 60 percent among Democrat voters, just where McCarthy sat on the eve of the New Hampshire Primary.

So, Rob, keep the faith, baby. You’ve got your opponents right where you want ’em.

Let’s Not Call Today’s GOP Event on Fox a Debate

Posted August 6, 2015

What will happen this evening is much less a debate than it is a quick cattle call for the 17 GOP candidates. There simply won’t be time for anybody to fully explain their policies and positions.

Each candidate will only have a few minutes each to make his or her mark. Contrast this with the formats for probably the most famous debates in American history, those between Lincoln and Douglas in1858.

There were seven debates. The format for each debate was: one candidate spoke for sixty minutes, then the other candidate spoke for ninety minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a thirty-minute rejoinder. The candidates alternated speaking first.

As for tonight, stage presence is going to be a much more valuable talent than knowledge of the issues. That’s sad.

The same might be said for the 1960 televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon. Most radio listeners said Nixon won the debate, while most TV viewers said Kennedy won. Nixon just wasn’t as telegenic as JFK.

The Outsiders Are on a Roll

Posted August 10, 2015

Gimme a B! Gimme an E! Gimme an R! Gimme an N! Gimme an I! Gimme an E! What’s that sound? Bernie!

And gimme a T! Gimme an R! Gimme an U! Gimme an M! Gimme a P! What’s that sound? Trump!

The Democrat and Republican outsiders are surging, and it’s no surprise. Americans left and right are fed up with the DC establishment. Sanders has pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire polling, and the three Republicans regarded as outsiders—Trump, Carson, and Fiorrina—are together garnering a big chunk of GOP voters.

We had an inkling of the dissatisfaction with politics as usual with the rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements a few years back. Both groups expressed strong opposition to so-called crony capitalism, and the political establishment has done nothing to address those concerns.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton’s ties to corporate American, through the Clinton Foundation, have only strengthened in the past few years, and it has been asserted that a lot of federal money targeted for shovel ready jobs and alternative energy research have gone to public sector unions and corporate big-shots with ties to Obama. That ticks off the right.

The left grumbles about Republican ties to Citizens United, the Koch Brothers, Big Oil, and the National Chamber of Commerce. I don’t think the establishment GOP will ever be able to shed its reputation as the party of Big Business, despite growing evidence that the Democrats have similarly strong ties to Wall Street.

Now add to the political stew the democratization afforded by social media. No longer are we getting most of our news and views from big TV networks (including Fox News) and national newspapers. All it takes is one viral Facebook or Twitter post to make the most obscure political figure a major player in the presidential race.

Just this week, I heard former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich concede that either Trump or Sanders could win the White House next year. Whether you agree with Gingrich, the fact that any talking head would give Sanders or Trump a snowball’s chance in hell would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.

Critics accuse Trump of being too bombastic and egotistical. They say Sanders, a self-described democrat socialist, is too far left for the political mainstream. I’m not so sure most voters give a damn, which means the political establishment should be quaking in its boots.

What Do You Do with the Disaffected Democrat?

Posted August 10, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s crash-and-burn campaign has a lot of people wondering if she can even win the Democrat nomination for the White House, let alone the presidency.

Her self-inflicted wounds, especially regarding the Clinton Foundation and her use of at least one private e-mail server while serving as secretary of state, have caused a slide in the polls that has more Democrats worrying over who might take up their standard.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-NJ, has benefitted from Clinton’s woes with bigger and more enthusiastic rallies around the country. Last weekend, he drew at least fifteen thousand to a rally in Seattle, and up to twenty thousand in Portland. Sanders’s organizers had to move his rally from Memorial Coliseum, which seats around twelve thousand for basketball, to the newer Moda Center, which can accommodate around twenty thousand.

The Portland crowd was loud and appreciative as Sanders promised them expanded social security, more paid family leave, free college, and much more. The exercise had one longtime Democrat friend of mine scratching his head and wondering, Who’s going to pay for all that?

Pete, who attended the Moda Center rally with his wife, Norma, came away with the realization that the Sanders crowd didn’t represent the Democratic Party he knew and supported. He told me later he was struck by how empty headed they seemed, mindlessly cheering Sanders at each new promise of one government handout or another.

I asked Pete what he was going to do for this presidential election. How about Hillary Clinton? The phone went silent. Then he asked what I thought about New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie. I responded I liked Christie because he was a little closer to the middle of the political road then most other current candidates.

Pete reported that a New Jersey woman at the Sanders rally hated Christie, but that he admired him because he spoke his mind. Pete lamented the notion that the far right and far left have taken over the political scene, pushing out traditional Democrats. I know how he feels.

From the time I could first vote, I voted mostly Democrat. I was steeped in the traditional moderate Democrat teapot: Liberal on domestic affairs, somewhat hawkish on foreign affairs, in the tradition of JFK, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson. I voted for Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis, even after his Bobblehead ride in the army vehicle, and I voted for Bill Clinton twice because he seemed a moderate, and he was willing to work with Republicans to get things done.

But Clinton disappointed me deeply when he lied about the Lewinsky affair. And I found his vice president, Al Gore, to be preachy and hypocritical. In 2000, I voted for a Republican president for the first time in my life, and I haven’t been back to my Democrat roots since.

The Democratic Party, once an optimistic force epitomized by Hubert Humphrey, the Happy Warrior, has devolved into a collection of interest groups each intent on its own agenda. Everybody is a victim of some war or another. Personal responsibility has given way to the idea that instead of helping people solve their own problems, we instead subsidize their choices with assorted welfare programs.

Even as liberal columnist Bob Beckel has observed, the Democrats have been largely responsible for the creation of a large welfare class over the past fifty years. And as liberal commentator Juan Williams has pointed out, Democrats are the chief opponents of education reform and school choice.

So where do traditional Democrats turn? So far their party has put up one candidate severely handicapped by scandal, a Democrat Socialist whom you might as well call Mr. NASCAR because he can only turn left, and a couple of no-names.

Seventeen Republicans (sixteen if you count Trump as a closet Democrat), have tossed their hats into the ring. The field includes an African-American, a woman, two Hispanics, and a sitting governor whose parents came from India. These seventeen Republicans (sixteen if you count Trump as a closet liberal) range from moderately conservative to very conservative. It’s not likely a traditional Democrat would feel comfortable with this group either.

To me, the obvious answer for these disaffected Democrats can be illustrated by a bed hog who takes his half out of the middle. We need candidates not so wedded to their political and social ideology that they can’t compromise and work with others.

As I’ve maintained for some time now, this country’s problems are complicated and most will require complicated solutions. Some fixes will be conservative in nature, others liberal in tone, and still others a blend of the two philosophies.

At the moment I don’t see either Democrats or Republicans producing the kind of moderate candidate I would support. Is it time for a third political party?

Exploring the Caucuses

Posted February 20, 2016

Well, I see Hillary Clinton has been declared the winner of the Nevada Democrat caucuses, and as is the case with many of that party’s elections, there have already been reports of assorted regularities, including folks not being able to get in to vote.

In our little corner of Washington State, local Republicans got together Saturday to start their version of the caucus process. Everybody got in, and everybody got a chance to express their views on issues and presidential candidates.

My precinct, No. 424, was represented by thirteen residents. Among the participants were several business people, a couple of retirees, a military man, and a music teacher.

One of the first orders of business was to go around the table and state our preferences for presidential candidates, and the concerns we hoped each would address. All the current Republican hopefuls were represented, each drawing brickbats and praise as the conversation moved around the table.

On the surface, it would seem that our little delegation was deeply divided, considering the passion for and against engendered by each presidential candidate. Yet the discussion was civil though spirited.

Overall, I would say Ben Carson was the most admired candidate, respected for his integrity, spirituality, and just plain niceness. The most controversial candidate was, not surprisingly, Donald Trump, with even his supporters admitting he was a loose cannon.

Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich have their supporters, many of whom were quick to acknowledge their candidates’ possible shortcomings while trumpeting their virtues. Poor old Jeb Bush got barely a mention from anybody. I did mention that I liked Chris Christie because he was the only candidate shaped like me.

We all agreed that Democrat Bernie Sanders, though way out there in left field, was at least honest. We also agreed that Hillary Clinton wasn’t. We also unanimously agreed that any of the Republican candidates, including the controversial Trump, would be better than Hillary or Bernie.

Immigration, the economy, the deficit, education, military preparedness, and government overregulation of business topped the list of our most critical issues. Save for one observation: that the government should not interfere with anything that goes on our bedrooms. Abortion was not mentioned at all.

We elected four delegates to our Republican County Convention, which will be held in March. I was one of those elected, but please don’t ask me to describe all the political favors and kickbacks I had to promise to obtain this exalted office. Not being a Democrat, I didn’t know how to go about cheating in an election.

My lovely wife, Colleen, was chosen as an alternate delegate to the county convention, a good thing because she’s my ride. I’m hoping I can be elected to the state convention later this spring, and being chosen to go to the national convention this summer would be a real hoot. Maybe I can whip out my old Cross of Gold speech and secure the GOP presidential nomination for myself like William Jennings Bryan did at the Democrat convention of 1896.

Wouldn’t that look good on my résumé?

Thank you, Mr. President

Posted March 18, 2016

As I watched President Obama present the Medal of Honor to three aging veterans today, I realized anew that this man is our commander in chief, our elected leader, and worthy of admiration and respect regardless of our political differences.

I remember thinking pretty much the same the night he was first elected president in 2008, even though I was a McCain supporter and had voted accordingly. Though I was deeply disappointed, I still marveled at the history being made, that our country was great enough to right wrongs over time, that here was a new force in politics who had promised, among other things, that his administration would be more transparent, that operations wouldn’t be business as usual, that hope and change had been unleashed at the ballot box.

So I, and I think most Americans, wished President Obama the best of luck as he embarked on his new job. And as much as I disagree with his policies and actions, I still wish him the best. And I want to tell him how proud of him I was when he paid tribute to those three valiant warriors and the twenty-one other Medal of Honor winners last Tuesday. The essence of America’s greatness shone brightly on our president, those veterans, and all of the rest of America today, and may the glow therefrom illuminate all our lives from here on.

Just as I can’t abide the vilification of President George W. Bush, even five years after he left office, I can’t stand the vilification of President Obama either. They have both served in the world’s toughest job, and they both deserve to be honored and respected for even being willing to do so. Not to mention the fact that history generally tends to even out the most extreme attitudes toward our presidents.

So thanks, President Obama, for being my president—our president—today and in the days to come.

The Case for Bernie over HRC

Posted April 1, 2016

More than ever, I’m pulling for Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic nomination. Not just because I think HRC is the most underserving, self-serving, dishonest, and unethical candidate in the race but because I view Bernie as the most honest and genuine candidate, even though I don’t agree one bit with his policies.

Sanders is running the kind of hopeful, ethical campaign I wish all the candidates would wage, taking me back to my idealistic and heady days as a McCarthy and McGovern supporter.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in my strife-ridden Republican Party, and I sure hope I’ll have an acceptable GOP candidate to support in November. If I don’t, I could sure see myself voting for Sanders, my first vote for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1996.

When deciding between HRC and Sanders, I would encourage Democrats to consider this: a lot of us disaffected Republicans, especially Tea Party types, might well be tempted to vote for Sanders because of his longtime criticism of the abuses of Wall Street, and his opposition to crony capitalism. Maybe Sanders could be effective in ending the corrupt ties between Washington and Wall Street, which many conservative types have been railing against for years.

In short, I think the Tea Partyers and Occupy Wall Street crowds may have more in common than both sides would be willing to admit. Sanders could well unite both sides of a protest movement that has rattled both major political parties.

HRC, on the other hand, has proven to be closely tied to Wall Street interests despite her recently acquired populist views. And though she and her followers pooh-pooh the controversies swirling about her e-mails and the Clinton Slush Fund—I’m sorry, that’s Clinton Foundation—she is in real danger of being cited by the FBI for violating the law.

I don’t know if she would be indicted regardless of the FBI’s findings because Obama and AG Lynch might not permit it. If that’s the case, then the system will have proven itself more ethically bankrupt than ever.

Surely Sanders, who has no similar cloud hanging over his political career, is a much more viable candidate for the Democrats than HRC. Believe me, a Clinton-Trump battle would be a race to the bottom of the political pit.

Rob and Deanna, my old college friends, this post was especially for you.

It’s Trump and Clinton For Sure—Maybe

Posted May 3, 2016

So like it or not, the strife-torn Republican Party has winnowed an eclectic field of seventeen candidates down to one (Kasich doesn’t count). Meanwhile Democrats (remember them, the party of peace and light?) at