REVEVOLUTION

Rev the Evolution

Watching the John Adams HBO special for the second time, I am reminded of reading the book on which the special is based. I am not a lover of biography, and I often find American history boring. But John Adams and Abigail Adams are fascinating figures to me, and I resonate with their passions and ideas.

Adams was passionate on the subject of education, and he envisioned exceptional schools and universities to educate an enlightened populace of free people. Abigail Adams was a feminist, and absolutely abhorred the practice of slavery. Together, as intellectuals, parents, political activists, and – not least – farmers, they provide a stirring example of what women and men should hope for in the United States. They respected the earth because they worked it; they believed in sexual equality and prosperity and safety for all people living in the US.

Earlier today I read a summary of Tea Party politics, and I just shook my head in disbelief at its misguided ideas. Not that I do not understand a politically conservative point of view. My parents were both dedicated Republicans, and my father was extremely politically conservative. A passionate hater of the New Deal and of any form of liberalism, he voted (and so did my mom) for Reagan, Nixon, and Bush Senior. At the same time, my parents were fervently pro-abortion, pro-affirmative action, and pro legalizing drugs as well as prostitution.

At the end of his life, my Republican father got to know the head of Earth Watch, and concluded that we had to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, and adhere to a strict plan of ecology. “Let’s face it,” he said. “The weather is changing. We can’t go on like we are going. We just CAN’T.” And he was appalled by the cost of heath care, and the ways in which the elderly and differently-abled were cast aside by a society, which he said, was governed increasingly “by plain old greed.”

As BP workers come in to work side by side with volunteers still rebuilding from Katrina, it seems very obvious that my Republican parents (one of whom was a devout Christian, the other of whom was a devout Atheist) got what was important in our turn of the century political situation. They were not heroes, like the Adams's, but they shared with the Adams's a certain common sense that I admire and that we could certainly use as we consider our lives as Americans in 2010.

Here’s to revving our evolution, as we turn to the practicalities of helping our people get educated, get healthy, get jobs, get equal treatment and equal opportunity, and get to cultivate, protect, and enjoy the sublime ecosystem of our planet.

Happy 4th of July everyone!