From: stephen@orchid.UCSC.EDU ()
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,ca.politics
Subject: Re: Republicans vs. Centrists?
Date: 1 Oct 1992 06:26:46 GMT
Organization: Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: orchid.ucsc.edu

In article <66951@cup.portal.com> Arthur_T_Hu@cup.portal.com writes:
>Hu's on First
>Sept 7, 1992
>
>First Birthday
>
>My son is officially one year old this month (guess that's
>two in Chinese years). He's barely walking now. That's
>better than average, but it's hard to avoid comparison with

Then stop making comparison to other people's childern becuase
in subtle ways you will pass on this bias to him.  You have a
slant in your essay that seems pro-american everything but
with your ethic hertiage still underneath.

>his cousin, who was walking at 9 months, or his playmate,
>who could start pointing a things named in Chinese at 9
>months. It will all even out after a couple of years, I
>hope. I can't wait until he's old enough to learn
>conservatism.

And why is it so important that he learns this, I hope you
give him the opportunity to learn many other ways.  Don't
channel your child into thinking the way you think.  That is
not fair to him.

>
>We just went to another friend's one-month baby celebration.
>Unlike American baby shower tradition, everybody gets to see
>what the baby looks like and they're sure what the gender is
>as well. This baby was wearing all kinds of gold jewelry in
>Chinese tradition. Other Americans might consider it a waste
>to blow a bunch of money on expensive jewelry that she'll
>outgrow in a month, but she looked great. Some folks pierce
>a girl's ears days after birth. The way things are going, I
>imagine Eric's ears will get done by the time he gets to
>high school.
>
Whatever they or you want to 'spend' on a child is your business.
Keep in mind that this child possibly doesn't know what is going
on, and therefore the jewelry is for the parents and onlookers.

>I grew up during a time when everybody was taught that the
>woman should work if she can possibly manage it. My wife
>went back to work after 5 months, but now she's saying she's
>really going to quit this time. We won't be saving as much
>as we used to, but the line that women these days don't have
>a choice certainly doesn't apply to our household. Of
>course, many other couples in our financial position might
>consider a $400,000 house to be a basic necessity, or have
>already committed themselves to a mortgage. Given the amount
>of work it takes to raise a child on top of keeping the
>house together, it might be less money, but it will take the
>housework load off me (and get me more time to write these
>columns!)
>
Hmmm! not sure what you are saying here, but many women do not
have the luxury of choice as to work or not work.  that is a 
basic truth for American women, and that is OK, if they want to
work, if they don't, well all I can say is that somethings I
feel the same way- why the hell I am working?  Just to get this
and that?  My goal on life is not to be a mindless consumer, 
wanting all of things that other's seem to have.  If all we are
in the end is a consumer of mindless products, that have no  more
benefit that to give us the 'consumer fix', then I am very sad
about the state of affairs for the AMerican society.

>Our original nanny didn't work out. It wasn't the Hand That
>Rocks the Cradle, but she told us she was 60, then told us
>she couldn't work that hard because she was really 70, and
>then after we let her go, she wanted us to tell her new
>prospective employers she was 50.  She said she used to
>teach English, but I knew more Chinese than she knew
>English, and I can count my Chinese vocabulary on two hands!
>Our new niece-in-law will stay with her aunt during the
>week, an arrangement we considered. At least it's not like
>dropping the kid off in China for 5 years like some Chinese
>folk do.
>
Maybe you have failed to see this woman plight. She has to lie about
her age, because people won't hire her.  I feel that we need to
get our act together about who we hire and for what reason.  Work
that hard, well I don;t have enough information from that statement
but if your expectations were greater than she was lead to believe
I don;t blame her for complaining.... maybe you are trying to
wring out of people everything you can get.  Look from behind
her eyes and see if you can she what she sees.

>Centrists and Republicans
>
>Am I imagining things or is the party of Kennedy, Feinstein,
>Boxer, Cuomo and Jesse Jackson now claiming to be the party
>of moderates and centrists? If that's true, then even if
>Clinton wins, the left has already lost.  This is the party
>that supports quotas when Americans overwhelmingly oppose
>racial preferences, they opposed kicking Saddam out of

Not sure that is true... we need to have real information
to make that conclusion, not tabloid TV events.

>Kuwait when America backed the president, tried to lynch

Saddam/Kuwait nothing more than the US trying to save its ass
for its' oil resources.  We could care less about a monarchy
and non-democratic society... they need us and we need them.

>Clarence Thomas on a completely unsubstantiated charge of
>harassment when the nation believed Thomas, and calls the
>upholding of abortion restrictions tantamount to a return to
>coat hangers when in fact Roe was upheld, and a majority of
>Americans supported every specific provision.
>
I don't believe Thomas anymore than the panel of all white
middle-age senators who held the committee meetings.  Roe vs.
Wade was upheld becuase of the way the court has to operate,
a majority of Americans seem to back the idea of choice.

>The Democrat's idea of family values is putting abortion
>rights first, placing career over family with day care
>mandated at government expense, and upholding single mothers
>as role models. Susan Faludi is their hero, a radical

Bull- the state of economics in this country require that
all adult members of a family need to work to just get by, or
want to so that they can afford all of those mindless consumer
goods.  The question is not about abortion it is about the
freedom of choice for a woman to control her own destiny and
body.  The great smokescreen has blinded most people to this
fact.

>feminist who says she isn't, believes women are happier and
>get more sex if they are single, and her idea of a good
>father is a divorcee who pays child support on time.

I have never heard of this before... Women might be happier
by themselves, or maybe it is a condition or change in philosophy
that allows a woman to say "I can be happy as me, I don't need
anyone to make me someone."

>
>Their notion of family values is to applaud divorcing
>abusive husbands, as if that explained why two of my Asian-
>American sister-in-laws walked away from their marriages
>after 1 and 2 years simply because they didn't feel
>"fulfilled", or if it explains why nearly two-thirds of

So your sisters know how they feel, you don;t.  If a person
male or female is abusive to someone else, then they should
get away from them.  No one needs to take any type of abuse
from anyone.  I applaud those individuals who can take on
the strength to say no more, you will not abuse me anymore.
They have come to a new level of self-respect and individual
identity.

>black children are born today without the benefit of a two-
>parent family. Matt Groening drew a "Life in Hell" that
>equates "traditional" with "Manson" family values, but
>somehow I think the Mansons would have voted Democratic.
>
Two-parent families are social structures... no where in
the world of Biology is it necessary to have two-parents.

In fact, if we look at nature we see cases of child-rearing
done without a male or maybe a female present.

Matt Groening is just trying to demonstarte a point about
how stupid we all are when it comes to identifying what we
try and force upon others as 'family values' and societatl
norms.

[deleted stuff - more women bashing]
>
>They call Buchanan's convention speech a racist disaster.
>Yet all he said is that he opposes illegal immigration and
>marriage rights for unmarried couples of the same sex.

No No I think Pat's message was quite clear- if you don't
think, behave and believe as we do, you are not an 'American'.
You are perverted, unnatural, not wanted.

[deleted stuff]

>There is truly a culture war conflict, and James Davison
>Hunter has new book "Culture Wars" that details how the
>counter-culture has escalated from skirmishes into a full
>scale war with traditional culture.
>
This may be true.  As long as the people buy it.  You see what
your knowledge lets and tells you to see.  Vigilance is the price
for many things- it requires the process of questioning and learning
so that we may see things as clearly as possible, but it also 
requires compassion and understanding and tolerance, the last one
being one of the more important... if you do not understand something
that does not make it wrong or immoral.

>
>Being a defender of the values and culture that made America
>a magnet for peoples of all other cultures does not make
>Buchanan or his supporters bigoted Nazis. Remember that

Times change we do not live in the world of yesterday, that
world is over.  We cannot be a magnet for people anymore, in
fact most people want to protect what they have.

>while only a tiny percentage of Americans form the truly
>hard-core wacko left, nearly one-third of Americans call
>themselves born-again Christians, and two-thirds believe
>religion and morals are very important to them. Right or

Again these 'percentages' require strong information and facts.
i would say that a good number of people who hold 'religious'
values don't even no why they do.  They are programmed and have
not yet escaped from it, they may though given a broader scope
of ideas and information, and allowing themselves to actually
think and muse upon different philosophies.

>wrong, in a democracy, even they deserve a voice, and if
>gays really want to make headways with these folks, tactics
>of the likes of Act-Up aren't going to win them any friends.
>
>It's as if the success of Amy Grant and Garth Brooks
>symbolize everything wrong with America - they're European,

What have they done that is so great.  Except hit a chord in
a set of people that makes them consume their products.  These
are just people nothing more, and maybe people are today starting
to question what their goals are and if these goals have any
real meaning.  The mythology that we have lived under for decades
is always changing and hopefully getting better for all people.

>Christian, heterosexual family oriented heartland common
>folk who aren't screwed up in any visible way. That's

I think you need to realize that some large percentage of the
American population is dysfunctional in some way.  The great 
American society and dream are in general myths.  The majority
of people will not have it, and a good part of them will be
fooled into thinking they do.  Stop pointing to what appears
to be good wholesome things, and start asking yourself why do
I think these things are.

>positively un-American these days. Upholding tradition and
>virtue is offensive because it is taken as an attack on
>those who by chance or choice violate the rules. But family
>values only means building strong families from the start,
>not using government to create no-fault families patched up
>at no cost.

Tradition in general is not progressive, and when you want and
live in a society that is progressive, and keeps changing the
conditions and rules by which we live, then why cling so hard
to things that will, in the end, collapse...  No one is trying
to destroy any one's way of life, you just can;t escape the
fact that it is all changing and completely beyond your control
as long as you choose to stay and live in this society.

>
>The Republicans have a flier that says Asians Share
>Republican values. They've got a point with the ethnic group
>with the lowest rates of single parenthood, juvenile crime,
>AIDS and other STDs, promiscuity, and the most outstanding
>educational status despite poverty and discrimination. Not
>all Asian Americans raised hell in the 60's - lots of them
>concentrated on getting into Berkeley and MIT, getting
>engineering degrees and M.D's, and raising families.
>
So does this make asians better... I think they just ran a little
later than most in the rat race.  They saw things that were ahead
of them, but didn't take the time to think if what they saw
was so great after all.  Hindsight is prefect, we cannot see to
the future, so sometimes if we just jump at it, we find out that
the astroturf is that great.

With all of these great gains, why are asians better off in the
sense of more power and control in this society.  

>I suppose it would be in bad taste to mention that the
>divorce rate has been declining for a couple of years
>already, and the long historic decline in two-parent
>families stopped last year. Maybe it's Reagan and Bush's
>fault we're turning back the clock on at least these two
>toxic legacies of modernism.


Again, and again, I restate give the factual information about these
great changes.  The gov''t is always giving us pieces of statistical
facts that sound the best.  IMHO there is probably little change
in divorce rates and two-parent family numbers.  There are always
cyclic changes, up and down, but the general overall trend is one
way or the other...

Bush and Reagan are the one's who show the wounds of attempting to
stop what can not be stopped- CHANGE, if anything marks Western
Philosophy and life it is the concept of CHANGE, and even we
sometimes fight it, but we create it  and must accept it and
live with it.  Change is what gives us a reason to go forward
and do new and exciting things.  No president or king is ever
going to supply what you must do for yourself, learning to
be part of a changing system, accepting and valuing new and
different ways of life that are beneficial and valuable and
giving.

Please look carefully where you travel because if you don;t someone
is always there to make you into a slave either intentionally or not.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american