Patrick at MakingLight picks up a gem of a piece from Rick Perlstein that I had to share with everyone.  From Patrick:

Superb political reporter and sometime blogger Rick Perlstein recently posted this:

Shortly before she died, my grandmother—one of the people, naturally, I loved the most in the world—broke my heart. Celia Perlstein, like most of our grandparents, didn’t get out much in her final years; in fact, for the last few years of her life, I’m not sure she got out of her old folks home at all. I don’t think she really wanted to. She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.

I’d look out of her eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?

One evening’s visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O’Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

What he said. Watch the video. Read the rest.

If “the arc of history bends toward justice,” it’s only because people got up off their behinds and started bending it for themselves. Moral progress isn’t something we can count on the rest of the world to take care of for us. If you want to live in a world in which multimillionaire perverts pile up ever-higher fortunes by encouraging Americans to hate and fear one another, simply do nothing. If you want a better world, start thinking about how to make this stuff stop.

Amen.  I choose not to hate.  And I get up every morning trying to find a way to make my world better — not just for me, but for my child and for everyone else that I love.  Imagine what we could do if everyone stood up together and said “enough!” to the idiocy, the disrespect and the nastiness. 

(With apologies to Patrick for the extended quote, but this was too perfect not to pass along the thought trail.  Bravo.  Adorable photo via (c)hris.  And do check out this Falafel update from John at Americablog.  Veddy interesting…)