Bridges

A funny thing happened to me this week. I had to attend the funeral of an ex customer with a fellow employee. This employee shall remain anonymous, but she is a HUGE Obama supporter. I'm talking HOPE stickers on her car, pictures of the "Chosen" one in her office and so on.
It's funny, because I would consider her a Kool Aid drinker, because of all the junk she has. It really bothers me too because I know how intelligent she really is.
When picking her up I turned on some music with my IPod, as I didn't want the trip to turn into a huge argument,(like the one I had last year with my boss over politics on a 3 hour drive) over talk radio.
Shockingly (ironic tone totally intended), the discussion did turn to politics, because of my work with the Broomfield 9/12 Project. I was really cautious with my tone, and words. It's hard to come out and say "oh I think both Obama and Bush have driven us right off the cliff, and both have ignored the hell out of the Constitution."; even if that's exactly how I feel.
I was slightly stunned when she came out and said that she thinks all politicians are bad, and they all ought to be thrown out. She went on a tirade about personal responsibility, and how all the baby boomers never taught their kids about money, and now we are paying the price. When I asked her how it felt to own a car company, she threw up a bit of denial "oh come on, Obama didn't really do that" (YES REALLY!!!! I was screaming inside) but for the most part I found we agreed on 90% of what we were discussing.
I mean we really agreed! She was lambasting the liberals and crazy environmentalists, called Tiller a murderer (and yes, she is pro choice) and admitted that we are going bankrupt as a society, both morally and financially.
The only thing she wouldn't do was throw Obama under the bus. Which I think I understand a bit now. When you dedicate so much emotionally to a person it is hard to admit that you were wrong. And she was either wrong, or lied to my face about what she believes, and I know her to be an honest person. I think this is a case of her not being able to "willingly suspend disbelief" as the Secretary of State would say (it was actually tough for me to type that out, I really don't like her). I really worked hard to explain to her that I believe both Obama and Bush are progressives, and that we need to get back to the basics, let the States decide their own laws, own future and get the Feds out of everything. That it was hard for me to turn my back on the fact that I was raised Republican, but that we cannot continue down this path.
At the end of the conversation, we agreed that there was a lot we agreed on, more than we disagreed on. I think she will end up letting go of her emotional attachment, and I hope so. I will be the first to pick up the HOPE sign if someone can convince me that socialism/fascism/statism works. So far in my life I've never seen it happen, but I have seen it destroy good people and kill the human spirit. Some of my customers and friends are being ground down by it right now.
When my friend got out of the car at her house, she said something that I will cherish and something I never expected to hear. "Jason, you have a gift, and you better not waste it. You need to make sure people hear what you have to say, whether that means teaching or something else, use that gift!" This coming from someone who voted opposite every belief I hold true last election.
The bridges are out there, and if either of the political parties quit playing games, and actually got back to values, they'd take this nation by storm. A die-hard conservative man and an Obama voting pro choice woman just proved it!