While most people associate St. Patrick’s Day with Guinness and boozing it up, the Blue Dog is struck by the holiday’s ability to bring people together. We see and hear so much about Americans splintering into individual silos and talking to themselves in Internet echo chambers. Yet for the second year in a row, the Blue Dog has been surprised how many people of all political and ethnic stripes don GREEN on this day — Tea Party activists, gays, Hispanics, Chinese and African Americans.
With moderates and independents big on consensus and harmony, it is refreshing to see something other than hatred or a national calamity / tragedy (War, September 11, Katrina, etc.) bring people together.
Perhaps it is not surprising then that St. Patrick was originally associated with the color blue. So celebrate this unselfconscious, celebratory and apolitical holiday. And be sure to toast more than Ireland — cheer the larger symbolism of St. Patrick’s Day: Hope.
California Blue Dog 