When my partner Rob and I first arrived on the south coast of the island of Crete, it was a Swiss tourist who first realized that we were a gay couple. Barbara was the kind of person who would just blurt out what was on her mind. After we confirmed her suspicions, it was less than 24 hours before the entire village knew we were a gay couple. Of course we assumed that the reaction would be similar to the same revelation in a small town in rural America. We were pleasantly surprised, however. The ignorance of homosexuality in Loutro was simply because they had never been exposed to homosexuals. No one had taught them that we were bad. No one had instructed them on how they should feel. No one had read Bible verses that condemned us to eternal damnation. Their ignorance was very simply an absence of knowledge. So in the absence of fundamentalist American Christians, the people of Loutro, Crete watched us with curiosity. They treated us with the same respect they gave everyone who was different. In the following four years they came to love us as we came to love them. We became such a part of the family of Loutro, that my partner Rob’s ashes are spread in the castle ruins above Loutro, where he rests for eternity, at his request on his death bed.
I open with this story, because that is where my picture of America in 2012 is developed. It is through that lens that I observe the insanity that threatens the very existence of the most respected democracy on earth. The fire that feeds the insanity is stoked by what Robert N. Proctor calls "agnotology." It is the cultural production of ignorance for a specific purpose.
The religious right, and now the Republican Party they have hijacked, are involved in a conspiracy of words. They use ignorance as a weapon to advance their evil agenda. They very carefully frame their arguments to appeal to the most basic human instincts that fear can arouse in the midst of ignorance. They teach the unknowing that stubbornness is synonymous with virtue. They convince those weak in spirit, that ignorance carries the same weight as knowledge. And their most clever framing of all is the idea that anyone who criticizes them is un-American or unholy!
My only hope for the future of the United States comes from the possibility that they have finally overstepped the bounds of decency and sanity to an extent where it is impossible for any intelligent person to remain silent! The fact that I must rely on this as my glimmer of hope is an indictment of our collective lack of morality. They have framed their revolution so well, that good people remain silent, in fear, as the entire culture implodes.
In a sane world, the entire slate of Republican presidential candidates would be laughed off the stage. In a sane world, no respectable news agency would give them the time of day. In a sane world Democrats would stand up and call out their lies every time the Republicans opened their mouths. In a sane world the people of the United States would be in the streets by the tens of millions demanding that we return to the kind of government that used to be the envy of the rest of the world.
But the truth is, we have all been brainwashed by the conspiracy of words. We now believe as a nation, that truth has the same standing as lies. We now believe as a nation that hatred and prejudice are the price we pay for free speech! We now believe as a nation that we must all lie down on the floor, motionless, as we are trampled by greed, corruption, violence and inequality. We have been taught that we must turn the other cheek, then turn the other cheek, then turn the other cheek until we are bloodied beyond the recognition of what we were when we were the great nation that was the envy of the rest of the world.
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To one degree or another, it has always been with us and I'm afraid that because some people only listen to what they want to hear, it will always be part of our elections in a democratic nation. All we can do is to speak the truth to power and trust that most Americans know the difference between coherent political argument and bullshit contrived by frightened desperate demagogues.
If we keep our faith, speak loud and clear and use our anger with quiet and precise deliberation, "those people" will succumb to their own poison and fear.
OMoM
Let me, please, rephrase. In any civilized or semi-civilized society, none of these clowns could get a job, anywhere, let alone run for president. Excellent post. R
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Better than a thousand hollow words,
is one word that brings peace.
Look: two and a half million Americans died in 2009. If that’s typical then about 10 million voters will have died between presidential elections. And while birth rates have declined it’s safe to say the by 2012 there will be several million younger voters to replace the dead ones ossified by orthodoxy. This is a good thing. All the polls I have seen put them in favor marriage equality, birth control, abortion, and they are generally fed up with the culture wars which have been the smoke screen for three decades of fleecing. Though kept factually ignorant we are not stupid.
The Christian right has been bleeding membership for years and the church pews grow more empty ever year. If their ranks are being replenished it is not by conversion but by breading - and baptizing the dead as Romeny admits doing. (See my post on that.) They surely don’t want to make birth control more available to them that’s left. The converts are few and even the children of fundamentalists commonly shed their faith once they enter college and experience secularism and diversity first hand and also discover they have been lied to. Children do not respond well when they discover their parents have poisoned their well. Realizing their minds have been tainted by slanders they frequently have a change of heart. Frankly, once out in the working world they discover how wonderfully diverse life is. They also discover that, if they want friends and good jobs, the wider world is not going to tolerate the tub-thumping religious bigotry and superstition that was drummed into them as children. Enlightenment happens. Enlightenment works.
All this is why we hear the death-rattle of an older order. The screeching protests of those who need to put out candles so they can curse the darkness. Do not buy into the black propaganda Spirit Man. The GOP is in a shambles. It’s a one ring circus but all the decent acts have already left. All that remains are side-shows, freaks, clowns, carnival barkers dogs and ponies and snake-oil salesman. Poor John McCain hasn’t stopped looking embarrassed for his party ever since his own preacher disgusted the candidate by flaunting stone-age ignorance. The Party is a shambles. All it’s got are fundamentalist and money and that’s not enough. We are not stupid.
And please notice how this time around they are not marching their preachers into the public square. That alone a BIG change. Americans are growing very tired of that pandering. Even my religious friends don’t like it. And Romney SURE as hell won’t be marching out this spiritual advisor into the public square. ! LOL! No black or Jew will vote for him and all the GOP can come up with is Gingrich and Sentorum? LAUGH! It’s worthy of mockery. They do well in the South. So what. It’s the Southern Democrats that were always the real racist bigots after Republican Lincoln’s Emancipation. Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Acts handed the South back to the Republican for at least two generations. But I suspect even the few black Republicans will pull the lever for Obama.
And American Catholics sure as hell are not taking to tainted bait about birth control from a decrepit clericy that has for decades secretly molested their children. When it comes to their private lives the Pope’s dictates mean as much his disingenuous apologies. They will do as they please. These are AMERICAN Catholics. They don’t do infallibility.
There is much to love about this younger generation. Unlike their parents they are teachable. The pendulum has swung. There is no going back. Thoth has the right hit: they are worthy of mockery.
One of the great, saving things about this country is its ability to reinvent itself, as we presently are.
In any event, we are no an empire. Never have been. Empire is not in our blood. Talk to a well educated Brit about empire and the comparison will be not only apparent but stark. Have we made mistakes? Lots of them. We don't claim perfection. At least, no reasonable American would.
Everything you're observing today has been experienced in our past. It's just an historical fact. And somehow we muddle through every time.
This democracy is a giant, klunky machine which works in fits and starts, sometimes breaks down, gets repaired, and does its work once again. (And that's exactly what the framers of this thing intended.) You, and I, and everyone who puts up an opinion here, the papers, the TV, the books and magazines, the Gingriches and Obamas, and Bushes and all the rest....are parts of the machine.
Take heart!!
PS: if we were an empire, we have several hundred good years left to have some fun.
My only hope for the future of the United States comes from the possibility that they have finally overstepped the bounds of decency and sanity to an extent where it is impossible for any intelligent person to remain silent!
Unfortunately, there are many who will aid the Republicans regain power—who will enable extreme American conservatives to further their agenda of exclusion. Some are Republican stalwarts who will do anything to see Republicans and conservatives in power…but many are people who should know better and who are instinctively on the other side of that coin. Some of those latter people have posted on this page in response to you.
The had unrealistic expectations of what Barack Obama could do, and they have allowed their disappointment in his failures to cloud their minds to the point where they are will to do everything in their power to weaken his chances for re-election—even though they KNOW the result will be the election of someone like a Rick Santorum.
They are the ones who have to be brought to their senses in order to prevent a catastrophe of that sort.
In a sane world, the entire slate of Republican presidential candidates would be laughed off the stage. In a sane world, no respectable news agency would give them the time of day. In a sane world Democrats would stand up and call out their lies every time the Republicans opened their mouths. In a sane world the people of the United States would be in the streets by the tens of millions demanding that we return to the kind of government that used to be the envy of the rest of the world.
So very true! But also unfortunately, this has become a world in which some of the staunchest foes of “the entire slate of Republican presidential candidates” is doing their level best to savage Barack Obama and weaken his chances for re-election—even though they KNOW the result will be the election of someone like a Rick Santorum.
I repeated that notion because it seems so bizarre to me it defies comprehension.
The last person standing among this joke slate of the Republican presidential wanna-be’s absolutely must be defeated. That will not happen unless the opposition is united in its resistance to them. The time for that cohesion is YESTERDAY. But there are some who are still more interested in massaging their petty grievances than in insuring that the Republicans go down in ignominious defeat.
I hope everyone finally comes to their senses. As you said, “This struggle is getting personal. It's touching my family now.”
Well, Spiritman, it is touching every family now!
Lezlie
While many are unhappy with Obama, they recognize he is truly the lesser of two evils if evils they both be. The polls and statistics indicate the vast majority of the population of this country favors a more centrist and more tolerant approach to things like health care, same-sex marriages, social programs and rebuilding our infrastructure and even increased taxation schedules more closely reflecting the late 1950's and early 1960's when this country was at its productive best.
My only concern is that these centrists, these tolerant folks think that there's so much insanity that the idiots being paraded, instead will just not vote, thinking the rest of the sane people will take care of it for us.
My hope is that this last election cycle will awaken the majority of folks into realizing perhaps they'd best get to the polls and make sure that the world, this country and the politicians in it know where we all stand as a majority.
While I hope that, I don't necessarily expect it to happen. In either case, you can damn sure bet that I'm voting. I only didn't vote once in all the time I could and that was because I abstained against two unlikeable candidates in a more reasonable time. My only reason was so that, regardless which idiot it was I could honestly lay claim, "Well *I* didn't vote for that bastard."
Since then, while I have been essentially forced to do my best to choose between the lesser of two evils, I have conscientiously done my best to make that determination and vote accordingly.
Hang in there, man, I got your back.
--r--
I am going to write my thank you note to Santorum right now!
r./
Rated!
It’s one laughing stock after another. Bill Maher shows there is no style better than Voltaire's for rendering pomposity mad in the face of pitiless mockery and the infectious laugh of malicious delight. Enjoy.
All I can say is that Obama must be secretly laughing his ass off as he watches this cavalcade of religious bigots self-destruct before our eyes. The would-be emperors have no cloths.
But yeah, something at the core of things has snapped recently, and it could have something to do with the hundreds of millions of dollars being funnelled into "security" for a handful of professional consultants. Don't here too much about that, though, from all the middle class commentators. Maybe they're waiting for their share.
Rated.