I was driving home from work today listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" as I do each and every afternoon. There was a piece about the TEA Party and the fact that they are now couching their discontent in terms of using the Constitution as their rallying cry, specifically, their complaints that the current administration is, according to them, violating the Constitution left and right and is thereby criminal and needing to be removed. Naturally, my reaction was, "
What the HELL?" Where were these people during the Bush/Cheney years? How can they possibly accuse the Obama administration of violation of the Constitution when we had an administration that regularly violated the Constitution with impunity? Where were these people when the Writ of Habeas Corpus was illegally suspended? Where were they when the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law that violates a lot of rights delegated in the Constitution? Where were they when Dubya declared an illegal war on Iraq based on falsehoods and lies? Where were they when Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA cover was blown and her colleagues lives were put in danger as a result? Where were they when Dubya ignored a Presidential Daily Briefing that warned of an impending attack on the US by Osama bin Laden? Where were they when the residents of New Orleans were allowed to drown and suffer during Hurricane Katrina? (Heck of a job, Brownie, yeah, you bumbled, fumbled and blew it big time!) There were so many violations of the Constitution during the Bush/Cheney years that they are too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say that it was the single most corrupt and criminal administration in history.
Of course, these are the same folks who recently put up a billboard comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin. This is, to me, beyond the pale and just plain out crass. Yes, everyone's entitled to their opinion, and yes, we have the right to free speech in this country, but what people fail to realize is that we already have a kind of socialism in that we have Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the VA to care for our veterans. That, my friends, is socialism, so if these people are so afraid of it, then someone please tell them to give up their Social Security, and tell the veterans among them to give up their VA benefits, and tell the poor and elderly among them to give up their Medicare, and see how they like it. I suspect that what they are afraid of is the Black Man in the White House. There is a subtle undertone of racism going on here. They are afraid that their image of a lily white America is going to vanish because of the floods of Hispanics coming across the Mexican border into the US and the fact that slowly but surely, they are gaining political clout as a minority that will soon be a majority in some states. You can trace the anti-immigrant fervor back to the 19th century when floods of Irish and Italians came into this country and a wave of anti-Papist sentiment rose up against them because they were largely Catholic. People always fear that which they do not know or that with which they are not familiar. Change is scary, and the fact that for the first time in our country's long history, a racial minority is President, I suspect that what they fear is that the President will be overly favorable toward minorities since he is a member of one himself. They fear that Obama will favor initiatives to favor blacks and Hispanics and that these Angry White Men will somehow be left behind. I think that they are just afraid because of the seismic shift that Obama's election caused in this country and they are afraid for their futures as a result. They want someone who looks and sounds like them, not a black man who they regard as threatening. At the heart of all of this is a matter of race, plain and simple. Even after this many years of blacks being freed from slavery, the many headed hydra of racism has reared its ugly head once again. And sadly, it probably won't go away anytime soon.
I was driving home from work today listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" as I do each and every afternoon. There was a piece about the TEA Party and the fact that they are now couching their discontent in terms of using the Constitution as their rallying cry, specifically, their complaints that the current administration is, according to them, violating the Constitution left and right and is thereby criminal and needing to be removed. Naturally, my reaction was, "What the HELL?" Where were these people during the Bush/Cheney years? How can they possibly accuse the Obama administration of violation of the Constitution when we had an administration that regularly violated the Constitution with impunity? Where were these people when the Writ of Habeas Corpus was illegally suspended? Where were they when the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law that violates a lot of rights delegated in the Constitution? Where were they when Dubya declared an illegal war on Iraq based on falsehoods and lies? Where were they when Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA cover was blown and her colleagues lives were put in danger as a result? Where were they when Dubya ignored a Presidential Daily Briefing that warned of an impending attack on the US by Osama bin Laden? Where were they when the residents of New Orleans were allowed to drown and suffer during Hurricane Katrina? (Heck of a job, Brownie, yeah, you bumbled, fumbled and blew it big time!) There were so many violations of the Constitution during the Bush/Cheney years that they are too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say that it was the single most corrupt and criminal administration in history.
Of course, these are the same folks who recently put up a billboard comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin. This is, to me, beyond the pale and just plain out crass. Yes, everyone's entitled to their opinion, and yes, we have the right to free speech in this country, but what people fail to realize is that we already have a kind of socialism in that we have Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the VA to care for our veterans. That, my friends, is socialism, so if these people are so afraid of it, then someone please tell them to give up their Social Security, and tell the veterans among them to give up their VA benefits, and tell the poor and elderly among them to give up their Medicare, and see how they like it. I suspect that what they are afraid of is the Black Man in the White House. There is a subtle undertone of racism going on here. They are afraid that their image of a lily white America is going to vanish because of the floods of Hispanics coming across the Mexican border into the US and the fact that slowly but surely, they are gaining political clout as a minority that will soon be a majority in some states. You can trace the anti-immigrant fervor back to the 19th century when floods of Irish and Italians came into this country and a wave of anti-Papist sentiment rose up against them because they were largely Catholic. People always fear that which they do not know or that with which they are not familiar. Change is scary, and the fact that for the first time in our country's long history, a racial minority is President, I suspect that what they fear is that the President will be overly favorable toward minorities since he is a member of one himself. They fear that Obama will favor initiatives to favor blacks and Hispanics and that these Angry White Men will somehow be left behind. I think that they are just afraid because of the seismic shift that Obama's election caused in this country and they are afraid for their futures as a result. They want someone who looks and sounds like them, not a black man who they regard as threatening. At the heart of all of this is a matter of race, plain and simple. Even after this many years of blacks being freed from slavery, the many headed hydra of racism has reared its ugly head once again. And sadly, it probably won't go away anytime soon.
1 comment:
It's kind of starting to look like this is headed toward a pogrom against progressives. When things just keep getting worse, you can always count on scapegoats to distract the seething masses' attention.
Some of these right wing whackos talk about seceding from the union. Great! I wish they'd hurry up and do it. Get them out of our way. And if they still insist on making trouble, well, there's nothing quite like a nice civil war to wake up the economy.
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