Culture War?
A lot of editorials, both in the U.S. and abroad, lament the fact that the election battle between McCain and Obama has lost its focus on politics and become a blatant "culture war," pitting red voters against their blue counterparts. From over here, it's hard for me to sense as palpably the divisive paths the campaigners are leading their constituents down, but I refuse to watch Fox News, and even if I were "home," I'd be on the Central Coast of California, bastion of liberal-minded voters, if ever there was one.
But then someone sends me a link to a site, and it occurs to me that "culture wars" is a grave misnomer:
Right Wing Watch: Hate You Can Believe In
This is not about culture. This is about lack of culture - lack of culture, education, a brain, a heart, and any sense of humanity that might have once lodged in the now obliterated souls of these receptacles of hate and ignorance.
I am not so naive as to believe that racism in the U.S. is nearing non-issue status; I worry that the Bradley Effect will reverse the optimism of current polls when I read articles like this one in the CSM. However, I do believe, and pray, that the hate-fuelers caught on the above site represent a small minority of Americans.The outrageous racism that some of Palin's supporters have been allowed to voice with impunity is not representative of the majority of true Conservatives, Populists, or "we just want free market and low taxes" voters.
Can someone tell me why Palin and McCain don't seem to be visibly making more of a furious call to end the dangerous xenophobic, racist, and criminal behavior of these thugs? Even from a purely Machiavellian standpoint, don't they realize that condoning violence and hatred, indeed peppering their campaign rhetoric with it, will prove to be anathema to their careers?
General Powell put it reasonably and logically when he called both out for misleading the public as to Obama's "Americanness," and his religious beliefs, "Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
But then someone sends me a link to a site, and it occurs to me that "culture wars" is a grave misnomer:
Right Wing Watch: Hate You Can Believe In
This is not about culture. This is about lack of culture - lack of culture, education, a brain, a heart, and any sense of humanity that might have once lodged in the now obliterated souls of these receptacles of hate and ignorance.
I am not so naive as to believe that racism in the U.S. is nearing non-issue status; I worry that the Bradley Effect will reverse the optimism of current polls when I read articles like this one in the CSM. However, I do believe, and pray, that the hate-fuelers caught on the above site represent a small minority of Americans.The outrageous racism that some of Palin's supporters have been allowed to voice with impunity is not representative of the majority of true Conservatives, Populists, or "we just want free market and low taxes" voters.
Can someone tell me why Palin and McCain don't seem to be visibly making more of a furious call to end the dangerous xenophobic, racist, and criminal behavior of these thugs? Even from a purely Machiavellian standpoint, don't they realize that condoning violence and hatred, indeed peppering their campaign rhetoric with it, will prove to be anathema to their careers?
General Powell put it reasonably and logically when he called both out for misleading the public as to Obama's "Americanness," and his religious beliefs, "Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
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