How soon we forget. - Democratic Underground

JackDragna

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Fri Jan-09-09 03:16 PM
Original message

How soon we forget.

Edited on Fri Jan-09-09 03:17 PM by JackDragna

The invitation extended to Rick Warren at the president-elect’s nomination has created controversy here. No shortage of people here have supported his selection, or at the least, have attempted to shield Mr. Obama from criticism. Those who disagree with Obama’s choice are told of the virtues of extending our good graces across the aisle, of the unimportance of a few minutes of time in the grand scheme of Obama’s presidency. We are asked to be patient, to be forgiving, to trust in the judgment of our candidate, the one who cut the Gordian knot of racial privilege in the nation’s highest office.
Yet, I cannot imagine how any Democrat or liberal, given the track record of the right, could accept being in a giving mood after how shabbily we’ve been treated the last thirty years. If you’re liberal, it is almost assured that, at some point, the members of the opposition party and their supporters have demonized you to galvanize their base, gain votes among independents and marginalize you as a citizen. Take women, for example. The last thirty years has seen a backlash against women having careers, sharp criticism of women’s rights and unflattering portrayals of women candidates for elected office (at least, the Democratic ones) as being shrill, surly or insufficiently feminine. Whole political movements, such as the Promise Keepers, have arisen on the pretense men should hold the reins of society and women should mind the home.
If you’re black, the age-old struggle against racism has continued and was made much more pronounced by conservatives. You were held up as “welfare queens” and lazy by those who sought to take money away from programs benefitting the poor. The image of you as a thug and criminal was promulgated on every news program imaginable. Your face was used to make a Democratic candidate for president appear weak. When Barack Obama finally won the Democratic nomination for president, the right subjected him to a series of crypto-racial slurs. They know the die-hard racists in this nation are a critical part of their base.
If you’re gay, you have been at the mercy of howling religious lunatics, the type of people to whom the business right sold its soul in the pursuit of votes. From every mouthpiece available comes condemnation of your “lifestyle” and your insistence upon being treated equally. Time and time again you are criticized by leaders who play at protecting the “family,” only to have those leaders stumble when trying to justify their arguments with anything but pure religious bile.
If you happen to be educated, you have been the victim of a virulently anti-intellectual culture. Political discussions have intentionally been reduced to a series of simple statements and platitudes, with candidates implying those who think too deeply and disagree with said platitudes aren’t “real” Americans. Things you hold dear that enrich the culture, like the arts or science, have been held up to scorn, considered effeminate or wasteful pursuits.
If you happen to be poor (and aren’t a Republican dupe), you’re excoriated as being lazy and shiftless. It doesn’t matter if you work two jobs, take care of a family and barely scratch by: your dissatisfaction with your long hours, lack of health care or concern about your neighborhood by the city in which you live isn’t their concern. Your lack of prosperity is a sign God has abandoned you, that your intellect and drive wasn’t good enough to get you to a better station in life. No reversal in your life, whether it be catastrophic illness or the loss of your job, is anything more than another hallmark of your failure.
Lastly, let us not forget that all of us, no matter what our place in life, have been at the end of any number of slurs, slander and outrageous finger-pointing based solely on our political beliefs. Our patriotism has been called into question as a means of goading the country into war. Our willingness to keep our communities safe has been questioned when we complained about the drug war or the Orwellian intrusion into our personal lives. Those of us who live in cities are all “latte-sipping,” un-real Americans, reduced to a caricature to appease jealous and ignorant conservatives in rural areas. We are lovers of taxation for taxation’s sake, delighting in taking money away from people to waste on government programs.
After all of this, after being insulted so vigorously, after seeing the media do nothing to defend liberals and the disadvantaged, after seeing minorities and the marginalized in this country exploited again and again, I have had enough. It should be readily apparent to anyone who pays attention that the right has become a coalition of hardcore religious extremists and ruthless business interests who will do and say anything to maintain power. There is no depth too low to sink to, no slander too outrageous, no second thought to whipping up hysteria and fear of us to suit their purposes. There are now two types of people in this nation: those who have an interest in fair, representative government that caters to the masses, and those who, out of ignorance or malevolence, seek to organize society to empower themselves and restrict the rights of those they find disagreeable.
It is for these reasons I cannot accept Rick Warren speaking for even a millisecond at Obama’s inauguration, nor can I support Obama “reaching across the aisle” to Republicans during his administration. Those on the right interested in working honestly with us, for the good of nation, no longer exist. We will negotiate instead with zealots and manipulators, people who have proven themselves to be corrupt, greedy and untrustworthy, servants to powers who would rather all of us go away. I will not make peace with people who crucify others for political gain.
It is my dearest wish, though unrealistic, that after the inauguration, Mr. Obama will not cede a single second of any national platform to these people. The evil that Mr. Warren represents in terms of his attitude toward gays is carried in many other ways by others on the opposite side of the aisle. The government we have worked so hard to establish must, at each opportunity, promote the values for which progressives have fought.