Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Hatred, a new American family value?


Hatred is easy. Hatred requires no thought, no research, no hard decisions. It just needs you to be angry and ignorant.

Americans are mentally lazy. Oh, they can work their asses off at their job, in their homes and in their recreation but within their brains, they've taken a nap. They don't want to think about the hard stuff like politics and issues and shit happening on the other side of the world. That stuff is hard so they outsource the decision making to others.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh provide an easy place for those decisions to be made. In return, they give these people a place to voice their anger and to lay blame for all the shit happening in their lives. No need to look at the facts because Beck and Limbaugh will provide them too.

Once upon a time, the average American citizen was a person of reasonable intellect. He fought in the big wars, came home to college, got a good job in the big factories, made a decent living and gave back to the community. He/She raised their kids to be wary of strangers but give people a chance to prove themselves. This is called progress.

But you can't get stinking rich off the ignorance of people if the country trends progressive. Enter the GOP.

From the administration of Herbert Hoover to the 'Contract on America' of Newt Gingrich, Republicans have taken steps to keep Americans from realizing their potential. To the Republican mind, 'Progress' is backward thinking. To be progressive is to be anti-American, an enemy bent on destroying the country and killing puppies for sport. To arrive at this thinking, they've skillfully crafted campaigns of ignorance and name calling, fomenting hatred of those who are different and fostering suspicion of everything that doesn't fit their narrow view of what's right. Hatred has found its champion.

The drumbeat has been loud and constant. The first sounds came from Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964 but failed to gather the storm. Lessons were learned and methods were changed. When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, they had their man. The drum beat of hatred and ignorance had found its orchestra.

Now, in 2010, we live with the drum beat constant in our ears. The Media has been beaten down to where they follow the beat on every broadcast, every page, every story. Not an issue goes by where the Media doesn't frame each report through the lens of the Republican hate machine.

We have enemies abroad that seek to do us harm. They attacked us and have taken lives here at home and in the deserts of the Middle East. They don't number that many, not as many as we would assume considering the casualties they've inflicted upon us. Considering the scope of what we've been fighting, the prospects of victory seem simple but frustratingly out of reach. Our enemies attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001 for reasons that seem bullshit on the surface but still knocked us on our ass. We had placed troops in Saudi Arabia at the behest of the Saudi government much to the consternation of the radicals in the Muslim faith. Saudi Arabia is their holy land. Would Catholics like the government of Iran to send troops to set up shop in the Vatican? Would the Baptists sit by and allow Libyan troops in Lynchburg, VA?

This doesn't validate their reasoning, nor does it absolve the radicals from their crimes against humanity. It just exists as evidence of what they believed.

Our response was swift but got off track almost immediately. Instead of attacking Al-Qaeda, we attacked Islam. The Republicans took the worst terrorist attack against Americans on American soil and perverted it to attack people who were merely of another faith, different but an easy target. They really held no animosity at Muslims but saw an opportunity to get stinking rich from the drum beat of hatred and ignorance they controlled. Start a war against Iraq, a country not involved in the 9/11 attacks but home to a lot of oil and a ready villain in Saddam Hussein. Our war in Afghanistan, which was in response to the attacks was placed on the back burner, even when we were so very close to catching the prize - Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, himself.

For eight years, the administration of President George W. Bush, went to extraordinary means to craft the drum beat, make it louder and more intense. We saw Islamic enemies in every crowd, behind every tree, in every Mini-Mart. Violence against innocent people, immigrants and Americans alike, who followed Islam rose considerably. The mealy mouthed Bush went on the air to tell people that not all Muslims were evil but his words were shallow and weak, never intended to silence the drum beat. They were only intended to frame the issue and provide cover for the Republicans in the campaign of hatred and fear. Using this hatred, the Republican Party and their allies profited big time. Billions of dollars found their way into the open arms of those who beat the drums the loudest.

Now, we sit here on the raggedy edge of this campaign. Nothing Progressives have done since the election of Barack Obama has quelled the hatred. The Media still cowers in fear of going up against the drum beat. They drank deep from the kool-aid and won't do anything to anger the GOP hate machine. Without the Media, our words of hope and cooperation fall on deaf ears and do nothing but give the Republicans fodder to frame us as naive or worse collaborators with the enemy.

Ignorance and fear are not new to humanity, nor will they be leaving us very soon. Gather more than five people together and soon ignorance will rear its ugly head. Ignorance in humanity is as natural as taking a dump, but just as we've learned not to take a dump anywhere we please, we can learn not to dump our ignorance around as well.

Stupid comes naturally, you have to learn not to be. And, unfortunately, that's too hard for some Americans.

Update: One Fly has commented that it's not 'some' of them, it's more than we realize and they are proud of their stupidity. I absolutely agree. A stone is a stone and will never be a fish. There are some folks that will always be a stone - cold, hard, incapable of moving, only occupying space until gravity and time wear them down.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

6 comments:

One Fly said...

It's not just "some" Americans it's a whole bunch of them and many are proud of their stupidity and there's no changing the mind of any of them.

Anonymous said...

Consider the number of standard leftist memes you managed to touch with this dreck and then talk about how Americans are stupid. Do you have an original thought ever? Or is everything in your little world parsed through the lens of leftwing orthodoxy - just be sure you aren't violating dogma as established by Kos, or HuffPo, or one of the other "progressive" luminaries...

David Aquarius said...

So true, One Fly...so true.

Well, Mr. Anonymous... where to start...

'Standard leftist memes'? Sorry to burst your tea bag but these 'leftist memes' are firmly based in reality versus the 'standard right wing memes' which state that our duly elected president is a Kenyan-born Muslim Socialist who somehow faked his own birth certificate in Hawaii in 1961 or that we're being taxed to death when in reality taxes have gone DOWN for most Americans. Then there's the whole "Keep the Government out of my Medicare." cry.

Face it, Mr. Anonymous, the left represents the reality of what needs to happen to climb our collective asses out of the deep, dank hole your Bush/Cheney got us into. The only time I see Democrats go off the deep end is when they insist on 'compromising' with people who have nothing but contempt for them and who practice hypocrisy and deception on a level never seen in American politics before.

As for an original thought, good grief, can't you folks get a clue? The progressive side of society is where original thoughts are born. We start the ball rolling, the rest of society takes it from there. Throughout our history whenever America moved ahead, there was a progressive agenda at work. Whenever America slipped back, repeating old mistakes and putting its citizens at risk; there were the Republicans, large and in charge.

So, Mr. Anonymous, who dances with whom here. I cast my lot with folks who represent diversity and innovation rather than those who represent stagnation and repression.

By the by, sir. I put my tag 'David Aquarius' on every post, every comment I make so those who read it know from who it comes from. I always provide a link back here so those folks can understand what I stand for.

It's called courage, Mr. Anonymous. You should try it some time. Don't worry, I won't tell your Tea bag buddies.

One Fly said...

In addition to an excellent rebuttal to a nutter a few items on what progressives would like.

One thing is less war and much less money for the defense budget.

Another was single payer health insurance.

How about accountability for the people who got us into this mess something that just kinda makes sense ya know there.

There are so many things but how about no wars for lies? That one is kind of important in the world of reality because the ramifications of that are so bad.

Well ano monkey the point is we got none of these and we get nothing as we care to see it and you pricks make it seem like we get it all and are responsible for the pile of shit we are all standing in.

You accomplish that with society with the help of treasonous bastards and liars such as the becks and all the fat boy raping limbo's and such.

There is no nice here and no discussion with the likse of inbreds such as you. I'm not changing your mind and won't waste the time to attempt it. My sole purpose is to insult the best I can and be on my way. With that I bid you adieu with a merry fuck you asshole!

David Aquarius said...

God, I love a good retort!
Thanks for watching my back, Fly!

I see a disgruntled teabagger, living on SS disability checks sequestered in his garage, walls adorned with Palin posters, boy-diddler Rushbo blaring in the background, our bagger screaming at his monitor...

"Oh yeah?"

So my response would be..."Yeah."

Marvin said...

Saw your post on horsesass.org
  
"Like talking to a freaking brick wall…
Listen, dipshit Pudwacker"
  
Hatred, the new family value.
  
Kinda ironic some troll has to point out the hypocrisy.