HATING AMERICANS
Lost in the fact that much of the world today hates Americans, is the fact that Americans hate Americans. Throughout our short history we have always hated each other and continue to do so today.
The religiously persecuted left Europe to become religiously intolerant in the New World. Witches were burned. Native Americans were slaughtered. Blacks enslaved. Women marginalized. With brother fighting brother, the Civil War was the greatest example of Americans hating Americans, and of course, those divisions have never left us.
Our internal tribal warfare takes the form of political parties, and the party in power now carries the mantle of racism, sexism, and class warfare into the 21st century.
Bob Herbert, in his Op Ed piece in the Times today, reminds us that Ronald Reagan, not that long ago (in the late 60's), opposed both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He affably packaged his bigotry as "state's rights," and every Republican leader since has worked to make bigotry respectable. The sanitized code words are all that remain ("forced" busing, tax cuts, among others). As Bob Herbert points out, they are economic terms, the byproduct of which hurts blacks more than whites.
The Southern strategy of the Republicans, to appeal to the dark forces of bigotry, was always veiled in the cry for "states rights." Under the banner of States Rights, Republicans, both moderate and conservative, could tap into the force field of Americans hating Americans.
Confederate flag-waving George Allen is only the latest Republican macaca and nigger-hating bigot (to use his terms), to come down the pike, and he's looking to a future in the White House. Willie Horton type race-baiting campaigns, and intimidation of black voters, as in Florida, will not be ending any time soon; at least as long as the Tom DeLay's among us garner any respectability.
The religiously intolerant have found their home in the Republican party, and Jerry Falwell said recently that if Hillary Clinton gets elected, only the devil himself could arouse more Conservative activism. Apparently God is vehemently against universal health care. You could just hear God saying, "Under no circumstances do I want those poor, sick babies getting health care."
Occasionally we take breaks from killing each other to go off and kill others, only to return to killing ourselves. American Apocalyptism within our "enlightened," privileged generation, is alive and well. As New York Magazine recently put it:
"I don't think our mood is only a consequence of 9/11 (and the grim Middle East), or climate-change science, or Christians’ displaced fear of science and social change. It’s also a function of the baby-boomers’ becoming elderly. For half a century, they have dominated the culture, and now, as they enter the glide path to death, I think their generational solipsism unconsciously extrapolates approaching personal doom: When I go, everything goes with me, my end will be the end."
Lost in the fact that much of the world today hates Americans, is the fact that Americans hate Americans. Throughout our short history we have always hated each other and continue to do so today.
The religiously persecuted left Europe to become religiously intolerant in the New World. Witches were burned. Native Americans were slaughtered. Blacks enslaved. Women marginalized. With brother fighting brother, the Civil War was the greatest example of Americans hating Americans, and of course, those divisions have never left us.
Our internal tribal warfare takes the form of political parties, and the party in power now carries the mantle of racism, sexism, and class warfare into the 21st century.
Bob Herbert, in his Op Ed piece in the Times today, reminds us that Ronald Reagan, not that long ago (in the late 60's), opposed both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He affably packaged his bigotry as "state's rights," and every Republican leader since has worked to make bigotry respectable. The sanitized code words are all that remain ("forced" busing, tax cuts, among others). As Bob Herbert points out, they are economic terms, the byproduct of which hurts blacks more than whites.
The Southern strategy of the Republicans, to appeal to the dark forces of bigotry, was always veiled in the cry for "states rights." Under the banner of States Rights, Republicans, both moderate and conservative, could tap into the force field of Americans hating Americans.
Confederate flag-waving George Allen is only the latest Republican macaca and nigger-hating bigot (to use his terms), to come down the pike, and he's looking to a future in the White House. Willie Horton type race-baiting campaigns, and intimidation of black voters, as in Florida, will not be ending any time soon; at least as long as the Tom DeLay's among us garner any respectability.
The religiously intolerant have found their home in the Republican party, and Jerry Falwell said recently that if Hillary Clinton gets elected, only the devil himself could arouse more Conservative activism. Apparently God is vehemently against universal health care. You could just hear God saying, "Under no circumstances do I want those poor, sick babies getting health care."
Occasionally we take breaks from killing each other to go off and kill others, only to return to killing ourselves. American Apocalyptism within our "enlightened," privileged generation, is alive and well. As New York Magazine recently put it:
"I don't think our mood is only a consequence of 9/11 (and the grim Middle East), or climate-change science, or Christians’ displaced fear of science and social change. It’s also a function of the baby-boomers’ becoming elderly. For half a century, they have dominated the culture, and now, as they enter the glide path to death, I think their generational solipsism unconsciously extrapolates approaching personal doom: When I go, everything goes with me, my end will be the end."
posted by R. Reynolds at 9:45 AM
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