Here
I had an English teacher in high school whom I absolutely did not like. He was a prick (he once read a paper of mine out loud to the entire class as an example of what not to do) and he had a stick up his ass the side of a telephone poll. There were many reasons not to like him. But the thing that grated me the most was his insistence on making every book a religious allegory with Jesus at the core. Even books on non-fiction were viewed through the lens of Jesus imagery. What's worse is that, as my friend Marc pointed out to me, he never took things to their logical conclusion. He would say "JESUS IMAGE!" and we'd all dutifully talk about it, but we'd never talk about the implications. The importance, it seemed was in recognizing that there was Jesus everywhere.
I've been thinking a lot about good old Mr. ____ these days listening to the rhetoric on the right get more and more frenzied. The word on the gutter is that Senator Obama is a Muslim who is friends with terrorists. Maybe even a terrorist himself. That he is anti-American. So let me, just for a moment, depart from reality and enter the world of hypotheticals. Let us say that Obama is, indeed, a secret Muslim terrorist. Now take that thought to its logical conclusion. Take that thought to the end of the line. It's a frightening place to go to. It's a place that makes jeers of "off with his head" from a crowd seem like small potatoes. It's this world (from AP, via Ezra Klein):
WASHINGTON (AP) — The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree. In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.
I can see the cries of strawman even as I type, so let me explain. I am not arguing that McCain or Palin or the Republican party is responsible for this. That would be idiotic. I do think that this is the logical extension of some of the rhetoric coming out of the wingnut noise machine. The fact, though, that there hasn't been more assassination plots is evidence that those who spread this bile about Obama are trying to convince themselves of it as much as believe it. After all, if you knew of a terrorist trying to destroy Democracy in America, what would you do?
This leads me to the next example. John McCain in the last debate said that the community organizing group ACORN, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Let us say for the moment that McCain is right and ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy. What is the logical conclusion of that line of thinking? If you knew an organization was destroying democracy, would you consider death threats?
Of course, the ACORN fraud bile is so blatantly false, it's almost like the McCain team just doesn't have their heart in it. Anyone who has voted knows that you almost always have to present ID, so having a registration under the name "Micky Mouse" wouldn't really help you commit fraud unless you had an ID with that name too. And then, the evidence is crystal clear that ACORN fires the workers that make fake registrations (once again, not fake votes and they will not be fake votes) and, what's more, is required by law to pass on all registrations even blatantly false ones. Generally, ACORN flags them as suspicious.
I don't believe that McCain is a stupid man. I don't believe he's an uniformed man (especially about ACORN, considering he spoke at an ACORN rally...). I think McCain is making dangerous claims about ACORN that have no basis in fact because he's losing. No, McCain isn't inciting violence. But he is contributing evidence to a narrative that's growing that almost demands violence.
|