Today I’m on a rant. I’m frustrated, saddened, maddened and scared, and fed up with the meanness and ignorance bubbling up from the ground like the product of a broken sewer pipe all across this country. I’m talking about the wave of shameful and indecent sentiment that has given birth to the Tea Party, legitimized organized hate-mongering, and made undocumented immigrants the scapegoats for all our national ills.
I grew up in Georgia. I well recall the spectacle of hooded “knights” marching through the town where I grew up in full white regalia, and I recall the venom spewed by the kleagles who passed out their filthy literature and cajoled their neighbors to join their “citizens committee.” They waived American flags, and they were proud of themselves.
They were not patriots. They were not defenders of American values. They were not champions of the Constitution nor protectors of the Republic. They were not Christian soldiers nor Christians of any sort. They were blind, vicious and ignorant thugs. They were what too many Americans are rapidly becoming.
I am reminded that many men claim to love their wives, yet regularly beat hell out of them. Such men, of course, do not love their wives at all. What they love is wielding the power to abuse the weak and defenseless and the convenience of a live-in victim. Punching a woman makes them feel good. It makes them feel strong, and it makes them feel superior.
The mindless Tea Party People and their fellow travelers claim to love the Constitution, yet they beat, bend, twist, humiliate and deny it at every turn. They love to pummel and abuse the weak and defenseless, and they despise the Constitution when it stands between them and their victims.
High sounding patriotic rhetoric, the pomp and circumstance of nationalistic parades, the glorification of violence and extra-judicial action—these have been the clothing of despots since the dawn of civilization. It is stupefying that they yet retain their charm for so many.
A three cornered hat does not a patriot make. A hateful flag with a coiled serpent conveys no sentiment that people of good will in the present day would care to communicate. These are the props of a mob movement. They are tools used to divide us, pit neighbor against neighbor and, for a heart filled with hate, justify the unjustifiable.
This week we have watched the haters among us molest the 4th Amendment, cheering on the Arizona legislature just as the frenzied rabble called for the crucifixion of Christ. Today, with new proposed legislation that seeks to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born on American soil, the haters launch a new assault on the 14th Amendment.
Abusers are angry people. They hate themselves, and they hate their lives. They want to blame someone. They want to take it all out on someone—someone who can’t hit back.
In days of old African Americans were the scapegoats. The race haters of the Old South claimed to love the Constitution too. They too were “taking their country back” and fighting to preserve American traditions.
Instead of three-cornered colonial hats or trucker style ball caps, they wore white, pointed hoods. They marched, they made noise and they intimidated. More often than not, in the Georgia of my youth, they got their way. Today’s racists, haters and enemies of freedom are hoping for the same result.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
So much in America is fake these days, and the most fake thing these days is all of the fake patriotism that is really just a mask for meanness and hate.
The “Doyle & Debbie” video was very interesting – it was my introduction to this show couple, who I knew performed at Station Inn but hadn’t heard there or elsewhere. I enjoyed the song’s satire!
As for the Tea Party interview, I found it informative. I’ve mentioned before that I’d had limited exposure to who they are & what they really stand for. The video clarified it well!
I’m still having difficulty with characterizing Tea Party people as “mindless” or being like the KKK. Sometimes their reasoning for their position is skewed or illogical, but generally I can see where they’re coming from — even tho’ I don’t agree with much of it. And even tho’ I’ve yet to see a T.P. person who wasn’t a WASP (except one interviewee sounded & looked possibly Hispanic), neither do I hear the obscenely racist talk the KKK was notorious for!
Please hear that I’m NOT trying to defend the T.P. I’m seeking to investigate objectively & to understand. And I find I do agree with two points. Until FOX News was begun, journalistic news media (print & broadcast) was indeed biased & liberal. I know this from grad sch research I did at Vanderbilt. Of course, FOX News goes too much the OTHER way!
And as for “global warming”, well, Al Gore can take his “g. w”. theory and stick it where the sun don’t shine! That’s the only “g.w.” there will be! Personal experience of progressively colder & fiercer winters informs me that instead the Fifth Ice Age is commencing.