Indecency. I can think of no other word to describe it. It is that ready willingness to debase one’s self by recklessly affronting the dignity of others, especially the weak and vulnerable. It is an embarrassment to decent people, people of good will, and it is becoming a national embarrassment for our country. It will destroy all that’s good about America if it does not stop.
The dictionary says decency involves conforming to a recognized standard of propriety, good taste and modesty in behavior and speech. It describes a decent person as one who values honesty and truthfulness, fairness and peace. There is indecency in stirring up scandal and bearing false witness. There is indecency in spreading hate.
Once confined to the shameful acts of isolated individuals and the obscene agendas of fringe groups like the KKK, indecency is now organized into a national political and social movement. It has dressed up in red, white and blue finery and rotted the minds of millions of Americans who have mistaken it for patriotism. Let me give you an example.
Yesterday morning there arrived in my email inbox a message containing a link to a video. It is so utterly indecent that I will not link to it here. It had been forwarded to me by a person whom I’ve always believed to be good person—a person who wants to be decent. But, there is nothing decent about the video.
Entitled “Day Laborers For Sale,” the video presents a comedy skit built on the utterly humorless concept of selling human beings, implicitly undocumented immigrant workers, in a Home Depot-like building supplies superstore.
The available “models” of day laborers, including a “fresh” one with a “wet back”, are lined up in the “day laborer aisle” with printed bar code labels pasted on their foreheads. These human beings are available for purchase, and they come with a guarantee. They may be returned if they “don’t work.”
It cannot be a mere accident that the “stars” of the video, who play the parts of two consumers who both purchase and return a day laborer, are white. The video is not at all funny. It is morally reprehensible. It is anathema to the ideals of freedom and human dignity , and deeply offensive to anyone who respects human life.
This charming video has been followed up by another video from the same producer entitled “Homo Depot.” That’s “HOMO” Depot. The promo line for the spin-off clip, as it appears on the producer’s website, reads “Homo Depot meets all your homo needs… and don’t forget to come in thru the back door.” Nice.
In my mailbox this morning was the twenty-seventh copy I have received to date of an email falsely suggesting that President Obama, being the closet Muslim that he is, has quite openly redecorated and dedicated the Oval Office as a shrine to the Prophet Mohammed. He has, the email says, removed all colors and symbols of Americanism and replaced them with Arabic and Muslim themes. In support of this ludicrous claim the email offers a photograph of Obama standing in the Oval office with no red, white or blue in sight.
This photograph is set in contrast to a half dozen photos of past presidents surrounded by American flags and a red, white and blue decor. Of course, none of these photos were actually taken in the Oval Office. They are photos from a variety of political campaign venues and sites of public speeches where presidents have traditionally been surrounded by American patriotic imagery.
The person who created the email deliberately, and indecently, created and published a lie. I suspect that the person who forwarded it to me was fully aware of its falsity, but the indecency of the lie was an insufficient restraint upon his willingness to foward it to others.
What I have described so far is merely the tip of the iceberg. It is an infinitesimally small sampling of the indecencies to be seen and heard everywhere today. No lie is too preposterous to be broadcast, and nothing so fantastical as to be disbelieved so long as it is also sufficiently vicious, titillating or obscene.
Millions of Americans casually generate suspicion and mistrust around innocent, patriotic American Muslims—sentiments which inevitably lead to hatred and all that hate produces. Millions more hurl invectives at pitiable immigrants whose desperation leads them to risk their very lives to come to America with the most meager vision of the American dream—the hope of working hard and earning a minimum wage.
Indecency is callous and cruel. It turns its back on the hungry, the sick and the suffering. It takes selfish pride in “me” and “mine” and damns community and human compassion. It is vicious, it is mean, and it is quickly becoming the American way!
Why is this happening? It is happening because fear and hate are profitable. They are profitable to health insurers who can kill reform of their industry by generating false fears of death panels and oppressive taxation to care pay for medical care for “illegals.” They are profitable to defense industry contractors who perpetuate needless war by pumping up public patriotic fervor with grandiose sounding lies about protecting our freedoms. Freedom is, of course, not free. Neither are missiles, rockets, tanks, trucks or generating false intelligence. They mean dollars in the purses of companies who produce them.
Indecency is profitable to banks and investment houses who defeat consumer protection legislation by persuading fools that the sky is falling and that there is a communist in the White House. It is profitable to the media messengers who stir up dark passions, fan the flames of hatred and play to the worst fears of their audience.
Indecency, however, is not profitable for you or for me. Like poison fruit it has its appeal, calling us to eat heartily. Like the serpent hanging in the garden it invites us to be as gods, but once eaten it destroys our lives and corrupts our souls. It will be the end of America.
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: The Fox New Channel is more dangerous than any carcinogen. It targets the brain, and it spreads faster than cancer. For your own safety and the mental health of the country I urge you to Turn Off Fox.
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Indecent is exactly the word for it. Smarmy also comes to mind. Watching fifteen minutes of Shawn Hannity and Glenn Beck leave me feeling like I need to wash my hands and clean my television screen with Lysol.