I hadn’t planned to write upon this topic.
However, the Commissar at The Politburo Diktat has stimulated in my mind a few thoughts I feel need to be said.
First however, I present the topic that stimulated this writing, then some history.
The topic:
The resolution on lynching passed today is being used by some very prominent bloggers on the left-wing to attack Republicans who did not co-sponsor the bill, despite the fact that the passage was unanimous.
With his typical, honorable self-consistency, the Commissar condemns this invocation of lynching by the left to score political points just as he did a prior summons of this horrific imagery that was utilized by the right.
A personal aside here, there are times I get so disgusted with what I read in blogworld I am tempted to walk away from this strange yet enthralling occupation completely. Then I find someone as honorable and self-consistent as Stephen, aka the Commissar, and it reaffirms my faith that there are more than a few out there who are not blinded to the point of insanity by their point of view.
To return from the personal aside, using the “non-sponsorship” of a bill seems rather weak as a way of attacking a Senator of a particular party, especially when there were members of BOTH parties on the “non-sponsorship” list.
What about the history I mentioned?
The history is personal.
I have written about this long ago, I’m not even sure it remains in the archives of this weblog due to my changing hosts and configurations a few times, so it bears repeating here.
The name of the town I grew up in was Southaven, incorporated as an actual town the year I graduated high school, before that it was a mere development named by a group of builders seeking to attract buyers.
Why the name Southaven?
It was south of a development in Tennessee named Whitehaven, right at the state line between Tennessee and Mississippi, built in the mid to late 1960s; a development the nature of which was changing during the 1970s when Southaven was created.
I will not insult your intelligence by saying why Whitehaven was named as it was, just outside the city limits of Memphis, Tennessee, in that turbulent era.
Such was the environment in which I was raised.
The year before I graduated high school, signs appeared around town telling of a KKK meeting in the grounds behind the Jaycee building, an intense irony if you know of the mission of the Jaycees.
This isn’t to condemn the Jaycees, however. I want to give an indication of the tenor of the times, even in 1980, in a supposedly more enlightened age that supposedly followed in the South upon the heels of the racist 1960s.
When I was a Boy Scout, I heard Scoutmasters routinely use a word once commonly used in the South of the United states to refer to people of dark skin color, the word that I find more offensive than any curse word in the English language. A word I cannot bring myself to type, and the thought of saying aloud brings to mind the taste of shit in my mouth. The only word that brings to mind such strong negative and offensive feelings in me.
What needs to be said?
It is this:
Now, as an adult in the early years of the 21st century, I see political hay being made utilizing the apologies for the absence of condemnation of atrocious behavior towards people, unforgivable acts performed solely because of the color of the skin of those people.
I hear people using the same atrocious word in a compound with “sand” to describe Arabs because a small number of Arabs have managed to perpetrate horrific acts that resulted in the deaths of over 4000 people, deaths of people who were not solely Americans.
I see people using the acts of a few to condemn the whole of a race, of a people, of a religion, as if the acts of individuals were sufficient to convict all. If that criterion were followed, then Western Civilization, the origin of those condemning others now, would have been eliminated half a millennium ago.
I read people with a bare grasp of simple arithmetic trying to use complex, multi-layered data presented in the form of statistics to prove their cases of war, genocide, and annihilation.
I see people with less than a high school understanding of the scientific method trying to use the exaggerated statements of a press only interested in sensational headlines to disprove the assertions of scientists who have spent years studying problems and searching for solutions to those problems.
Everyone can now throw rocks at anyone, because everyone is now a self-appointed expert:
Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness because I say I am
And I said gentlemen, and I use that world loosely
I will testify for you, I’m a gun for hire, I’m a saint, I’m a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like
What’s it worth to you?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
and winning, winning, winning
-Don Henley, The Garden of Allah
And upon reading and hearing the chorus of apologists, those participating in the pathetic little circus, only interested in winning, winning, winning, I hear this song:
Big man, pig man,
ha ha, charade you are
You well heeled big wheel,
ha ha, charade you are
And when your hand is on your heart
You’re nearly a good laugh
Almost a joker
With your head down in the pig bin
Saying “keep on digging”
Pig stain on your fat chin
What do you hope to find?
When you’re down in the pig mine
You’re nearly a laugh
You’re nearly a laugh
But you’re really a cry.
-Pink Floyd, Pigs (Three Different Ones)
I have both witnessed and been subject to discrimination.
It is not a matter of politics. It is not a matter of winning.
It is merely a matter of mindless hate.
Just as are many of the issues being used by both sides, supposed fundamentals that are really peripherals, nonetheless suitable for hyping and using to sharpen their spears of their partisans.
I wish I could say “how pathetic” and move on to the adult discussions that need to occur.
Sadly, however, the truly necessary discussions are drowned out by those interested in winning, winning, winning, despite the charades they are.
Left-wing, right-wing, I don’t give a fucking damn who “wins”.
I just want my country to be successful.
I don’t foresee success, or even survival, by following the path we are currently traveling.
Yet I do not foresee success by listening to the left-wing, because they offer no viable alternative.
It cannot be history until you stop living it.
We cannot refuse an opportunity to appear to “make points” by making hay over the atrocities we committed in the past over race.
We cannot even get over race issues even now, 30 years later.
We cannot even get over issues related to “church versus state”, after over 215 years of nationhood based upon separation of the secular from the religious.
It cannot be history until you stop living it.
Race-based discrimination is not the only mindlessness I’m referring to here.
Do your own math.
When will we move on to address the real problems facing us, putting aside the “my side should win or else” mentality of internal politics that is blinding us to the external threats?
We are on the road to our own destruction, and that destruction will arise from within, just as it has done for every other seemingly strong civilization. The list is long: the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans… and those are just the ones familiar to us insufficiently educated in truly world history, those of us in the West.
Read your history, and heed the warnings you will find, if you choose to see beyond your own partisan short-term gain.
Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion, personal, politics
