Hunter puts his whole hand on something I’ve been struggling to put my finger on:
The hostility goes back to what I was pondering in mySunday essay:
that the aggressive, furious attempts to even shut down the possibility
of a political discussion isreminiscent of the anti-desegregation
movement, a point that becomes noteworthy when you aggregate the
motives of the “birthers”, who loudly deny Obama’s citizenship, the
“teabaggers”, who loudly declare that the same taxes they paid under
Bush are tyrannical under Obama, the “deathers”, who loudly assert that
healthcare reform is secret plot to euthanize seniors and others that
the government deems unproductive.
Emphasis mine. The irrationality and rage and the arguments that don’t reflect anything to do with the situation remind me EXACTLY of the way people talk about busing and school boundaries and the old neighborhood. In old movies you’ll see the signs: “We Love Our Children! We Hate Busing!” Which love of your children has about as much to do with the question of segregation as Hitler has to do with health care; it’s all about resistance to the idea that things are going to change.
A.
No, not really. It’s all about the idea that people who don’t look just like the one in your mirror are, somehow, not really people.
Pretty damn endemic stuff. Among the Native Americans, every clan’s name for itself (I’m not going to go as far as saying tribes ’cause we’re starting to find out we had, in our typical Eurotrash arrogance, misclassified that level of solidarity/similarity) meant “The People.”
Historically, starting with about the Iroquois League, the “conquering heroes” adopted the names their “tame Indians” used for “wild Indians”. Every single one was a hostile designation, and not a one meant “The People.”
Sound familiar? Read Tarzan of the Apes — the chapters on the Waziri, particularly.
In places where there’s not skin color to discriminate by, people invent shit: sects of religion, for example.
We are, at heart and bottom, a selfish and churlish species.
the 1980’s are the new 1950′.
I’m forced to wonder if the birthers and the like know that their crap is crap and are just trying to beat eggs or if they actually believe their own crap without knowing that it’s crap.
If there was any doubt, watch the video of McCaskill’s town meeting where a white man crosses the aisle, yanks a post of Rosa Parks out of a black woman’s hands and rips it up.
That action had nothing to do with health care and everything to do with racism.
One of the facebook folks I have been arguing with about healthcare says Obama’s plan is not abouth ealthcare at all, but abaout “reparations and wealth redistribution.”
To quote the Fat and Frothy One, “It was always about race.”
losing is hard after having absolute heaven for 8 years.
“losing is hard after having absolute heaven for 8 years.”
They were promised a permanent majority too. “Losing” that’s gotta sting. But people of that mindset don’t turn on their leaders, so their free-floating anxiety and anger has to focus on something — or someone — else.