Really Super Scientific Poll

Tags

bat shit crazies, Neo-cons, polling, right wing wackos

As health care legislation goes into effect, and the world seemingly goes on somehow without threat of impending disaster, I got to wondering about the wonderful world of wonky. So, if I’m wondering, that leads to writing, and here you are, reading. Sounds so normal doesn’t it?

Mere months ago it seems, the world was confined in its wonkiness to a handful of bizzaro critters. A few Foxy pundits, a radio maven, and a few somehow elected officials who drank the kool-aid way back in the days of Reagan.

But of late, the numbers seem to be burgeoning into globs of gook which tend to stick to everyone’s fingers no matter how much hand sanitizer one uses. One needs more than one’s own individual digits to count ’em all, even if one is blessed/cursed with a genetic anomaly of extra toes and tips.

So it seemed to me important somehow to determine whether we are in the midst of a crazy infestation of nuttery, or whether on the fingerless other hand we are being pawed by hordes of ethics lacking meanies. Should we hospitalize ’em or jail ’em in other words?

So hence, the poll. I’ve been commissioned to run this shebang enterprise by none other than myself, since so far, the great minds of planet earth have not seen fit to recognize my prowess in such matters, like you yourself have. And, you can be sure that the results will be spread far and wide.

I have it on good authority, that my results will be published on nothing less than ABC’s Evening News with Diane Sawyer, iffin’ she has the room, and iffin’ she has the extra time when not pretending to say mornin’ to JuJu on GMA each err, morning. Otherwise, they will be posted on the front door of the Troy Store, Troy Mills, Iowa, much as Luther posted his 95 complaints against Mother Church upon the door of some German house of worship.

Now to the poll. In some cases the choice will be easy. I mean, who can escape the near certainty that Ann Coulter is a money grubbing opportunist who believes none of the swill dripping from her ruby lips? I mean a more caricatured person could never be found. She is a cookie cutter, paper doll facsimile of everything one would describe as a right wing wacko nut job right?

Don’t look for ethics or compassion or even a human response. She is queen of the racist/sexist/slur in extremism. She laughs with glee, wringing her hands in delight, as the sarcasm drips from each tooth. She cackles with joy as beer-swilling, shotgun carryin’, grease monkey dudes slap down a fist full of dirty dollars onto the counter of a bookstore check out (hey Daddy, that place had more books than the school libary! Some had pitchers but most dint. Lots of words Daddy; I felt smart just walking by them).

Then, on the other side, there are difficult cases, such as Glenn Beck. Is he opportunist or is he gosh darn crazier than bat shit (why that is crazy I am not certain but the Intertubes like the phrase a lot)? It’s hard to say. Listening to his diatribes is a bit like being high on a good reefer and slugging down a nice vintage of Boonsfarm red. You can understand when you are stoned, but dude, it makes no sense the next morning. (Not that I have ANY experience, mind you!)

So, that is where we are. A long list of candidates for stealin’ from the stupid or pathetic “they’re coming to take me away haha, to the funny farm, where life is beautiful. . . ” types. Your call.

I’ve compiled a list for your convenience. You may of course add more wackos as you think of them. (It makes my head hurt once I get past twenty or so anyhow.) You may use the following abbreviations:  OS= Opportunistic Slut or BSC=Bat Shit Crazy

The List:

Ann Coulter

Glenn Beck

Sean Hannity

Bill O’Reilly

Michele Malkin

Michelle Bachmann

Steve King

Jim Inhofe

Jim Demitt

Rick Santorum

Pat Robertson

Rush Limbaugh

John Boehner

Mitch McConnell

Sam Brownbeck

Tom Colburn

Bill Kristol

John McCain

Sarah Palin (or any of her clan for that matter)

Dick Cheney

Liz Cheney

Like I said, there are probably a lot I’m missing, but you just add them in, with the proper appellation and we’ll count ’em all.

Once in possession of a clear understanding of our enemy we shall know how to proceed. I rather like the idea of “re-education camps” but I’ll settle for permanent relocation destinations–kinda like a Carnival Cruise to Australia back in the day what with Botany Bay and all that. “Damn you to hell Kirk!” For the crazies, I’m not sure that a very large padded room with lots of Kens and Barbies might not be sufficient to keep our truly demented happy and carefree for years. Throw in a couple of slinkys and play dough cans, and we can party like it’s 1957.

A representative number should be probed, prodded, poked, and otherwise electrodaly examined for evidence of viral or genetic drift. We need to nip that in the bud as it were. The pharmaceuticals can argue over who gets dibs on the “antidote” therapy, should we decide to help them out of their delusions.

So, get out those pencils, sharpen and begin. You have 30 minutes to complete, but remember, your intuition works best. Don’t over think your answers. I am allowing three “Not sure, with explanation” per submission. Let the number crunching begin!

Some Days I Just Wanna Hurl

Tags

child abuse, child pageants, nature shows

I had a brilliant post all ready for you today. I was putting the finishing touches on it, when I meant to hit a backspace I guess, and somehow, hit something else, and the entire post disappeared. All that was left was the title. I went immediately to the drafts and reclaimed it, but apparently whatever I hit by mistake, wipes everything but the title.

I tried to recreate it, but as with most of my great satirical work, it flows naturally and is not something I can call up in memory again. It was a doozy. Just so you know and can feel properly sad for me.

This happened to me a few times on Blogger and was the reason I left that blogging format. It too had a draft saved that updates every few minutes, but when you hit the mystery key, all bets are off and it sends your hard thought material into a black hole never to be seen again. Perhaps tomorrow I can juice up and try again.

Until then, just a couple observations.

I can’t remember why, but children and beauty pageants again raised their ugly head within range of my senses and I become incensed. Am I the only one who finds this type of exploitation nothing less than child abuse?

Am I the only one who finds little girls dressed up with false eyelashes, rouged cheeks and Vegas style clothes, creepy?

Am I the only one who gets that slightly overweight housewives are trying to recapture (gain?) the glamorous life they never had and get rich off the backs of their babies, through this vicarious medium?

Am I the only one who find these kids pathetic emotional wrecks trying desperately to please increasingly insane adults they are forced to live with and obey?

Save me all the “she loves it, and the minute she doesn’t we will stop” nonsense. No kid “wants” to do this. Having seen just about enough of the “behind the scenes” drama of these events to last a lifetime–probably two episodes of now defunct child pageant shows, it is obviously not true that the kids “love it.”

They whine, they cry, they fight with other kids. They know they are being treated as pampered pets shown off for filthy lucre. End of story. Stop the abuse. Stop showing these things on TV. Stop promoting them in your town. Call protective child services.

Speaking of which, the Contrarian and I watch a fair amount of the nature shows from PBS, Discovery and NGO. Mostly they are wonderful and we are always amazed beyond words, that as long as we’ve lived, watched these shows, read, and otherwise been awake, they manage to show us species we have never seen before.

So far so good. Nothing too, can compare with the advances in photography and zooming and so forth, allowing those charged with capturing the animals on film, to do so close up and in detail. Time and again we are advised that “no one has ever witnessed this behavior in the wild before.”

Okay, as I said, so far so good. Then why pray documentarians must you assault my senses with all the killing? I know there are predators and prey. I know that the prey don’t gather their dead from the night before and lay them out in grocery store display for the hungry predators. But I can pretend can’t I?

Why do you need to show me all the gory details? My cute little Bambi like gazelle being tossed in the air and strangled by the mean old lion? I mean what is with you perverts?

I watch such shows because life is mean and often ugly and reality is a bitch. I come to your sweet nature show for a smile and warmth and the ever present baby animal cuteness. Meerkats to the rescue. Give me orangutans and silly chimps. Give me crazy leaping mountain goats, and dancing rain forest blue-footed boobies or whatever. I did not come to see mayhem, however “real” it is.

I spent most of last night’s foray into the world of amphibians with my eyes shut, and frankly I don’t get that upset about creepy things getting eaten. But following a poor water buffalo for a week as he slowly died from Komodo Dragon germs was a bit much.  I don’t watch nature shows for “reality” dammit!

And as for all the rest of you out there, who are annoying me at any given moment–well just stop. You know who you are. Just freakin’ shut your pie hole for a day okay? This wordpress screw up of my Pulitzer Prize winning satirical post now gone for all time down the black hole of Calcutta has really got me P I S S E D. So pay attention!

The Disturbing Truth

Tags

abuse of children, Benedict, cover-up, pedophelia, Roman Catholic Church

One need not go far into the blogosphere, or to any media outlet for that matter, to find a plethora of stories about the Vatican and the problem that will not go away–the abuse of children at the hands of church clergy.

Indeed, there are times when I can say, that all that can be said has been, and it’s time to put this sad chapter behind us and move on. But, the stories seem unending, and just exactly when you think it’s “old news” new information comes forth.

The Vatican, in its usual and current frame of mind, tends to take the “backs up against the wall” mentality, and to attack the messenger. Recently, Vatican spokesmen, have decried the “witch hunt” mentality of the NYTimes and other media for their remorseless attack on the institution of the Roman Catholic Church.

That may or may not be true, but alas, it changes nothing; certainly not the facts that continue to leak forth from the hidden nuclear waste bin where they have been secretly confined to for so long.

Some cast severe blame on Benedict himself, mostly for his inaction while a Cardinal, head of the Vatican Department dealing with the crisis. Some defend the Pope, claiming that many of the charges against him are over blown and only tell a partial story.

This is not about who is to blame or what is to blame. It is not about matching numbers from one faith tradition to another, and concluding that one has “more” deviants than the other. It is not about our Christian duty to feel compassion and empathy for those that so deeply lose their way that they would do such acts.

It is, and always was about the cover up. To the victims, of course, it is about more, but to the rest of us, ex-Roman Catholic, and Catholic alike, Protestants, and agnostics, and atheists, and those of other traditions entirely,  it remains mind-bogglingly incomprehensible that a CHURCH could under ANY  circumstances come to the conclusion that silence was the best answer to such a hideous crime.

Have we so completely forgotten Jesus’ teachings? Do we forget how he gave such special favored place in the world to the “little ones?” Did we miss that such abuse was completely and utterly devoid of anything Christian? Did we push aside that our purpose is to live out our faith in ways that signal to others that there is a better way of life?

All seems forgotten in this mixed up world of due respect for church law and procedure, and the rights of the accused. All seemed forgotten in the desire to “save” the soul of the miscreant who would do such things. Could such a one as these actually preach anything that would be worth listening to? Could they be admired in any fashion whatsoever, when they committed such mind-numbing assault on children?

You may make all the fine statements you wish about a “priest is a priest forever” and the human soul is always redeemable. Those things may in fact be utterly true, but that changes nothing. The ONLY proper and right response to such allegations was always the same–turn the information over to proper authorities and cooperate fully.

The religious hierarchy of the Roman Church has the right and means to offer all the therapeutic treatment it wishes. It was always free to reassign during the interim, any priest accused. It was always free to do all in its power to assist victims and their families.

What it was not free to do was to hide behind the phrase, “taking care of our own dirty laundry behind closed doors, much as any family would wish to.” It was not entitled to hide behind the defense of “the atheists/Satan/secularists are out to get us, and always have been. ”

This was a moral outrage of monumental proportions, on a scale that at least approaches the inhumanness of the Holocaust, and other genocidal actions throughout history. This was the often permanent destruction of children, the most vulnerable and most sinless among us.

Somewhere within church culture, offending priests determined that it was “okay” and some how justifiable to pursue such conduct rather than turn themselves into bishops and other clergy and beg for help. One can only shudder at the “excuses” and “explanations” offered to both themselves and to their victims as they found some foundation for their crimes.

The public is outraged, and frankly I cannot fathom how the Vatican could have thought it would react otherwise. There seems, upon any theory, no possible resolution other than to report such crimes to the police and as I said, cooperate fully. Surely our entire criminal justice system is based on the theory that a crime is a crime. Punishment is tailored to the individual and their personal level of responsibility. But we cannot, indeed, we should not, decide to pull certain malefactors from the system because of who they are.

This is and remains the reason that people like myself cannot let go of what happened. All those who are so misguided as to think that this “transfer, treatment, and forget it” mentality was right, need to be removed from their positions, NOW. This is not an area of grey, it’s as black and white as it can get as I see it.

That such things have occurred to other clergy in other faith traditions, is not in dispute, and we respond with the same clear direction. TURN THEM IN.

For as surely as God forgives his misbegotten priests and pastors, and all those who do grievous wrong to human beings of any age, he weeps for the pain inflicted upon the innocents and demands that we do everything to stop this. WE have not, and we are deeply shamed that in this day and age, we prove but again that we are far far from the mind of Christ.

Road Signs

Tags

church, faith, God, Jesus, Lent, ministry, spiritual path, spirituality

Psalm 143: 8 says:

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you;

Show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you.

I read this one yesterday, and it has stayed with me since. It has brought to my attention a nagging, unvoiced concern that has been fomenting within me for some weeks.

For me, this Lenten season has been bittersweet in many ways. It is not at all what I expected, yet, perhaps it has been exactly what it should be–a time of intense thought and prayer, deep meditation on things I perhaps did not expect.

As the harsh winter bore on, and I was forced to cancel more and more of my church ministry activities, a certain almost imperceptible calm set in–indeed a near happiness. I puzzled over this, as you might expect, and dismissed it as some temporary euphoria of “acceptance” of how things were, rather than what I wished.

Yet, I could not get away from the nagging feeling that I was somehow relieved. I have pushed back those feelings for some weeks now, dismissing them as I said, as mere attempts to live with reality. But there was more to it than that.

I have not the doubt that is normal to believers–the doubts which are both real and necessary about faith itself. In fact, doubting is well established in the bible as normal and part of the journey. I’m not feeling that, at this time and place.

What I am doubting are my choices to involve myself in so many ministries at my church. I’ve not been able to fulfill my responsibilities well during this winter season, but that is but a symptom I suspect. What continues to irritate is the feeling that I have in some real manner welcomed the excuse. Not at all consciously, but subconsciously, and now, it is bubbling upward into the day.

I am constructed thusly it seems. After discussing this whole matter with the Contrarian, I was at pains to agree, that I am likely to rush into things full bore as it were, only to find myself enmeshed in more than I can chew, to mix a metaphor or two. My usual response is to simple “disappear” back into the oblivion of anonymity.

I suggested to him, “Sometimes I think, perhaps I should just go to St. Pius’s and backbench there.” The Contrarian’s eyes grew wide. “You would consider going to the Catholic church again?” “No, not in a formal sense,” I replied, “it just represents the feeling I have that I am not up to all this busyness right now.”

“Perhaps that’s what you should discuss with your priest then, instead of just walking away.” And in fact, that is probably as close to being correct as I can imagine. It is the right thing to do. “Look,” he pondered, “you are just in a place in your journey where you aren’t able to give, just receive. There is nothing wrong with that is there?” “No,” I reflectively answered.

Was this my answer? The one I have been praying for most seriously? Gone from a general unease to a focusing in on the issue of which path–was Christ speaking to me through my beloved? I don’t know the answer yet, and am reticent to accept the first answer that seems to my liking.

What I discover, is that the journey is fraught with obstacles. Some of them are obvious–the dark night of the soul, that coldness that comes when we question whether there is a God and if he/she is listening. There is the obstacle of time and place, and the fact that sometimes faith and church don’t coincide, nor does  a faith tradition meet the needs of the heart and soul. 

Now I discover more obstacles. Is my crisis one of pure laziness, selfish desire to not be burdened with a calendar of responsibilities? Or is it simply that God and I need to walk alone at this time, deepening our bond? I met a nun once, and worked with her for a couple of weeks in New Mexico.  A harder working woman I never met. Yet I wondered when she got the time to spend with God, quietly and not while exhausted.

No doubt the same could be said of Mother Theresa and countless others who devote every waking moment to the service of those in need. I am so woefully inadequate to all this. My rather paltry efforts so far are laughable by comparison, yet I am feeling pinched in my spiritual life.

But perhaps I’m supposed to be. Perhaps comfort is a sign that I am taking an easy way. Jesus most certainly did not take an easy way. I can’t imagine him getting up and saying, “heck boys, lets go swimming today and play some soccer, I’m not into all this healing and preaching today.”

Talk about putting on the mind of Christ!  Like John, I am unfit to tie his sandals. And so, I ponder further. Think of me when you pray today, for I am sorely in need of guidance. Saying it straight out seems a start, but truly I lament:  Show me the road that I must walk.

Murmurings From the Walls

Tags

Barack Obama, employment, GOP, health care reform, Iowa, Republicans, right wing extremists, same-sex marriage

Note to self: when night dreaming (wakefully contemplating the day past) and an idea for a blog post comes along, write it down. You will surely forget it by morning. And I did. So this ain’t it.

I’ve checked my mailbox, both snail and e, and so far, no letter from the President. He does contact me from time to time you know, asking for my help. I do the best I can.  But, sure that the letter is most likely just “lost in the mail” which means its not lost at all, but IN THE MAIL. . . I thought it best to give my advice right away, so there would be no delay. Time is running short.

The Reuglicans are promising that the American (right wing barely humans)  public will rise up in November and silly slap the prez for his arrogance in actually taking care of people and their health. Well, not so fast there partner. I’m thinking a new sheriff is in Dodge and the old rules may not apply.

I got to thinking about this as I thought about what happened in my own dear state of Iowa over the same-sex marriage brouhaha that occurred last year. There were all manner of threats of throw the bums out, repeal, replace, reproach all those deemed responsible. Much of it is was silly, and illegal frankly.

The truth is there is really only one way to alter the decision in Iowa and that is by constitutional amendment. And realistically, nobody sees that as likely, and even if it is, it wouldn’t get to a vote anytime before 2013. Now that is nearly four long years since the case was decided. And guess what? Time matters.

Time is the enemy of those who have a burning issue, no matter what it is. As we have pointed out before, Merikans have a very short attention span. The rabid crazies? No, they eat breath and sleep their issue, but they are a tiny gnat in a tornado. The majority of citizenry is on to other things–vacation spots, 401K outlays, summer soccer school, and what movie to watch tonight.

Moreover, the wackos promised utterly dire consequences from the same-sex decision. The state would be overrun by swishy girly men and crass talkin’ lesbos, all here to recruit, take up residence, and otherwise transform Iowa into a paradise of gayness, all part, mind you, of the international gay agenda, which any self-respecting homophobe can tell you all about, if’in you ask politely.

So as time goes on and nothing awful happens, meaning the doorbell isn’t ringing off the door frame requesting your children be given up to the only real lifestyle that matters, and as the time for planting violets approaches, the argument grows thin. I mean, explain to me Mr/Mrs/Ms wacko exactly why I need to drop everything, expend millions, all to prevent that nice couple that lives three blocks over from marrying?

Same thing with the Health care reform law. Time will prove out that nothing much has changed insofar as those things one holds near and dear–one’s sacrosanct possession of one’s private insurance (for them that has it of course). No tax increases, no ticket for your next checkup in 2012 as the first available date, no refusal to treat your asthma–you smoked away your lungs, tough titty buster–breathe as best you can.

While I’d like there to be a few more months to let this sink in, I think that a good deal of the fear and confusion will be decidedly forgotten come November.

So, Barack, my man, let me tell you what you really need to do. Everything and anything to produce jobs. I just told you that these people have short attention spans. And doing without that new WII game is getting tiresome. People want jobs, so they can buy things. They do need jobs to pay the bills and feed their kids too of course. So listen up and dag gum it find some jobs.

I propose that you start tons of public works. It wouldn’t be permanent employment, but they won’t grump, they will be happy to have the dough in hand.

Oh and a couple of times a month, travel to some nice niche of Merika, preferably where there is some purple mountain majesty, or oceans white with foam. Give a rousing speech ‘splainin’ all this Washington stuff, and take lots of pics. They love the keepsakes.

I’m thinking that the Dems will be doin’ just fine if you do that. Who was that other party? I think I’ve forgotten their name already. . . Re. . .something, GO. . .let me remember? All I recall is that they campaigned on NO and pretty much didn’t play nicely with others. And you remember what your 3rd grade teacher said about THAT don’t you?  But on the up side, they will be forever immortalized in the dictionary, under two words, irrelevant and cypher.

Cruising the Inter-tubes

Tags

comspiracy, Internet, psychology, right wing extremism, sociology, teabaggers

Yesterday, we chatted a bit about the extreme right wing and whether this expression of hatred and vitriol was something unusual in American politics.

I concluded at least, that it was not new, but that our history was replete with examples of extremism, often resulting in rioting and outright violence.

Although not unusual, it bears, as we suggested continuing watching and every effort should be made to diffuse and to speak against such lawless and ugly rhetoric and activity.

Yet, the perception is clearly that these are extraordinary times. While historians understand that there is not much profit in reviewing past events too quickly, since we are trapped in our own response to it, the troubling thought that this is different does not go away easily.

It is profitable, I believe, to look at what powers this phenomenon. Without doubt, as we go back in time and review past instances of public outcry, we are awed at how it could have happened at all. Just think about it. Towns and cities were islands, camped within vast tracts of land, mostly farmed. Distances were traversed by horse and whatever vehicle a horse might pull.

Under such circumstances, it is amazing that the flames of revolution or civil insurrection could be kept fanned. People were often left their own devices, unsure if others in other places were also working for the cause or, in fact, if they were lonely sojourners in the land of change. Courage was at a premium in those times.  It required courage to act, seemingly alone, trusting that others were doing the same in far off places.

Today, the landscape has changed unbelievably. We live in a  technological wonderland of instant communication. This has its pluses no doubt–how General Washington would have loved to be able to communicate so quickly with forces and political backers. But the downside is just as mind blowing.

I speak of the crazy. In years gone by, the crazy person, if he did not suspect he was loonie, at least acknowledged that nobody else much cottoned to his opinions or beliefs. He knew he was an outsider, knew that most people got on with life in a much different manner than his mind directed him.

He lived in his own world, where he might well feel largely ineffectual. His actions were limited as well. In the best of all worlds, he got some inkling that he was not quite “right” and began to explore the possibility that he might need help. At least, he might admit that he was one sick bastard.

But that is no longer the case. I would not want to test out the hypothesis, but I’m fairly certain that it would be true, that every certifiable wacko can find other wackos just like himself. How you ask? Why, via the Internet to be sure.

Here, one can test the waters of acceptability, and frankly, one can be as outrageous as one wants, and all fairly anonymously. Soon, other vermin extrude from the woodwork and give credence and validity to our nut case. And that is how the ball starts rolling. Surely every utter lunatic can find 500 more just like himself without much effort. No doubt crazies troll the Internet looking for others like themselves.

And, no doubt they find each other. And they re-enforce the worst in each other. They commiserate in their passions, and discuss how their putrid worldview is actually correct. Only they are reading the Bible correctly, only they have seen the intricate connections between various groups existing around the globe. They see the connections, they see the conspiracy, and they are patted on the back for being “one of the ones who get it.”

It is the curse of the Internet, the ability to give strange backward bat-shit crazy people, the confidence to go out and act out, confident that there are many others like them. That must mean they are right, right?

As we all are busy linking up and sending material to each other, secured from “the Internet,” we would all do well to remember that anyone can say anything. Anyone can make any website look “official” or legitimate. Anyone can create any number of bogus “resumes,” claiming to be doctors, lawyers, or nuclear physicists.

We must be ever vigilant of the content of what we peruse, but more than that, we must realize that every wacko site, we happen up by accident that outrages us with its content, is in fact, lauded by hundreds if not thousands, as speaking truth. If you don’t believe me, then actively look at the worst of the right wing rags.

You will read comments that will blow you mind. As one woman put it regarding the claims that the teabaggers were shouting Ni**er at Congressman Lewis and fa**ot to Congressman Franks:

“Why,” she said, everyone knows that the worst violence comes from the left. I’m sure that if there was any of that kind of thing on the steps of Congress, they were left wing plants who were trying to stir things up. That is what they do.”

The woman had no evidence of this of course. But her worldview prompts her to assume that the other side is the perpetrator of bad things, not her side. Her side is simply free speech. No matter the ugliness of the slogans slapped upon the signs held aloft by ranting slathering teabaggers.

Indeed, the crazies today are dangerous, and we must do all we can to call them out on their violence-inducing speech. But we must also remember, that they do not change their minds easily. Not since they can find each other so easily in the shadows of the Inter-tubes.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times. . . .

Tags

American Militia groups, History, insurrection, red state/blue state, revolution, right wing extremism, violence

If you keep up even minimally on what’s happening politically today, surely you have heard the remark, “I’ve never witnessed so much hatred and division as exists in America today.”

Just as surely you can point to myriad of examples of violent, threatening, ugly rhetoric, often offered by people who, we would like to think, are mature and thoughtful people. They are now people who claim leadership in our land.

Teabaggers spat up and spewed racial and homophobic epithets against members of Congress whom they disagreed with on health care. Plenty of right wing sites are urging civil disobedience in the form of vandalism against politicians who don’t follow their ideology. Sarah Palin urges followers to “reload” and provides a map with targeted Democrats in the next election, all artfully defined by being real targets with cross hairs.

There is much to be said for claiming that something terribly wrong is afoot in America. It perhaps is time to step back and assess this claim.

If we broaden the horizon just a bit to include the greater world we live in and take a long long perspective, we can see that over time we have progressed in what we consider ethical and just. We need not go back that many centuries before we find life for the vast majority, mean, hard, and short. Life was lost with such regularity that it came to be the norm. We are all shocked when we see the numbers who died of plagues. We count it a disaster when a few thousand die, nowhere do we contemplate losing 1/3  or 1/2 of a city’s population.

So progress we have. We have (exception to Texas and other’s who murder with lust still) largely moved away from execution, and from things like torture (exception Bushites and other neo-cons who find this stuff “necessary”). We step by step reflect a country and a world that feels some responsibility to feed, house, clothe, and otherwise care for each other.

I said step by step, and surely many of us decry that we are so slow. Progress is uneven, here, as elsewhere. We are deeply shamed to find many many countries far ahead of us in social care of its citizenry.

Looking at this country alone, we can find numerous examples of when we were “ugly” and vile. We rioted, and we warred and we insurrected against tyranny. Could we have been more divided as when we debated and urged, coerced and cajoled our fellow citizens into armed insurrection against the British?

How about when we, without much thought at all, decimated the American Indian population? No doubt there was opposition to such inhuman treatment of others. We brought slavery into our land and created such a split in our people that a war ensued that took tens of thousands of lives and forever scarred the emotional psyche of this nation.

We interred Japanese, we abused and used new immigrants to this land, we abused the poor who fled the dust bowl of the Midwest in the thirties. We hounded perfectly good Americans because of supposed ties to Communism. We hung blacks from trees in protest of their being treated as full citizens. The list is nearly endless. We have not even begun to explore the genocides/tyrannies we allowed/helped/encouraged in foreign lands, all in pursuit of our “national” interest.

Yet, I have no doubt that there was strong opposition to all these policies and behaviors. With some it was self-evident such as the Civil and Revolutionary wars. The turmoil that ensued  during the civil rights era points this out dramatically. Who can forget the use of national reserve units to preserve the peace against lawless “police” in the South?  Talk about ugly times!

All of this is not to say that we can ignore what is happened before our eyes today. It is dangerous and bears careful vigilant watching. Rhetoric will sooner or later turn to violent acts on the part of some. But this has happened in the past, and we as a nation, I believe fundamentally reject these “solutions.”

We can talk the talk, but we are not really prepared (most of us anyway) to walk that walk. We are not prepared to pick up guns and fight in the streets. More important, we are not disposed to allow others to do it either. I predict that at the first real evidence of racial/sexual/ethnic violence that appears organized, this country will respond with abject horror and revulsion.

A Republican strategist suggested yesterday that what was supposed to be Obama’s Waterloo, has turned into the Republican Waterloo. They put all their eggs in one basket–kill the bill. They failed, and now, they have nothing to show but total irrelevancy. They are more and more tying themselves to this threatening movement of malcontents, motivated by a dozen or more individual gripes.

When one of these groups explodes, the Republicans will self-emulate. They will look shocked, panic, and swear they never intended any of this. But their failure to step in and disassociate themselves from such ugly speak will forever paint them as the party of violent extremism.

And, finally we will turn out those among us who hate and use hate to gain political power and advantage. The Bachmanns, the Kings, the Tancredos, the Inhofes, the DeMitts, all of them, gone in a funeral pyre of outrage that they actually let it happen.

People will simply turn away, shaking their heads in disgust–“this is not what we meant” they will say. And those of us who saw this coming? We will hold our tongues as our brothers and sisters return to sanity–those that do, and we will sit down and begin the business of governing once more. The rest? The teabaggers and other militant militia types? Why they will be dead or in jail, where they belong–because in the end, they are nothing but criminals who followed their natural inclinations, masking as patriots.

It will go down historically as another moment in time when America was inexplicably close to insanity. Somehow our better angels as Lincoln said, prevail. We shall to.

But keep your eyes open. Remain vigilant!