Overheard From Another World

[filkertom]

The biggest reason I haven't indulged in as much political stuff lately is that there has been so much outrageous bullshit happening that I would spend all my time documenting it. (I follow a number of excellent blogs:

• AmericaBlog
• Crooks and Liars
• Daily Kos
• Atrios' Eschaton
• Firedoglake
• Glenn Greenwald at Salon
• Digby's Hullabaloo
• Think Progress

They really seem to have their fingers on the pulse, and they link to lots of other excellent blogs when someone gets a scoop or an insight that needs more notice. I also get e-mailings from Salon.com and the Huffington Post.)

In any case, not as much politicking, 'cause life's too short. But some stuff just cries out for attention. Like this:

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become Republicans….”

Read the whole story, if you've had your morning caffeine. In my view, it's symptomatic of The Great Problem, the one that's really been plaguing the whole country since 9/11, and you can probably guess it: fear. So many people afraid of so much. Especially afraid of what they perceive to be different from them. Fear paralyzes them, prevents them from seeing and admitting the truth, makes them easier to control.

Sad, really.

What do you perceive as the biggest problem we face at this point? Any damn thing, just be serious about it. It's easy to say some politician's or celebrity's name or a bad TV show as a quick one-liner, but if you actually have reasons, please lay 'em out.

ETA: A couple of people suggested I add Digby's Hullabaloo to the blogs, and they're right. I usually just read it by way of links from Atrios, but it's truly brilliant.

Comments

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

Three things, really, all of which have been mentioned.

1. Fear -- or rather, the manipulation of legitimate concern by politicians and demagogues to keep people constantly afraid and tense and willing to go along with anything to Keep Us Safe, when in reality all safety at any time is nothing but illusion. I would throw in people's willingness to allow themselves to be manipulated and scared. The only legitimate way to live life, in my opinion, is fearlessly; a craven fear of death is unworthy of human beings. We all die; staying alive at the cost of one's (or one's national) ideals and raison d'etre seems to miss the point.

2. Ignorance. People are ignorant of the basic ideals on which this society -- on which human culture in general -- was built. They don't know what's in their country's Constitution, fer cryin' out loud. Heck, some (not all or most, I'll note) fundamentalists who claim to want to order their lives and society by the Bible are ignorant about, y'know, what it says other than Genesis 1-2, some passages in Leviticus and so forth, and seem to think that God speaks/thinks in Elizabethan English. Even more worrisome than ignorance, though, is a growing willingness to remain ignorant -- instead of realizing one's ignorance and educating themselves, people either deny their ignorance or realize it but refuse to recorgnize it as a problem/failing ... even take pride in what they don't know, insisting that their lack of learnin' equates to horse sense, so, heh, logically, the dumber you are the smarter you are. Cue migraine ...

3. As madrona noted, above: The marginalization of moderation. The inability of a growing number (or at least a louder number) on all sides (but mainly on the Right) to view dissent as honest disagreement, as anything more than malice and ill will. Too many people seem to think that their views' correctness is so self-evident and obvious that any disagreement must be a result of bad faith and willful treason (or, at best, stupidity and/or greed).

(That fundamentalist link you posted recently depressed me beyond measure. Because, using one very narrow definition -- it's early-20th century meaning, when it referred to adherence to five basic doctrines (such as the Resurrection, the incarnation, etc.), without all the lunacy and legalism and politics and meanspiritedness that's accured to the term -- I could be considered a fundamentalist Christian. But I don't recognize myself in any of these people. And yet they claim the same source for their whacked-out views that I do for mine. Sigh.)

I try to, in my own life and spheres of influence, live fearlessly, always strive to educate myself and refuse to demonize opponents -- even those I'm sorely tempted to and may deserve it -- and try to model/promote this approach to life. It's a feeble effort, I suppose.