Tuesday, October 12, 2010

America's Better Angels.

Today in this country I see newsreels about people throwing rocks at teenage girls who walk into abortion clinics, bullies videotaping closeted teens having sex to humiliate them, and bigots advocating Iranian planes to fly into muslim community centers. I get called un-American because I support more federal funding for the education system and because I don't think it should be ok for someone to have to wait only 5 minutes to buy an assault rifle. It angers me that in a country where we've made so much progress that there are people who are literally trying to make "progressive" a dirty word. All in the name of protecting the constitution of course. Which leads me to todays news about Byron Williams who, inspired by Glenn Beck, took to the streets armed with a 9mm handgun, a shotgun and a .380 caliber rifle, to start a revolution by shooting up the ACLU (yes the American Civil Liberties Union, the "evil" organization designed to make sure that people's constitutional rights are protected). Apparently there are people in this country who love our constitution so much, that they would hunt down and kill the people who actually make a profession out of protecting it. So glad you can contribute to our political landscape Beck, really, I am.

The thing that baffles me about right-wing politics today is how backwards their views are. "We want small government, but we'll allow you to wiretap our phones in the name of security. We want government out of our financial lives, but we want it throughout our personal ones." Sometime you just can't help but shake your head.

But I can look into their faces with clear eyes and a full heart and say "I've beaten you."

I disagree whole-heartedly with everything that the Tea-Party and the extreme-right stand for, but I've beaten them and they don't even know it. I believe in the freedom of speech. I have the right to disagree with everything they say, but I will fight to the death for their right to say what they think. That is what people on the right can never understand. It's what America is all about, what it's always been about. To quote Aaron Sorkin: "America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say 'You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free'."

There are millions of people around the world who disagree with everything that I think and that I say, but as long as we have the ability to say them, as long as we have the ability to think them, we can call ourselves Americans. America was founded on stories of greatness, of people who faced overwhelming odds and overcame them, not just for the good of the country but for the good of the people. America was shaped by people like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F Kennedy. These people gave us hope for tomorrow, they believed in our better angels during times when it looked as though we would break.

I believe in America's better angels.

To quote Sorkin again: "Every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars."

5 comments:

Joey Blanco said...

What I really wonder about is the political landscape 10, 15 years from now. There's so much anger now, and it's clearly being manipulated (2008 Obama was a radical Christian thanks to his former minister, as compared to 2010 Obama who is a Muslim), so where does it go? What happens with minor Tea Party victories in the House (I don't believe they'll get anything in the Senate), but major losses in presidential elections? Is the anger temporary, or does it transform into something concrete in a matter of years?

Right now, it's all hot air. I hope it stays as such, because violent, racist rhetoric has become the norm, and that's scary.

David Dangelico said...

To tell you the truth--I dont think the tea party will win any seats. Republicans however, I think will get a few in the House, perhaps even enough to win a majority. Youre definitely right though, they won't win any in the Senate.

The issue though, is that it's slowly becoming more than hot air. Check out these attacks on gays and muslims that have been occuring. It's really disturbing because it feels like a huge eraser just came in and took away a lot of the progress that we had made.

But then it makes you wonder--perhaps we made no progress at all and it's just an illusion. Perhaps we fooled ourselves into thinking that portions of the US are coming around. Because if you turn on CNN it seems as though after the big step forward with the election of Barack Obama, we've taken a giant leap backwards...

...and that upsets me more than anything.

Joey Blanco said...

I think the leap backwards is more because of the obstructionism of the Republicans and the inability of the Democrats to make a formidable stand on policy. If Congress were operating as it should (when was the last time that happened?), and not just throwing around anger, we'd be in a different place.

The violence is definitely worth attention, but there's always been right-wing terrorism (let's call a spade a spade, what they're doing is terrorism): abortion clinics getting bombed, doctors murdered, gays strung up, etc., etc. So it's hard to definitively say this current movement is inciting the violence.

David Dangelico said...

I dont think it's difficult to say at all. You were at the Glenn Beck rally with me. You saw what I saw. The supporters of this movement, the big wigs, all say precise calculated things in order to fire up their base. They feed off of their base's ignorance.

A good show of this was the way Bush (Cheney) was able to move the war from Afghanistan (where we were supposedly fighting religous extremists) to Iraq which had always been a secular state. Al-Qaeda had never mixed well with Sadaam (in fact they hated him for not trying to make Iraq a theocracy of sorts), so for Bush to say that Iraq was a terrorist breeding ground was complete crap, his administration was counting on Americans anger and prejudice towards muslims in general for 9/11 rather than the extremists, in order to push their agenda.

It's the same tactics they have always used, they are just being more upfront about it these days. They arent pulling the trigger, just loading the guns.

And as for right wing terrorist groups it's basically like this, every Republican is scared about coming out against The Army of God because they dont want to come across as pro-choice in any way. Ant when they do come out against these morons they say "While I agree with their motives, I abhor their actions." Like I said, loading the gun.

Basically the Republican party is fueled by ignorance, that and Big Business.

And as for the dems not being able to form a unified stance, I'd agree, except I'm more apt to say that it's the Republicans who are too scared to come out against some of their own which makes them look more unified. For someone on the right to come out against something Palin or Beck or anyone of those clowns is saying is basically a death sentence because they would get the dogs unleashed on them.

It's a tricky game, politics.

Erin Seabolt Bond said...

It's scary how inflamed the rhetoric has become recently, and it's easy to see how it incites violence. I keep hoping this is a fad that will pass as people calm down (or die off because of high blood pressure), but I suppose we'll see.