Those Who Forget the Past ...
We are a stupid people, so willing to believe respun versions of the past, ginned up belittlings of faintly-remembered heroics in favor of inflated celebrations of current empty political posturing:
In an on camera interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Rep. John Lewis—one of the most influential African-American members in Congress—has said he will support Obama as a superdelegate. Congressman Lewis had endorsed Clinton last year, but says that Obama’s candidacy is a “movement and something in American politics that cannot be ignored.”
Lewis has said his decision to change from Clinton to Obama was harder then his march across the bridge in Selma 43 years ago when he was beaten and bloodied by Alabama State Troopers.
Harder than REAL resistance, REAL fights for change and justice and fairness? Turning your back on a political ally and probable contributor rises to the level of snarling dogs and raised clubs?
The political language in this country is beyond debased.
That wasn’t the only big lie I heard today. Bill Buckley’s death was an excuse for all kinds of ahistorical silliness. He wasn’t a racist:
“The central question… is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes…. National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct…”
And a homophobe:
No. Apparently, according to his son on NPR today, he was the savior of the Republicans from the extreme right:
"He drove out the kooks of the movement,” Christopher Buckley said. “He separated it from the anti-Semites, the isolationists, the John Birchers. He conducted, if you will, a kind of purging of the movement."
He didn’t put an intellectual face on hatred and greed and fear and bigotry! NO! He saved the Right and the Republican Party to develop into the peace-loving, civil and altogether positive force that is ruling this country today.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now, seeing as in how despite what I thought I knew about history, America is a Christian nation, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was really a Republican and George W. Bush is actually a great humanitarian ending the scourge of AIDS in Africa.
Sigh.
So, it goes on, with meaningless arguments and claims that have nothing to do with reality. We float free, bobbing on the waves of swamp gas poured out by our media and ruling political duopoly. Tethered to nothing to ground how we talk about who we are, what we should do, where we should take our country. A nation of PR flacks and sophists. It’s all just a big fabulist’s show.
Next entry: "Human judges can show mercy."
Previous entry: Hard to care ...