Stoopid Stuff

A Death in Kansas

It really was only a matter of time. The American political right had already adopted the intolerance and bigotry of al Quaeda, demanding allegiance to one true religion and branding non-christians as apostates and infidels. They had already adopted the tribal fealty and superstitious fears of the Taliban, seeking to dictate a set of repressive measures to control what people do, what words they can use, how they are to dress, what social and sexual behaviors will be permitted and those that will be suppressed by punishing anyone who deviates from their vision. They had already defined their desired society, ruled by iron fisted men, with rights carefully limited and wealth in a few, powerful hands.

So one cannot be at all surprised that once again, when they find their power at it's nadir and their ability to influence people outside of their own community to have slipped from their grasp, that they would turn from the philosophy of al Quaeda to the tactics of al Quaeda. Terror. The use of violence to create fear and close off options, so people, however unwilling, might be forced to live under their repressive, medieval laws. The use of intimidation to squelch political debate and silence opposition. If there are ideas out there you cannot suppress, you can still try to kill them, by killing those with whom you disagree, and inciting the less stable and more fanatical among your followers to kill and destroy in the name of an ideology you espouse and a fear you create. All, ultimately, to achieve power.

Power over the population. Power over the purse strings. Power over the military, the police, the legislature. Power over women, power over thought, power to neutralize ideas and defeat progress. Power to take lives and destroy families. Power.

The Obama administration has been in power four months. Four months out of at least four years. The republican opposition has yet to find a single position that resonates with the majority, that hasn't been widely discredited, that hasn't simply failed epically. The frustration deepens, the futility gives rise to a desperate kind of anger, the rhetoric becomes uglier, more polarizing and certain unsavory and deeply amoral partisans see an opportunity for personal aggrandizement. In a heavily armed nation where all the brightest traditions have the population reaching for their guns in the face of any sort of problem. Americans kill their way out of trouble, and solve any kind of challenge with violence, and they certainly face a daunting challenge this time.

The American people rejected their fear, their hatred, their bigotry and intolerance. Americans have embraced diversity, and our culture has left the old divides in a tragic past. They have lost the argument, so now it remains only for them to take out their guns - from Davey Crockett to Audie Murphy, from John Wayne to Mel Gibson, the answer is there for the righteous man wronged.

Keep in mind that the media will talk around the elephant in the room. Keep in mind that it still quacks like a duck. Keep in mind that today and tomorrow and into the future, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich and all their hate - spewing colleagues will continue to ratchet up the rhetoric, offering only incitement, not as a solution, but in place of one. They are the ones who will look at Dr. Tiller's murder and see progress, hope for their cause. They will see the pain and fear in an opposition that had already won the field, and they will be encouraged.

I don't know how it will all play out, but I think we can safely assume that we will bear witness to something horrible over the next few years, something ugly that America has not seen before, and Americans are very much unprepared for. A kind of low-level insurgency, not-quite-civil-war and not-quite-peace. America has had a lot of experience on that kind of battlefield, and it seems unavoidable that she faces the same kind of cowardice and butchery in her cities that we witnessed in Iraq. If we have learned nothing else, it is that the expression of fear and hatred is seldom without consequences...

posted by mikey @ 9:50 AM