Enough Already!

Fear and Loathing in America and Why It Must Stop Now.

The revelation that an Arizona pastor by the name of Steven Anderson publicly said to his congregation that he hopes “God strikes Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy” should not shock or come as a surprise to anyone who has been carefully monitoring the public discourse in this country over the last couple of months. While it was gratifying to know that there are only thirty people who attend this church that is hardly the point. As has been mentioned by me several times the mood of some of the country is turning extremely ugly and volatile towards this president and unless something is done a real tragedy could be in the offing.

This is not just hyperbole; it is a fact. The Secret Service is struggling to cope with a huge number of threats being made against President Obama, according to the author of a new book on the agency “In the President’s Secret Service”. Threats against the President have quadrupled since Obama took office to some 30 a day, few of which are publicized for fear of attracting copycats, according to writer Ronald Kessler. The extremist views of many conservative pundits have grown way beyond mere demagoguery; they are analogous to gasoline being poured on an open flame. Citizens showing up at town hall meetings with loaded weapons, signs with Obama wearing a Hitler mustache, congressmen being hanged in effigy are becoming more and more the norm among this lot. Wingnuts like Glenn Beck openly suggest on the air that the Speaker of the House should drink poison and nothing is done to discipline him. An abortion doctor is gunned down in the sanctuary of a church and no one from the Religious Right condemns the act. And on the Left, no one in power challenges the President’s decision to continue the domestic surveillance program, started under George Bush, for fear of being branded “soft” on terror by the right-wing zealots.

Insanity, thy name is the United States of America.

There has been a stunning lack of true dialogue on what probably is the most important issue of our generation: health care reform. How will we pay for it? Will it add to the budget deficit? Will it bring down overall health care costs and bring true reform to a broken system? Will it bring health care to all of the uninsured and help those who are under-insured? These are the important discussions that the nation should be having. Instead the discussion has been about socialism and death panels. Mention socialism and death in the same sentence and watch what happens. It’s like seeing a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, only it’s not beautiful, it’s appallingly ugly. Decidedly angry and frightened people are being riled up to a frenzy by diseased and despicable individuals about an issue few of them know anything about and they are drowning out any hope for a true debate, thus killing any hope for a real solution to a problem most know must be dealt with sooner or later and threatens our very national security.

Insanity, thy name is the United States of America.

Lobbyists are buying off both sides of the political aisle in order to protect their own narrow interests no matter who suffers as a result. In 1980, the year Reagan was elected, there were approximately 300 registered lobbyists in Washington. By 2000 that number swelled to 16,342 and it more than doubled by 2005 to almost 35,000. Our entire democratic institution has been infected by greed, corruption and fear mongering. The ignorant and the gullible are being manipulated into believing in falsehoods; all the while the true boogeyman is left unchecked and unchallenged, laughing all the way to the proverbial bank.

And now this moron above. I wish I could state that this sick individual was unique. Sadly, I cannot. He has become the poster child for a malevolent fascist-like movement spreading throughout the country that has now grown to almost full bloom status. The hate emanating from these groups is frightening and extremely dangerous. They are not interested in dialogue; what they want is nothing short of complete victory. No other viewpoint is permissible. They resemble in every way imaginable the brown shirted Nazis of the early 1930s: brutal and formidable. Their hatred for anything not sympathetic to their cause holds no bounds. They are “pro-American” the same way European fascist movements in Europe are pro-European. They want no part of anything that smacks of multi-culturalism, diversity, pluralism, or even a hint of liberalism. They are racist and paranoid. They take passages out of the Bible and pervert them to suit their myopia. They deliberately distort what the Founding Fathers said to achieve their own political ends. In the long run they seek not the continuation of the Republic, but its destruction.

Insanity, thy name is the United States of America.

This whole thing reminds me of the 1946 novel “All The King’s Men” which was made into a movie in 1947. The central character of Willie Stark (often simply referred to as "the Boss") undergoes a radical transformation from an idealistic lawyer and weak gubernatorial candidate into a charismatic and extraordinarily powerful governor. In achieving this office Stark comes to embrace various forms of corruption and builds an enormous political machine based on patronage and intimidation. His approach to politics earns him many enemies in the state legislature, but does not detract from his popular appeal among many of his constituents, who respond with enthusiasm to his fiery populist manner.

Stark's character is often thought to be inspired by the life of Huey P. Long, former governor of Louisiana and that state's U.S. senator in the mid-1930s. Huey Long was at the zenith of his career when he was assassinated in 1935; just a year earlier, Robert Penn Warren had begun teaching at Louisiana State University. Stark, like Long, is shot to death in the state capitol building by a physician.

Sadly, there is no silver bullet that can put down this sick movement the way Stark was brought down. For that, we will have to rely on our own efforts. The good news is that despite the apparent magnitude of these groups, they are not representative of the majority of Americans. Most of the nation – the silent majority – is far more rational and desirous of asking questions and discussing solutions. Most find such behavior as described above to be abhorrent.

But therein lies the bad news. For while the majority of the country is far more rational and open-minded, it is also largely silent. Most dismiss the lunacy of a Rush Limbaugh or the rantings of a Mark Levin as emblematic of a pathological complex bent on self-aggrandizing, nothing more. Many tune in for the entertainment value eager to hear what outlandish thing they will say next. Stupid, but hardly dangerous. History is replete with examples of silent majorities being out done by determined and extremist minorities. After all they laughed at Hitler, didn’t they?

It’s time to stop laughing. It is time to be dead serious. For our foe is not some buffoonish clown who simply throws a temper tantrum like some spoiled brat when he doesn’t get his way. What is at work here is far more hideous and evil than mere political grand standing. Its aim is total victory no matter the costs. That a few intellectual conservatives like David Brooks and even David Frum have called out the radical elements within the Republican Party is laudable, but insufficient. We need to take this on as our number one agenda. The way to fight back is not to sit back and hope that cooler heads prevail; it is to replace darkness with enlightenment, lies with truth, and despair with hope. When we hear or see any one stain the faith we hold dear by hoping that anyone gets cancer, we must call it out immediately as evil. When politicians are bought off by powerful lobbyists we must get proactive and voice our disgust. When conservative pundits shout out lies and rile up misinformed people we must be there to educate them on the truth.

If we do not stand for something we will go for anything. The Brownshirts in Germany counted on and got, by and large, apathy from the general population. By the time most of them woke up, Hitler was the Führer. We cannot let that happen here. I believe there is still time. If all of us – the rational ones I mean – stand up and denounce this movement, we can prevent a national tragedy. If we don’t, we will have no one else to blame but ourselves.