Last One of These for a While, I Promise...
I really don't mean for this LJ to become a politically-based thing, between the subject matter of my last post and this current one, because I know that turns a lot of you reading this off. However, I feel like I have to say something about this, as I throw my hands up in frustration at the whole affair.
It would seem that the latest movement among the far-right in America is to root for al-Qaeda to strike again.
Wait. Go back and re-read that last sentence.
It would seem that the latest movement among the far-right in America is to root for al-Qaeda to strike again.
In the interest of fairness, I'll put the sentiment in what appears to be its proper context. As far as I can tell, it's a wish for America to be a united front once again, even if it takes a terrible tragedy for it to happen. Glenn Beck, a backer of this movement, calls it the "9/12 Project," its name intending to evoke the feeling of bipartisan unity we all felt the day after the World Trade Center fell.
Okay, fairness time is now over. Time for my own opinion.
What. In. The. High. Holy. FRAK.
This comes from the same mindset that, just a few short years ago, wanted to have antiwar protestors tossed into Gitmo on charges of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war." The same mindset that viciously attacked any criticism of George W. Bush's politics as being unpatriotic, anti-American, and some even went so far as to toss around the "T-word" in relation to such people. (The one that ends with "reason.")
And now, these same people actually want America to be attacked again, on the premise that "from every great evil, a greater good must come." Can you just imagine what their reaction to such a statement would be if their side was still in power? Exactly.
But apparently, because the country is now in the hands of people and a party they find morally contemptible, it's suddenly okay to be critical of the government and say crap like this. Whereas it was anything but okay for the shoe to be on the other foot just a few short years ago, when those critical of the Bush Doctrine got the "Whose side are you on?" treatment from the Right. Hell, even John Kerry, running as a legally ordained opposition candidate in 2004, was called everything short of an al-Qaeda member himself, simply because he ran against a wartime President and opposed his Iraq policies, and I personally know some GOP supporters (none of whom read this blog, I suspect) who viewed Kerry's campaign as an attempted coup, in spirit if not in execution!
All this does is further drive home the point that, in America in 2009, there is no such thing as political discourse. It's all turned into a shouting match, an endless and repetitive game of "My team can whip your team's ass" like you'd hear at a Super Bowl party.
Except the stakes in this "game" are usually far greater than a giant chrome paperweight.
It would seem that the latest movement among the far-right in America is to root for al-Qaeda to strike again.
Wait. Go back and re-read that last sentence.
It would seem that the latest movement among the far-right in America is to root for al-Qaeda to strike again.
In the interest of fairness, I'll put the sentiment in what appears to be its proper context. As far as I can tell, it's a wish for America to be a united front once again, even if it takes a terrible tragedy for it to happen. Glenn Beck, a backer of this movement, calls it the "9/12 Project," its name intending to evoke the feeling of bipartisan unity we all felt the day after the World Trade Center fell.
Okay, fairness time is now over. Time for my own opinion.
What. In. The. High. Holy. FRAK.
This comes from the same mindset that, just a few short years ago, wanted to have antiwar protestors tossed into Gitmo on charges of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war." The same mindset that viciously attacked any criticism of George W. Bush's politics as being unpatriotic, anti-American, and some even went so far as to toss around the "T-word" in relation to such people. (The one that ends with "reason.")
And now, these same people actually want America to be attacked again, on the premise that "from every great evil, a greater good must come." Can you just imagine what their reaction to such a statement would be if their side was still in power? Exactly.
But apparently, because the country is now in the hands of people and a party they find morally contemptible, it's suddenly okay to be critical of the government and say crap like this. Whereas it was anything but okay for the shoe to be on the other foot just a few short years ago, when those critical of the Bush Doctrine got the "Whose side are you on?" treatment from the Right. Hell, even John Kerry, running as a legally ordained opposition candidate in 2004, was called everything short of an al-Qaeda member himself, simply because he ran against a wartime President and opposed his Iraq policies, and I personally know some GOP supporters (none of whom read this blog, I suspect) who viewed Kerry's campaign as an attempted coup, in spirit if not in execution!
All this does is further drive home the point that, in America in 2009, there is no such thing as political discourse. It's all turned into a shouting match, an endless and repetitive game of "My team can whip your team's ass" like you'd hear at a Super Bowl party.
Except the stakes in this "game" are usually far greater than a giant chrome paperweight.