a timely observation

[hammercock]

A portion of the Vidui ("confession") prayer on Yom Kippur says (at least, the translation in the machzor I used tonight did):

"We are violent, we are wicked, we are xenophobic.
We yield to evil, we are zealots for bad causes."

Right now I think a whole lot of people in this nation ought to be thinking long and hard about atoning for that.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Also: "We have sinned against You by causeless hatred".

[miss_lisa_ma]

Touche.

A blogger I read regularly suggested that the real reason some people insist on calling the president a Muslim (despite all evidence to the contrary) is that they know they can't get away with calling him a n***** in public anymore. Tell me that doesn't send a chill up your back.

May there be peaceful, healthy, even surprising blessings in your new year, darling.

[browngirl]

Tell me that doesn't send a chill up your back.

That realization sent a chill up my back in 2008, but now (as it grows ever and ever more evident) it just makes me exhaustedly sad. (Or, stated differently, I completely agree with that blogger -- it's as obvious as the blue sky outside my window.)

May there be peaceful, healthy, even surprising blessings in your new year, darling.

Heartily and enthusiastically seconded!

Really?

[nakor]

That blogger seems to be over-simplifying the stupid, hateful, and paranoid in American society. For most of the populist-right (e.g., Tea Party, Huckabee) identifying Obama as Black would make him *familiar*. Yes, it emphasizes familiar and subordinate---but it's still a name for the close-by. Their audience know black people and look down on them to one degree or another---maybe zero, maybe some

[achinhibitor]

"We think that those who disagree with us are evil."