I'm going to go out on a limb and say something that I've have seen with my own eyes, and I'm still at a loss as to how we got here. Over the last year, while our Congressmen and Senators have debated the Health Care bill, the ammount of vitroil and bile that has been unleashed, almost exclusively by the Right, has been unprecented in the history of politics. And I, for one, believe the ugly specter of Racism is the leading cause of all of this.
Someone tell me, since when has it been ok to yell "you lie" to the President of the United States? Name me the last President who was questioned about his place of birth? What past President has his Town Hall meeting protested with people with firearms? When have we allowed civil discourse that involves spitting, calling Congressmen N***er, S**c, and F***ot?
This is American politics 2010, and it is, more or less, the most racist time in politics since the Dixiecrat rebellion. And I hope like hell I'm not the only one that see this.
When President Obama was elected, some pundits called it the end of racism in America. How, they reasoned, can a country that is racist elect a mixed-race man President? And, for a few months, it looked like that thinking may have been right. Then came the Birthers, a group whose whole claim to fame was making up so-called Kenyan Birth certificates to prove Obama wasn't born in America, therefore not the President. No President in history EVER had to go through this, and somehow the Media treated this like it really was news, which made it worse.
Then we had the Tea Baggers and their mob-mentality during the Town Halls. They cried about getting "their" country back, they brought guns and signs protraying Obama as Hitler, the Joker, and a VooDoo witch doctor, and once again our "liberal" Media ate it up. Glenn Beck goes on the air and spews so much crap as to fill a PortaPotty, yet he's considered newsworthy. And Rush continues to be Rush, which is to say the same human filth he's always been.
Joe Wilson yells "you lie" to Obama, while he's adressing Congress. Some Tea Bagger calls John Lewis, one of the leaders of the civil rights movement, the N word. Another spits on Emmanual Clever, the former mayor of my hometown Kansas City and a ordained minister.
And somehow, the Media wants us to believe that this is all healthy discourse.
It is racism, pure and simply. Racist, sexist comments passing off as the will of the people because our Media is once again asleep at the wheel. No one wants to say it because no one wants to have That Conversation. No one wants to say it, or think about it, or anything even connected to it. We just want to pretend it isn't there. But it is, and not talking about it doesn't mean it isn't there.