This is my first DK diary and I'll admit it is largely cathartic. It's not likely to win popularity or even a few recommends. Still I've had a Facebook run-in with RWNJobbiness that serves as a reminder of the degree of ugly denial and I'll say it, ignorance, flourishing in certain minds in America. Today's topic just happens to involve Christmas, of all things.
We all have those family members and friends who run with scissors, cutting and hacking anyone who doesn't share their views or beliefs. More often than not, those people are far-right adherents--God, guns, and country (which they own and you don't have any right to occupy or discuss). Yeah, there are the rabid folks on the left too but they never seem as baldly scary-hateful toward their fellow Americans as the distant, unreachable right.
As it happens I was on the receiving end of cutting and hacking from the lower-right of the spectrum, and lest any one of us think the far right isn't "all that bad," I wanted to share the "conversation" and show just how inside a bubble, ludicrously dim, and hate-filled "regular" Americans can be. The conversation and additional comments are haunting beneath the pumpkin scroll.
The set up:
A friend of mine posted a link on her FB page with an image from A Charlie Brown Christmas showing Charlie and Linus with the following "dialogue" for Linus added at the bottom:
It's really strange America is the largest Christian Nation in The world and we can't say "Merry Christmas "!!
I'll admit it, I've loved
A Charlie Brown Christmas since I was a young'un. I have the complete set of Hallmark ornaments, the book, and probably own it on VHS
and DVD. As a result, I was a bit saddened to see such half-baked "Christian Nation" dialogue jammed into Linus's mouth. Since my birthday is at Christmastime, I'm a Christmas junkie, albeit age and wisdom have tempered my holiday binge-iness.
Now, the friend who posted that graphic on her timeline isn't someone I would call a close friend but we share a number of interests and acquaintances and I know her to be a kind, intelligent, reasonable person. Yet, her having all those admirable qualities, as we know, is no guarantee of how friends of that friend behave or think.
I decided to make a comment about her post, reflect another POV, in a forthright but conversational way. For my efforts I got a big backhand across the jaw by a friend of hers who doesn't know me at all. I know what you're thinking, "This is a minor thing," and in many ways it is. But, it's also an example of the long distance some segments of America need to traverse if the country is going to move forward on significant issues like civil rights, immigration, marriage equality, religious freedom, education, healthcare, and so much more. It is an example of the rank ignorance, denial, distaste for different views, and inability (or lack of desire) for some to educate themselves beyond a limited belief system and ideas that turn potentially thinking minds into empty papier mache vessels that deny history, facts, science, and even common sense.
Admittedly, I don't tend to seek conflict. Engaging members of the other side of the political debate isn't something I crave. At times, however, even in the smallest moments, I find myself unable to remain silent; for example, there was the time I was discussing the Swedish language camp my daughter attended during the summer and my sister-in-law thought it quite funny to "guess" that the Arabic language camp down the road must have been called Camp Al Qaeda. (But that rant is for another diary.)
With all that said, I'll leave you to consider my comments (the long ones) and the faithful, Merry-Christmas-loving Christian's comments (the vitriolic ones). The exchange is a sharp reminder of the divide in this country, the hate and anger in this country, and the long road ahead for our children and grandchildren. The news often shows us the very public persona of hateful ignorance and deliberately anti-everything rhetoric as found in many political and some religious persons on the right. Yet it is the private controversies, these holiday-dining-room, FB, and casual dust ups, we find the all-too-personal examples of just how deeply the dark river runs on the right.
If you care to red the exchange, here you go: