TomP had a great post up at Dkos yesterday...White Racists Want Their America Back. and many others in the blogoshpere and even the TradMed! are commenting on the Screamer/Birther/Racists. Me too!
Becuase in my view, it is MUCH bigger than "just" racism that is driving all of this. Though racism is a huge component, and as Tom points out, it is the goad that is driving these folks.
Electing an African-American was the most progressive thing we could do. Until we deal with race in this nation, until the racism of white privilege is extinguished, progressive outcomes will always be difficult to obtain. And electing Obama is beginning of the end of white racism as way of life in this nation.
But this phenomenon is far bigger than "just" racism. It is about the very paradigm that has defined our world for the past 500 years or more. It is about Manifest Destiny. It is about Race, Religion, Money/Calvinism....it is about power.
It is about who rules the world and how they rule it. And I am not talking about ruling it physically, militarily, or even politically. It is about whose ideas rule the world.
It is about the paradigm that rules the world...and has ruled the world since Eurpean explorers set out in their tiny little ships with their muskets and crude cannon to conquer the world.
And conquer it they did! Killing millions and wiping out entire cultures in the process. All to gain control of (or loot, lol) the resources of the entire world. Gold, silver, food, and later timber and oil. And, of course....slaves.
They conquered it they looted it, they killed and ensleved the world so that they could rule it.
And ....they still do. The people that currently rule the world are the descendants...in ideal and principle, if not in actual bloodline...of those original conquerors.
And now they face the end. The end of the paradigm of 'conquering' itself. Their is nothing left to conquer. The paradigm of taking and holding the world by force and oppression alone.
The cultures and populations that they destroyed are now coming back to....in their eyes....haunt them. To ....in their eyes....and in their fears and nightmares...to take revenge.
They are scared shitless.
The only problem is....only a tiny percentage of the people and cultures they have conquered and suppressed and oppressed for so long give a shit about revenge. They...WE....just want equality and justice. Nobody REALLY cares about revenge. We just want to live our lives without thier boot on our throat.
We don't have the time or the energy for revenge. Not if we are going to fix the world that they have fucked up so badly, and save the human race from the REAL tragedy of Climate Crisis. We don't have time to fear each other or hate each other....that is THEIR thing.
(Though it must be admitted, we do have time to chuckle occassionally in schadenfreude as they reveal themselves and their fear of us, lol)
Of course equality and justice are anathema to them. "They" still feel, even if it is just a gut feeling that even they don't understand, that they have the RIGHT to rule the world. That their fantasy of Manifest Destiny is real. To which the rest of the world, the vast majority of the world, is responding to by looking at them funny, shrugging their shoulders and saying....tough shit.
The multiculturism and "miscegenation" and "race mixing" that they have feared for so long...is here. And there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. The demographics cannot be denied and the results of generations of planetwide media, information dispersal, and education are being felt.
Young people, being influenced by the new paradigm that started in the late 50's and 60's and has been 'slowly' spreading ever since, are just not that interested in hating each other. They are far more interested in finding our commonality than our difference.
They realize thast there is nothing to conquer...except human nature. They are coming to realize that the future is not about separating, but about finding ways to come together. That "IT" is not about hating...but about Harmony, not about competiton, but about cooperation.
And it is driving the racists crazy!
Sorry folks! You may be able to kill Health Care. You may have a few wins after that too....
But it is OVER.
And their is nothing you can do about it....even if you do give in to your old paradigm conquering instincts and turn violent. You lose. The world has passed you by.
The rest of us will just...eventually...ignore you and move on to saving this world and building a new one.
Pausing, occassionally, to watch your tantrums, to watch the The Pathetic Wails of a Dying Paradigm...and smile and maybe even pat you on the head in sympathy.
But we ain't going back to that mythical America you pretend existed.
Deal.