The life, or lack thereof, of the once-esteemed Zebster.
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There is a fabulous segment of the speech President Obama gave at the 50th Anniversary of the march over the Edmund Pettis Bridge that I think, finally, nearly perfectly captures our progressive ideal of patriotism.
It resonates with me and I suspect it will with you. While I don't think it will make even a tiny dent in the viewpoint of those who have no ear for reality and honesty, I think in the long run this will go down as one of the most important phrases in our discourse.
If you haven't seen this yet, here it is:
“[W]hat could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people – unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course?
“What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?”
So while they claim to be more patriotic with their bigger flags and bullying bravado, we will continue to move ahead. They always have seemingly won the present but the march of progress has nonetheless move progressively forward, sometimes faster than other times but still forward.
Sparked by another seemingly innocent graphic going around Facebook, I feel the need to point out the blind, ignorant, one-way thinking of the further-to-the-right-everyday crowd, the war-against-Christmas crowd, the war-against-the-poor crowd. The graphic at issue simply has an arrow pointing to the poster with a holiday theme and the words "This person DOES NOT say Happy Holidays; this person says Merry Christmas...get over it!" This is a perfect example of creating an enemy, creating something bad that doesn't really exist as a way to be divisive and as a way to rally one side (the goodie goodies of the right) against the evil liberal elitist, god-hating heathens of the left. It's the same ploy they use to try to make you think there are people who are against the troops when they say things like "Support the troops...there are far too many people who don't," when in fact neither they nor you know a single soul who doesn't believe in supporting the troops. As it relates to the Christmas versus Holiday War, the same rebuttal applies -- you don't know a solitary soul who has a problem with someone saying Merry Christmas but the Merry Christmas crowd surely has a problem with you NOT saying Merry Christmas. "You MUST say Merry Christmas or else we're falling into a godless society or worse." Whatever happened to free speech and freedom of religion? Being told you must believe and observe the way they do is quite the opposite, yet they like to use your lack of agreement with them as a sign that you're oppressing them, when in fact it is they who are trying to oppress you. You have to admit it's brilliant and it works, unfortunately, over and over and over.
There are correlations with the above to an outstanding editorial comment by Rachel Maddow last night. I don't want to be too wordy. I'll just invite you to watch this 12 minute clip and pay attention to things like voter fraud, farm dust, In God We Trust and drug testing people who are on unemployment or welfare and look for the ulterior motive. I couldn't more strongly urge you to watch this clip. It is one of the best essays I've seen in some time. Thank you, Rachel. It's important we all realize what the true motives and ideologies are of these people.
Which is a nice segue into a very brief discussion regarding Ayn Rand. What these people really want is a society like the one envisioned by Rand in books like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, one that goes against the progressive value of togetherness and replaced by a simpler dog-eat-dog model. I would encourage you to readThe Real Attack on the Spirit of Christmas Comes From the Right Wing, the latest article by one of my favorite writers, Robert Creamer, where he outlines very well the endgame of this ideology and how it contrasts not only with our progressive ideology but quite often with the same people who support it, another example of the hypocrisy of the love thy neighbor religious right. Below is my favorite quote:
Progressive values: that we're all in this together, not all in this alone; unity not division; hope not fear; equality not subjugation; the premise that if each of us is better educated all of us will be wiser; that it is not true that for me to be richer you have to be poorer -- but rather that if each of us is more prosperous, all of us will have more opportunity; that our success comes from cooperation and mutual respect. These progressive values are the most precious assets that will give human beings the ability to make it through that gauntlet -- and to create a truly democratic society.
I would also encourage you to read my friend RJ's review of The Fountainhead, "Another Selfish Manifesto Ending, at Heels N Martinis.
If we don't talk again beforehand, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, my friends.
Unfortunately in this echo-chambered modern world, it is very easy for lies to be layered upon lies and built into a seemingly-reasonable truth. This is done over and over again by those who are always willing to put their self interests above the common good. They are also cowards unwilling to stand up for their mistakes and take their medicine. It's much easier to go to their issue-friendly echo chamber and say whatever they want to say because they know it will be supported by more lies and more lies, and believed by those who want to believe their side, until it becomes this massive entanglement of lies, half-truths, lies of omission and cherry-picked facts that not even the smartest and most dedicated person could untangle it.
It also means that it's very difficult to counter this nightmare with simple truth. Put forth the truth in the form of facts and they'll counter-offer their own cherry picked facts. They're willing to go further than you because they have more on the line -- their character is at stake -- whereas all you have going for you is truth; and that's a heavy, burdensome thing to carry around. It gets very tiresome banging your head against the wall; doesn't it? It seems as though they'll never get it.
This excellent article by Barry Ritholtz in the Washington Post,"What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral," attempts to fight back against that echo chamber on the topic of what caused the financial crisis of a couple years ago. You can sense his frustration in having to point out the same facts yet again that everyone should already know (and probably do if they were willing to examine it honestly.)
This political cartoon is a good illustration (pun intended) of the point I'm trying to make. One complete segment of the country still doesn't realize this is the truth because so many out there don't want them to know who really ran up the deficit.
Every day we're being told by one segment of society that the people protesting in the Occupy Movement want a handout, when the reality is simply that they want to no longer be robbed by those in power; that they just want a more level playing field. And what frustrates us so much is that we don't understand how a significant percentage of people are still being taken advantage of because they still don't want to believe their side has lied to them and stolen from them. It also means they would have to admit that they've been complicit to some extent by continually voting for people who've made this possible and by echoing their lies.
So we'll just have to keep hammering the truth back at them until MAYBE some day we get back to a country that's more open to truth and fairness, instead of being interested in their side winning no matter the cost.
Unfortunately the full-throated blog juices still aren't flowing on a regular basis, despite the fact that so much is going on and so much is pissing me off. So while I'm tending to my wife who's home recovering from a couple of hernia repairs (and I had a wisdom tooth pulled on Thursday, which was no sweat at all), I'm reading some good articles and blogs and thought I'd share.
You'd think pulling a wisdom tooth would be more difficult than finding an honest, rational thought from the radical right that has hijacked the modern Republican Party. Think again. Am I the only progressive who was at least a wee bit optimistic that after 8 years of monumental fuck-ups that a decent percentage of conservatives would have been interested (just interested) in rethinking their intransigent beliefs? If we harbored any of that optimism, it went out the window the day of or at least by the day after Obama's election when he was blamed for everything he was served.
I guess if all you care about is your side winning and never having to take responsibility for your support or lack of dispute, the only other option is to act like it never happened until the other team takes the field. Cowards is the only word that comes to mind.
So with that in mind, let me encourage my progressive friends (ye of open-mindedness, a belief that the best is always ahead, and that smart and thoughtful is always better than closed-mindedness and hate) to hold true to what we know is right and just, and do and say whatever is necessary to take this country and world in the right direction, as is so very well said in this article by Mike Lux at the Huffington Post, where you can always find something thought provoking.
From the "while I don't always agree with him but he doesn't mince his words" department, I bring you a great rant by Bill Maher, including this excerpt:
For example: to solve our debt crisis, a bunch of Republican senators suggested a bipartisan debt commission, which is the adult thing to do. But when Obama agreed to it, immediately seven of them said no -- now they're against it. Because Obama has cooties. Democrats have cooties, so you can't vote with them, or work with them, and compromise is treason.
Finally (for now anyway) I'd like to point you to a long-time blogging friend who reminds us, and warns us, how far some on the radical right will go in attempting to affect the change they want. RIP Harvey Milk.
I'm likely to update this later with more links. Feel free to suggest any in your comments or to me in a PM at Facebook.
UPDATE: Here's a dichotomy link from The Boston Globe, showing what good journalism is and why we still and always will need newspapers, and to show how nepotism and cronyism still controls our politics and bureaucracy.
