Ahhh, this is a match made in heaven, I was born with a hunger for preaching, since I was a little tot I was filled with a tendency towards the self-righteous pedantic rambling that is the life-blood of blogging! So here we are. I suppose what I just wrote has probably sent any reasonable reader clicking off to any other tributary of this cyber-river, but if you are still reading, I am going to just put my thoughts out there and maybe initiate discussions in the manner of the talk-radio show I wish I had, on politics, ethics, art, culture and minutiae of Memphis and the greater universe.

I thought I'd start by sharing my thoughts on claims that the opposition to Obama and his programs is fueled by racism. I have to disagree with our fine former president Carter. I think that the opposition to Obama's programs initiate from those that fear a change in the status quo "trickle-down" corporatocracy in which we live. I think those psuedo-Darwinistic, let-them-eat-cake, corporate-wellfare-freeloaders are using Goebbels-style ("Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.") media strategy to rile up an assortment of fears of Obama as "Other" in the already anxious public. This strategy is a shotgun approach, not limited to inciting racial fear, but every kind of fear possible, even contradictory types, the whole shmorgasborg of Otherness-- he is called a socialist, a Marxist, a fascist, a Muslim, a non-citizen, Barak Hussein, a "magic negro," etc. I think that these politicians, holders of large capital, lobbyists, and radio personalities enjoy a certain success when they can activate the public's latent racism, to be harnessed into a mob-like outcry, but that the furor doesn't originate as racism. It begins with greed and a desire on the part of the powerful to maintain power.

Also, I think it's possible that on a certain level we like to be afraid about the government. I think it feels good, in an era characterized by mass-disassociation-disorder and media-induced numbness that we feel very reified by the sensation of any number of passions, particularly feelings about our wider communal memberships. I think that the feelings associated with seeing one's self as oppressed are reifying, empowering and closely tied to the heart-swelling sensations of patriotism. I think this is a lot of the magic of the narrative that Limbaugh has woven, he has woven a narrative in which his listeners feel that they are the besieged resistance, the "Inglorious Basterds" of American Freedom.

On another front, as sad as it is for any individual human to die of a disease (Patrick Swayze) or in a skiing accident (Natasha Richardson), should it not be of greater concern to us when individuals without the wealth of movie stars, who are healthy, in the beginning of their lives, are killed by the hundreds or the thousands? Think Gaza, Darfur, Afganistan, Iraq. If we are deeply saddened by the pain in the hearts of the family members of Michael Jackson or Patrick Swayzee or even Jaycee Dugard, should we not also be deeply saddened by the pain in the many families of people like Mohammed Jawad, the innocent Afgan 19 year-old who was recently released from Guantanamo after seven years of torture and beatings*?

*interestingly when I Googled this heavily reported story, the best thing I came up with (in the immediate few minutes) was an article in the magazine of the John Birch Society!
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/1792
I attended a meeting of the JB society this past July and plan to go to more. I was very surprised by how much common ground I found between my beliefs and the Birchers. (minus the Jewish-Communist conspiracy and the fondness for handguns!) actually the meeting was at a Memphis firing range.