Monday, November 5, 2012

Our Dirty Little Secret


 

 

The long arduous presidential campaign season is coming to close.  Thankfully, we all have endured the constant and deafening cries of half-truths and lies.  The candidates have done much to obfuscate and stay clear of issues that are the more compelling, like gun control and global warming.  I lean to the left on all issues and hence my man is the president.  I dislike “etch-a-sketch” Romney not so much for what he is but what he isn’t.  He reminds me of the hard sell snake oil salesman who will do anything; say anything to make the sale.  He is a man without a core, a vacuous salesman.  The only true portrait I have seen was on the Daily Show.  Obama didn’t do much when he had the chance and the fact that the “know nothings” and the “do nothings” Congressmen can point that out is unpardonable in my opinion.  Rather than attempt to work with the troglodytes, on day one of his administration he should have pushed through a budget and a single payer health care.  That said, I still have got to stick with the only hope of turning the corner on the mass stupidity that seems to have a grip on our government. 

Underlying this election, indeed the past four years, has been the rampant racism that still holds this country in a death grip.  While the right will scream at Obama yelling he is dividing this country with his penchant for class warfare, the truth is that the right and its noise makers are little more than a bunch of racists.  So bigoted are they, that if they were to be truly honest with the people they would don white hoods when they go on the air waves.  The sad and most troubling aspect of that scenario would be that they would not lose a single devoted follower. 

Fact is Obama started his presidency with three strikes against him.  Remember that for the longest time, a black man couldn’t be a quarter back in football because of their supposed inferior mental ability.  What preconceived notions did we hold for black politicians.  Our society has place the bar for a black person to be accepted so high that only the truly superior can measure up to it. Thus, we can have a mediocre even an inferior white man, like George W. Bush, and he can sail into a second term based on little save the ability of the apparatchiks and devious handlers, especially the likes of Karl Rove.   To touch a raw nerve of many conservatives, we can see a senile old B actor raised to the status of an icon, based on the some glib remarks and an affable smile.  Yes, President Reagan was slowly slipping into that dark and murky world of an Alzheimer patient while in the oval office. 

We have a president who is bi-racial and has overcome the stiffest of all odds to become a highly educated man.  Yet we can have a nincompoop like Palin mock him as “jive ass” while she is little more than that.  We have Sununu speaks of an endorsement as a racial thing.  Behind all this blather is a deep seated prejudice that I would bet this collection of bigots would deny and scream that the race card was being played if it were mentioned.  Yet the race card was being played time and time again, and it was they who were playing it, not overtly but subtly in all they said and didn’t say.

The election will be tough and close because this country was never really the land of the free.  It was basically the land of the free white people.  It is ironic that the same folks who misread the constitution claiming that it is Christian government oftentimes merely overlook the key amendments to the constitution that truly made this country free, at least on paper. 

To understand how deep the divide is among us, just look at the break down of who is supporting Romney; it is the white folks, especially the old white males.  Interesting to say the least.  Obama needs to be reelected for no other reason than it is time for this country to shed that skin of prejudice.  Like a snake, we need a new skin.  We need to wiggle ourselves from our past.  Most importantly, we need to give the President a fighting chance to do the things he wants to do.  If the old bigots and hate mongers don’t want to go along with this change than we need to do all we can to vote these people out of office and send them back to their caves where they can live out their days in the darkness that have spent their life in.

 

  

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