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I was listening to a report on the new "Spanish Anthem" on teevee. In another day and another time, I could surely see that hailed as a wonderful, uniting gesture. Today, in this climate, it is being vilified as somehow supportive of 'illegal' brown people. Why did the people who started this movement toward a Spanish language version of the national anthem come to do this? Was it because they felt like it? Or was it in response to what some can justifieably percieve as an outright, all out assault on **them** ... as people and as a people? A scab was picked (people illegally crossing our borders) and it started to bleed (The Minutemen). Issue = reaction = reactionary reaction = escalation = dishonest debate = divisive campaign issue.
How did we get to this point?
Its quite simple, really.
Picking at Scabs.
There are two sides to every issue, and at least two ways to spin anything. And then there's the one thing that's always missing. The truth. And the truth always lies between the poles that oppose each other.
Look back to 9/11. A shared national tragedy that affected us all. An event that brought most of us together. In the time since then, we could have continued to use it as a rallying point to increase national unity. But that is simply not what happened. The constant scare tactics of the cabal have been, in effect, scab picking. 9/11, as an icon, could just as easily have been 'spun' for the betterment of all of us. Think of a few possible new intiatives that could have been rooted in a positive use of the 9/11 icon. Energy indenpence to wean us from mideast oil - and thereby a reduction in our 'interest' in the region. It could have been used a way to enhance our growing friendship with other nations instead of creating more enemies - boith real and strawman. It could have served as a way to put some reason into our policy vis a vis Israel. But what was the plan of the cabal with repect to 9/11?
Picking at scabs.
I don't know - or even know of - one single person, not one, who is at war with Christianity. To be sure, I myself would do whatever it takes to smack down the Talibornagains, but they're not Christianity, really. Who do you know who wishes to abolish Christmas or take a shotgun to the Easter Bunny? But instead of acknowledging this and starting a serious dialogue, we get "The Passion of the Christ" and a national debate on the role of Christ in American life. We revisit prayer in schools and nativities on the town square. But there was no serious, **intellectually honest* debate. Instead we had ..... what, exactly?
Picking at scabs.
There is, quite likely, not a person in the world who does not know and care about at least one real, live, breathing, sentient, gay person. While they may, indeed, not know a paricular person is gay, they do, in fact, still know at least one - and probably many more. But rather than accept them as just people, what do we debate? The 'sanctity of marriage'? That's a strawman debate and everyone engaged in it knows it is. They absolutely know it. But what keeps happening? Instead of an honest discussion, we get what?
Picking at scabs.
Our side is not immune to this, either. There are scabs we tend to pick, too. Just recently we're seeing a debate on the 'role' of atheists. Why would they have any different 'role' than anyone else? More to the point, why is anyone on our side willing to acknowledge and accept a person's right to maintain a personal set of core beliefs (some might call that 'religion') and still say there's no place for an athiest. It is simply intellectually dishonest. It is in fact ....
Picking at scabs.
Instead of picking at scabs, what our country - in fact, the entire world - needs is intellectually honest dialogue. One of the reasons I'm a democrat is that I find we, as a group, are far more intellectually honest than Republicans. We're more willing to discuss things, both as a way to understand and as a way to resolve conflict.
Unfortunately, there's one tactic, employed artfully by the other side, that never fails to produce results.
Picking at scabs.
Can someone **please** pass the balm?
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