PSST!!! Barak Obama is a Muslim, terrorist, uppity Nigger!
Since when aren't progressives used to being called Communists, Terrorist Sympathizers, and Atheist Secular Humanists -- simply because we hold deeply rooted, objectively legitimate criticisms of America, it's history, which includes both Slavery and Genocide, and its often exploitative and always Morally Hazardous Capitalist economic system?
Thus I find the current charges against Barak Obama, or more correctly, against his sometimes angry Black preacher, in a phrase, all too Politics Incorporated!
Unfortunately, I am compelled to first digress, to remind us all that it's not fair to have it both ways. If America cannot tolerate Don Imus' tasteless racist jokes or Geraldine Ferraro's "ridiculous, wrong headed" political analysis, then it cannot tolerate Race Anger either, legitimate or otherwise. And thus Barak Obama has just been de-legitimized as a Presidential candidate -- for even risking a listen to such a sermon.
This is the surreal state of Political Correctness as defined by Politics Incorporated in America. Today in America, if you so much as challenge the corporate, focus-group, think-speak sludge broadcast 24x7x365 over every channel and Internet connection, then there is obviously something wrong with you! If you think the War On Drugs is as absurd as the War On Terror, or that the rules on Wall Street favor the biggest firms and the largest accounts, and attempt to actually do something about it, then rest assured, you will be wire tapped -- and if any enforceable transgression is found, severely punished -- unless you are lucky enough to be Client1 through Client8 or Client10 through Client[N] -- and the opposing party administration has no witch hunt pending against you...
For the record, I am not endorsing prostitution. Though I think one can easily argue that, on the human scale of transgressions, and in light of basic human genetic determinism, it is relatively harmless within a larger social context within a progressive society.
But America is no progressive society! America is a self-righteous, hypocritical, corporate oligarchy, where challenging or offensive words and pricks and pussies and adult needs are simply not to be tolerated. America is self reliant, except when it comes to oil or Wall Street bailouts. America is pure -- as pure as the fake, squeaky clean, White plastic Jesus behind the pulpit of virtually any tax-exempt church within its borders. Fat. Stupid. Happy. That's how Big Brother's Politics Inc. wants us. So far so good.
But then someone different comes along -- a political candidate that stands out literally amid the Old, White and cynical landscape. A candidate that, simply through the pigment of his skin and the hope and all-too-rare intelligence of his rhetoric, challenges Politics Incorporated. And he is Black, can you imagine that -- America with a pretty Black front man? Right up there in front of Jesus' American flag and everything! Red, White, Blue -- and Black. Well that's just asking too much I guess. A sold-out White lady that can drop her g's when necessary to win Ohio -- workin[g], fixin[g], manipulatin[g] -- with a Washington and Wall Street pedigree we're all taught to aspire to -- well, she's just fine with the Corporation. But an uppity black?! A street hustler (er... I mean organizer)?! Now that's just asking too much. Round up the camera trucks, boys. Let's get to work undoing the Democratic process!
Well I for one like to think that somehow America could learn to tolerate it all: Don Imus' and Geraldine Ferraro's stupid racism, harmless drugs like marijuana, essentially victim-less crimes like prostitution, even the justifiable but angry denouncements of a Black preacher. In fact I believe there's a word in the English language for tolerating such diversity -- pluralism.
I think we can all use a reminder that words, powerful as they are, are not lynch mobs or daggers or bombs; That legalized marijuana won't hurt anyone except excessive users and maybe their loved ones; That prostitution is the oldest profession on record -- and seems unlikely to disappear -- unless we do; That a planet Earth without racism -- forward, reverse or otherwise -- is a more perfect world, but one that I -- or anyone reading this I fear -- is unlikely to behold.
But I am naive enough to hope to live to see improvement. To live to see progressives, whether Democrats, Republicans, Anarchists, Socialists -- whatever silly brand we organize behind -- admit that individually and probably collectively we all basically want much the same things: MORE life, MORE liberty and GREATER pursuit of happiness.
But Government Inc., by, for and of corporations, barring all forms of free expression and behavior, be they tasteless, angry, challenging or even legitimately dissent-ful, yields none of the above. Orwell was right. We are cattle now, plodding our way to the killing floor, unless of course a forklift is required.