My general belief is that that which you do not understand, you tend to fear.
But when you truly do not understand something - from any angle, when it is so mind-bogglingly insane of an idea that you can not wrap your head around, I feel it is necessary to spend as much time as necessary to figure out what it is you fear. And for the past few months I've truly feared conservatives because they just seem to keep getting crazier and crazier. With the fringe part of the conservative party holding the microphone and spouting so much nonsense, its hard to attain exactly where it all comes from.
And so I began to try to understand the conservative mindset.
They believe in things such as FEMA Camps. - The idea that FEMA is creating large camps across the United States in order to round up people in order to execute them Hitler style.
They believe in that Barack Hussein Obama is NOT their president. How could he be? He's clearly a Kenyan! This is clearly a ploy by the people in power right now - the house, the senate, and those elite liberals to put a black man in charge. And if someone were to put a bullet in his head, well that wouldn't be so bad - he's black after all, and certainly NOT my president.
They believe that the president's health care plan is secretly a way to execute granny. And why not? Most Republicans these days are white, male, over 55, and christian. Granny tends to be all those things! It makes sense! And just in case you happen to be one of those conservatives who doesn't care about old people because well.. you're old and your parents are dead, you can be sure that they'll kill Sarah Palin's down syndrome baby in this new world order under Barack Hussein Obama.
They are entertaining the notion the seceding from the Union is not only a wise decision, but it is perhaps the ONLY decision left to make. And why not? The country has been taken over by fags, niggers, spics, feminists, and ay-rabs so its clearly time to exercise our second amendment rights and overthrow the corrupt government! They want THEIR country back!
And with that last paragraph, it should come as no surprise that guns, guns, guns have been selling like hotcakes since Obama got elected.
How anyone could believe, or even spend a significant amount of time on such a ridiculous notions can be staggering. But instead of just simply writing them off as crazy, try to understand WHY they think that such things exist.
I tend to go back to pre-civil war times when I think of the current political landscape. And to be completely honest, its hard not to - there are just so many parallels... The secretive fears about retribution, the conservatives voting as a block against everything the liberals want, the calls for secession, the stockpiling of arms, the complete disconnect from reality about war in general and what a secession would mean. It goes on and on. It is the fear of retribution that I think drives the conservatives and republican party in general right now.
Smart slave-owners (oxymoron?) knew that slavery was coming to an end before the civil war happened. And these people were scared to death of retribution. They were well aware of the fact that if all the slaves that they mistreated in the past could be turned free - they might start executing their former masters. Due to the 3/5ths compromise the House, Senate, White House and by extension the Supreme Court were all controlled by the south.
So, we come back to the present and analyze what all of this means now. In effect, if we look at the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and White House, we can see that since the civil war, an almost unbroken chain of white males has dominated all branches of our government until quite recently. Suddenly all of the minorities in this country control everything!
And the thought crosses in their head..
We've been screwing these people over since the civil war... And now a black person is in control, with gays, women, latinos, blacks, and muslims at his side. They're going to come after us now! Retribution will be the order of the day.
They'll try to execute us in any way, shape, manner possible. But they won't be able to do it easily - they'll have to do it secretly by using a death panel to decide who gets to live and who gets to die and they'll stock the panel with liberals. They'll set up FEMA camps for anyone who catches on so that they can be rounded up and killed easily and quietly.
Suddenly the 'THEY' and 'WE' and 'OUR' starts to make sense in a Glenn Beck show.
I offer all of this knowledge about the conservative mindset not to scare, intimidate, or worry any of you, but merely to inform. If you can not understand where your opponent is coming from he will probably blindside you. And our opponents - these conservatives who are wistfully thinking of the president being murdered are getting their news primarily from three sources.
- Fox News.
- Their neighbor, friend, relative, or co-worker
- Conservative blogging websites
Worse yet, #2 is most likely getting his news from #1 and #3 as well, hence it is a completely enclosed circular news stream. They feed each other and the misinformation gets worse and worse like a game of telephone.
I had an interesting conversation today with one of my teachers, he's an old school hippie who teaches now at CCSF. He spoke to me about Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol. There are two ghastly looking critters who vaguely look like children under the Ghost of Christmas Future's robe. One was Ignorance, and the other is Want. In effect without education, Want is all that is left. With no where to turn these people get desperate. REALLY desperate. Desperation can and will lead to violence unless something is changed. (This conversation took place because CCSF will largely not be offering any classes this summer due to budget cuts which are because of the republicans refusal to raise taxes in one of the most regressive state tax structures in America).
I feel that Barack Obama's attempts to attack Fox News, one of the chief sources of misinformation is just not powerful enough to actually effect change without the help of the legislature branch. And so I feel despair about a future in which ignorance seems to be growing rather than shrinking.