Gambit - you have exhausted anger, You have exhausted rhetoric, Now, come towards the light, come towards what you know is right, your conscience. Think about the America you know you and every other sane person wants:
August 20, 2010, 9:00 pm
Real Americans, Please Stand Up
By DICK CAVETT
All this talk about the mosque reminds me of two things I heard growing up in Nebraska.
I had a 6th grade teacher who referred to American Indians as sneaky redskins and our enemies in the Pacific as dirty Japs. This abated somewhat after I asked one day in class, Mrs. G., do you think our parents would like to know that you teach race prejudice? She faded three shades.
The rest of that year was difficult.
As a war kid, I also heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral Bull Halsey: If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, Id kick her in the belly.
These are not proud moments in my heritage. But now, Im genuinely ashamed of us. How sad this whole mosque business is. It doesnt take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our home-grown racism and bigotry overflow. We have collectively taken a pratfall on a moral whoopee cushion.
Surely, few of the opponents of the Islamic cultural center would feel comfortable at the International Burn a Koran Day planned by a southern church-supported group (on a newscast, I think I might have even glimpsed a banner reading, Bring the Whole Family, but maybe I was hallucinating). This all must have gone over big on Al Jazeera news.
I like to think Im not easily shocked, but here I am, seeing the emotions of the masses running like a freight train over the right to freedom of religion never mind the right of eminent domain and private property.
A heyday is being had by a posse of the cheesiest Republican politicos (Lazio, Palin, quick-change artist John McCain and, of course, the self-anointed St. Joan of 9/11, R. Giuliani). Balanced, of course by plenty of cheesy Democrats. And of course Rush L. dependably pollutes the atmosphere with his particular brand of airborne sludge.
Sad to see Mr. Reids venerable knees buckle upon seeing the vilification heaped on Obama, and the resulting polls. (Not to suggest that this alone would cause the sudden 180-degree turn of a man of integrity facing re-election fears.)
I got invigorating jolts from the presidents splendid speech almost as good as Mayor Bloombergs
but I was dismayed, after the worst had poured out their passionate intensity, to see him shed a few vertebrae the next day and step back.
What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldnt have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?
I just cant believe that so many are willing to ignore the simple fact that nearly all Muslims were adamantly opposed to the actions and events that took place on 9/11, and denounced them strongly, saying that the Islamic religion in no way condones it.
Our goal in at least one of our Middle East wars is to rebuild a government in our own image with democracy for all. Instead, we are rebuilding ourselves in the image of those who detest us. I hate to see my country and its a hell of a good one endorse what we purport to hate, besmirching what distinguishes us from countries where persecution rules.
Ive tried real hard to understand the objectors position. No one is untouched by what happened on 9/11. I dont claim to be capable of imagining the anguish, grief and anger of the people who lost their friends and loved ones that day. It really does the heart good to see that so many of them have denounced the outcry against the project. A fact too little reported.
And it seems to have escaped wide notice that a goodly number of Muslims died at the towers that day. (I dont mean the crazies in the planes.) What are their families to think of being told to beat it?
Insulting to the dead is a favorite phrase thrown about by opponents of the center. How about the insult to the dead American soldiers who fought at Iwo Jima and Normandy, defending American citizens abiding by the law on their own private property and exercising their freedom of religion?
Too bad that legions oppose this. A woman tells the news guy on the street, I have absolutely no prejudice against the Muslim people. My cousin is married to one. I just dont see why they have to be here. A man complains that his opposition to the mosque is painting me like I hate the whole Arab world. (Perhaps he dislikes them all as individuals?)
I remain amazed and really, sincerely, want to understand this. What can it be that is faulty in so many peoples thought processes, their ethics, their education, their experience of life, their understanding of their country, their what-have-you that blinds them to the fact that you cant simultaneously maintain that you have nothing against members of any religion but are willing to penalize members of this one? Can you help me with this?
Set aside for the moment that we are handing such a lethal propaganda grenade to our detractors around the world.
You cant eat this particular cake and have it, too. The true calamity, of course, is that behavior of this kind allows the enemy to win.
Note: An earlier version of this article mentioned Dunkirk instead of Normandy; that has been corrected.
August 25, 2010, 8:30 pm
Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.
Tags:
Fox News, lies, president obama, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh
Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.
Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. I have read about him, she said, and hes not hes an Arab.
McCain was quick to knock down the lie. No, maam, he said, hes a decent family man, a citizen.
That ill-informed woman her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. Its not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.
Take a look at Tuesday nights box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.
Yet a presidents birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obamas life. Whats more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.
The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived not because millions of people believe a lie.
In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly has spread such inaccuracies.
Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
Rush LimbaughSo where is this media? Two sources, and they are no surprise here the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:
Tomorrow is Obamas birthday not that weve seen any proof of that, he said on Aug. 3. They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we havent seen any proof of that.
Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, FactCheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obamas Hawaiian birth certificate.
On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. Obama says hes a Christian, but wheres the evidence? he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president imam Obama, and said, Im just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.
You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that people are questioning things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says its a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.
Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowas two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obamas Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.
Its curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.
I am a devout Christian, Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thats not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father.
Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.
Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the sites five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.
Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was just for her and approximately 40 of her friends. Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel paid for by you.
The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. Hes Muslim and foreign. Shes living the luxe life on your dime. They dont even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.
Climate-change denial is a special category all its own. Once on the fringe, dismissal of scientific consensus is now an article of faith among leading Republicans, again taking their cue from Limbaugh and Fox.
It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or arent sure from which country the United States gained its independence?
But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.
Its one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?
Note: In an earlier version of this piece, a statistic for the percentage of Republicans who believe the president is Muslim was given wrong; it has been corrected.
