20 September 2010. I think I'll start again.
There's something currently in the political breezes that is far more than troubling. The Tea Party movement--as it calls itself--is showing some signs that mirror other trends in human history. This may seem a strange place to start this blog, but it's on my mind.
As Sinclair Lewis noted, fascism will enter our consciousness "wrapped in an American flag and carrying a cross." (1935, "It Can't Happen Here") The only way that can actually happen is when critical thinking goes out the window, when scapegoats are chosen that don't fight back (or vote regularly), and the past is to blam for everythng in general. Sinclair Lewis might have been thinking about the rise of fascism in Europe, but there the anit-establishment movement was spurred on by economic history. Today, we stand at a crossroads between fear and hope. The ultra-right wing of the Tea Party relies on personalities rather than substance to control and create the fear that is stirs up a truly religious zeal to knock down all that enables hope. Even broken, the framework of our heritage is based more on hope than it is on fear. Yet, in spite of that, the fear brokers of the ultra-right are decrying all that does not conform to their ideas (would that they had ideals) as anti-American and anti-Founding Father...whatever that means, as though overtwo hundred years of cultural evolution and history should be completely predicated on ideas that are no longer understood.
Fear is the common currency of this movement, and with it people can--and will--be pushed and prodded to "conform," to trade hope in for a blindness that allows others to keep them "safe:" safe from the fears that are generated by those whose only motivations are those of extreme self-interest and greed. And if fear is the common currency, then greed is the motivation, a warped sense of Christianity the framewok, patriotism the means to condemn non-conformists, and love and hope the casualties that will ultimately bring about the death of our cultural organism.
So...what'll it be, do you think? Fear...or hope?
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