Fall of a Great Nation
Regretfully, I must now admit to myself that there's no saving the great nation known as the United States of America. It was a grand experiment, truthfully a one of a kind in the known history of mankind, but it cannot recover from the internal cancer of divisiveness which has now metastasized among us. If the nation can be thought of as the body, and the population its individual cells, then I think we have tipped over beyond the point of no return. Us healthy cells will just have to do the best we can and, unlike what would happen with a real cancer, there still is the chance that we will excise ourselves from the putrid shambles and re-emerge, phoenix-like, to mayhaps rebuild something like what the USA once was; hopefully with safeguards against a relapse of the same cancer that destroyed the prior body politic.
Where do I get the evidence to base my dire predictions on, you ask? Fair question. Where to start...
Well, this past week we celebrated the birthday of a civil rights leader that did his best to integrate Black Americans with their White counterparts, namely, Martin Luther King, Jr. On the same day that we celebrated Dr. King's birth, the Black mayor of New Orleans went on record saying he wanted a "chocolate" city rebuilt, one dominated by Black Americans. He went on to add that surely God wanted it that way. Probably the same God that decided it'd be cool to crash planes into buildings. Be very afraid, people, when someone tells you what God wants. Look that person straight in the eye and slowly walk away backwards, never losing eye contact until you're at least 20 yards away. Then turn and run!
Subsequent days had Mayor Nagin backpedalling furiously, first stating idiotically that what he had meant was chocolate "milk", where dark chocolate mixes with white milk to produce a tasty drink.
Please. One has but to read or listen to his full remarks to know that nothing white was even on the fringes of his mind when he made his comments, much less milk. Since his full remarks are on record, and the chocolate milk explanation didn't hold water for even a minute, he went on to apologize guardedly, saying that he needed "to be more sensitive and more aware" of what he was saying. Mr. Mayor, you don't need to be more sensitive about what you're saying, you need to be a more sensitive about what you're thinking. Bottomline, racist and asinine thoughts invariably breed racist and asinine speeches. Go wash out your mind with soap. I'll leave you to choose the color of the soap on your own.
Now, I have to wonder what the hell would happen if a white person had made a similar remark, aimed the opposite way, of course. Would any White mayor's political career have lasted more than 10 minutes had he or she stated that they wanted their city to be vanilla? Hell, no! They'd have been ridden out of town on a rail before the echo of their words had stopped resounding. Double standard, anyone? And don't even get me started on La Clinton's plantation speech. The only positive thing about it is that it'll probably return to haunt her when she campaigns (which she will) in 2008.
Seeing the media's reaction convinced me that there's nothing left to be done. Instead of everyone, media, pundits, politicos on both sides of the political divide, talking heads, Hollywood darlings (why these are considered experts on anything except trashy movies I've yet to understand) and the common people, rallying around a single, cohesive banner and stating categorically that they would not tolerate talk like that which came from Mayor Nagin's mouth, what happened was quite the opposite. The usual suspects danced around the whole thing, first excusing the Mayor based on whatever convoluted logic games they wanted to play that day, or worse, copying the Mayor's own chocolate milk defense. When that didn't work they predictably tried to justify the whole thing based on racial history. People, there's no one alive that had anything to do with slavery in the South (or North) and no one alive who was actually legally enslaved within the United States. Let's get over that. Sure, we need to remember it as part of our collective history but I think we should be done apologizing for it and making allowances based on that regrettable phase in our nation's development. You'd think we were the only nation to have ever practiced slavery. It's not even an event that hasn't been overshadowed by more recent and much more horrible racial injustices and crimes. Even the Germans have stopped apologizing for Hitler. And Israel hasn't even begun apologizing to the Palestinians (nor they to Israel, just to be fair).
And then you go to the other side of the political pie and you listen to people like Sean Hannity going on and on about the crazy Liberals and the kooks that make up the Democrats. Sean, I agree with your political stance, most of the time, but calling people who disagree with you insane and kooks is a child's way of arguing. You're a step away from Mark Levin, whose stance I also agree with, most of the time, but whose mode of arguing forces me to turn away in disgust. Winning an argument with Mark, regardless of who's right, is merely a matter of lung power. Whoever screams the most wins, or would win, if Mark also didn't have full control of the microphone and the mute button.
Chris Rock said it best in one of his stand up shows. Anyone who votes or thinks Conservative or Liberal all the time is a moron who's made up his mind BEFORE listening to the issues. While, I, personally, identify myself more closely to the Conservatives than to the Liberals these days, that doesn't mean I'm one or the other. It just means that after thinking over the issues, and looking at all the facts, and exercising the common sense God saw fit to give me, I find myself relating more often to the Conservative stance and policies. And that's right now, new issues and/or new Conservative stances and policies may change my bias at any time.
But it's too late, isn't it? The only way either side will even consider moving on and getting to the issues that affect the country instead of dedicating 99% of the effort to undermining the other side, is if said other side was wiped off the face of the Earth. The words "Loyal Opposition" are totally unknown to either side these days.
Let's hope the new country that will arise from this shambles takes that into account. And let history remember that it was the USA who defeated the USA, and not some outside menace.
