"I Want My Country Back" - Revisiting What Got Us Here

I wrote this back in 2009.  It's not that difficult to see where Dylann Roof got some of his ideas.  And my prayers continue to go out to all of the Emanuel AME Church family and community.

Now, let's fire up the Shut'cher Gobbige Mowf Wayback Machine...

It's the next great Battle Cry of the Stupid Conservative.

Sean Hannity

Glenn Beck

Katy Abrams (circled)

What do all of these people have in common? They, and others like them, have been complaining as loudly as they can that because of Barack Obama's Presidency and his daring to reform health care, he is transforming America in ways that make them sick. They have all been grabbing open mikes and shrieking into them that "This is not the America I grew up in!" These folks have corrupted legitimate town-hall discussions that the Democratic Party members are trying to sponsor. The very idea of health care reform for people who can't afford health care is so ghastly, so unimaginable, so downright heinous that it's just... just... it's just unamerican, that's what it is. At least, that's what the people who utter these sentiments would have you believe.

This post isn't about the merits of health care, or the pluses and minuses of the Single Payer Option. This post is about hatred. Violent, intense hatred that is bubbling its way to the surface... hatred that is formed in a cauldron of ignorance, boiling into a witches' brew of potential violence and unrest, being stirred by witches straight out of Shakespearean lore. What is it that have their collective panties in a huge bunch? Is it health care? Is it war? Is it the economy? None of the above, my friends. The thing that has angered up the blood of these people... the thing that has some white people feeling like America is being snatched from them (the irony of them complaining about America being taken from them is so rich that it oughta be poured on pancakes and served with cheese eggs and sausage or bacon... now I'm all hungry... but I digress)... the common denominator that has all of these people showing up at health care rallies carrying GUNS...














...to these rallies... the common denominator is an African-American President of the United States.

These people want us to believe that they're being good, patriotic citizens who are exercising their rights to free speech. To them, I say "Shet'cher gobbige mowf!" The fact is that I don't care who you are, or where you're from, you bring a gun as a SHOW OF FORCE. You bring a gun if you feel SERIOUSLY THREATENED, and not just because a liberal President wants to make sure that an unemployed person won't go bankrupt because they have to go to the doctor. The person on the right was carrying a sign quoting Thomas Jefferson. The quote is pictured here:









Now, on the surface, a quote from Thomas Jefferson is downright patriotic. But the ominous undertone of this sign is getting everyone's attention. You see, this quote is very popular among the right-wing militias. It was also on a t-shirt worn by Timothy McVeigh. Some things may be coincidence. This, however, isn't one of them. A man coming to protest health care sponsored by the President by carrying a gun and a sign with a slogan favored by a domestic terrorist? Sheer coincidence? Right, and I have some oceanfront property in Chicago that I'm willing to unload, cheap.

Back to the original point here, these people are angry that a Black man has gotten way past uppity to the point where he is taking America away from them. These people lament about the America they grew up in... you mean the America with attack dogs and firehoses turned on Black people, Black churches bombed with horrifying regularity, lynchings being as commonplace as church meetings? You mean the America where women were seen at their best when they were barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen? The election of President Obama appears to be the crowning moment of privileged white people's tenuous grip on America. They want to go back to the days of "Pleasantville" and "Andy Griffith", and they want ALL of us to believe that America was better then.

Ask Emmit Till about that America. Ask Malcolm X. Ask Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Ask the four little girls who were attending church in Alabama. Ask the thousands who became the "Strange Fruit" that Billie Holliday sang about.

What's that? You CAN'T? Gee, I wonder why. After all, they were just as much a part of "that America" as the images of "Happy Days" and drive-thru diners. The horrors of violence for the sake of keeping the status quo is just about as American as apple pie.

It seems that the election of President Obama has gotten these racists to be bolder about their racism. It began to rear its ugly head during the campaign (there are plenty of videos of Palin/McCain supporters spewing their ugliness in the form of "kill him" and "terrorist"). And as Obama continues to move forward in his Presidency, the cute little whispers by the neo-cons have become all-out rallying cries. They feel that the President isn't a U.S. citizen. They feel that he is secretly a Muslim... or a practitioner of Liberation Theology. "Their America" now has a Black man as a commander-in-chief, and they are scared. They are angry. And as these rallies (again, HEALTH CARE REFORM rallies) demonstrate just how mad they are. Mad enough to accuse the President of ushering in a terrible wave of socialism. Mad enough to say "Heil Hitler" to a Jewish man who was supporting Israel's nationalized health care. Mad enough to shout that their country is being taken away.

Mad enough to carry loaded weapons to a health care rally.

Now, when Bush was President, the Left gave him a lot of "Hitler" grief. But I think that the difference between the Left and the Right is that the Right has more elected officials and serious media sponsors to support, promote, and disseminate the dangerous propaganda that's polluting political discourse. When you have elected officials, people like Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, and industry lobbyists all working together to undermine the efforts of the President and paint him as an enemy of the people or some sort of exotic foreign outsider causing trouble, things can only get worse. Very tragically worse.

Just think... with the last administration, people got arrested for wearing ANTI-BUSH T-SHIRTS. Now, you have protesters coming into the picture armed and ready for a fight... even if they have to be the ones that start it.

Who Taught You To Hate The Poor?

With apologies to our Shining Black Prince, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, also known as Malcolm X.

You're fine, my brother.

I have been thinking about this for a long, long time.  Finally, it hit me.  That's why I'm paraphrasing Malcolm X's brilliant speech about self-hatred in the Black community to discuss the absolute hatred that some people have for the poor in this country.  It is beyond ridiculous, and it is the antithesis of the Christianity that I profess about, embrace, and preach about.

Who taught you how to hate the poor?  Who taught you that the poor were somehow sub-human, and not worthy of basic things, such as food, shelter, human dignity, and common decency?  Every now and then, the topic of drug-testing people who receive public assistance comes up.  The supporters of this measure rail on and on about how they are sick and tired of their tax dollars are funding a poor person's Cadillac, X-Box, and cocaine habit.  They INSIST that people receiving public assistance MUST prove themselves worthy of the government's generosity, and one of the ways to prove this is by taking a random drug test.  In one discussion, someone actually said that in his "hood", up to 90% of the people on public assistance were drug users.  Now, unless he lived on the set of "The Wire", I'm calling shenanigans on that claim.  

With regards to drug testing people on public assistance, we already have a model on which to base our observations.  We have the state of Florida.  Yep, good ol' Florida, the home of George Zimmerman, "Stand Your Ground", and the place where LeBron James took his talents.  Florida Gov. Voldermort Rick Scott implemented drug testing for people needing assistance in his state.  And to the surprise of no one ever, the results were less than stellar.  A heaping 2.6% of those tested failed the drug test, costing the state an additional $46,000 over the initial $118,000 that it cost to reimburse the people that tested negative.  The state of Utah had similar results.  

Look at me!  I'm a fiscal conservative!  I'll prove it by spending MORE money on tests!  Muah hah hah hah!!!

Even if the results kicked every drug user of the rolls of public assistance (which it didn't), there is a key element that the conservatives always refuse to address. 

FOLLOW THE MONEY.  In the case of Florida, as it turned out, the facilities that conducted the drug tests were owned by Gov. Scott, who then transferred the shares to a trust controlled by his wife.  Conflict of interest, you say?  Pshaw.  There's no conflict of interest when the governor of a state institutes a state-wide drug-testing program, and those tests are to be done at facilities basically owned by his wife.  Why would ANYONE think that there's a conflict of interest?  And of COURSE, it's fiscally responsible to directly benefit from a measure that costs the taxpayers money.  And it really shows that you're compassionate when you require that the poor pay for these tests out of pocket, only to be reimbursed if and when they test negative.

It would be a crying shame if your children didn't eat because you acted like you had something to hide.  Yep, a darned crying shame.  Your children will thank you for your pee.

Drug tests are just one way that the poor are treated with disrespect.  Conservatives act as if the poor are just a bunch of lazy bums, sitting on street corners, demanding handouts.  This sentiment played out during the 2012 Presidential election, when robot Mormon Republican candidate Willardham Mittington Romneyhilliard IV stated that he would never get 47% of the vote, because they are nothing but takers.  Obviously, this didn't sit well with the poor, the middle class, and anyone who has an iota of common sense and decency.  But the rich continue to latch on to this idea that if you're not as rich as a Limbaugh, a Hannity, or a Koch, you are somehow a taker and a leech on society.  They also believe that if you don't think the way they do, you too are a moocher.  Corpulent Gasbag Rush Limbaugh actually stated that the reason why President Obama won was that Romney couldn't compete with "Santa Claus."

But who taught YOU to hate the poor?  Who taught YOU to believe this hyper-partisan, self-serving garbage that the poor are nothing but takers?  My guess is that if you believe this way, you believe that you are one Republican election cycle away from the mystical, mythical unicorn people known as "job creators" opening their offshore jobs war chest, and giving great jobs to everyone.  It's the darned Democratic Party that's forcing the benevolent JOB CREATORS to offshore jobs when they're needed at home.  This argument trickles into raising the minimum wage.  Ironically enough, the same people who condemn the poor for being poor, the same people who act as if poverty is a lifestyle choice, these are the same ones that rail AGAINST a living wage.  It doesn't matter if a person is working their tail off at a minimum wage job, at a company that won't give them full-time hours as a cost-cutting measure (Yay, job creators!).  To the disillusioned people that aren't rich, it's a poor person's own fault if they are poor.  They just haven't applied themselves or gotten the proper education.  That's all fine and good, but what do you tell a person with a master's degree that has taken an entry-level job to make ends meet?  What do you say to the person with years of experience and the education to back it up, but can't find a job?  Who taught you to treat them as if they are lazy bums, wasting away their lives?

I have said it before, and I will say it again.  The people who hate the poor so much and the people who worry about tax costs when it comes to helping the poor, are flat out hypocrites.  It is absolutely hypocritical to rail against the cost of public assistance when you are silent on the tax breaks that billion-dollar companies receive.  It is hypocritical of you to demand accountability for the poor receiving benefits when you are silent regarding jobs being sent offshore.  And it is egregiously and criminally hypocritical to be angry that people receive "your tax dollars" for their benefits, but you don't say one tiny thing about companies like Walmart.  Walmart encourages its entry-level workers to apply for public assistance for their health care needs, effectively shifting the cost of their workers' health care to the taxpayers.  And it's not as if Walmart can't afford to pay its employees a decent wage or provide solid health insurance.  They are a BILLION-DOLLAR company and a corporate monster, laying waste to everything that crosses their path.  But people say NOTHING about Walmart and other companies socializing their health care costs while privatizing their profits.

The High Cost of Low Savings, indeed.

Who taught you to hate the poor?  That hatred certainly isn't Biblical, despite the fact that right-wing Evangelicals treat hating the poor as if it's Scripture.  If it were up to them, Jesus would only heal people if they proved that they were worthy of being healed.  And instead of turning over the tables of the money-lenders in the temple, Jesus would be right along with them, selling "I Was Baptized At The River Jordan and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" merchandise.  Let's go to the scripture that the conservatives love to pull when addressing their disdain for the poor.  2 Thessalonians 3:10 says:

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Basically, you don't work, you don't eat.  Conservatives act as if everyone who receives public assistance is lazy, and they're just waiting around for their next gubmit handout.  And by quoting this Scripture, they attempt to justify their self-righteousness and their desire to keep the poor from receiving help.  When they quote this scripture, they automatically dismiss people who are working, and yet earn enough to still qualify for public assistance.  They are dismissing the people who CAN'T work, due to catastrophic illness or injury.  They dismiss people who are treating their job hunt as a full-time job, but just can't find work.  They would probably demand drug tests at soup kitchens, if they had their way.

"OK, your tests came back negative.  Enjoy your meal!"

Of course, this is the exact OPPOSITE of everything that Christ teaches.  First of all, it's incredibly condescending to assume that poor = lazy.  Second of all, this scripture does not condemn poverty, as the Apostle Paul is teaching against being idle.  He is teaching that believers should distance themselves from people who are idle and disruptive, and he is teaching that believers should distance themselves from busybodies.  It is bad hermeneutics to try to use this scripture as justification for looking down at the poor.  

But what DOES Jesus say about treating the poor?  I'm glad you asked.

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”- Matthew 25:42-46

This is the Scripture that the conservatives and their ilk leave out when discussing the poor, legislation, things like unemployment benefits, care for the veterans, and so forth.  There's also another Scripture known as The Golden Rule, which teaches that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  If Republicans followed the teachings of CHRIST, instead of the teachings of Republican Jesus, we wouldn't even be here.