Sarah Palin's Fan's Midnight Revisionist Ride

I sort of fell of the face of the earth, and have not had time to spend much time on this blog. However, this news is so enraging, and scary, that I am forced to spend 10 minutes and prepare a discussion.

By now we all know that Sarah Palin did not apparently take 4th grade, 8th grade, nor 11th grade American History (or whatever arrangement they had at your school system). She cannot provide the basic story of Paul Revere's ride, and went out into the fray again to pretend like her narrative is actually the correct one - thereby making everyone else wrong, of course. But that is not what I am scared about, I would expect something like that from her.

What is frightening is the response of her following to attempt to rewrite the history books. I am being a bid facetious here, given that they tried to rewrite the account on Wikipedia, but given that a lot people probably think Wikipedia is completely true, this is a problem.

Here is an article about this: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56319.html

For all their hawing and guffawing about the communist conspiracy to take over this country, Tea Partyers, unsurprisingly, do not know their history. Otherwise, one of the things they would realize is that one of the things which separated us from the Soviets is that when their leader wanted a part of history to disappear, or change, their disappeared it, or changed it.

Sad, sad days. Imagine if one of those Palin apparachiks manages to insinuate themselves into textbook writing, god help our children. Texas state schoolboard here they come!

Bigotry and Discrimination Will Lead Us Nowhere Good

After September 11 happened, I had serious worries that there would be an intense backlash against Muslims living in this country. While there were people who "disappeared" and there were isolated incidents of violence and hatred, we largely avoided any mass discontent or state-sponsored action. After we passed through those first fateful years, and the Patriot Act proved to be less onerous than was originally suggested, I believe we have now passed into that very sort of mass hysteria that we somehow avoided those 9 years ago. We are going in a dangerous direction.

I am alarmed by how many people are ready and willing to accept, and repeat, the discriminatory and bigoted statements that many right-wing Tea Party, Republican, and Democratic candidates and political commentators have made concerning immigrants--especially Muslims. It is a sad day that civil discourse in this country is now accepting public justifications for the ill-treatment of (mainly Hispanic) immigrants, and accepting the scapegoating of Muslims and gays for our nation's problems.

This is a slippery slope. I find it hard to believe that people have forgotten how Adolf Hitler came to power, and how race-baiting right wing groups that have gained sway in both Hungary and Holland in recent years. There are some unscrupulous politicians out there who understand the equation: troubled economic times + scapegoating an easily-identified and relatively isolated minority = popular political backing. If you think it can't happen again, know that the political party that recently became part of the ruling coalition in Hungary is backed by a paramilitary group that is trying to hark back to the Arrow Cross with its emblem. Don't know what the Arrow Cross is? Read this and this. Some of the Roma and Jewish scapegoating occurring in Hungary is not altogether different from comments being made in the open in the United States, by many people, about Muslims/Arabs and Hispanic immigrants.

Some very mainstream political candidates, such as Sharon Angle, and others were very vocal in suggesting punitive actions against these groups. Apparently rounding up all the illegal Hispanic immigrants and beefing up the Berlin...excuse me, border...wall will solve our problems.

Adolf Hitler, and the Jobbik party in Hungary, are have been elected democratically. Sharon Angle was nearly so in the Nevada. People in the United States, perhaps because of the sort of revisionism seen  by the governor of Virginia (suggesting the Civil War was not about slavery), or the Texas board of education (with their right-wing re-invention of American history), or maybe just our crumbling educational system, have lost sight of history.

It is cliche to have to say this, but those who forget history are bound to repeat it. Vicious, violent discrimination against religious or ethnic groups has happened again and again across the world since the Second World War. If good people do not act to hasten the our arrival at the place our nation appears to be marching to, then the United States will again repeat the sort of bigotry, discrimination, and violence that we have not seen domestically since the Indian Wars.

If You Get a Tea Party, Make Tea

Tea Party for better or worse, has become a part of the American political establishment. For the most part, I suspect the Tea Party's policies will have a negative effect on the country and its future. But some of the policies of the Tea Party, whether term limits, tackling government spending, or a focus on deficit reduction could have positive effects on the way the government does business.

In an effort to be conciliatory, I believe it is best that we try to make the best of the changes in the Republican/Tea party, and hope that we can work the more reasonable parts of their platform into something that represents our nation's best interest. All-in-all, however, we must remain vigilant of the often outlandish policies these groups now proffer as the answer to the problems this country faces.

Things are never as simple as they first appear.