The Politics of Hatred

I received an email earlier this summer, a racist rant that was (mistakenly) attributed to Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld). You might remember that he got into a bit of trouble a few years ago for yelling out racial epithets at a concert. So someone got the bright idea to attach his name to their racist musings, and pass them off as his. This has been debunked by Snopes.com, but it served another purpose for me. It sent me down the path of thought that made me question just where all the hate is coming from? It is so pervasive in our society now, that it feels as though there is no escaping it.

Nowhere, though, is it worse than in our political realm. Think of the last five Presidents. Only George Bush Sr. doesn't engender a passionate response from one side or the other. Reagan was despised by the Left, loved by the Right. Clinton was the exact opposite, only more so. Then came W., and the hatred reached new levels (and by the end, he was hated by both the Left, and most of his own party). Now there's Obama, and the politics of hate have reached their zenith. There is a relatively new Harris poll that shows that 25% of Republicans believe that Obama is the Antichrist. Seriously. That goes into my all-time list of favorite poll statistics, right next to the 40% of Americans who believe their retirement money will be coming from winning the lottery. (Of course, in this economy, that might not be such a bad bet)

Listen, I'm disappointed in Obama as well. He rode a wave of hope and optimism into office, only to seemingly give up on that simply because the other side of the aisle didn't want to play nice. So he caved, and that promise of hope went by the wayside, as he tried to fight his battles with the same tactics that everyone else was already using. He can't, and he shouldn't, but he does it anyway.

I get so discouraged when I think of Obama. Not because I think he's a bad man, in fact, it's exactly the opposite. I think he's a great man, but one who was unprepared for what he was stepping into. I think he failed to realize just how divided we are as a country right now. "Red" America and "Blue" America might as well be the Bloods and the Crips. Same colors, same level of hatred for one another. There is no easy way out of this, and Obama should have realized that.

People are scared right now. The economy sucks, unemployment is through the roof, everything costs more, and 99% of the people don't know how they're going to afford the things they need. That's an easy group to manipulate. But I truly believe that if you give people a choice between being motivated by fear, and being motivated by hope, most of them will chose hope. That's why Obama got elected in the first place. It was the basic message of his campaign: Hope. Now it's all fear again, from both sides, and the people like me who want hope, and want to believe, are out of luck.

You know what I really wanted from Obama? I wanted Ghandi. I wanted someone who would stand there while the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world hurled insults and invective at him, and just take it. I wanted someone who would take the political Machiavellianism that is so rampant in Washington right now, and just rise above it. Who would look at the scheming and backstabbing and not stoop to that level, no matter what. Yes, he would be beaten down; I wanted someone who would stand back up and say, "Go ahead, knock me down again". Because that's really the only way out of this, folks. It does not take courage to take a beating. It takes courage to get back up and take another one.

I'm discouraged because if one of the smartest, most principled men in Washington, who was elected on a platform of hope and bipartisanship, can't rise above the politics of hatred, who can? Certainly not a Republican, and there isn't a Democrat out there with enough of a spine to do it. I worry that it only gets worse from here, with no end in sight.

We cannot continue down this path, as there is no happy ending here. We have to learn to rise above as individuals, and eventually we can rise above as a nation. Because right now we're mired in the muck, and unless we do something about it, we're only going to sink.

I find myself drifting back to the words in JFK's inauguration speech: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. And I believe that what we can all do is to turn away from hate and intolerance, and turn towards love and light. Even knowing that we will get knocked down, if we have the courage to get back up, we will prevail in the end.

Random musings indeed...

So, nothing earth-shattering to write about, but felt like typing so here I am.

No news on the job this week, which means the EPUD job is probably dead. I keep telling myself that perhaps it just means that they had hundreds of applicants (like every job in Eugene has right now) and with only one HR person, it's taking her a while to get through everything. I haven't been turned down yet, so that's a good thing. Maybe I'll get lucky, but I've come to peace with not getting it, I think.

One of my best friends from high school was in Portland this week, so I went up and had dinner with him yesterday. Was nice to catch up with someone in person, rather than over the internet. For being so far away from everyone, I'm still fairly well connected to a lot of people. Most of them in Cali, but some spread out all over the country, and a few outside the U.S. But there's just something about being able to sit across a table, drinking a beer, and talking about old times that is unequaled by anything that could be done online.

Fetish Ball was a good time last weekend. Performed at this one, rather than helping Ruthie run security. Of course, security at this one sucked, because Ruthie was trying to do it all on her own, and she's just not physically capable of doing so. But I didn't have to care, because it wasn't my job this time. Met a new friend, who I did a 30-minute session on, more than almost anyone I've ever seen. She can take a beating for sure. Will hopefully be playing with her on a regular basis now. Was a very weird vibe, though. A LOT of new people, a lot of frat boys and sorority girls, almost no one dancing. Odd also because the last Fetish night was an amazing vibe from start to finish. This one just seemed... off. Of course, being behind the ropes, I don't get the same vibe no matter what. Definitely had some good reactions to my scenes though.

Lots of movies over the past week or so. Did you know that Against All Odds, the 80's flick with Jeff Bridges and James Woods was a remake? The original was called Out of the Past, and it's from 1947, with a young Robert Mitchum in the Bridges role, and Kirk Douglas in the James Woods role. Great, great movie. Took about 30 minutes to get me hooked, and then it was awesome through the end. In other movies... Thought Green Zone was a little formulaic, but pretty good. Thought the worst movie title in recent memory: Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (WTF, people, you seriously couldn't tighten that title up a bit?) was actually fairly entertaining. I actually hope they make more in that series, because it has a lot of potential. The writing wasn't great, but I do think it could grow into a pretty good series. Way more great actors in it than I had heard about. Sean Bean, Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson. The names kept popping up on the credits, and I just thought, "Wow, really?"

Speaking of Sean Bean, I'm reading Game of Thrones for the first time. It's George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, which HBO is turning into the first high fantasy TV series with a real budget... ever. Sure, there's been stuff on Syfy, Merlin, Xena, etc. But all of those, even the ones that were somewhat fun to watch, were WAY low budget. I'm looking forward to something akin to 'Rome', but in the fantasy realm. Comes out after the first of the year, should be great.

Bubbled at poker this week, fucking hate that. But still, I've already got more points and more cashes than anyone had all of last year. I think I need four more cashes to break the records for points and cashes in a year. Should have that soon enough. D'oh! Way to jinx myself.

Okay, I'm done for the night. Love you all, thanks for reading.