Civil discourse cont...The Howling Mob

Knock, knock, knockin' at your own back door

Not to put too fine a point on it, but our Founding Fathers weren't nuts about dumb-asses either. In fact, the stupidity problem was one they recognized early on in pre-Revolutionary times and wrote long quarreling letters about it in their gorgeous curly handwriting. Sam Adams, an uncomfortable precursor of Glen Becks everywhere, thought that the Howling Mob, as it was characterized, could be put to noble service by siccing the rabble onto Loyalists and redcoats. Cooler heads, like John Adams, however, saw a lot to be wary of, like, f'instance, some rabble might be mongoose crazy and get all scary and unpredictable, and it was just possible they could get out of control completely. Which, of course they did, several times and to no one's benefit.

Thomas Jefferson thought that, in the interests of democratic thinking, one should mix with the dumb-butts and even, as he said, Lie on their stinking cots. But Jefferson had his trippy moments and who knows how he truly felt. He didn't lie on any reeking beds, that's for sure. He was mostly home at Monticello slugging down part of a truly exceptional cellar. George Washington wrote a little etiquette book in his twenties that was like many of the time: obsessed with the presentation of the self and with self control, plus exhorting his readers not to blow their noses on their fingers in the drawing room and not to pick lice out of their hair in church. On the mob side of things, I think we can vote him a quiet shudder.

So it's curious to me that we even give these poor teabagging souls a glance. Another blogger, The Rude Pundit, said that the 9-12 demonstration was the Special Olympics of protests and I tend to agree. Except that I can't overlook the fact that the howling mob is a part of America, as is their unvarnished racism. I don't know if their anger can ever be quelled, I don't know if they can be made happy; this country, even during its most somber midnights, has never done much for them. They are often constricted and deformed by poverty, whether it's a poverty of the soul, poverty of education or, the least ruinous type of poverty, financial. And yet, every so often, some strange personage arises from them, like a fabled feathered creature. Like Andrew Jackson say. Or Sam Houston. Or, in many ways, LBJ.

I've never been a believer in abreactive therapy: that it does a body good to blow his cork. Anger just begets more anger and its expression doesn't release anything, it just intoxicates. So I see these groups egging one another on and, I believe, no good will come of it. I know I'm not particularly good with idiots and it's better for me not to get furious about them, with them. But I think somehow they need to be engaged, and recognized as the part of America they've always been. It's the expression of that recognition I'm searching for.

Maybe George Washington's etiquette book has a clue.

I'm not seeing anything else that does.

Kluck 'em...

Kluckers

During the 1950's, in Burke, Virginia, school was dismissed on certain days so the kids could watch the Klan, along with the Daughters of The White Camellia parade down the middle of town. It was a big parade too. My mother taught school there and would tell us about it at dinner, her eyes the size of saucers. She knew that the parents of her students were Klansmen, although she didn't know how many. She lasted a year at that job as I recall, and often cried. But Burke was then known as a steamy little backwater, one where Southern-style barbarism was in full flower.

I've thought of this during the past few days, after reading about various Republican shenanigans during the debate on Obama's stimulus package. Thing is, there aren't many moderate Republicans in Congress any more, so we're down to the nut-jobs who survived the '06 elections, weren't indicted or jailed, and didn't retire to spend that vaunted time with their families. These bottom of the barrel Republicans have done nothing but obstruct critical legislation that's desperately needed to tackle this financial morass. To add on bitter insult, they are proposing cuts to childhood nutrition programs, Head Start, and food stamps among other programs, most of them benefiting women and children. That the Republicans have focused on such policies bespeaks a nasty contempt for our societal welfare.

So why is anyone still listening to them? Somewhere along the line, probably due to the Jerry Springer show, we decided that it was only fair "to listen to the other side". Except these guys aren't "the other side". They're extremists and their sell-by date was up in 1963. I propose that they be treated the way we'd treat any extremist hate group. Or used to treat them, I hasten to say. Now thugs, Nazis, racists, and David Duke can all be pretty sure of a spot on the nightly news, should they desire it.

Back in the day, Klansmen marched openly in the streets, sometimes holding the hands of their little Klanettes. Racists babbled about mud people and niggers; murders were not unknown. Thugs showed up at schools with ax handles to prevent six year old black kids from enrolling. And while attitudes are not quite as, um, blatant as they once were, I can't see that much has changed. The same hatred, cruelty, and callous disregard are in full flower among certain savages.

What has changed is the media's notional perception that fringe groups represent any sort of normalcy.

They do not. The lunatics among us are atavistic left-overs from a bygone age. They deserve only our studied indifference, our silence, and our revulsion.

These scrapings from the GOP barrel should be ignored by decent people, just as decent people once ignored the Klan.

So I say, Kluck 'em. It's time to pass the whole damned package now.