With health care reform in the books, one would think there would be a great American desire to move on to the next big thing, such as regulating banks or modernizing the electricity grid. While that has historically been our nature, one faction of the citizenry - conservatives - refuses to go forward with the rest of us.
I'm not talking about the GOP's lockstep opposition to, well, anything that the majority wants in this country. Such is bad enough unto itself, but the behavior of right-wing rank-and-filers has reached a screeching crescendo. Or so we had better hope.
Certainly even the most news-averse among us has heard of the mindless conservative rage being directed at Democrats for wanting us all to have health insurance. Bricks have been thrown through windows, racist and homophobic epithets hurled at lawmakers. Depictions of nooses (if not actual ones). Spitting. All of that was just on the day President Obama signed the bill.
Since then, things have gotten progressively worse, with the ugliness extending far beyond the usual threatening communiques. Just ask Rep. Tom Perriello (D., VA). Some Tea Party member, a 27-year old who still lives with Mom and Dad, posted what he thought to be Perriello's home address.
It was actually the address of the home owned by the Congressman's brother. And his brother's wife. And his brother's four little kids. It wasn't too very long before someone - a well-meaning pro-lifer no doubt - cut the gas line leading into their home.
They're sure to get plenty of sympathy from Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., NY), and his staff, and everyone else in his office building. All had to evacuate, and some had to be decontaminated, after an envelope showed up there today packed with white powder and a note saying (among other niceties) "Drop Dead".
This is strictly the stuff of Klansmen and second-tier terrorist outfits. That is what the tea-baggers have become, probably all they were to begin with. Is anyone surprised? Republican leaders in and out of Congress don't seem to be. Neither do they seem particularly interested in halting this stampede of idiocy. Sarah Palin (R., Nowhere) knows what I mean.
Then there's the case of Rep. Bart Stupak (D., MI), who held up the reform process for as long as he possibly could in the name of the unborn. Once he had secured an executive order from the White House that suited his tastes where federal funding of abortion is concerned, he abandoned his position of obstruction and voted for the bill.
His life has since become a living hell. His home and office have been bombarded with worst manner of televitriol. We're talking about the kind of language that would make Joe Biden blush. One gentleman caller went so far as to wish rectal cancer upon the Representative.
Yo, Bart. When you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas. Nasty, bloodsucking fleas, who have the nerve to call themselves Christians.
I'm watching all of this take place, and I am mindful of the fears expressed by the African-American community long before the 2008 election, fears which have been justified by the manifold increase in death threats against our president. And I am reminded of a line uttered by Samuel Jackson in the classic Tarantino film Pulp Fiction:
There's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
I been saying that shit for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker 'fore I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking, maybe it means you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or, it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd.
Real hard.
pH 3.25.1o
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