Yesterday was another angry day in America, almost. On the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing the media was abuzz with interest in the rancor that has gripped this country since Barack Obama was elected some 500 days ago.
The bigots and malcontents that make up the so-called Tea Party were out in force, playing make-believe at "Second Amendment" rallies in and around Washington, D.C., even though there aren't really any Second Amendment issues to be heard in government these days. They showed up with their guns anyway, perpetual adolescents that they are.
Not a single hour has passed without a bombardment of bitter (and often hateful) criticism directed at our nation's first African-American president. It isn't going to stop, not until the FCC wakes up from its Rip van Winkle slumber, and realizes that there is a public-interest clause in all of those broadcasting licenses.
With the steady conservative drumbeat of anger, anger, anger (in the Bush years it was fear, fear, fear) pulsing in our heads, Americans have grown nervous. The breathy intonations of paranoid conservative pundits has driven us too far. The squealing minority with its faux Klan rallies has hindered our economic recovery as well.
Bill Clinton, finally, had much to say about this. He has expressed a fountain of concern just lately, using the McVeigh massacre to drive home the point - the fact - that stoking unbridled hatred of government can lead, and has led, to a level of violence that touches everyone. It might be too little, too late, but at least he can sleep at night knowing he tried.
Only the Republican Party has anything to gain from Americans rattling their sabres at each other. There have been no demonstrations conducted by left-wingers spewing acid about socialism, communism, Marxism, Maoism, statism, fascism and even terrorism. Conservative lawmakers have not been targeted with death threats and fake anthrax envelopes.
Most likely, the 82 percent of the population who refuses to be identified with the GOP has noticed, and will not reward the conservative movement with any augmentation of power in Congress. You have to earn such a reward, and they have been irresponsible in ways never seen before in our history, at least not since the Civil War.
And all of this is academic. I say that because of something I saw yesterday in the parking lot of a boring little shopping center in Mesa, Arizona. In the course of my busy day, as I backed out of my parking space, I noticed a Hispanic woman hunched down next to the right front wheel of her beat-up old minivan. She had a flat tire.
Her kids stood by, looking bored, as she fiddled with the plastic caps covering the lug nuts. The jack lay on its side next to the vehicle, waiting to be put to use, and it was a nice day for it. I have very few rules in life, but one of them is that I don't let women change tires in front of me.
I was just getting back into my parking space when a younger guy came cruising in on a bicycle. He was an African-American who wore his hair in dreadlocks. He stopped on a dime, hopped off his bike, and strode purposefully to the back of the minivan to retrieve the spare. With no hesitation, he crouched down in front of the disabled wheel, and proceeded busting the lug nuts.
That's when it occurred to me that America will be fine. We're going to come together and solve our problems. I have seen it with my eyes. The ordinary people will take care of things. The young people. The real people. Not the freaks on television and talk-radio.
The Tea Party is a creation of conservative media. It is a megaphone for the clueless. And it will soon enough fade into history, like hoop skirts and bobby socks, like 8-track tapes, and any violence that takes place will be forgotten because it will have made no difference. In another generation we will look back and wonder what the big deal was.
If you love your country you should act like it. If you don't, you'll have to pardon the rest of us as we swim around you on our way forward, paying you no more attention than you really ever deserved.
pH 4.2o.1o
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