Putting on the historical blinders

Well, McCain has finally agreed to tone down the screeching rhetoric of his campaign and return to substantive issues (wonder if Sarah Palin will get that memo?). 

He's even gone so far as to correct some white people at his "town hall meetings" railing against that "Muslim" and shouting "kill him, kill him".  This is a long overdue and definitely welcome change in tone from the Republican side. 

I'm glad that Representative John Lewis (D-GA) spoke out over the weekend and warned, in his wise way, about the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric.  The man knows what he's talking about; his political consciousness was forged in the fire of the civil rights movement.  What amazes me is that he got criticized for drawing on the lessons of that era (the right is saying that by doing so he compared McCain to George Wallace-- another man who used powerful rhetoric to incite people's basest instincts).  That criticism irked me.  Attacking Mr Lewis is a classic case of attacking the messenger.  Why else were they quicker to jump on Lewis for calling McCain out on his inflammatory rhetoric than they were to criticize McCain or his supporters for the undercurrent of racism running through their campaign? 

Furthermore, the premise of their criticism is itself problematic.  Criticize someone for making a historical comparison?  Here's why that bothers me: it's a denial of the old saying about those who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it.  It's true and that's why conservatives avoid encouraging people to draw historical connections. 

Spin usually can only last so long.  It might be socially acceptable to hate X group of people today but 20 years from now?  There's no controlling the rationality and perspective that comes with the passage of time.  Eventually even people who couldn't see the ugliness of historical events as they happen, can usually see it decades later (which is why we so often erect monuments to past mistakes while contemporaneously committing the same mistake).  Given that, the only thing they can hope for is to get you to see absolutely no connection between contemporary events and anything that ever happened in our past.  Everything is isolated and has no connection with anything else.  Only if you can look at the world in this way, does the conservative viewpoint make any sense at all. 

All I can say is well, good luck with that.  I'll keep looking at the big picture.

Comments

[Brown Man]

Thank you for writing this. I couldn't even read the paper today I got so hot about this - what the hell is it that the people who fill our airwaves think they are supposed to be doing - monitoring a kindergarten class?

I'm from GA, although I'm slightly north of the John Lewis district, so I know he's got to do something as a politician to remind the home team that he's running a race, but from where I sit, bringing up George Wallace was not a stretch. People get CRAZY in bad economic times - some of the stuff coming out of the McCain/Palin rallies was starting to get a little scary. Friends of mine call me wondering 'how bad is this going to get - and will it get worse if Obama wins?"

I am no fan of Palin, and can't figure out where the real John McCain went to hide, but I am not leaving the country if they win.

When you can put "kill him, kill him" on TV and not show Secret Service agents hustling someone or several someones out of a rally, it really says a lot about us.

As intellectually lazy as I think Palin is, and as ridiculous as I believe some of the stuff coming out of her mouth is, I don't wish her or her family any bodily harm.