The looming madness

Yesterday I spoke about "is it fear or race." In that piece, I explored the reason that we are having such a hard time doing the business of the country. That we are seeing a slide down a slippery slope of race hatred and fear: twins which if left unchecked create a family of violence toward people that are different. I suggested that the arrest of Henry Gates, and the rise of the birthers (those who believe Obama is NOT a citizen of the United States and thereby cannot hold the Presidency) are unholy and certainly unwelcome incidences. These attacks are escalating; make no mistake about this. To prove the point, in Mobile, Alabama there was a front page article in which the police arrested a man. Ordinarily it would not be an issue. People who engage in wrongdoing are arrested and taken to jail. If they persist in not obeying the officers then harsher methods happen: pepper spray, or physical restraints will be and should be utilized; after all the public safety is at stake, and, as others have said I want the police to win. But, what makes this arrest so putrid is that the person was hearing impaired. That is correct: he could not hear word they were saying and this lead to an unfortunate cascading of events. Some would say these things happen, they were not aware or were not trained properly, maybe and probably true. Then there will be those who will point to the history of this region and say it is typical of the mentality of this city, except Mobile, unlike Montgomery and Birmingham were not prone to such outbursts. What then is the factor that creates these issues. In a word creeping racist attitudes from across the nation.

Case in point: Huffington Post (a liberal blog) had one of its reporters go to the Capitol and interview Congressional persons about the birther movement. The results were interesting (and I do not mean mildly). In every instance these representatives RAN from the questioner. Ran away rather than stand and express their views. Other times these individuals faced a crowd that demands to see a certificate already produced because in their words "They want their country back". In a normal society these lunatics would be dismissed as deranged and sane less persons: not so, the real shock is that those Congressional individuals who ran rather than to speak have joined to put a resolution that President Obama produce a certificate and that it become law that whenever anyone runs they must produce a certificate of live birth. Funny thing, before this election it never was asked before. Something to think about.

So the madness looms. Despite all that faces this Nation: unemployment at over 9.25 per cent, health insurance issues, health in general (there are still over 40 million uninsured and the cost of those with type 2 diabetes has exceed 147 trillion yes trillion according to CBS, MSNBC and CNN) two wars that consume billions of dollars, the need to provide jobs for Americans and to deal with the recession, all that seems to occupy certain people (13 to be exact) is a piece of paper that has already been produced, sic transit gloria mundi. For those who have not read Poe's "The Masque of Red Death": so goes the glory of the world...Later