Calling Out

EVENT

I'm on the verge of calling out several of you. We have the seeds of an electric conversation floating about, but they've yet to ferment.

I've been in a political dolor lately, which is absurd considering the chaos going on around you. It's as if after the last election, when we all acknowledged that we were a bitterly divided nation (I direct you to the CNN/USA Today poll in which 48% of Americans described Bush as a uniter and 48% described him as a divider), we're not resorting to histrionics.

Myself (being a little histrionic in the best of times), I've felt a little numbed. I haven't really posted much political lately, and a lot of it has been conciliatory... pacing around issues like abortion or a universal draft, in which I can actually see both sides of the story. But of course, my hot-button issues; social welfare, censorship, an autonomous media, and the separation of church and state... I've let these things fall to the wayside.

The news has left everyone a little weird.

And news... there's been a lot of news. Take it back to the tsunami. Since then, in addition to the routine-sounding-from-a-distance calamities in Iraq and the Sudan, elections in Iraq and Palestine, uprisings in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, back at home we've had two horrific shooting sprees (at a church than a school, respectively), the drama of the Terri Schaivo case (as a friend of mine noted, one visitor was unable to push through the crowds and security to get into the hospice before her friend passed on), all against the backdrop of increasingly incoherant statements on gay rights (or the lack thereof). This has all happened in under three months.

I don't think we're bucking the trend right now. I think things are accelerating.

* * * * *

About a week ago, I posted this on similarities between the Bush administration and Joe McCarthy's posse.

My post was admittedly more about establishing a parallel, setting up a comparison, than making a point. Not so Gemma's series of observations on our own Disappeared... the steady obfuscation of historical capital in this country. (You're not overblown Gemma. As I said, everything is a little off-kilter. It's refreshing for you to react with what we should consider reasonable alarm. It's disconcerting because, for the most part, no one is.

* * * * *

So I'm calling you all out.

A tremendous amount's been thrown down in the last several months.

I set up a parallel between the Bush administration and the Committee on UnAmerican Activities.
Gemma formulated an argument and gave it gleaming incisors.
At least one regular reader of mine has written a paper on this subject.
At least three regular readers have lived through the Red Scare.

Surely, you've something to say about all this...

~ Connor