The Bludgeoning Of Cats: The South's Right Wing Politics Has Never Left Us. But What's Good For Gingrich, Is Bad For The Rest Of Us.

Dad and his chums caught Crip's old black tomcat, killed it, skinned it, and cooked it in the kitchen of one of Dad's little restaurants. They called it squirrel meat and delivered it to Crip on a linen-covered tray. When Crip returned to work the next morning, Dad and his co-conspirators asked him how he liked his meal. They knew he would complain even about a free home-cooked lunch, and when Crip called it "the toughest squirrel meat" he had ever eaten, they were glad to tell him why.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell always prefaced this story about his father by saying that his father's "pranks bordered on cruelty."

The old white southern mindset is perhaps best portrayed with those words: "pranks" and "bordered." That mindset is a condition that still persists today - maybe in an even more virulent form:

An Arkansas campaign manager says he came home Sunday and found his family’s cat fatally bludgeoned on his front steps - with the word “liberal” scrawled across its side.

And:

Though Burris says has no idea who'd want to target him and his family, he cited the popularity of conservative talk radio and the rise of conspiracy theories about President Obama as potential motivating factors.

"This is in no way representative of the community, but there is a strain of folks who just don't really live in reality."

REALITY  CHECK

We have an African-American as President. Marriage equality is on the books in six states and promises to be in others. Government deregulation of our financial institutions led to a depression. The Iraq war was not based on hidden weapons of mass destruction. "Prophetess" Cindy Jacobs did not "cure" a woman of her hysterectomy. The Girl Scouts of America do not fund Planned Parenthood.

And The South still has an identity problem after 140 years.

And Newt Gingrich will benefit from that identity problem. For the reasons for Gingrich's win in South Carolina may be the same reasons given by a commenter on US MessageBoard:


1. South Carolina is the is the hotbed of Evangelicals and KKK.

2. The other favorite of bigoted morons Perry dropped out and endorsed Newt.*

And let's face it, Gingrich's comment about Obama being a "food stamp President" resonated with too many people mired in old prejudices. It's a comment that he has yet to rescind in any way. And if many voters in the South have any sway with Gingrich, he probably never will.

The violence that has surrounded Southern Politics for these last 140 years may be old and hackneyed, but it still exists in horrific splendor to anyone who will listen to its history of lynchings and mayhem. The Southern Poverty law Center lists 989 hate groups among the 48 contiguous states, with 433 of the in 12 Southern states.** The state with the highest number - not surprisingly - is Texas (59). The correlation between the high number of executions in the state and its number of hate groups presents a chilling mindset.

And another chilling thought: will there be more cat-killing to come during this election year?

Or will there be ... worse?














*I should point out that the thread of that subject was quite interesting with people arguing that SC was not a hate state, while some others posted Klan and N*zi rallies posted on YouTube.


** With a per capita average making the Southern states 4 times higher than the rest of the country.

Update on The Sacred And Profane: Sweetwater, Tennessee's War On The American Family

Our last post might have left readers wondering where the precise definition of the American Family by AFA and Family Research Council can be found. Well, in answer to the AFA's prayers, we've been able to actually locate it: Sweetwater, Tennessee has all the mythical nuclear family needs, right down to its traditional bigotry. 


ours after we posted an OpEdNews article, The American Family: Sacred or Profane?, this bit of insane bigotry was posted by Joe.My.God:

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) invited public comment on proposed new rules banning discrimination against LGBT people in all its programs. That prompted Vicki Barnes, the executive director of Tennessee's Sweetwater Housing Authority to fire off a letter to HUD in which she compares gay people to murderers, cult members, prostitutes and drug dealers.

Here is probably the most ironic and damaging section of the letter:

2. This is not a matter of discrimination. In choosing to name a group of people such as the Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), you are choosing to group together a group of people who are not of the same race, but have made a personal and moral life style choice. Other groups who make a personal life style choice are drug user and sellers, gang members, prostitutes, cults and murderers. You are saying any group of persons can call themselves a family. This will cause chaos in the communities and take away the security and stability of the families and would promote the following:

Ms. Barnes goes on to write that recognition of LGBT families would "promote" VIOLENCE, DRUGS, DRUG DEALING, NOT WORKING, and PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSED CHILDREN.

We could all dismiss Ms. Barnes' mindless screed to her living under a rock named Sweetwater, but this would mean prejudice on our part against the poor and uneducated (most of Sweetwater's 6,000 populace is below poverty level). But Sweetwater hardly considers itself a rock. 

Irony Abounds

Sweetwater bills itself as "The Sweetest Town In Tennessee" and the First Baptist Church of Sweetwater focuses on inclusiveness and love:

You can find that sense of belonging at First Baptist Church. If you visit us, you'll recognize that we have a strong love for each other. We believe that there is compassion, hope, and community for everyone through faith in Jesus Christ.   

Thoughts of isolation aside, here's a look at Sweetwater's website. The historic, pristine, folksy, postcard-perfect little town is extremely WASP and mentions nothing about past slavery and Jim Crow atrocities. It's congressional representative, John J. Duncan, Jr. comes from a long line of Southern Baptist legislative adherents and is a darling of the Family Research Council and the NRA.* It's self-promotion as a squeaky-clean town runs counterintuitive to its need for any Section 8 housing or HUD support: pity the poor people who have to find subsidized housing, since they must be looked upon as the lowest of indigent slackers. In addition, Sweetwater's continuous and constant appeal is for people to move there!


The outlook of towns like Sweetwater is imperative to today's Right Wing in forging behind with it's mythical vision of the American Family: steeped in hallowed "tradition", it helps uber-conservatives with its veneer of decency and righteousness. What Ms. Barnes letter underscores is that it is only a veneer. And a pretty tacky one at that. Sweetwater is a town built of ubiquitous buzzwords. And while it is not completely isolated (surrounded as it is by neighboring Knoxville's Wal-Marts), it would not survive in the real world of diversity and global awareness. It is fit to live alongside Lexington, KY's Creation Museum or Heritage U.S.A., but not fit to deal with the 21st century. 


If this sounds like un-American, small town mom-and-apple-pie bashing ... well, it isn't. Instead, it may be one way of relating the insidiousness of the Right in using stock images and pawning them off as the REAL America. Even Sweetwater realizes that it's image is one of the past. But it promotes its past as one you can live in today, and that just isn't right. History is full of beautiful, romantic images, but it is also rife with covert portraits of racism, discrimination and religious intolerance.

As I've noted before, today's real American Family is under attack, and Sweetwater, TN is leading the battle.

* wikipedia: On John J. Duncan, Jr.:
The Family Research Council rated him as a 92% or above since 2002^[2] and the NRA has rated him in equally positive terms.^[2] He is a frequent contributor to Chronicles, a magazine associated with the paleoconservative movement. 

The Passion of the Mel

Focusing On Gibson's Other Phobias

Before there was his misogynous rant
Before there was his racism
Before there was his anti-Semitism

There was the El Pais interview:

"They take it up the a** ... this is only for taking a s***,” he said at the time. "With this look, who's going to think I'm gay? I don't lend myself to that type of confusion. Do I look like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?"

Mel Gibson's outbursts have always attracted attention, but his most  recent rants have exploded exponentially: everything viral on the net was overshadowed by the news that filmdom's enfant terrible had eclipsed his last "lapse in judgment" -  drunken remarks blaming "The Jews" for everything. His (tacit) admission to domestic violence,  his use of the "N" word, his verbal abuse of the mother of his child  left most of his friends and colleagues with no reason to support him. People are asking each other, is this the end of his career?

However, my question is: how did we ever let it get this far? Yes, WE. The signs of an angry, bigoted and volatile personality were there long before his DUI in 2004. Looking back at all of the words and actions of animosity towards so many people, it's a wonder that his career both as an actor and as a director hadn't fizzled out twenty years ago. Put it this way: Mel Gibson was hired by the American public to entertain them. He did. But somewhere along the way, he opted to become an icon, a public personality as well as an actor. Maybe it was his stint at directing that made him realize that he could have power/control not only over a film, but over other people's lives. But in spite of his phobias, his errors, his crude and almost violent behavior, the American public still kept Mel Gibson on the pedestal/payroll - maybe because we can't stand seeing our icons walk away in disgrace.

 

Maybe it's time for America to fire Mel Gibson. It's not like he hasn't expected it. Again, before there were the misogynist and violent rants, there was the anti-Semitism. One of our own OpEdNews diarists has opined that perhaps the "Okasana tapes" are part of an elaborate  revenge/conspiracy of Hollywood's Jews as payback for his now infamous DUI rant. (I doubt it - my response). 

And before that...

There was the Anglophobia:

English critics saw through the machismo of Gibson's epic, Braveheart. In Colin MacArthur's book, Brigadoon, Braveheart and the Scots: Distortions of Scotland in Hollywood Cinema the author writes that 

"... a worrying aspect of the film is its appeal to "(neo-) fascist groups and the attendant psyche."

There was Sedevacantism. 

The word comes from the Latin, meaning "vacant seat', and although Gibson describes himself and his father as "traditional Catholics" his actions and views have leaned heavily towards this almost heretical view of the Catholic Church. Recently, Gibson had a full-scale church built on his land in Malibu, ensuring that the Catholic masses he attends will be said in Latin and that all of the old rites will be preserved. Sedavacantists disdain the "modernism" that took hold of Christianity after pope Pius X and rarely if, if ever, recognize any progress in the Church past Pius XII. Gibson's father, Hutton, is a writer and apologist of Sedavacantism.

There was "The Passion" 

 All the "miracles" surrounding Gibson's singular magnum opus, The Passion of the Christ, stood in contrast to Gibson's cavalier treatment of scriptures and scholarship regarding the Life of Christ and the the political climate of first century Roman Judea. Perhaps more than any other time, it was then Gibson enjoyed projecting his beliefs on the screen while cloaking them in sacred religion: his anti-Semitism and Sedavacantism became increasingly evident as time went on. He was on a mission to show Jesus the Christ as  Mel Gibson saw Him. The sources Gibson relied upon the most were also in question: two nuns, one, the stigmatic German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), another a Spanish nun named María de Ágreda (1602–1665). Although he had several scholars on the set, their scholarship was always laid aside in deference to these two. To Mel, mysticism trumped scholarship. 

Mel probably thought of himself as something of a mystic in his translation of The Passion to the screen, else why would he forego scholarship and jumble the scriptures?

There was his alcoholism and bi-polar disorder.

Being bi-polar (a late diagnosis and an even later admission) is one thing, but being bi-polar and alcoholic is a recipe for disaster. Gibson himself admitted that he started drinking at the age of thirteen and that while making his early films, he put away six pints of ale for breakfast. (!). He also admitted to thoughts of suicide. The peaks and valleys  of being bi-polar took their toll on everyone around Gibson. 

Defenders of Gibson have cited his bi-polar condition as a possible trigger to his rants. However, doctors familiar with bi-polar disorder have not been quick to chime in.  Some have gone so far as to suggest a form of psychotic break. And if his violent tone had been caused by his disorder, Oksana would have not have been quite as defensive.  

And then there was ... Hutton Gibson.

Hutton Gibson's views as a Holocaust denier are well known. And because Hutton has a forceful personality like his son, it would have been almost impossible for the son not to have had the same ideas.

wikipedia;

Gibson is an outspoken critic of the post-Second Vatican Council Catholic Church and a proponent of various conspiracy theories. In a 2003 interview he questioned how the Nazis could have disposed of six million bodies during the HolocaustSeptember 11, 2001 attacks were perpetrated by remote control.[1] He has also been quoted as saying the Second Vatican Council was "a Masonic plot backed by the Jews".[2]

Perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of Mel Gibson is that there is also a humanitarian behind the manic, xenophobic facade: he and his former wife have been among the chief donors to Healing the Children, he has been instrumental in preserving Costa Rican rainforests and, along with pop icon, Sting, contributed to the fund for the cleaning and restoration of Michelangelo's David.

Gibson, however, has not become a lovable bigot, like some Archie Bunker in Hollywood. His social sins have been too grave.

***

A career that has spanned three decades, filling the public with power and respect has been badly stained by the personal ideologies and exploits of its star. And like it or not, as a celebrity who has willing revealed parts of his personal life, Mel Gibson has taken us through his journey and has exposed us to his some of his ugliest problems: a father who vehemently denies the Holocaust and adheres to the ideologies of Sedevacantism; a history of substance abuse; bi-polar disorder; homophobia; anti-Semitism; racism; misogyny. Click them off in the proper cadence and one might have Gibson's own Stations of the Cross. His "Passion" so to speak. But he has dragged us through these episodes, only sometimes asking for our forgiveness.

In the wake of the taped-rants scandal, Gibson's agent, The William Morris Agency has dropped him. But as his REAL employer, can the U.S. fire him? A kinder separation would be termed "retire."

But maybe that would be too kind.

Just a thought.

The Bleaching of Arizona

"I'm not a racist by any stretch of the imagination, but whenever people start talking about diversity, it's a word I can't stand."

                                  - Steve Blair, KYCA-AM talk show host and Prescott City Councilman.

A mural on the side of an elementary school in Prescott, AZ is quickly becoming the icon of Arizona's legislative and educational goals. It depicts the actual children of the school in solidarity for green transportation. Sounds cool, eh? But one city councilman/broadcaster wants it destroyed. Because the most prominant child in the large mural is black. And most of the other kids are ...brown. 

While painting it, the local artists were subjected to the epithets of "nigger" and "spic" shouted out of passing cars. The principal of the school has decided that the best thing to do under the circumstances is to lighten the faces of the kids!

R.E. Wall, director of the Prescott Downtown Mural Project, described weeks of tense working conditions for the "Mural Mice," the group of artists responsible for the Miller Valley mural and several others around town.

Wall reports hearing comments such as "You're desecrating our school," "Get the ni----- off the wall," and "Get the sp-- off the wall."

"The pressure stayed up consistently," Wall said. "We had two months of cars shouting at us."

Faces in the mural were drawn from photographs of the Miller Valley School (no student over 10 years old, Miller Valley being only a K-5 school). The artwork was chosen by both students and faculty. 

Steve Blair, the broadcaster/councilman says he is "ashamed" of the "diversity power struggle" that he thinks is depicted in the mural.

It hasn't been reported yet what the children in the mural think about their images being lightened to conform with Prescott's image of itself. Neither has it been said what they think of the people of Prescott who obviously hate them.

Prescott's image is getting to be the image of Arizona as well. 

The Law and The Wall

President Obama recently met with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to discuss the illegal immigration situation faced by Arizona. She was emphatic that the new law empowering law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship was not engineered for racial profiling. She also insisted on the 1200 troops promised to beef up border patrol and completion of the security wall at the border. 

She said that the meeting was "cordial." I'll bet. 

And the 3 R's

From Think Progress, April 30:

Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Arizona Department of Education “recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English”:

Etnic Studies as Chauvanism:

[State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne] claimed the ethnic studies program encourages "ethnic chauvanism," promotes Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States and tries to intimidate conservative teachers in the school system.

Unfortunately, the "conservative teachers in the school system" may be the chauvanists, literally trying to whitewash the school system while teaching that ethnicity is not "American." The slant of Arizona's new laws will definitely create a slope as slippery as snow on frozen rain: people WILL be profiled, children WILL be dicriminated against and taught only nationalism. Ugly racism WILL increase. Education WILL suffer. 

If Thomas Jefferson were here now, he would weep for the inequality of man in the southwest. Then again, his tears wouldn't matter - he's been demoted in Texas history.