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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Friday, November 05, 2004 The new scapegoats Some months back, I predicted that the Bush administration would use anti-gay feelings to polarize the country and win votes. It didn't work out quite the way I anticipated—I was expecting public condemnation on a major scale. I should have known better. Karl Rove never goes for open warfare. Except for the rhetoric over the Federal Marriage Amendment, not much was said. What did happen was that anti-gay measures made it onto the ballots in eleven states, and were passed in all eleven. As most people know by now, many of those initiatives not only barred gay marriage, but also any benefits that resembled those of marriage, and affected not just gay couples, but also many heterosexual domestic partnerships. I'd be willing to bet that at least some of the people who voted for Bush came to the polls primarily to vote against the alleged "homosexual agenda." And sadly, I suspect that many of the straight unmarried couples who will lose out as a result of these initiatives will blame their losses on gays who pushed for marriage. I knew I wasn't completely alone in my beliefs, but it surprised me to see that other, and better-known, bloggers are having the same feelings. For example, Josh Marshall says: Looking back over the week before the campaign I realize that I should have been more attentive to the reports I was picking up from readers about a wave of push-polls or robo-calls on the gay marriage issue -- some hitting the issue itself while others dug deeper and insisted that the issue was really whether homosexuality would be 'taught in schools' and so forth. This issue clearly had potency without a phone-call campaign. But that added to it. The decision to get the initiatives on the ballot, followed by a carefully orchestrated campaign of push-polls and the like amounted to a effective campaign pincer movement. And it was one that, to be honest, I think fairly few on the Democratic side even saw coming. Gay marriage -- and the whole cluster of issues that surround it -- became the sub rosa issue of the campaign. I think I said in my earlier post that "gays are the new Jews." I've moderated that analogy, partly because you can draw comparisons only up to a point, and partly because I do not want to seem to minimize what Jews have endured over the centuries. But there certainly are parallels. In Germany, Hitler accused Jews of spreading disease, of killing Christ, of communism. Before long civil rights for Jews were curtailed. In America, BushCo accuses gays of moral abomination and trying to tear down the family. Think what happened to the Jews in Germany can't happen here? "At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, [Dr. Paul] Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995. (FYI - Cameron's now-debunked research forms the foundation of most religious right anti-gay 'studies'.) -- Quote from hatecrimes.org.During his campagin, newly elected South Carolina Senator Jim Demint called for unmarried mothers and gays to be barred from teaching. He quickly retracted the statement, but he'd made his point, and the voters responded. African-Americans have often resented the analogies drawn between their position and that of gays, pointing out that gays have never been enslaved as a class, and that their ability to "pass" gave them an advantage in society that black skins never had. They are correct. If it's possible to make a comparison, the similarity between Jews, as a class, and gays, as a class, is far more obvious. Like most Jews, we look just like "normal" people. Like some Jews, some of us have characteristics that are said to identify us—mannerisms, gender-ambiguous appearance and so forth. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, we're said to be wealthier than our neighbors, to seek out children for our un-natural practices, and to spread disease. And as in Nazi Germany, some would like to exterminate us. I remember walking in the 1987 Gay & Lesbian March in Washington DC and hearing people scream, "Die, faggot!" at us. The Jews of Germany couldn't believe their neighbors would turn against them. Germans were educated and cultured. They led the world in music, in the stature of their universities, in technology, in architecture, in art. But the nation was full of resentment after World War I. Hitler played on those feelings and channeled them into years of the most horrific systematic evil ever practiced on one people by another. That same resentment has long simmered in America. More diffused, perhaps—spread amongst Jews, blacks, gays, Asians, Hispanics. But it is significant, I believe, that only one of those five groups has not made it to mainstream respectability in America—homosexuals (and by association, anyone of unclear gender identity). America has many of the elements right now that existed in Germany after World War I: a polarized society, a stagnant economy, a single-minded and egotistic leader, a news media concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people—and a handy burnt offering waiting to be dragged into the streets. Paranoia? I hope so. posted by Liz @ 2:50 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. 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Some months back, I predicted that the Bush administration would use anti-gay feelings to polarize the country and win votes. It didn't work out quite the way I anticipated—I was expecting public condemnation on a major scale. I should have known better. Karl Rove never goes for open warfare. Except for the rhetoric over the Federal Marriage Amendment, not much was said. What did happen was that anti-gay measures made it onto the ballots in eleven states, and were passed in all eleven. As most people know by now, many of those initiatives not only barred gay marriage, but also any benefits that resembled those of marriage, and affected not just gay couples, but also many heterosexual domestic partnerships. I'd be willing to bet that at least some of the people who voted for Bush came to the polls primarily to vote against the alleged "homosexual agenda." And sadly, I suspect that many of the straight unmarried couples who will lose out as a result of these initiatives will blame their losses on gays who pushed for marriage. I knew I wasn't completely alone in my beliefs, but it surprised me to see that other, and better-known, bloggers are having the same feelings. For example, Josh Marshall says: Looking back over the week before the campaign I realize that I should have been more attentive to the reports I was picking up from readers about a wave of push-polls or robo-calls on the gay marriage issue -- some hitting the issue itself while others dug deeper and insisted that the issue was really whether homosexuality would be 'taught in schools' and so forth. This issue clearly had potency without a phone-call campaign. But that added to it. The decision to get the initiatives on the ballot, followed by a carefully orchestrated campaign of push-polls and the like amounted to a effective campaign pincer movement. And it was one that, to be honest, I think fairly few on the Democratic side even saw coming. Gay marriage -- and the whole cluster of issues that surround it -- became the sub rosa issue of the campaign. I think I said in my earlier post that "gays are the new Jews." I've moderated that analogy, partly because you can draw comparisons only up to a point, and partly because I do not want to seem to minimize what Jews have endured over the centuries. But there certainly are parallels. In Germany, Hitler accused Jews of spreading disease, of killing Christ, of communism. Before long civil rights for Jews were curtailed. In America, BushCo accuses gays of moral abomination and trying to tear down the family. Think what happened to the Jews in Germany can't happen here? "At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, [Dr. Paul] Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995. (FYI - Cameron's now-debunked research forms the foundation of most religious right anti-gay 'studies'.) -- Quote from hatecrimes.org.During his campagin, newly elected South Carolina Senator Jim Demint called for unmarried mothers and gays to be barred from teaching. He quickly retracted the statement, but he'd made his point, and the voters responded. African-Americans have often resented the analogies drawn between their position and that of gays, pointing out that gays have never been enslaved as a class, and that their ability to "pass" gave them an advantage in society that black skins never had. They are correct. If it's possible to make a comparison, the similarity between Jews, as a class, and gays, as a class, is far more obvious. Like most Jews, we look just like "normal" people. Like some Jews, some of us have characteristics that are said to identify us—mannerisms, gender-ambiguous appearance and so forth. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, we're said to be wealthier than our neighbors, to seek out children for our un-natural practices, and to spread disease. And as in Nazi Germany, some would like to exterminate us. I remember walking in the 1987 Gay & Lesbian March in Washington DC and hearing people scream, "Die, faggot!" at us. The Jews of Germany couldn't believe their neighbors would turn against them. Germans were educated and cultured. They led the world in music, in the stature of their universities, in technology, in architecture, in art. But the nation was full of resentment after World War I. Hitler played on those feelings and channeled them into years of the most horrific systematic evil ever practiced on one people by another. That same resentment has long simmered in America. More diffused, perhaps—spread amongst Jews, blacks, gays, Asians, Hispanics. But it is significant, I believe, that only one of those five groups has not made it to mainstream respectability in America—homosexuals (and by association, anyone of unclear gender identity). America has many of the elements right now that existed in Germany after World War I: a polarized society, a stagnant economy, a single-minded and egotistic leader, a news media concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people—and a handy burnt offering waiting to be dragged into the streets. Paranoia? I hope so.
Looking back over the week before the campaign I realize that I should have been more attentive to the reports I was picking up from readers about a wave of push-polls or robo-calls on the gay marriage issue -- some hitting the issue itself while others dug deeper and insisted that the issue was really whether homosexuality would be 'taught in schools' and so forth. This issue clearly had potency without a phone-call campaign. But that added to it. The decision to get the initiatives on the ballot, followed by a carefully orchestrated campaign of push-polls and the like amounted to a effective campaign pincer movement. And it was one that, to be honest, I think fairly few on the Democratic side even saw coming. Gay marriage -- and the whole cluster of issues that surround it -- became the sub rosa issue of the campaign.
"At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, [Dr. Paul] Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995. (FYI - Cameron's now-debunked research forms the foundation of most religious right anti-gay 'studies'.) -- Quote from hatecrimes.org.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
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PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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