Why, you ask, do so many "common" people hate the Democrats? I live in Indiana, and around here I can tell you it's mostly because of the dangerous rise of the religous right.
It is a natural and predictable progression for religious fundamentalists to become political fundamentalists. They focus only on a few wedge issues based on their religious beliefs - the "rightness" of which they have ceased to question. Their is no middle ground, no shades of grey in their mental world. Anyone who supports their wedge issues becomes "good" and everyone else becomes "bad". So after a political fundamentalist makes his initial, easy, knee-jerk decision about "good" and "bad", he relieves himself of the troublesome need to do any further thinking.
Since the likes of Rush Limbaugh are "good", everything such people say becomes gospel. Rush's demogoguery is the political equivalent of pro-wrestling. (The only flaw with that analogy is that the lies of pro-wrestling are NOT particulary dangerous.) And here in Ft. Wayne, I can't drive anywhere without seeing Rush's big ugly face on a bus-hut billboard. (They should really include some kind of warning label, perhaps: "Germany was here ca. 1923".)
Anyone still capable of of independent thought should read "UNDERSTANDING POWER" by Noam Chomsky. It's not a comfortable book to read, regardless of your political beliefs, but we must be willing to look at unpleasant truths if we want a better world. The online documentation supporting his claims is longer than the book itself.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-04-15 12:00 pm (UTC)It is a natural and predictable progression for religious fundamentalists to become political fundamentalists. They focus only on a few wedge issues based on their religious beliefs - the "rightness" of which they have ceased to question. Their is no middle ground, no shades of grey in their mental world. Anyone who supports their wedge issues becomes "good" and everyone else becomes "bad". So after a political fundamentalist makes his initial, easy, knee-jerk decision about "good" and "bad", he relieves himself of the troublesome need to do any further thinking.
Since the likes of Rush Limbaugh are "good", everything such people say becomes gospel. Rush's demogoguery is the political equivalent of pro-wrestling. (The only flaw with that analogy is that the lies of pro-wrestling are NOT particulary dangerous.) And here in Ft. Wayne, I can't drive anywhere without seeing Rush's big ugly face on a bus-hut billboard. (They should really include some kind of warning label, perhaps: "Germany was here ca. 1923".)
Anyone still capable of of independent thought should read "UNDERSTANDING POWER" by Noam Chomsky. It's not a comfortable book to read, regardless of your political beliefs, but we must be willing to look at unpleasant truths if we want a better world. The online documentation supporting his claims is longer than the book itself.
- Bob U.