The Savage Republican

I got this in an email yesterday. As I read it, I was touched by a sense of deja vu. Why deja vu? I grew up a child of the 1960's and specifically the civil rights movement. My father faced discrimination growing up because of the color of his skin. Because of that, the whole mindset of judging anyone by their race is repulsive to me and something I simply can not understand.

"In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. "

Then I came across this in the New York Times. It is along the same line of thought. What caught my eye though, was an exchange that was shared in the article.

"At a coffee bar in Karachi with four of my female friends — two schoolteachers, a lawyer and an interior designer — I asked, "Were the cartoons meant to be provocative?"
"Yes!" The response was unanimous.
"So is there a conspiracy to provoke Muslims into reacting violently?"
Here, everyone's certainty diminished. "No, not a conspiracy," one of the schoolteachers said, and the others signaled agreement...
..."What is the point of the provocation?" I pressed on.
"Who ever knows what's going on?" one of the schoolteachers said. "It's something internal going on in those places. Or something to do with their own politics about, who knows, Iran, Israel. It could be anything."

There it is...It's something internal going on in those places...with those people! The two words that, when put together, cause this child of the '60's to cringe in pain! I thought the whole purpose of the "everybody's beautiful in their own way" generation was to get away from the "those people" kind of comments and yet there it is. It happens, day in and day out throughout this country. "Those people" just don't live like we do..."those people" don't look like we do, "those people" don't think like we do, "those people" don't worship like we do, "those people, "those people".....

The sad thing is that we get a lot of the "those people"s out of the political party that claims to care the most about "those people". However, if you read their statements, you realize that the opposite is true. "We need to keep abortion an option because 'those people' can't be expected to take responsibility for their actions" or "we need to increase welfare spending because 'those people' can't take care of themselves". Oh to be sure, they couch it in pretty language - "it is a woman's choice" or "we want to make sure that they have adequate healthcare" but the bottom line is all the same..."those people" need to be kept dependent on big government to take care of them because they can't! But then again, look at what is being discussed in these articles....it is all couched in pretty double talk.

Please, dear readers, go read both articles and weep with me for the generations that are being taught to hate, who have been taught that there is no hope. For the generations that are taught to be dependent on others and who are being taught to kill.