Forget What I Said Yesterday

Y'know what, forget what I said yesterday. This isn't the place for it.

I still intend to see if I can push this, but re-purposing an essentially failed blog isn't the place for it. If we get started, I/we will start a new one, and I'll redirect my 3 regular readers to look there as we get started.

But this place should remain a place for me to talk about the things I feel I need to talk about, even if it is mostly just to myself.

That said, I've just finished reading this piece by Maureen Dowd of the NY Times, and I wanted to comment.

In the piece, Ms. Dowd makes a pretty strong case that the "you lie" heckling by South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson was prompted primarily by a racist inability to accept that a man of African American heritage is President, and goes on to provide a reasonable argument that this may be an endemic problem throughout the south.

For the first time in my life time, we have what seems like credible groups discussing secession of their varied states. In my life, there have been groups in various states, most notably VT and TX, that have advocated for secession, but these groups never rose to the level of prominence that one could believe that it might actually happen, but I'm not sure I recall a sitting Governor advocating for secession.

And right now, I'm torn between believing that my country is strong enough to overcome this, just as it was strong enough to overcome the civil war and the integration of schools and the striking down of anti-miscegenation laws, and wondering if this racism will actually be enough to rend my country into pieces.

And I find the racism sickening. Literally, physically sickening.

I'm probably over-reacting. In fifteen or twenty years, there will be new troubles to face and I'll probably look back on today, bouncing my grandchildren on my knee, and if I think of it at all, feel silly for having worried.

Still, the powers of hatred are strong, and I think we ignore them at our peril.

This doesn't end as strong as I would like it to, but these are just my thoughts for today.