A left-leaning look at the stories and people that build, shape, manipulate, encourage, and/or contribute to the downfall of the United States.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

It's All About Perspective

A few recent epiphanies of mine have yielded a new understanding of what I think might be two of the most critical problems in American political discourse. One of the main problems in political discourse is that the right wing has successfully twisted and mutilated the mainstream political spectrum, by simple redefinition. What was once known as moderate is now known as the far left. What was once known as the far right is now merely the right, and the actual far left is not acknowledged.

This is something that's been getting some play among the blogosphere and the bookosphere - being the only media remaining in which the actual left isn't totally excluded. There are, however, two peculiarities of our unique political climate that haven't been getting quite the same attention (except for the occasional Daily Show joke). One of them I'll discuss now:

It's something I have dubbed, in a particularly coarse attempt at creativity, Underdog Syndrome. It's easy to explain, and even easier to observe. Underdog Syndrome is the tendency of a group that is and, let's face it, always has been in power, to attempt to portray itself as somehow downtrodden, oppressed, and subjugated. And it has, in recent years, become a leading hallmark of the right wing.
It's not difficult to see why they would want to use it, either. People like to get together and root for the underdog. The sympathies of the average person rarely lie with those in corridors of power. Underdog Syndrome is conservatives' attempt to have their cake and eat it too; they have the power that allows them to dominate everything from the media to the government, and now they also want that special brand of scrappy, ragtag charm that can only come from a destitute rebel fighting for the right to have his say.

There are plenty of examples of this mentality in today's political climate. Some of the most prevalent examples - the kind that are really shameless, and just painful to watch - come from Christianity. For the sake of perspective, Christianity has over 2 billion adherents and is the largest religion in the world. In America, roughly 80 percent of the population is Christian. With the exception of about 4, all of our presidents have been Christians. Christians overwhelmingly dominate Congress and the Supreme Court. As of 1999, 51% of Americans say they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist if one ran for office [1].
Despite all this power, some Christians (not all, of course), for some reason, have the strange idea that they're on the receiving end of one of greatest miscarriages of justice in history: oppression at the hands of an invisible secular majority.

I'm sure we all remember the holiday specials of The O'Reilly Factor in which he railed against the evils of the "War on Christmas," where Christmas faced such powerful foes as private businesses who chose to change "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays" so as not to lose the patronage of that 20% of the country who doesn't allege to follow the teachings of Christ. I will agree with Bill on one thing: that any real meaning or spirit of Christmas - religious or otherwise - has been sucked up in a vortex of rabid consumerism. Although I think this is more a fault of Bill's beloved capitalism than any armies of secular humanists storming the doors of Bastille de Christianisme (in fact, if one were to look at it from the angle that capitalism has done more to damage Christmas than liberalism - and that the upper echelons of corporate America are the brooding grounds for a large concentration of conservatism - and that pundits don't seem to mention anything about capitalism in their tirades about the War on Christmas - one could make the argument that the War on Christmas is actually being waged by the right).
The War on Christmas is not something new. The John Birch Society wrote a pamphlet in 1959 about the Red conspiracy to destroy Christmas. Notorious anti-semite Henry Ford also mentioned it in his publication, "The International Jew:" "It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious difference, but religious attack that they [Jews] preach and practice."
Scaremongering has always had a pattern. The names may change - throughought the years, the fear of Jews and Communists seems to have diminished, giving rise to a new one-size-fits-all boogeyman: secular humanists; however, the idea remains the same: scare the stupid people so they'll give you what you want [2]. For the record, Christmas remains the only religious holiday that is federally recognized.

I've trailed a bit from the main topic, but the point is, the War on Christmas is no more real now than it was when it was "waged" by Communists or Jews.

Nor is the much larger and more dastardly "War on Christianity."

In describing this war, it seems many myths are being dusted off and repeated. Myths such as the fact that "separation of church and state" is not mentioned in the Constitution. Myths that really no longer deserve dignified, thoughtful response. So I'll instead respond to such myths by reminding the public that all people who believe such things are bed-wetting doody heads.

One of the most interesting examples is a recent conference called "The War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006," hosted by Rick Scarborough. Among the persecuted who attended were former House majority leader and Christ-figure Tom DeLay, and the usual lineup of Phyllis Schlaflys, Gary Bauers, and Alan Keyeses (?).
One Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, noted that "You guys [Christians] have become the Jews of the 21st century."

I'll digress now, so that the shamelessness of that statement can fully sink in. Also, I want to give the younger readers time to look up a 7-part series of newsreels called Why We Fight. Hey kids, be sure to pay extra close attention to part 2! posted by SwiftyLeZar at 2:10 PM