I'm a Watergate baby, and quoting H.R. Haldeman as I've done here reminds me of the stinking swamp that is the D.C. of my life.John Sidney McCain means nothing to me, yet my deep cynicism wasn't always the logo I'd wished to afix to my boardshorts.
Fake patriots repeating their mantras of hatred and racism with divisive chants, winks, and nods?
Welcome to McCain/Palin.
I don't know if the Bradley Effect will impact this election in a seismic way, but racism is alive and unwell in the Good Ol' USA.
But you knew that.
I've had nights not so long ago when black friends were called "nigger" and I was called "nigger-lover"; those same friends stopped me from trying to set rednecks on fire with a glowing Bic, Bacardi 151, and pure, primal rage.
Still today, I know too many people who slip in racial qualifiers like bad adjectives.
I overhear stage-whispers about the non-white couple kissing in the corner booth, and it has nothing to do with PDA's.
I hear how the Pier gets "dark" at night, and it has nothing to do with the sunset.
When I mention my Compton and Inglewood work experiences to many in the South Bay, I am often told that I am either "crazy" or met with head-shaking and disbelief.
I still hear people claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and I overheard a couple today saying that America should "never" elect a "black president."
And this is a Blue State!
As a non-believer, I'll suspend my dogma for an instant and wonder aloud if it's possible that a hateful race-baiter like Sarah Palin is really just Jesus's way of telling His believers that He wasn't kidding about that "false idol" stuff.
We are in seriously tenuous times, and McPalin is focused on a '60's radical, a preacher, abortion, and "otherness"; meanwhile, your money is swirling down the drain of a grasping banker's past-its-sub-prime, gilded outhouse.
This is your country, it's out of the tube, it'll be hard to get it back in, and you'd better get used to it.
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