I am tired of it. As manufactured as it might be, I am tired of the flinging from both sides. As an moderate who grew up in borderline poverty in a small Kansas town and attended a state college I get it from both sides. Smirking condescension from those able to attend more recognizable colleges and grew up in bigger cities on the coasts. Moralizing from those who claim that people like me are causing the downfall of America, and that only certain people are “real Americans”.
There is no “War on Christians” and White Male America isn’t being oppressed.
The USA is not a fascist state and rural America is not a cultural wasteland full of idiots.
The never ending bickering is where its coming from. It seems like everything has to be refracted through a political prism: movies, music, tv shows, personal choices, and on and on…
It just gets old when you can be accused of being left of Stalin and right of Pol Pot on the same day.
Is this an important Pit? Probably not, but this has been festering in my mind for weeks as I read this board and others and I just like ranting about it.
In the end I guess I pitting Obama zealots and McCain cronies who are perpetuating the division in America. And yes, both sides are doing it, as slyly as they may be.
I think its sad that I am only 28, and I am already tired of politics.
The far right. They invented the concept of a ‘culture war’. Their evidence is that gays want to get married and some stores have the audacity to have holiday sales instead of christmas.
The far right didn’t invent culture wars. They have taken it to a ridiculous extreme though. I hate this whole attitude that some christians have that they are convinced that they are somehow an oppressed minority in this country.
That idea of oppressed Christians really burns my butt, too - you’re oppressed because you’re not being allowed to oppress other people as much as you’d like. Tough shit, in my humble opinion.
I didn’t say counter culture movement. I said “the culture war” as used by the right. The modern use of the term (from my understanding) dates from 1991 in a book, appropriately titled, Culture Wars. It was mostly about things like abortion, homosexuality, separation of church and state as well as other similar topics. The theme was then picked up and trumpeted by Pat Buchanan when he ran for president in 1992. Buchanan continued using the term and currently it is used almost exclusively by groups like the AFA to mean conservative religion versus everyone else.
It is true that they didn’t invent the concept, but they are the ones using it in the last 20 years.
The movement of the '60s was simply differentiation from our parents - just like the beats did in the '50s, the bobby soxers did in the '40s and the jazz era people did in the ‘20s. What’s new is the bizarre claim that a group living their own way is oppressing the majority. At least people of my parents’ age just tsked tsked at us, they didn’t claim we were somehow attacking their lifestyle.
No, they merely put a name to it. Liberals started it, in the sixties and seventies mostly when anyone who didn’t blindly accept whatever misguided effort was afoot to promote equal rights, equality of the sexes, the anti-war (Vietnam) movement, etc., was accused instantly and viciously of being racists, bigots, chauvinists, knuckkle-draggers, etc.
Just like today.
I recall none of this prior to the early-to-mid-but-mostly-late sixties.
It’s heartening to see that a thread asking for an end to divisiveness took a mere three replies to devolve into an argument about who started it. Well done, well done.
Surely examples of casting one’s political opponents as apes or slugs or brutes or heretics or whatever can be found going back to ancient Greece, if not earlier.
People saying “fuck this!” arose about five minutes later, I figure.
I spent last weekend at a Christian retreat. I felt a little out of place, being (as far as I know) the only atheist there. Now keep in mind that these weren’t Bible-thumping Hellfire and Brimstoners. They were some of the nicest, most easy-going people I’ve ever met. No one judged anyone and everyone was incredibly accepting and wonderful. The only thing that surprised me was that there weren’t more guitars there. You know, for the singing of Kumbaya.
But what really set me on edge was the pervasive victim mentality. EVERYONE there was being oppressed for their faith. The world is extremely hostile to Christians, as it turns out.
It took a lot of effort for me to keep my mouth shut.
