Drive-by thought

[veronica_rich]

One of the joys of being a journalist is the press releases I get in my e-mail. /sarcasm

Today I received one from a right-wing Teabagger-type group that I frequently get things from. Their sole purpose in life seems to be decrying anything that's not right-wing for the sake of it not being conservative enough. (Seriously, I've seen them get on Obama's ass for things he's done that conservatives have lobbied for in the not-too-distant-past. It's sort of fascinating.) It's calling on editorial writers to condemn the media's politicization of Rep. Giffords's shooting on Saturday - you know, the ones who have speculated whether the shooter could've been influenced by the violent, base, emotional, nasty rhetoric of the right-wingers?

I'll be glad to do this. At the same time, I'm going to denounce the politicization of religion. I think all references to it in politics and lawmaking should be banished and condemned from consideration, argument, persuasion, and influence. We've restricted individual rights in the name of religion, marched off to war in the name of religion (and persecuted those who disagreed with that action, also in the name of religion), torn down fellow Americans in the name of religion, refused to listen to the wisdom of older countries with more experience because they didn't share our religion, voted based on religion, appointed to positions of power based on religious affiliation and influence, and looked the other way on prosecuting religious leaders of truly despicable acts of child molestation (male and female) in the name of religious "forgiveness" and legal protections under right of religion.

Whatcha think, Teabaggers? Fair trade?

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Rhetoric is rarely appreciated for its impact in its own time; only in hindsight. I used to grind my teeth at the diplomatic verbal runaround politicians did before we had Dubya and Cheney, who didn't give two shits about how they phrased things, and then it became more clear the value of that "bland" diplomacy most politicians normally use. Likewise, all the references to violence spewed by politicians and pundits in the past few years don't seem literal until someone who is clearly unbalanced DOES it.

The importance of words by and for the general public has been downplayed to such degree for years, as though they have no meaning. (I'm not talking about the hyper-PC crowd, which takes things in the extreme opposite direction.) I'm not sure this is going to have much impact on making words important again, though ...