GOP chairman Charlie Webster to investigate ‘black people’ voting as potential fraud (Maine)

[BouzoukiKing]

58. "Peddling" is kind of a loaded word, 6502.

I'm not peddling anything. And it's not that it didn't occur to me my post could be misinterpreted before posting it, either.

After some thought, I think what I'm pointing out is that fear exists - and takes strange turns. Now me; I'm white, 61, male, and became politically active (not only aware) just before JFK was elected. It's too long and winding a story to tell here, but St. Mark's Church back home in NYC (I'm in Minneapolis these days) was a hell of a training ground for a young boy. But fear...

So I remember it all - Martin Luther King, both Kennedy brothers, Malcolm X... and yes, George Wallace. It was a terrifying time. Nobody who went through it with much or any awareness was thinking about the 'sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll' (TM) that the media would have us recall in fondness. It was an insanely political time: 'insane' being the operative word. Actually, it was clearly the closest our country has come to any kind of outright revolution since the Civil War. It was a very close thing, I believe.

Then cut forward ( < snip > ) to Athan Gibbs in 2004. Curious, that.

So anyway, during the DKOS primary blogwars of 2008 I came down firmly in the Obama camp. Then I worked; and then I voted. And you know... my first thought as I was leaving the polling place was this: "Shit. What have we done to that man?" And the fear never really goes away. In fact, the better he gets - and he does keep getting better, doesn't he? - the more pervasive the fear is.

None of which stops me from voting, or working for what I see as right. I put the fear aside because I don't really matter. I'm just a guy. And whatever I may contribute, it isn't really much.

But that's not true of everyone I know. We all hang out with our own generation in meatspace, mostly - and what I see in mine is a group of people, all of whom react differently to the fear in us. Some react much better than I do, as I see it - some have totally caved, feigning disinterest. But, knowing them, I can see the remembered fear in their eyes, and see what it does to them.

Tell me then, 6502 - is your generation so different from mine? Is your fear different than mine because you're black and I'm not? And note please, that I'm not asking if your fear is more or less experientially valid - only if you see it as different.

So yes - I'll stand by my post, and my statement that "...as a theory, it does have some logic behind it." Not that I like that logic, or agree with it, or think that's how the world should be. And not - as I thought I'd made clear - that it was my theory at all.

* shrug *

Have a good evening Sir or Madame, as the case may be. Not too many bearable nights left up here in the northwest - I think I'll take a walk and enjoy it.

In any case, I thank you for the moment of introspection. There's always value in that.