It’s Monday, so we’ve all had plenty of time to figure out how we feel about President Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and his appearance at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last week…all of us…and as usual, the rest of the world has been watching our reactions with interest.
Predictably, it’s the loudest voices that are getting heard…and the vile and venom from the right is coming fast and furious, just as it has ever since this President took office. No matter what he says or does, Republican politicians will tell all who want to listen that he’s wrong… then their media mouthpieces will set out to vilify him...and the people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Faux News will once again work themselves into a rabid lather. It’s a repeating cycle that has our friends and neighbors from around the world shaking their heads in dismay at what we have become.
Following is a column from Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, about the ‘Joe Wilson’ phenomenon. It illustrates what people in other parts of the world are thinking about what we say and do…what their perceptions are…and it’s typical of what you’d find nowadays in any country in the Western world.
From the Globe and Mail, Saturday September 26, 2009 :
By Sonia Verma
West Columbia, S.C. — Roxanne Wilson answers the door in a white T-shirt, aqua-blue shorts and a pair of pearl earrings. This morning she meant to mow the lawn, take in the trash cans and wash down the aluminum siding on her sprawling, ranch-style home. Instead, her thoughts hover on her husband, whom she drove to catch his flight to Washington just a few hours ago.
To much of the country, including former president Jimmy Carter, Congressman Joe Wilson's heckling of Barack Obama during the U.S. President's address to a joint session of Congress betrayed the ugly, possibly even racist side of his Southern heritage.
To his wife, though, Mr. Wilson is just “a typical Southern gentleman.” And here in Lexington County, the heart of South Carolina's overwhelmingly white and Republican second district, he is nothing short of a hero. The Wilsons have received hundreds of letters of support and even a few personal cheques. At their church, the First Presbyterian, Mrs. Wilson was applauded.
Their home, nestled on a street of towering pines, is hushed, unfussy and full of cluttered charm. The sitting room is scattered with grandchildren's toys and Ali G DVDs. Family photos, including some posed with Republican presidents past, crowd the shelves.
“I know Joe's upset, but for good reason,” explains Mrs. Wilson, who revealed in a campaign video last week that she was shocked at first by her husband's outburst herself. “He thinks we're just going down a road that we are never going to be able to recover from. There's plenty of people who agree.”
Across this county of Baptist churches and barbecue joints, Mr. Wilson's supporters feel galvanized by their unlikely new voice in Washington and their shared opposition to big government. And almost all of them say what Mrs. Wilson does: “Race has nothing to do with this.” Yes, the Wilsons did fly a Confederate flag on their front lawn before Mr. Wilson was elected to Congress, but “that was about heritage not hate,” Mrs. Wilson says. (The rebel banner still flies in front of the South Carolina state assembly building in Columbia.)
Mr. Obama won a surprising victory against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the state is now emerging as a significant hurdle to his policies. Mr. Wilson's “You lie!” has become a rallying cry not only among a lunatic fringe but in Main Street America; indeed, at least in Lexington County, the line between the two is getting blurry.
Joe Wilson's heartland today is a place where everyone from Tea Party Patriots to state-governor hopefuls are uniting over fears of the deepening reach of the federal government.
“The changing of America is what we're talking about. We're fighting for our freedom,“ says Ron Parks, a 53-year-old construction worker who for most of his life stayed far away from politics. Today he is a local organizer in the anti-Obama, cross-country Tea Party movement; he objects to everything from the economic-stimulus package to seatbelt laws.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson, previously an undistinguished backbencher, has become someone people here talk about as a future contender for the Oval Office.
“Throughout the course of this nation's history there have been extraordinary events which have lead to extraordinary acts of defiance,” says Larry Grooms, a long-time Republican state senator. “People are beginning to understand that some of the basic rights that most Americans hold dear are quickly being eroded.” Without men such as Mr. Wilson, he adds, America is destined to become like North Korea.
High passions
In a rundown strip mall next to an indoor shooting range, Mr. Wilson's campaign office has been inundated. It raised $1.5-million in the week after the incident; cheques and letters are still pouring in from across the country. “Glad to know you're not apologizing again. Stay strong,” reads one letter from Arizona, taped to the office's bathroom door.
“It's just been overwhelming,” says Preston Grisham, Mr. Wilson's 26-year-old campaign manager. “The most common call I get is from people who say Joe said what they have always wanted to say.” Which is what, exactly? After all, he spoke only two words. “I hear a lot of different things,” Mr. Grisham says hesitantly. “Before this, they really didn't know Joe, so everyone's just taking their own interpretation of what he actually said.”
The passion of the support for Mr. Wilson often seems to run deeper than its logic. In Lexington, residents express suspicions of Mr. Obama and policies such as health-care reform, but they are equally angry at the cost of their insurance. They believe his economic stimulus package will bankrupt their country, but many of them have lost their jobs, with South Carolina posting double-digit unemployment last summer. They think Mr. Obama is a liar, but can't explain why.
Two miles down the road from Mr. Wilson's campaign office at the Southern Restaurant, former Vice-President Dick Cheney's picture hangs on the wall alongside the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of the local paper. Here emotions run raw.
“I don't trust [Mr. Obama]. I think a lot of his ideas are too far out in left field,” says Wyman Abstance, celebrating his 57th birthday with two friends from work, over $7.50 plates of steaming fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Which ideas does he mean? “I can't name a specific one,” Mr. Abstance says. “But he loves to spend money too quick, and money isn't always the solution. I think he's going to get this country to a point where we could be taken over by another country.”
His friend Kenny, who also works at the local utilities company, is riled up about the health-care bill, which he says he doesn't understand. “All I know is it's going to cost a bunch of money … one way or the other,” he says before taking a sip of “unsweet” iced tea.
Richard Freedman, sitting across the table, couldn't bring himself to watch the President's speech. “I don't trust him. He lies every time he opens his mouth.” Mr. Freedman doesn't distrust all Democrats, though. “I guess I don't feel as uncomfortable with Bill or Hillary as I do with President Obama,” he says, though he can't say why.
John Gissendaner, a 67-year-old retired official with the department of interior works, is much clearer on his reasons: “Obama's ruining our country with all these social programs and giveaway programs. I hate him. And it's not 'cause he's black. It's 'cause he's a Muslim socialist.”
That's the kind of statement that outside observers use to dismiss these voters' sentiments as mere cover for cultural prejudice. But others say the resentment here arises from more nuanced, legitimate and lasting causes. “South Carolina has a long history of spitting in the face of federal authority,” says Walter Edgar, Director of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Now people are losing their homes and their jobs and can no longer afford to send their children to the right schools. For them, the federal government is a good whipping boy.”
Prof. Edgar says the rest of the country should heed the undertones in all the noise around Mr. Wilson's words: “This is not a fringe movement,” he says. “It speaks to a growing uncertainty, a growing unease, and Washington should take stock. This is not going to die out.”
Sonia Verma is a Globe and Mail reporter.
So there you have it. Apparently we’ve become a kind of third-world political joke that, to our friends and neighbors, is really much more sad than it is funny. We can blow it off by saying we don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks…but we should care. We’ve got to stop carrying on as if Americans are the only people in the world who can think, or who’s opinions matter.
We need to once more become that ‘shining city on the hill’ that every other country looked up to. But after eight years of the blustering, bullying Bush administration, and the hate-filled political grandstanding and rhetoric that has badly sullied our national image since Barack Obama became President, we’ve got some work to do before we can climb that hill again.
SC
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It's interesting that the reporter chose to talk to Mrs. Wilson. Did she think that Mrs. Wilson would say that her husband was a moron, or was she trying to paint Mrs. Wilson as a moron for standing next to her husband? The reporter also chose to talk to other people who were upset and really didn't have a clue as to why they were upset. Instead of telling the whole story by interviewing intelligent folks, she just looked for the most angered individuals who couldn't see past their fears and anger to make valid points, and a woman who should be expected to stand with her spouse. I especially liked how the reporter filled her story with old southern stereotypes like the what old man was eating and the flying of the Confederate Flag. It seems as if the reporter had some prejudicial issues herself.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing I like better than slanted journalism. An individual has to really think hard and read between the lines to determine what the real story is. Unfortunately, the majority of folks who read or listen fall in step and do not know what they are getting angry about. Gotta love mob mentality.
The only individual that she talked to who really had some insight was Professor Edgar.
She did say one thing in the article about Senator Wilson's comment "you lie" echoing as a rallying cry to main street America that was correct, but she forgot to mention that we "main street America" are saying that to a majority of our elected officials on both sides of the aisle.
As far as the trusting of elected officials goes, main street America, has earned the right to distrust our elected officials. President Clinton committed perjury, I don't know how many times senators, governors, and congressmen and women were caught in lies, and the last 8 years speak for themselves. Our national image has been soiled long before President Obama took office.