Political Tools

Go Solo and think for yourself.

After work I sometimes relax in front of the television by surfing for news. From some perspectives, this isn’t a particularly “relaxing” way to wind down, but the act of watching television is passive. You don’t really interact with it, you don’t participate in it, you just move from channel to channel, avoiding the commercials and seeking that little spark of something that might provide a flash of interest. What makes it relaxing is that you don’t need to consider how to react, you just need to watch and think about the content itself. Your mind wanders from topic to topic, firing off emotional sparks into the old logic circuits and driving them to form opinions. Later, when you engage in communication with other individuals, you’ll have some information to draw on.

So it was that I came across Larry King having an interview with Franklin Graham, the son of the Evangelist Billy Graham, discussing the quality of President Obama’s religious beliefs and Franks opinions about Islam being an evil and wicked religion. Apparently this was all sparked by a survey of the American public revealing that 18% believe that Obama is a Muslim. Why is this a factor in anything?

Sometimes I get a kick out of Larry King. His interviewing process is about as passive as you can get. He seldom volunteers personal opinions and avoids judging people he’s interviewing, even if they disgust him personally. It is, in fact, difficult to tell what disgusts Larry. Some of the individuals he’s interviewed have been so unsavory that you can only imagine he’s revolted, but he manages to avoid showing it if he is.

The interview with Franklin Graham served to remind me that we have a large number of political tools and weaponry scattered around this country and this world, and that Franklin himself is one of them. Mainstream media itself, in their desire to gain ratings and make money, frequently picks up these tools and brandishes them. Freedom of speech dictates their right to do so, but it’s not much different than firing a gun in the air just to remind everyone that you’re armed. Not that I’m saying Larry shouldn’t be interviewing these people, but it’s starting to become a problem when you intentionally pick issues that are going to cause dramatic separatism to grow and caustic hatreds to increase. This is what the media thrives on, but is it good for the country? Is it good for the planet? Is it good to highlight our differences so much that we forget our similarities and start staring with paranoid suspicions and distrust at our neighbors? Because this is what our media lives for and what our election campaigns promote.

And we’re fascinated, aren’t we? We’re fascinated by the ugly truth of the matter that a significant portion of us will elect an official based on their religion. We’re fascinated by the opinions of the people around us who apparently harbor intellects radically different than our own. We stare in wonder at the twisted logic of the extremists viewpoints on both sides, and watch with morbid fascination for the fighting to begin. And it’s our fascination that they thrive on, that they feed on. Is our interest in our differences and our hatred and our extremism causing it to increase? I can’t help but think that it probably is. And what is it the religious leaders are spewing in church these days anyway? Are they trying to play it down and smooth things out? Are they preaching tolerance and love and forgiveness, or have they also succumbed to the temptation to play into the hatred, knowing that it brings more interest to the flock than a nice long talk about loving your neighbor?

Islam and Christianity have been rivals since the creation of Islam. How could that ever be different? They’re both evangelistic religions. They both compete for converts from the same planetary pool. Realistically, they should be separated and isolated, but that’s been done before and they just create their own factions and kill each other over different interpretations of their own philosophies. Look at Ireland and Bosnia and Iraq for examples. And comparing religious war to political agencies is an unfair comparison. They relate, but they aren’t the same. Politics and religion use each other, and they share motives – a need to control and dominate and determine the actions of their followers – but they aren’t identical.

There’s a lot of ugliness out there right now. A lot of that ugliness is being promoted and generated by extremist factions. Right now, most of that ugliness is coming out the dark end of the extreme right. We look at the extreme left and know the far end of that route leads into communism. We look at the extreme right and know the far end of that route leads into fascism. At the moment, I’m not to concerned about the extreme left. They have a soft underbelly, and no real motive to haul half the country into bizzaro land. Its the extreme right I’m worried about. They operate on hatred and have a tendency to promote that hatred. The lack of tolerance for anyone not sharing their views is a worry. Their ability to take issues that evoke rage and twist them into a weapon they can use has earned them a following and a place on the world stage. If Darth Vader existed here, he’d be a Republican, and he’d be standing next to Beck and Palin on Fox News.

Somehow we need to get back to the middle where there’s some logic. Can we do that by tugging on both sides? Or will the act of tugging on both sides just end up collecting more extremists? Why are we even talking about where a religious organization can put a building when the country is founded on religious freedom? Why are we even talking about what religion our President happens to favor when the separation of church and state is an important factor in our own stability? Why are any of us listening to hatred spewing from media agencies claiming to be fair and unbiased when they’re donating large amounts of money to one side and promoting a political agenda?

Anyway, tonight I think I’ll skip the news and play some video games instead. My kids will go out and play with the Muslim and Mormon and Atheist kids that live in the neighborhood, and they won’t even discuss religion or politics, they’ll just have fun. I bet they won’t even bomb each other. Who says being an adult makes you intelligent?