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For the week of 5 November 2006

© Janus Adams 2006

In what’s been called the “silly season,” we’ve come to expect the ritual blood-letting that occurs each fall in the name of campaign ads and electoral politics. But this year has outdone itself.

We’ve been treated to: a gay sex scandal (Congressman Mark Foley) as though no female congressional pages were similarly victimized; unabashed homophobia (making an issue of gay marriage as though we’re all being asked to marry a gay); pregnant women arrested for exercising their “choice” (as if women are being forced to have abortions they don’t want; as if a forced pregnancy produces a healthy child); suppression of voter registration drives (sanctions on the League of Women Voters and others who register traditionally-disfranchised voters); racist ads against the two African-Americans seeking statewide office (Harold Ford for senator from Tennessee; Deval Patrick for governor of Massachusetts); a major class/caste gaffe (John Kerry’s miscalculation of who enlists in today’s military and why).

What’s going on here?

We’ve endured blatant racism (the campaign against affirmative action masquerading as pro-universal civil rights), blatant sexism (ruminations on our “readiness” for leadership by a true majority candidate - women being the nation’s majority), and nationalistic nonsense (equating immigrants with terrorists and erecting a fence to bar southern/Mexican/non-White aliens but not our northern/Canadian/mostly-White neighbors.

And then, as if these weren’t enough there was Rush Limbaugh’s response to Michael J. Fox. In a courageous use of the bully pulpit of his celebrity, Fox appeared in a campaign ad supporting a pro-stem cell research candidate in the hope of finding a cure for people, like himself, with Parkinson’s disease. On view for all to see were the ravaging effects of his illness with its characteristic loss of muscular control.

With venal stupidity, Limbaugh – too long given a pass for his outright bigotry – didn’t think to stop at those with disabilities. Ridiculing Fox, mimicking his uncontrollable movements, Limbaugh’s act was the straw that broke this (and many a) camel’s back.

As a student of American history, I’ve long been struck by America’s teeter-totter record on human rights; the nation’s “approach/avoidance conflict” that regularly jeopardizes justice; the portent for greatness and propensity for bigotry and hatred.

What sets the pendulum of time on its backward swing?

It’s the scapegoating and the finger-pointing, the bait-and-switch of issues and rhetoric, the easy sacrifice of those most expendable in the power play. It’s the little things that become big, as Justice Marshall reminded in his dissenting opinion on Bakke – the Supreme Court decision that began the unraveling of Civil Rights era gains.

In 1896, the Court – more a barometer of prevailing political winds than a steady measure of right and wrong – had decided the Plessy v. Ferguson case, legalizing segregation and the reign of terror against Blacks that was “Jim Crow.”

In 1898, two years after Plessy, the Charlestown News and Courier endeavored to demonstrate how ludicrous segregation was with this parody of Jim Crow law:

‘If there must be Jim Crow cars on the railroads, there should be Jim Crow cars on the street railways. Also on all passenger boats. . . . If there are to be Jim Crow cars, moreover, there should be Jim Crow waiting saloons at all stations, and Jim Crow eating houses. . . . There should be Jim Crow sections of the jury box, and a separate Jim Crow dock and witness stand in every court -- and a Jim Crow Bible for colored witnesses to kiss.’

“The irony,” wrote Justice Marshall, “is that...with the exception of the Jim Crow witness stand, all the improbable applications of the principle suggested by the editor in derision [were] put into practice – down to and including the Jim Crow Bible.”

A tolerance for bigotry had won out – a tolerance for intolerance swept the nation, much like the gathering storm of today. The “silly season” is proving deadly serious.

Think of it: did the candidates give serious consideration to public policy matters or pander to “the base” with rhetoric rooted in fear and prejudice?

On Tuesday, I will vote because I’m one of the thousands who had our heads bashed in for the right to do so. I’m voting against the bait-and-switch of bigotry and intolerance as wedge issues in a sinister, cynical power play. As an American, I know I deserve better.

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