The Internet and cable television have had an explosive effect upon mass media communications. People who were barely noticable years ago, in small isolated markets both geographically and categorically now have achieved what many of them seek–notoriety. Apparently simple minds have simple objectives. People like Bill O’Reilly, a gossip columnist, who now pretends to authority on political matters. Glenn Beck…a nothing, with what could be dementia–is remarkable for being on television at all. Endless entertainmnet programming…interviews with non-entities, reality show “celebrities,” Tom DeLay attempting to dance…all this unbelievable nonsense is thrown at the public.
In this carnival atmosphere of the multiplicity of “anything goes” cable and similar effects on the Internet, we encounter the dark side of human nature. It turns out that the South is still overpopulated with bigots, people hating blacks and Jews and Catholics and Hispanics…anyone who doesn’t resemble them in their semi-retarded speech, anti-intellectualism, and devotion to the 19th Century ante-bellum idea that slavery was not wrong. Their theory seems to be that it was merely defeated and outlawed. We know this from the thousands of clubs, marches, meetings, web sites, interviews, police reports and studies done by various associations on skin heads, neo-nazi and white supremecist groups.
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report (www.splcenter.org) shows that many groups similar to those that were around in the 1990s, like the whackos at Waco and those that did the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City have been growing in number. Of particular note is that many, from the South in particular, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and similar states are racist, anti-black organizations. We know this, for example, from news reports of arrests last year during the Presidential campaign. One was a Florida man, another two men in Tennessee, and one man and, during the the Democratic Convention in Denver, a man with an arsenal, body armor and other similar equipment. His associates later confessed that he was heading to the convention center to attempt to kill Barack Obama. In all three cases, these men possessed the appropriate rifles with scopes, body armor and other equipment necessary to carry off such an attack. All were self-professed racists.
On the Internet, there are hundreds, if not thousands of racist sites. But you don’t need to try to track them down. Racism is appearing today in the most visible of places. For example, in church:
Of course “Pastors” like this one are the reason that so many people no longer believe in organized religion. Anyone with a sleeve in a strip mall apparently can be a pastor. Granted, Catholic or Episcopalian churches don’t recommend, so far as I know, that you “bring your gun to church” on Sundays, but they still believe in conclusively absurd, meaningless stories. They still promote violence and avoid peace as concepts. They hinder legislaton dedicated not only to the poor but also to the working poor and now the Middle Class.
Church has become a social phenomenon, like health clubs. Our leading preachers and politicians parade out their families on Sunday and sneak off to prostitutes or to pursue their pedophilia on Monday. Religion no longer has any meaning associated with morality.
And maybe that is why we have such a large number of people from the Evangelical Fundamentalist South who still hate blacks, who still hate Jews, who still hate anyone who isn’t like themselves. They spend too much time in church and not enough time in school.