Published on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 by
CommonDreams.org
Why America's Problem Is Cultural, Not Politicalby Stephen Gabow
Here are some questions that ask the same thing in different ways. How can McCain/Palin even stand a chance in this election, given the state of the country? Why hasn't "conservative" become a dirty word, given the results of the last 8 (or is it 30) years of conservative rule? How come the Republicans get away with lies, dirty tricks, thievery and gross hypocrisy, over and over again? Why are congressional Democrats so spineless, so deferential around Republicans?
I think the answer is that conservatives and Republicans are more attuned to the American people and to the roots of American culture. I cringe to say this, but somehow deep in our values, hopes and dreams we are primed to be conservative. And the Democrats, being politicians, can sense it; they know it in their heart of hearts.
To begin with, America has been soaked in poisonous homegrown racism for three hundred years. It affects every American child. Yet even aside from that elephant-in-the-room, we have to fight our native culture to maintain a leftist perspective.
Citizens of other countries can draw on their own revered cultural icons to promote rebellion or revolution, or the notion of a social community. In 2004 Canadians voted for "The Greatest Canadian." Tommy Douglas, a socialist and reformer known as Canada's 'father of Medicare,' won the honor. The English have Robert Owen, the French have Emile Zola, the Germans Karl Marx, among many others.
What about the USA, home of revolutionary democracy? Who do we have? Franklin Roosevelt? Joe Hill and Eugene Debs? Martin Luther King? The freedom riders? Elizabeth Staunton and Susan B. Anthony? Mario Savio? Malcolm X? John Brown? Tom Paine? Emma Goldman? With the exception of King and FDR we remember these people only vaguely, if at all. Our founding father heroes have been stripped of their revolutionary content, to emerge in our times as staunch Christian conservatives. Whether Thomas Jefferson was actually an agnostic social revolutionary is not the point; he is perceived as something else. .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/07