CNN Report: Right-Wing Extremism May Be On the Rise

in ref to: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/14/extremism.report/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Are Right-Wing Extremists Growing in Numbers in the U.S?

from the article:
"Many right-wing* extremists are antagonistic toward the new [Obama's] presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearm ownership and use..."

*Definition of the Right (aka "right-wing") from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.): 8 a. individuals professing opposition to change in the established order and favoring traditional attitudes and practices and sometimes advocating the forced establishment of an authoritarian order...b. a conservative position.

You see threats coming from right-wing extremists every day all over the Internet, places like Yahoo Answers--posts that are from Obama haters: anti-liberal, anti-muslim, very pro-war and violent. In fact, Yahoo supports it by allowing it, and it ain't just about "free speech." They monitor Yahoo Answers.

I'm not trying to be rude, but the report in the CNN article is describing the kind of people you see in the video from my last blog post who were McCain/Palin supporters (and I'm still not saying all McCain/Palin supporters are like this):



alt link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPQNZ_bqdI

The guy in the beginning of this video actually says: "Haven't you ever heard that the United States is gonna be taken down from within? What better way...than having the president of the United States to do it? " A woman says, "This man is a terror to this country...his education was paid by arabs." A man says that someone like Obama is going to "give them [arabs, who he also refers to as "dirtbags"] more power in the world." These are not simply opinions. It's the talk of right-wing extremists.

Election 2008: Isn't the American Way Overdue For Change?

I cannot think of a better time to be a culture of one.

The 2008 presidential election is stirring up so much hatred you'd think another civil war is on the horizon. Within this ill will you see just how bad the regression of society regarding moral behavior and humanity can get in the USA. This is partly due to the almost sports-oriented approach many people have adopted about the elections. They have picked a team and now simply want their side to win. As questionable as polls are, they presently show Obama moving ahead of McCain now that the final televised debate is over. This may be because McCain made a fatal error to align himself with someone whose name I will not utter but who is now becoming perhaps the most famous plumber of all time. If you were paying attention at the last debate, here's how McCain may have revealed he's not interested in being too honest:

1. McCain does not even know the man. Yet, he falsely refers to him as "My old buddy."

2. A plumber represents the big businessmen McCain mingles with? No. He represents the smallest self-employed person who stands to benefit the absolute least from McCain's tax cuts for business owners while mega corporations continue to benefit the most. For McCain's next political stunt would he even hire the man to fix his leaky faucet? McCain would more likely tax the man's health benefits.

3. McCain and his supporters claim taxes would increase under Obama's plan, but Obama has repeatedly said anyone making under $250,000 would see no tax increase. That is unquestionably the vast majority of Americans. It's highly unlikely most plumbers make that kind of money annually. Yet, McCain tells the TV audience repeatedly that Obama will raise the plumber's taxes. McCain has his favorite plumber confused with big companies manufacturing toilets?

I have tried to give McCain a chance to show that he's not really going to be the Bush clone some say he'll be, but he's too late. Obama may get some of the facts wrong when it comes to what McCain's proposals are, but you don't see the despicable level of dirty politics coming from the Obama camp like you see with the McCain campaign. And I hate to say it, but given McCain's supporters seem to be unswayed by such lies they must believe this is just the way the political wheel rolls in the USA nowadays--bent rims and half flat.

What kind of American is McCain attracting to his campaign? I couldn't believe this news article was posted on Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081015/ap_on_el_pr/obama_secret_service

From the article:
"Shouts of 'traitor,' 'terrorist,' 'treason,' 'liar,' and even 'off with his head' [all in reference to Obama] have rung from the crowd at Republican rallies. The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP conservatives. She accused Obama last week of 'palling around with terrorists'..."

Can you believe one McCain supporter tried to convince me that I was ill informed because the secret service later found in the recorded tapes of a McCain rally nobody shouted out the words, "kill him," as was the primary concern? Traitor and terrorist are still apparently fine labels according to this McCain supporter's way of looking at it. All you have to do is go to Yahoo Answers and similar posts on the Internet to see that plenty of McCain supporters are STILL spreading lies about Obama being an Arab a muslim or both. Then they wonder why Saturday Night Live is making fun of someone they call the "crazy McCain rally lady?"

I'm really not trying to be rude here, but articles such as these suggest that the crowds at McCain rallies are no better than a lynch mob. Palin is making horrendously false accusations to stir up more hatred while she hides from the media. And to think the Secret Service needs to be called in to investigate threats against Obama even before he's the president? What kind of American is McCain attracting to his campaign?

See for yourself just how horrendously ignorant some of McCain's supporters have become. As appalling as this is, I managed to come across a CNN video that demonstrates just how rotten it's gotten. You don't need to have my interests in psychology to tell you that the McCain supporters in this video have become experts at rationalizing their behavior. They have found a way to make it right:

http://www.cnn.com/video/savp/evp/?loc=dom&vid=/video/politics/2008/10/17/racist.obama.newsletter.kcal

You see toward the end of the video the McCain supporter says the only reason fried chicken, watermelon, and Kool Aid are a part of stereotyping African Americans is because OTHERS believe this to be so. I'll remind you that oppressors rarely can see themselves as the oppressors, which is one reason they continue what they do. The reporter obviously caught the woman in a lie (because why would the group that made the phony dollar bill choose these specific elements widely known to be associated with African Americans), and I thought at first the woman was engaging in cognitive dissonance reduction. She knew on an unconscious level that the whole scheme was indeed wrapped up in prejudice but tried to think of it in a way that made it morally acceptable. She wants the reporter to look at it in the same way. But no. This is not simply cognitive dissonance reduction. The woman is too well rehearsed. This is now the thinking of a whole sector of our society, and they're so brazen about it they don't even care to hide it from the media.

You see the man who won't open his door to the interviewer saying the same exact thing. He says that watermelons and fried chicken come with an equal association to African American stereotypes as does meatballs and spaghetti. Surely, unless the man has been living in a void he knows he's blatantly lying. That's what gets me the most about the people who support McCain to the extent that they are giving in to the temptation to lie. They don't seem at all concerned how obviously immoral they're behaving, and I'm sad to say it's because Bush politics have taken too firm a foothold in the mind of some Americans.

Apparently, McCain supporters think further polarization of the country is the way to send a new president into power. If you need more proof of just how divisive some McCain supporters have become watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPQNZ_bqdI

Have YOU ever heard what this self-proclaimed "intelligent" man told the camera?--that it's common knowledge the US is going to be "taken down from within?" He says it with such conviction it would qualify as a delusion given there is no real evidence to support the claim. But pay special attention to the other McCain supporter calling himself a "proud racist" whose crystalized vision allows him to combine overgeneralization with prejudice shouting about how all arabs are "dirtbags" who hate his kids and who will hate his grandkids. Gee, I wonder why? To have McCain in office would only become justification for this man's behavior, and he would have no trouble saying, "You see. I was right." They want so badly to justify their anger and hatred, even using the lame excuse that this is a "free country," which to them means you can do whatever you want no matter who gets hurt in the process. It really smacks of the same ideology you see Bush supporting in which military raids continue in Iraq and Afghanistan without enough concern for how many civilian casualties are killed or injured. How could any American of sound conscience not be disturbed by this?

It's enough to make you think the American way is indeed way overdue for a change.

It has been said by many stout and neopatriotic Americans something like this: "There is only one culture in this country and that's an American one!" Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote a popular book that was entitled One Nation, Two Cultures (1999) alluding to the obvious seperation between conservative and liberal world views. I'm still trying to figure out where the author herself seems to fit in (given she was providing the perspective of the side she's not a member of), and I'm leaning more and more toward the conservative end of the dichotomy because of all the many statistics and notes she includes as a social historian to try and defend the great "progress" that America enjoys in many different ways. When I was in college, one of the focuses of the freshman seminar was how much the U.S. is a "polyglot" culture, meaning the same thing as the old melting pot metaphor, only the pot that my college professors were referring to didn't homogenize everyone into the Great American Stew. There were various different and distinct tastes that you could pick out (and discard too if that's what you wanted), each with its own global and cultural origins.

Above are three different views on what kind of culture exists in America, and except perhaps for the first one there's more than a kernal of truth in each. However, I'm going to give you another view of America that can't be labeled too well beyond calling it a "culture of one." There is no dichotomy in which a person is easily assigned to one end of the spectrum or the other as conservative or liberal, or even placed in the center and considered moderate for that matter. It's a continuum that doesn't contain labels; it contains actual people who are individuals (whether they each act as an individual or as the conformist) no matter what cultural heritage they can claim. Each person is capable of thinking for him or herself, and even though there might be many similarities in the human experience each of us have, it's time to stop downplaying the existential fact that there are no two people exactly alike--not even identical twins.

(addendum) More notes on Himmelfarb's book: One Nation, Two Cultures:

According to Himmelfarb, bomemian or "alternative" lifestyles in contrast to a more traditional American way of life are now "tolerated" and accepted in the U.S. --My question is BY WHOM? It's like she wrote the book as a conservative in 1999 because she wanted to present an image of a division between two cultures in America for the sake of getting conservatives worried about the state of the union and vote for Bush in the 2000 election! She included all these statistics but her final evaluation is that the "liberal" way of life has become more "tolerated?" That's only the case if you're a conservative. This book has so much political bias disguised as social history it's not tolerable by any but the most conservative reader.

Why do these people keep asking Americans: Do you want THIS kind of America or do you want THAT kind? The dichotomous evaluation is so misleading!--as if even the fabricated dichotomy these people create is being enforced by them so they can make sure they stay in control.

A Culture of One and Misfit Phobia

I think most people in America are often consciously or unconsciously concerned about the negative consequences of being considered a misfit, and this fear is an obstacle for self growth. To the extent that you fear being considered a misfit you are likely to act accordingly to make sure that upon any possible comparisons with others you are not judged by others as different, weird, unconventional, etc. This fear leads to conformity and a lack of diversity among individuals. Curiously, scientists have created plenty of labels for "disorders" connected to the notion of not being able to function in society with others (e.g., social phobia, avoidant personality disorder) but there are no disorders associated with overly conforming to cultural convention at the expense of losing personal identity (arguably, this can be associated with depression, but depression is definitely not currently defined in this manner). That's because the implicit assumption is that your culture must give you a proper identity. A person supposedly must assimilate (to use Piaget's term) aspects of one's cultural environment to properly develop and function. The implicit assumption is that it's "good" to be like everyone else, and that is the message our scientific approach to psychology helps pass down to the public as an agent of convention.

Scientists "average" behavior and determine what is "normal" from this process, or so they think. The contradiction is that our American society is supposed to be about the importance of being an individual, having personal freedom, and making choices for yourself, but you see, it was never really allowed. In practice these principles become quite dangerous to most people because the principles regarding real freedom (i.e., the freedom from cultural convention) potentially lead to thinking and acting unlike others. For example, in America you're supposed to eat meat and you're expected to drive a car regardless of any apparent negative consequences (mistreatment of animals, consuming saturated animal fats, environmental pollution, economy and politics dependent on oil, etc.). The people who don't conform to this way of life are often considered to be misfits or maladapted. People fear the negative consequences associated with not being able to "fit in" if you are different compared to everyone else. Hence, there is a form of misfit phobia manifested by rampant conformity. Our society is structured in such a way that it is skewed in favor of the conformist (the center of the bell curve for all you scientists reading this) and does this at the expense of allowing for only limited acceptance of diversity among individuals. It is very important to understand the limitations of such approach in developing yourself as a culture of one.

In effect, the conventional approach for the empiricist goes like this: If most people seem to act a certain way, it must be normal. Meanwhile, the only thing they have really uncovered is a statistically normative condition. But normal and normative have been confounded with each other for years because of a large majority of people who don't understand the limitations of the scientific method, even professionals, and somehow the public learns what is "normal" and what is "abnormal" in our culture based on a normative pattern of behavior. What we really have is a matter of conforming to specific values, and in the absence of being the person who can be placed somewhere under the center of the bell curve one risks being considered a misfit. For most people, the answer to this dilemma is NOT to stop playing the empiricist's game. Their answer is to do whatever everyone else is doing.

If you don't value the current cultural convention (i.e., in America the importance of making as much money as possible, accomplishing goals in favor of appreciating your experience, possession of material objects in favor of personal or spiritual development, being scientifically rational in favor of artistically creative) you run the risk of demonstrating for others who conform to the convention that their world view may be "wrong." Their defense to this can very well be that they reject you, not because what you are doing is morally wrong or an actual threat to anyone, but because it is different. They find strength in numbers. For this reason alone, many people will be careful to not think or act in such ways that make it more likely they will be considered a misfit—even at the expense of personal development and life meaning. Their aim is not to be genuine; it is to escape rejection and condemnation by others.

Moreover, because people become too afraid to be genuine, they remain unable and unwilling to see beyond the half-truths of the reality that their culture creates. Instead of critically thinking about what they are conforming to, they practice ways of fitting in. They become the problem solvers and not the problem finders. They frown on those individuals who say something is seriously wrong with our society. They are more willing to believe that people act the way that they do because of their "nature," and they relinquish choices that are an existential part of personal freedom in contrast to the prescribed way of life that their culture provides. For a culture of one, this is no way to live. A person must find ways to deal with the fear of being considered a misfit (or what I call misfit phobia).

More to come...

(Image above is a digital photograph by the author.)

Manifesto

What is a culture of one? Well, I once thought it was my idea, but apparently I didn't invent the terminology. An Internet search will bring up many examples of people already using it. However, be assured that my concept is not the same as all the others, and it is here we will explore together what it means to be a culture of one.

Here's something to start you off:

A "culture of one" may appear to be an oxymoron only because the conventional understanding of culture is that it takes many people all doing the same thing to create a culture. Hence, the conventional understanding of culture exclusively translates into the "culture of many." The assumption is, in order to have a "culture," people need other people to agree on specific rituals or beliefs that must dominate, and this requires conformity. The term "countercultural" seems to describe something supposedly at odds with convention, as if in the wrong direction. Thus, there are people who are quick to negatively interpret any specific countercultural behavior as a threat to their way of life and world view--even if only a perceived threat. Countercultural begins to mean "amoral" to the conformists. It persists that to act differently compared to others makes one's behavior conspicuous and the subject of harsh judgment by others who form a consensus regarding how I should behave. However, depending on the situation it is not necessarily wrong to be unconventional, nor is unconventionality the same as anarchy.

I know what you're probably thinking: Sounds like good old American individualism, right? To some extent, being a culture of one is a form of self reliance. However, I am not simply repackaging American individualism, which is somewhat of a myth to begin with, anyway. Individualism in America has taken the form of being able to speak your mind directly with others, defining oneself according to personal goals and personal values, putting your individual needs and desires above the larger group, not needing to rely on others for your own survival, going out into the world to become someone, etc. Today, American individualism has turned into the dream (or nightmare depending on how you look at it) of great things supposedly waiting for the person who can be self-motivating to work overtime and be the overachiever. However, cultural values still exist such as the importance of being a "team player." The great paradox of American individualism is that while you're told to become some unique individual, at the same time you're supposed to fit in with everyone else. Regardless of the contradictions, to whatever extent these values have influenced my development as a person, I am not simply talking about American individualism. A culture of one may be a form of self reliance, but unlike American individualism it's not just what you can do that is important. A culture of one is not just about thinking for yourself; it's about critical thinking (not to be confused with being an empiricist or scientist). Above all, it is not about simply being selfish and self-centered, but it is about your own consciousness and place as an individual in society. It is about a way of being in the world in which one recognizes what we call "individualism" is merely a conventional label for a way of life, and often quite meaningless.

More to come...

(Image above is a digital photograph by the author.)