4th
My hometown newspaper is nothing special, unless you have a strange predilection for car accident photos. My mom saves them for me so I won’t miss anything, from the man that drove into the Nesbit Motel to the instillation of new sidewalk. The latest batch she sent me held this surprise from the January 22 issue.
No less than three people wrote in thoughtful responses refuting Ms. Stagg’s heedless column, a veritable barrage of Miracle on 34th Street proportions in this small town. Stagg, though, did not relent. She responded to her critics with a lengthy letter to the editor of her own which included, among many things, this sentence:
“I wish that the socialist-leaning language I’ve been hearing from the current President and his Administration didn’t sound so much like the socialist-leaning language coming out of Germany and its leaders in the early 1940s”
Where is this coming from? Where did it start? She, and people like her, hear Obama = Socialism = National Socialism. She honestly can’t see beyond her own prejudices, whether they be racial or political or both, to understand why inaugurating our first African-American President was historic. There is a lot to parse and shake your head at here, from reverse affirmative action to comparing the Obama administration, the Cultural Revolution, and the Khmer Rouge with each other.
She isn’t getting here on her own. Where is this rhetoric coming from? Where did it start? Should we just laugh at the people repeating this drivel, ignore them, or look for the source?
