OK I have to really get something off my chest. The arrest of those three college students arrested in Alabama has really got me thinking.
I pointed out in my original post on the subject how it had become a right wing conspiracy theory. If you frequent political forums, like I do, then you would of seen an influx of right wing posters saying it was “liberals who hate religion” starting those fires. Instantly the stereotyping started. It was even given a large shove forward by Hardball host Chris Matthews when he said:
That’s why I’m thinking like that because the more liberal churches would drive some people on the right crazy and maybe a more liberal person, who’s gay for example, would feel that they’ve been terrorized by the beliefs of another church too
This of course added fuel to the fire (bad pun – I know) to start point the finger at it being someone on the left doing these fires.
This takes me back to an incident here in my southern Ohio County that occurred last year. Less than 24 hours after fallen soldier U.S. Army Pfc. Timothy Hines Jr. was buried his family’s life was changed even more. Friends and family had lined their property with small U.S. flags as a memorial to the fallen soldier. They awoke the morning after the funeral to find the flags heaped into a pile under their car and the whole mess on fire.
Of course this despicable act was immediately followed with right wing talk show hosts in this area saying it was a bunch of the “looney left” trying to make their anti-war message louder. It was even followed by national attention and again the right wingers took to the forums and started making the same accusations.
Well a couple weeks later the Fairfield fire department and police department announced they had made arrests in the case. The “looney left” that was started this fire turned out to be a couple of teens, one thirteen and one fifteen, out having some fun. They were still years away from even casting their first ballot in an election and already been stereotyped into a political party because of what they did.
This for of stereotyping is getting old and dangerous. Everytime someone speaks out against the war in Iraq, torture or bad bombings, they are called terrorist sympathizers. Actually these people are just able to discern the difference between the war on terror and Iraq. Regardless, it still evolves into another round of labeling by the right.
Now here we are facing this Dubai port deal. Congress is on its way to block it and Senate may do the same. It is setting the stage for the biggest political showdown of Bush’s miserable career.
There are people out there who do support the ports deal. Some of these people are the same right wingers that go out and attack the left and stereotype them. Now they are accusing the people who oppose the deal of doing that very same thing – stereotyping.
We get told we shouldn’t block Dubai because they are Arab or because of their previous ties to Osama. We get told we should give them a chance.
Funny how things work out. The stereotypers are the ones accusing people of stereotyping. Perhaps these same Bush supporters should think twice before they go out and quickly blame the left for anything.