Emancipate Yourselves From Mental Slavery

I visited the town of Salem this past weekend. I would seriously recommend for everyone to visit during the month of October – it’s Halloween Town, quite a fun time and many sites to see. As most people know, Salem’s biggest tourist attraction is the Salem Witch Hysteria of 1692 - the incident that Arthur Miller based his play "The Crucible" upon.

My thoughts today rest on the parallels to be found between Salem in 1692 and the current political landscape. The Witch Hysteria was fueled by a lack of reason and by fear – fear of the Devil, of evil, of the unknown. From that vantage point, they proceeded to try their fellow townspeople with flawed ideas including guilt by association and “spectral evidence” – a term that amounted to hearsay. 19 people were hung based on the “findings” of these trials and one man was pressed to death for, in essence, asking his accusers what he was being tried for. As an aside, the particular case of Giles Corey draws a strong comparison to the current debate raging over the reinstallation the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus to the detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Reasoned thought and real evidence played no part in the Salem Witch Trials and innocent people were executed because of it.

Reasoned thought and real evidence play no part in the current McCain campaign and the echo chamber that is Right-leaning television, radio and print media.

When the bottom began to fall out of our economy, Senator McCain stated that the “fundamentals of the economy are still strong”. Two hours later, he declared that the economy was in crisis. He then “suspended” his campaign to return to Washington to fix the problem – the exact opposite happened. From that point on, his responses to the evolving economic crisis have been erratic at best, dangerously unwise at worst. They have changed policy as quickly as the news cycle can report – with no cohesive vision, no foundations laid out to build an evolving policy upon. They were tactical changes meant to appease specific constituencies, distract and run out the clock to November 4th.

When his poll numbers continued to drop, his campaign stated that “if we continue to talk about the economy, we lose”. Seriously? If you talk about the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, if you talk about the biggest crisis to effect the next President, you lose? I think that speaks volumes about the readiness of Senator McCain to assume the Presidency.

So instead, they decided to try and “turn the page” on the crisis effecting, at this point, the global financial market. And so, Senator John McCain, the man whose 2000 race for the presidency was destroyed by a whisper smear campaign by Bush decided to employ the exact strategy with the same players. Simply amazing. We began to hear about Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground member and about ACORN, the network of community organizations whose missions include voter registration.

They began saying that Senator Obama surrounded himself with “domestic terrorists” and that he was involved in organizations attempting voter fraud – two completely uninformed positions. They decided to run 100% negative advertisement and stir up the fear and division that already exists in this country. They decided to continually attempt to link Senator Obama with terrorism in every stump speech and surrogate remark. They decided to stand back and do nothing as the situation became increasingly volatile and dangerous – so much so that the Secret Service had to investigate attendees to the McCain/Palin rallies due to shouts of “Kill Him” and “Off with his Head” in reference to a Presidential candidate.

This entire time, the echo chamber spent untold time and resources on these issues. Not the economy, not the 2 wars hemorrhaging our blood and treasure, not the unlawful detainment of American citizens, not the scandal involving the Justice Department, not the move by the Bush Administration and Treasury Secretary Paulson to receive untold power over taxpayer money, not climate change, not the energy, education or healthcare crises. Sean Hannity, as an example, spent an entire show “uncovering” Senator Obama’s associations. And by associations, they mean anytime he represented an organization as a lawyer, spent time on a Board of Directors of a educational foundation, was a parishioner in a church that had a controversial pastor or anytime his name appeared in the same paragraph as anyone with a checkered past.

The problem with this line of reasoning, if it can be called reason, is that no one is free from guilt by association. Here is a short list that levels McCain and Palin’s charges of Senator Obama’s radicalism –

The Alaskan Independence Party, The Keating Five, Richard Quinn, John Singlaub & the U.S. Council for World Freedom, Senator Ted Stevens, G. Gordon Liddy, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Thomas Muthee, Max Blumenthal, Rick Davis, Phil Gramm, Randy Scheunemann, William Timmons and ACORN (?)… yes, Senator McCain spoke at an ACORN convention and praised their involvement in voter registration.

The issue here is that a reasoned and thoughtful person understands that certain “associations” are a matter of circumstance while others may need to be investigated further. Senator Obama’s “associations” have been investigated by the American people – Senator McCain’s and Governor Palin’s have not. This has not stopped them from drawing inane correlations. We are all guilty if guilt by association becomes the standard by which we measure someone’s character.

In conclusion, I would like to offer a story that we should all meditate on. There once was a child that was born to a woman whose husband was not the father. When he was grown, he voluntarily became a homeless vagrant, shirking all of his responsibilities. He began to surround himself with hookers and bankers. He talked about overthrowing the government. He spoke out against the Church. He destroyed others property as a political statement. He socialized with terrorists and extremists. He hung around with drug addicts and the insane. He was a convicted felon on death row who was executed for attempting to overthrow the government and commit treason.

I know a lot of people who associate with him. Think for yourself.