Posted by
Dennis Pemberton on Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:12:00 PM
The St. Pete Times' article on AG Holder's comment that we are all "cowards" when it comes to race was ironic- the sidebar was Eric Deggans' commentary on how one can't have a chimpanzee in a cartoon which is at all political, because someone might think it refers to the President. Gosh, I can't imagine how we all got to be cowards on race, when pointing out that the stimulus bill seems to have been written by the proverbial room full of chimps pounding on typewriters is deemed racist. Public discourse is now filled with an easy hypocrisy, in which empowered members of the media and government feel free to baldly engage. We are browbeaten that we should be sensitive, then called "cowards" because we won't speak, afraid of being browbeaten. We are told we need to take it easy on the thermometer by a President who keeps his office at tropical temperatures. We are told that there is a fiscal emergency, no time to read a law enacting the greatest outflow of wealth in history- and the President waits days to sign it. Employees of the IRS get fired if they don't pay their taxes, while Tim Geithner becomes their boss. If we're cowards, it's because those with the biggest megaphones will shout us down, bully, or slander us, holding us to rules which are optional for those in power and whose names are followed by a (D).