Is Classiness Overrated?

Anticipating a hiatus in posting opportunities and remorseful at having failed to properly publicize one of the better Op-Ed pieces I have seen in quite some time, I am taking corrective steps.

We have all (okay, those paying attention) noticed a certain "head exploding" phenomenon amongst those feeling out of power of late.  Hell, even my bus driver commented on it the other night, sending me home with a grin.

Unfortunately, perhaps inevitably given our national tendency to feel simultaneously exceptional, empowered, embittered, obligatorially-armed, entitled, and martyred, there are some who cannot settle for feeling sorry for themselves and whining in public, the sine qua non of most (R) politicians these days, it seems.  The vitriol, name-calling, and coded invocations to violence and overt hatred are downright spooky.  Well, no, I may have that wrong, as many of the (R) are actually seeming to endorse or goose up the name-calling and violence amongst the know-nothings who seem to be their "base" right now.

I find great irony and frustration in the idea that we now have seeming humans (they appear like us) throwing bricks through windows and otherwise engaging in mini-terrorism over health insurance reform while the eight-year pogrom with the bushinistas and their deadly reign of terror was remarkably peaceable on the domestic front.

Bob Herbert in the NYT was spot-on in his comments on this outrageous crap, under the mast "An Absence of Class":

Some of the images from the run-up to Sunday’s landmark health care vote in the House of Representatives should be seared into the nation’s consciousness. We are so far, in so many ways, from being a class act.

A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.”

Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another, and said contemptuously, “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.”

In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

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You owe it to yourself, your self-esteem, and your country to read the rest of this opinion.