A couple of days ago, what's become a simmering loathe for the ugliness of politics these days really started to boil over and I began wondering, if I put my mind to it, if it would be possible to just not give a damn who was in charge of this country -- to honestly become indifferent to all the bullshit back-and-forth, for the good of my own sanity. It was kind of a variation on the old maxim about joining them (and by them, I mean whomever I might happen to fundamentally disagree with) if you can't beat them (and by beat, I mean get them to shut up and go away).
I figured, how hard could it be to simply give in and let the stupid roll off your back? It can't be that difficult to either convince yourself that people like, say, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck actually have a lot of points worth seriously considering, or to at least fake it well enough to not end up being pointed and howled at by the crackpot dumb-ass equivalent of Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
For a little while, I actually thought that if push came to shove I might be able to pull it off -- go with the flow, no matter where that flow happened to go.
But then something happens like, oh I don't know, the St. Louis Rams get sold to an auto parts magnate from Illinois who just happens to be Pakistani American and Muslim; the mouthpieces on the far right respond with their usual class and restraint, and by that I mean they unleash a repugnant torrent of unapologetically racist lunacy; and I realize that there's just no fucking way I could even pretend not to care, much less actually jump aboard the crazy train.
Here's what farm league wingnut Debbie Schlussel is already saying:
"...Maybe the NFL makes exceptions in the interest of Muslim affirmative action. Hey, it’s a good thing the football is no longer made of real pigskin, right? And in case you were wondering, his first name means 'martyr,' as in martyr for Islam. Islamic terrorists call themselves shahids. Like I said, conservative minority owners in the NFL–verboten; but Muslim tax cheats named for Islamic martyrdom–YAY! Gee, I wonder if Mr. Khan will denounce HAMAS and Hezbollah. Actually, I don’t wonder because I know the answer: don’t bet on it. And the spineless NFL and its owners won’t have the guts to ask him, either."
In case you missed it because you were busy wrapping electrical tape around your head to keep it from exploding, Debs essentially implied that it's the responsibility of Muslims, even Muslims who are American citizens, to pass some sort of patriotic purity test if they want to live here by publicly condemning terrorism (which is a laughable conceit if only for the fact that there's no way in hell anyone who'd demand something so insane would believe a Muslim anyway). If you follow Little Debbie's line of reasoning, she should be required to immediately denounce the Aryan Nation, Rudy Giuliani should distance himself from the Mafia, and Michael Steele needs to apologize for the Crips.
Oh, and that tax thing she's harping on? What do you want to bet that turns out to be exactly what it sounds like -- a largely pathetic grasp at straws from a group of people desperate for something to adjudicate their irrational hatred.
Never mind that 55-year-old Shahid Khan is a self-made billionaire, a guy with a wife and two kids who has roots in the Midwest and plans to keep the Rams firmly in place, and someone who donated to Mitt Romney's campaign in 2007. Screw all that. The only thing that matters is that he's one'a THEM. Making matters worse -- or better if you enjoy watching the extremist right get its collective face rubbed in shit -- is that the Rams were the team that shot down a buy-out bid by a group that included Rush Limbaugh last October. Tell me that doesn't make this little denouement all the more poetic.
Anyway, expect a lot of baseless accusations and blatant bigotry masquerading as genuine concern for justice and the safety and well-being of American football. (Not the pussy kind they play over there in Pakistan!) It's probably gonna be ugly for at least a few days throughout the most vocal regions of the extremist right. But hey, at least it acts as a reminder that there's still some crap that shouldn't under any circumstances be empowered through acceptance or simple indifference.
(Update: To his credit, Rush Limbaugh himself is smart enough not to jump on the Shahid-bashing bandwagon, meaning this meme could very well be relegated to only the farthest parts of the fringe. On the contrary, Limbaugh's being uncharacteristically gracious about the whole thing.)
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