Drinking Dogmatic Kool Aid

By: Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” - Hosea, VIII, 7

“[Auschwitz]...is where people were turned into numbers…the ashes of some four million people.  And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this [Auschwitz] is how they behave…We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.” - Jacob Bronowski

“[It is time to talk with each other] in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.” - Barack Obama

“Crosshairs are for deer, not people.” - A North Dakota hunter

As a historian and an activist in this country, it has often bothered me that some folks talk and write like they don’t know, or don’t care, about the difference between ballots and bullets.

On the other hand, I have always admired people of any political persuasion who run for office, and automatically subject themselves to verbal and press abuse that is often worse than that suffered by a losing football coach. It takes a very strong stomach and a thick skin.  I tried it once in 2004, and that was enough.

However, the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords in Arizona, preceded by two years of unusually violent political rhetoric nationwide makes one wonder if there aren’t a few too many in politics and the media today who have lost the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. No skin is thick enough to withstand gunfire.

It is difficult to judge sometimes why a person turns a weapon of war loose on a peacefully assembled crowd. Is it their itch for absolute certainty that kills so many so quickly, or are their minds too sick with a rage that only psychiatrists can understand?

Or are they usually well behaved people with weak minds, easily filled with violent rhetoric from “crosshairs crusaders” like Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh?

I was pondering these depressing thoughts the other day in my kitchen, when a genie appeared suddenly from amongst the cook books.

High Plains Reader:  Who are you and where did you come from?

Colonel Tea Bag:  I am “Colonel Tea Bag,” and I came from your cupboard. You left a mixture of “Blackberry Sage” and “Honeydew Melon” together too long and here I am.

I appeared because I want you to know that I am outraged at the idea that tea bags are causing violence in your country. Everyone knows that you “steep” tea bags. You don’t “shoot” them as deadly missiles.

HPR:  Those are “tea baggers,” Sir, not tea bags.

CTB:  Oh…I don’t understand.

HPR:  Neither do they, apparently. They take their name from an incident in American History in 1773 in which American colonists objected to a tax on their tea from a government they did not elect. But Tea Baggers in 2011 are angry at a government Americans elected.

CTB:  Oh dear.  That is very ignorant of them. Who is their leader?

HPR:  It’s really hard to say right now. After the shootings in Tuscon, a number of them are trying to say in 2011, that they didn’t mean what they said in 2010. Two of the most prominent leaders, however, are former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, and Glen Beck, a TV personality.

CTB:  Are these two as ignorant of the rest of the world’s history as they are of their own country’s?

HPR:  It would seem so. When Sarah Palin objected to being held responsible for the use of rifle crosshairs on her website for Democratic candidates in Arizona like Gabrielle Giffords and our own Congressman Pomeroy in North Dakota, she accused her critics of “blood libel” - a term used with regularity by anti-semites in the disastrous rise of Adolf Hitler in the past century. 

Governor Palin, and many others in this country, also seem to be unaware that Hitler, like Mussolini in Italy, got his start as an advocate of violent anti-government activity. He changed his mind about the uses of government, of course, when he and his followers obtained power in 1933.

CTB:  My goodness! It reminds me of that old saying that “those who do not learn from history, are condemned to repeat it.”

HPR:  I sure hope not. Do you have any suggestions Colonel Tea Bag?

CTB:  Certainly. I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of citizens in North Dakota and the United States, who know and care about the difference between deer and people, read up a bit on methods of demagogues and dictators on the one hand, and the painful processes of democracy on the other. Along with a nice cup of tea!

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