Politics in America offers the opportunity to turn all of us
into cynics. Just consider the special election by which we are
choosing our new State Senator. Under the California Election Code,
the first vote was considered a primary election because none of
the four candidates garnered 50 percent of the votes, though
Republican Blakeslee came close.
Politics in America offers the opportunity to turn all of us into cynics. Just consider the special election by which we are choosing our new State Senator. Under the California Election Code, the first vote was considered a primary election because none of the four candidates garnered 50 percent of the votes, though Republican Blakeslee came close.
Now, we have to go through another “general” election with the same four candidates, as each of them represented different parties. Einstein is often cited for defining insanity as doing the same thing in the same manner and expecting a different result.
I offer another example of pure cynicism from the gubernatorial campaign of Meg Whitman. She would have you believe that she deserves your vote for the very fact that she is not a politician. If politicians got us into our current California quagmire, then we need to select a non-politicians to get us out. Setting aside the fact that we tried this with Arnold Schwarzenegger, we should look at the manner in which Whitman is conducting herself to determine just how much of a politician she really is.
It is frequently said of politicians that you know politicians are lying if their lips are moving. I have not personally heard Whitman list the state takeover of the Oakland School District as one of Jerry Brown’s “failures” but her commercials pumped out this message several times an hour even though Brown had nothing to do with that fact. Even after this was pointed out by the current Oakland School Board, she continued to use that ad. If Whitman is not yet a politician, she has learned to lie like one.
We have always had a certain element of complete disregard for the truth in our political campaigns. Nothing could be dirtier than the Presidential election of 1800 in which Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams with dirty tactics and slanderous accusations coming from both sides. And it appears that nothing has really changed. Even the press of the day came under fire for printing the attacks of one side or the other as if it were news.
Politics and politicians seem to revel in the fact that you can say just about anything as long as it confirms the worst fears or beliefs of potential voters. That is why incessant negative campaigning works. By confirming the fears of those who feel powerless, politicians ensure that, at least, there will be less votes for their opponent. It would seem that they really want low turnout elections in which the hard-core base of the party can determine the result.
Yes, there is ample reason to be a cynic. But in the middle of all of this, we are given the example of Shirley Sherrod, a woman whose life story would seem to produce an angry, bitter, cynical woman but instead has given us an example of courage and graciousness.
The original issue that elevated Sherrod to her status of “story of the week” was an exercise of cynical political manipulation by a blogger named Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart was looking for a way to castigate the NAACP for being a racist organization and found a snippet of a speech given by Sherrod that appeared to show her using her position to suppress the needs of a white farmer who was asking for assistance. Breitbart used a carefully edited segment of Sherrod’s speech to convey the message that blacks are dangerous to whites. It is a message that has echos of Glenn Beck.
There is much in Sherrod’s life story that would have provided psychological explanation of such behavior, had it been true. Sherrod’s father had been shot and killed by a white farmer, a man who was not brought to trial when an all white grand jury refused to indict him. She had been raised in poverty, not privilege. If one listens to the entire speech given by Sherrod, you learn that she realized her calling in working for the poor of all races, white, black, Hispanic, as they all face the same issues.
As much as we might have thought the election of Obama meant that America had put racism behind us, the treatment of Sherrod reminds us that we have not. There is a lot of blame that can be handed out to those involved, and not just Breitbart. The media ran with a story that they did not vet in any way. Bill O’Reilly and the rest of Fox News deserve a black eye, as does USDA Secretary Vilsack.
Rather than dwell on this, I would ask us all to emulate Shirley Sherrod, gracious under fire but never afraid to back down from a fight. As one of TV’s talking heads commented, Sherrod has been a thorn in the side of government for years, fighting for fair and equitable treatment for farmers, especially those with small family farms who struggle every year against a system that seems always to work against them. The fact that this country can produce a Shirley Sherrod is a buttress against my own cynicism.
Wes Rolley is a Morgan Hill artist and concerned citizen. He is co-chairman of the EcoAction Committee, Green Party.
