“Will the Real Americans Really Step Up?

“…We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof… We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. [...] We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

Uh-oh, the call is going out on the campaign trail for the Real Americans to take this election away from them. They used to be the godless commies back in the Dark Ages, after World War II. Now, They are…let’s see “liberals who hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God…” And they appear to be people who have had the audacity to register to vote, and especially include those new voters likely to vote for others like them.

I’m white. Does that make me a Real American? Well, the fact that I’m white does seem to matter to the folks rallying Real Americans, though God forbid, they’d never blatantly suggest such an idea. Smirk, smirk.
I’m middle class…at least I was barely managing to stay in the middle class as of the stock market opening this morning. I worked two jobs at a time most of my adult life, 30 years at one job. I worked the second job so I put could money aside for retirement. But happily, that money will now be going to some Real Americans, to bailout their banks and investment firms.
Is that enough to make me a real American? Huh Sarah? Granted, I haven’t shot any moose from a helicopter yet but I did manage to hook a keeper striped bass from the beach last week.
Does that qualify me?
I have a mortgage that I pay and have been paying for about 600 years (it’s almost paid off) It’s a real mortgage, the kind real Americans used to have before our credit binging, anything goes, free market system turned the idea of a mortgage into some kind of sick joke…
How about my personal life? Real Americans tend to judge others by their personal lives.Well, I’m married. To a woman. The same one I married 25 years ago. To put up with me, she must be a real American.
I successfully raised a couple of kids. College graduates. College paid for. Anyone who can pay for a college education nowadays must be a Real American.
Does all that translate to “work and accomplish and achieve…”? Does all that make me a real American.

Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be included among the Real Americans that people like Mr. Hayes in North Carolina and Sarah Palin are pandering to right now in their desperation to win an election. A friend suggested that these were just politicians, trying to “rally the base”.
I’ll say…

That quote up top, by the way, is excerpted from Edward R Murrow’s conclusion of his broadcast “See It Now”, and his “Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy”. McCarthy had his own ideas about what constituted a real American and in his warped sense of patriotism, was willing to impose his idea on everyone. That was part of Murrow’s response.
I know, who cares what someone like Edward R Murrow has to say. He was a journalist and therefore wasn’t a Real American either.