http://albanyherald.com/Main.asp?Sectio ... cleID=6604
Don't want to be an American idiot ... I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
- Green Day
Welcome to the dawning of the age of the angry white man.
His sense of guilt sufficiently assuaged by the election to the highest office in the land of a man whose heritage is half-African, half-American - a "Halfrican-American," if you will - the angry white man - we'll call him AWM - now answers to the call of his inner angst, a tiny voice that has convinced him that he has become society's victim.
Goaded by an Oz-like cast of cartoon characters - the Blow-Hard Druggie of the Airwaves, the Brainless White Witch of the North, the Blubbering Instigator, the "Great Miscommunicator" Columnist - AWM has been spurred to action via a wave of self-righteous indignation that has shaken him to the foundation of his white-bread soul.
And with that darker-skinned man now sitting in the White House, AWM has a focal point to which he may direct his newfound anger.
Thus, a health care plan that mentions end-of-life counseling becomes a starting-off point at which "death panels" will determine who is given medical treatment and who is deemed too old and ready to meet their maker.
And a speech to the nation's school children about the importance of education becomes the opening salvo of a propaganda barrage intent on turning children's minds into ... well, AWM hasn't exactly figured out what, but by God, you better believe he's keeping his kids home from school.
And, harking back to his Wild-West roots, AWM feels the need ... the need ... to carry his semi-automatic weapon to public hearings, because the NRA and the Constitution give him that right.
Sadly, such rhetoric and vitriol leave AWM looking much like one of the forebears to his convoluted form of pretzel logic legacy: a gentleman named McCarthy.
Misguided AWMs across the nation are buying into the bloviated revisionist history of their Island of Misfit Toys leaders and directing their long-dormant ire at the current president, a so-far tentative leader whose sweeping mandate has been blunted by his odd decision to "let Congress handle" the issues that won him election in the first place.
These angry white men seem to have conveniently forgotten that many of the issues that they now rail against - the bailouts, the ongoing deaths of American troops in directionless wars, the erosion of civil freedoms in the name of "security" - were initiated by one of their own, that tragic good ol' boy from down Texas way.
While much of AWM's anger is indeed misguided, there's no mistaking its genesis. Rising white-collar unemployment, growing crime rates in cities with undermanned police forces and the threat of new taxes cutting into his already shrinking paycheck are enough to put anyone on edge.
Why it takes the country back to the days when no jobs, corrupt police forces and a complete lack of representation led to the birth of another interesting sub-group: the angry black man.
But that's a whole different story.
