Revved up like a deuce

I've had a few off line comments about my post a while back stating that as we approach the election and the inevitable fall-out and law suits afterward, especially since Obama is gaining in the polls, that we will begin to experience advanced wing-nuttery.

Some thought I was talking about McCain's apparent forgetfulness that he was a part of Washington while all these horrible things happened that he's now decrying. Myself, I keep waiting for the speech where he says his current campaign motto out loud, "You idiots voted for the wrong guy back in 2000. Now dontcha wish you had elected me?" Well, no, that's not what I was talking about.

This is what I was talking about. (link goes to the Nielsen Hayden's Making Light blog and Teresa's dissection of the letter) (here is the letter without the commentary and referential links) I used to receive such chain letters from friends, until I would get all explodey on them (with references) about how they were accepting something that makes absolutely no sense and could easily be disproven with a simple google search. If you don't want to taint your mind with such wingnuttery, I can sum up by saying that there are those "strong christians" who can't believe that a black man would be popular, so Obama's rise to power has to be due to "Kenyan/Islamic witchcraft" which can only be defeated by "spiritual warfare." No, I couldn't make that up (but I will eventually use it in a story). Both the "curses" and the "cures", to me, smack heavily of Hoodoo and Santeria (which are both, strangely enough, examples of "christianized" African animalism practices).

So this isn't an example of someone "way out there." There is a strong undercurrent in American culture that accepts this form of advanced wingnuttery as truth. I've experienced people saying such things to me in person. At first I thought they were jokes. Then I was flabbergasted to see how such things gain traction in people's minds. Now I tend to be very vocal against it, which I believe is the right course of action.

Having your worldview demolished is a tough thing on the psyche. A large minority of our fellow USians are experiencing this right at this moment as Obama goes from a "couldn't happen" to a "very well could happen" (they aren't at full acceptance yet). If you listen closely you can hear the crashing of paradigms and the crumbling of perceptions. It sounds like sugar glass shattering.