"The original version of this book, Language in Action, published in 1941, was in many respects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler's success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views. It was the writer's conviction then, as it remains now, that everyone needs to have a habitually critical attitude towards language — his own as well as that of others — both for the sake of his personal well-being and for his adequate functioning as a citizen. Hitler is gone, but if the majority of our fellow-citizens are more susceptible to the slogans of fear and race hatred than to those of peaceful accommodation and mutual respect among human beings, our political liberties remain at the mercy of any eloquent and unscrupulous demagogue."
-- S.I. Hayakawa
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Sometimes the 'unscrupulous demagogues' -- the demons -- lie within us, and when they rise within us, filling us with 'crazy talk', we need to be able to stop the self-talk that is putting us on the path to hate, destruction, and self-destruction. We need to have stronger 'self-forces' -- Apollo waiting in the wings -- to say, 'I am talking crazy, and I will play no part in where this is going. This is going down a path to self-destruction -- and I am not taking this path -- not this time. I am taking another path.
This is extremely disappointing -- all this post-election racism. I thought we were past all this. We stepped over the edge of the racism abyss a number of times towards the end of the election -- but not like this.
My American friends, let reason, logic, common sense, empathy, social sensitivity, ethics -- and the democratic-dialectic -- prevail.
Not the swinging of arms and clubs.
-- dgb, November 16th, 2008.
Here is an intelligent political blogger...google post-election racism, or Will Roman
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Will Roman ...............I am an entepreneur and student of the arts. Watch me change the world..............
« My Political Viewpoint
Post-Election Racism
The past two days of post-election reactions disturbed me. In a time when most of the country is celebrating the fulfillment of the civil rights movement, when even the opposing party recognizes the momentous achievement that has taken place, several people in my life have revealed inappropriate, and frankly, disgusting opinions.
I’ve received forwarded text messages containing colored jokes, chain-emails bashing the ascension of a black man to the head of our great country. Some have expressed their apprehension in personal conversation. I even heard a racist joke at a church group.
Is this really the way people think?
One of my good (white) friends and his wife have an adopted black son and are adopting two more children from Haiti. Another couple close to me recently adopted a black baby here in the States. When I get to see them, play with them, spend time with them, I can’t imagine the ignorance that causes someone to make hurtful and derogatory comments toward them for such a distinction. Why doesn’t this empathy carry over into the adult world?
I don’t understand the thought process that goes into bigotry. How can people so readily abandon their calls for love, equality, and justice… as soon as the people group in question doesn’t have the same ethnic background as them? I find this especially difficult to digest when someone quotes a Bible verse to me one day and makes a racial slur the next.
There is no justification for racial prejudice.
