Postcards from the edge

Shouts of "terrorist" and "kill him", politicians talking about "real" Americans living only in small pockets of America, a congresswoman hoping the "American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" - I almost miss the Swift Boat campaign. Almost

Nearly every election produces attack ads that go beyond the opponents policies and begin attacking the person, but this is the first in my fuzzy memory that goes to the level of implying that the person on the other side of the ticket is evil and spells the end of America.

I have received a couple of e-mails in the past week. The first one was a call to prayer - prayer against Obama winning the presidency. Quotes from this e-mail include:

"Why are we Christians settling for the loss of our Christian heritage, not issuing a battle cry and falling to our knees and taking our country back?...We should be afraid, very afraid because our apathy is leading us to perdition...Maybe McCain on his own cannot defeat Obama, but our God can and He will if we take to our knees in prayer and raise a mighty cry to the heavens...change which I fear will be away from our Christian ideals, and away from Christ, and further away from one nation under God to one nation under Allah."

A second e-mail begins by comparing Barack Obama to Fidel Castro. The e-mail goes on to wonder when "the American people are forced to take to their boats, rafts and inner tubes ... where do we go?" Another portion of the same e-mail states that:

"If the liberals win, then our foundation will no longer be based on the traditional Judeo-Christian morality...If the liberals win, the damage can't be stopped with elections two, four or forty years from now. America will forever be changed. We will keep seeing a gradual and growing hostility toward people of faith, especially Christians."

This one is supposed to be from Donald E. Wildmon, founder and Chairman of the American Family Association. According to the AFA website, "The American Family Association represents and stands for traditional family values, focusing primarily on the influence of television and other media – including pornography – on our society."

Apparently the non-profit feels this election is important enough that it will rock the very fabric of America. Of course as a non-profit, they can't participate in political campaigns or produce videos to vote for proposition 8 in California, but whatever. For little extra divisiveness, you can also buy their DVD called "They're Coming to Your Town". "They" being the "Gays".

I didn't go looking for this type of stuff, it just showed up in my inbox. I'm sure if I went looking, I could find much worse. I suppose that there have always been folks on the fringe declaring doom and gloom if the other candidate is elected. I myself told a friend that George W Bush scared the crap out of me when he was up for re-election in 2004. My fear was (and is) the direction he was taking the country, not that he was the Antichrist and was going to bring about the end of days.

This polarization of factions and movement toward the fringe is dangerous to our future. Especially in economic hard times, folks can embrace hatred and intolerance, and someone will always step in to whip up that sentiment. History gives us many examples.

Whoever is elected to lead our country will have a difficult task ahead of him. Worldwide recession, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a runaway deficit, environmental degradation, housing foreclosures, economic and banking reform - the list is long. We will need the strength of the whole country to pull ourselves out of this hole. I can only hope that whoever wins, some of the venom will fade and that the folks on the fringe don't gain more of a toe-hold on the American psyche. Naive maybe, but I don't think that the fringe represents America, no matter how loudly they shout.

One week to go.