by Wallace Kaufman
Newport, Oregon – George Orwell, the English socialist wrote “Animal Farm” and “1984” and fixed in our everyday sensibilities the phrases, “Big Brother is watching you” and “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This last dictum explains the appeal of Donald Trump. A large portion of his followers believes that the long term trend toward greater equality for all citizens has followed the script in “Animal Farm.”
This perception stings when for the past 20 years most Americans have worked as hard as ever but have seen little improvement in their lives. Since all government resources are taken under threat of force from citizens, when the majority perceives that the take is handed out unevenly or unfairly, they get mad. And their anger is targeted with with greatest intensity at the hypocrisy of those who proclaim with almost religious fervor that equality is their ideal.
In a recent television broadcast, humorist commentator Bill Maher pondered the response to the massacre in Orlando, FL. He wondered why liberals who condemned apartheid and who condemned anyone who didn’t condemn apartheid, were silent about apartheid in the Muslim world.
MAHER: “But this is the American myopia. They think of the three million Muslims in America — who are by the way the lucky ones because they can come out of the closet or they can elope with someone whose not of their faith. Or they can leave the religion. Or they can draw a cartoon without getting killed.”
“This is not the case for so many millions of Muslims around the world. Where are the liberals to stand up for them? The people who could not abide by Apartheid for one second, somehow when it comes to gender apartheid which is in so many countries around the world they are not to be heard. It is a liberal cause, or it should be. There are millions and millions of Muslims who are gay around the world who have no one to stand up for [them] and I didn’t hear it this week.”
Wallace Kaufman is a former resident of Chatham County, NC