This is the official Coca-Cola version of that Superbowl ad right-wingers are currently having kittens about. Hard to believe, isn't it? (The Superbowl ad - which is the one I've been seeing from Coca-Cola on YouTube, too - is the same basic ad, though it was condensed to just one minute.)
Note that, just recently, right-wingers got their knickers in a twist about this ad, which dared to show a 'real Amurikan' married to a Muslim woman.
And then, the Republican Party got MSNBC to apologize abjectly and then fire the offending employee who dared to suggest that "maybe" the right-wing (not Republicans, note, although it was the GOP which claimed to be offended) would have a problem with a biracial couple.
Well, now what? Is MSNBC going to apologize to their fired employee and hire that person back? Why not? Hasn't the right-wing just demonstrated the truth of that tweet?
Here's TYT explaining about the latest insanity coming from the right:
Yeah, this is Coca-Cola, a giant multinational corporation which is trying to sell more soft drinks by appealing to all of us.
That's different from the Republican Party, which is trying to win more elections by appealing to as few of us as they possibly can - a shrinking minority of timid, bewildered, perpetually-angry racists and bigots.
Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur cover this well, but let me just add a couple of small points. First, sadly, Teddy Roosevelt did write that quote credited to him by Allen West. It wasn't when he was president, though, but three days before he died in 1919, at a time when racism was enjoying a resurgence in America.
Well, we're better than that now, aren't we?
And second, the author of America the Beautiful (the lyrics, though not the melody) was apparently a lesbian. So it's especially ironic to hear the right-wing complain about a gay couple in the ad, isn't it?
You know, more and more I'm coming to realize that the right-wing wants people to hate America. They love having enemies. Most of us would think that people singing "America the Beautiful" in any language - indeed, whether they were Americans themselves or not - would be a very good thing.
But not the right-wing, which doesn't just love to hate people themselves, but actually desires to be hated. Well, they're getting their way,... but I wonder how they expect to win elections that way?
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Wow. I don't really know what to say. Words do rather fail me on this one. I guess I'll just have to retreat back to my European host city (where multiculturalism is just working sooo well) and listen to the voice of that city. Only half of which I can actually understand.
Because London speaks English mostly but listening to it you really wouldn't know it...
I must admit that I have no idea if this sounds as crazy to people in other countries as it does here. I mean, you have to realize that America is a nation of immigrants. We're all - or nearly all - descended from immigrants. That's just what America is.
And we've always been a diverse bunch. True, there were riots in some American cities when my Irish Catholic ancestors started arriving here in large numbers. I don't know if my other ancestors took part in them or not, but it wouldn't surprise me.
And when my German ancestors arrived here, they formed communities where German was commonly heard, communities with German-language churches, social clubs, newspapers, etc.
In both of these cases and many others, their children and grandchildren became just... Americans - indistinguishable from the rest of us. Indeed, many of their descendents are now protesting against immigrants themselves!
Of course, those people were all white and overwhelmingly Christian. They would have had a much harder time, otherwise. Still, we've just gone through that controversy. We've just had a wrenching adjustment in American society to bring civil rights to everyone.
So the fact that we still see this bigotry is just astonishing to me. And the really crazy thing, given America's tattered reputation in the world these days, is to see the right-wing complaining about other people singing "America the Beautiful."
Who the hell cares what language they're singing it in? In fact, that just means they know what they're singing!
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