Sunday, September 14, 2008

What the Polls Won't Show

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" It's me, Anne Johnson, emerging from a morphine fog slowly but surely. Glad of that.

Our house gets the Philadelphia television stations even though we live across the river in NJ. So, stuck as I am in an easy chair, I've gotten to see a lot of t.v. commercials from both the Obama and McCain camps.

Last night I saw one that just featured Barack Obama talking straight into the camera. And I had an odd thought. A question, really.


It's tought to put hard numbers behind the groups of white extremists who not only won't vote for Obama, but who (all the bored gods forbid) might actually pose a true threat to him. How many real Klansmen or Aryan Nations skinheads remain today in America?

I ask because I wonder if we Pagans have outnumbered them.

There's been an explosion of Pagan activity since the Internet helped people to find fellow seekers. I don't think that anyone would argue that Pagan groups are gaining numbers. My question is, do you think we've gained enough numbers to offset the White Power voters?

Mr. Johnson gives a nod to the Pagans. But of course we live in New Jersey, where a proposed Klan rally was stymied by a park ordinance against bonfires (!).

Pagans, can we trump the white supremacists? I'm not telling y'all how to vote. (Don't think I have to, do I, choir?)

No poll will ever be able to reveal how many Pagans there are in the U.S., partly because some Pagan groups don't like being lumped in with others. Nor will any poll reveal the scope of organized white supremacist hatred (or solitary practitioners thereof).

We can only hope that the pendulum of American society has swung away from hate and towards positive Paganism, and that in some small way it will be reflected in the upcoming presidential election.

And as long as that pendulum is swinging, let's be really optimistic. In the 1920s, the Klan had upwards of four million members (*cringe* I trusted Wickedpedia for that number *cringe*). Can you foresee a day when four million Americans list their religion as Pagan?


We would have much nicer parades, I think.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I grew up in rural TN, and I remember the fear and revulsion that accompanied stories about the Klan. But I also remember that when I was in Jr High the Klan hosted a pitiful as hell 'parade' in my hometown. Their detractors outnumbered their members by 1,000 to 1, shouting at them and reviling their hateful doctrine.

The newspaper that next day reported an elderly black man who had brought his small granddaughter to see them. "I wanted to show her she didn't have to be afraid of them", he said.

I'd love to think that we outnumber them, but unfortunately, I don't think there's any shortage of hateful ignorant people in the world.

Maeve said...

I hope so. I live in a state that almost always votes Republican. This nation can't afford 4 more years of Republican politics. Of trampling all over the little guys and racking up the national debt and sending off our citizens to die in wars over oil and eroding our fundamental Constitutional Rights.

I'll be voting for a majority party this year, instead of the Libertarians or Greens. It's that important. I'd vote minority party if I thought they had a reasonable chance, but they don't, not this year. I can't vote for a wish and an ideal when so much hangs in the balance in this election.

So, my *cringe* is voting Democrat.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry so much about numbers.

What's more important than numbers is the concept that there are sufficient non-Klansmen, non-skinheads who are not too far from being ready as well as already able to take a shot at Senator Obama.

THOSE numbers are probably well into the millions, based just on the people I know in southern Illinois, and the knowledge that south of here, they get truly crazy.

Davoh said...

mm, well (or not well, whatever local thoughts might be .. but from my perspective - George W. Bush has handed a seriously poisoned chalice to your next "President" - whoever they may be.

yellowdoggranny said...

the klan isn't just in the south..they're every where and they scare the crap out of me as much as the republicans..eek!...
reading up on west history i found that when the town was first organized the white people were dominate..white americans..then the czech's started showing up ..large families of them..grandparents brothers sisters, then when they settled they sent for the rest of them..the white americans called in the clan and they went around setting fires to crosses and beating the crap out of the czech's...but there were more czech's than klan members so they left...sad sad..sad....
have you read the shack yet?....interesting...

Livia Indica said...

What really freaks me out are the white power people who are ALSO pagans. In my searches for pagan tattoos I've come across a startling amount of racist pagan sites. Scary.

Anonymous said...

This is a hotbutton issue for me. Always will be. And the SAD thing about it is...the only way to stop the WS groups like the Klan, is for WASPs to do it. As a group, White Anglo Saxon Protestants need to band together and LYNCH any Klan leaders they can find. Big or small...every Klan leader needs to know fear at the sight of a WHITE man. Any other group that attacks them, they will use as foder to rile up their numbers...wasps need to clean this crap up, themselves. But that's just my opinion, and I doubt it will ever happen. But I have hope.

Muin