fatduck136 October 15th, 2008 6:44 pm, you reminded me of growing up in the Midwest and the quiet racism of the 50s, even in northern cities like Chicago. (Yes, there were places where blacks knew they would not be welcome, and they didn't have any signs on the door.)

There was a bar in my neighborhood that I used to go to after work back in the early '70s. It was run by a couple from West Virginia and, while they were not bigots, many of their customers were. I wouldn't bring any of my black friends there, knowing they would be made to feel uncomfortable. Forward to the late 70s and the bar was under new ownership, had a new crowd, and my band was playing there with a black drummer without problem. One or two of the 'old guard' still hung out there, but now they kept their racism to themselves; one even tipped the band and danced to a couple of our songs.

Times have changed even more since then -- for the better.

While I think you're right about the 'code words' of the McPalin debacle, I also think that if Obama is elected, this will be the last GOP appeal to the fearful racism of the yahoos, most of whom don't know anyone with skin of a different color than their own. The barrier will be broken and it will be safe for black people to aspire to any office or position in America -- black kids will start to believe, as white kids have since the founding of this country, that they can actually grow up to be president. I believe that Obama's election really will change the way this nation thinks and there will be no going back from that progress. Maybe, one day, we really will achieve King's dream of a society where people are judged on their merits and not the color of their skin, and on the content of their minds and not their gender or sexual preference.

I never thought in my lifetime that a black man or woman would be this close to the presidency -- it's a sign that, regardless of the revanchist regressives of the GOP -- we are progressing toward a future that will free us all from the chains of racism, the shackles of hatred, and the prison of ignorance. Finally, Tom Paine's America will have a chance to emerge:

"When shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance or distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggers; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am friend of its happiness; when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government."
-- Tom Paine

To me, this is what was meant by "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and we may get there yet. It's one of the reasons I think the election of Obama is so important; he is a step in the direction of fulfilling the dreams of our past and making us a country we can boast about in all of its aspects.

Then we really will be the 'light of the world.'

Having gone through the segregation of the 30's to 50's in the south (USAF took me out of East TX and I stayed away), listening the the McCain camp brings back some of the old memories where African-Americans men were called "Boy" and A-A women were called "Granny" or "Auntie" or some other "neutral name." When the McCain camp calls Obama "elitist," this is the 2008 code word for "uppity." Of course when a white man or woman referred to an A-A man or woman as "Uppity" it was usually followed by "Nigger."

My wife, during the first debate, picked up on the "racial cues" that McCain used against Obama -- never looking at him, never directly addressing him on any issue. She grew up in Idaho and Washington. The evidence is there for those who care to look.

The code words are there in the McCain campaign. You have to be sensitive as to what they mean. Even today when door-bellers supporting Obama are greeted with "Nigger Lover." "I will never vote for a nigger." and all this in the state of Washington, God help us.

This has been a great year! Yes! The Bankers have been unmasked! The Congress has been unmasked! The Neocons, and the Enablers have been unmasked! WallStreet has been unmasked!

I did not realize how many fascists we have in our country!!!

I wasn't even going to vote for president this year. I don't actively support Obama but where I live I'm only going to have two choices. Write ins are not allowed. After watching the way McCain/Palin are acting I'm going to give my vote to Obama just for spite. I would rather at least write in Nader but I don't have that choice.

Rickster

Could this be a referendum on Racism? Since that's the major underlying theme, clearly a deciding factor and now a campaign tactic on the GOP side, if it's strongly repudiated at the polls, maybe people will stop using it as a political motivator. Maybe the people that are not really racist, but are mouthing the words as a "Get Along, Go Along" will wake up to the fact that they are siding with a shrinking minority: Bigots.
"Obama for President. He's half white. That's good enough for me." This gives me hope (and a chuckle).

I voted for a Republican twice in my life. Once for a judge, who then quit to work at CNN, and the other was an anti-war senator. (Yes, in the 1990s there was an anti-war senator who was a Republican.) But it's never going to happen again. I am marking my absentee ballot even as we speak, well almost as we speak. There is no real pleasure in voting for the lesser of two evils, but I think come next January I'll have at least a little smile when it's Obama and not McCain.

Nader has taken the role of bomb thrower. He makes perfect the enemy of better than it is now.

This is a useful role to some extent as long as he increases skepticism but doesn't actually add to the incredible cynicism that allows the Republican strategy to succeed year after year in the south and for the past 40 years on a national level.

If half of the oppressed people who now do not vote actually did go to the polls and voted their interests, the Republicans as well as the Democrats would be pushed to the left. His previous runs however, have just been plowing the ocean, leaving no visible permanent change.

&YYY&

For real change of solid substance, vote for Ralph Nadar, he still makes sense
Barach Obama is maybe second best, because the Democrats are cravenly dense.

Obama has grovelled to the spoilt child, Israel, to be allowed to be President,
Is beholden to the media, with whom all the bribes from corporations will be spent.

He owes favours far and deep, beholden unto the secret Democratic party keep.
Those demo-rats do not want real change, but would like a puppet to trance Americans to sleep.

To be fair, he has forged his way up and through the one available path,
To this main chance, a great achievement, in this party now full mainly of chaff.

McCain and Palin are a comedy duo from the right wing, after that clown in a suit,
Mr George Bush, is ducking off the stage hit by lots of thrown rotten fruit.

So Obama should maybe win, and take up a futile task of changing the human heart.
Because human life is competing with all life in this world that is failing apart.

If you want to read Nader's words go here

http://www.nader.org/

This is an archive of Nader articles on a variety of subjects, all articulate and on subjects of interest to many Common Dream readers, but you'll never hear those views from Obama or McCain.

Support third party, don't support the corporate elite.

www.NotOneMore.US

i'm in for ten bucks: 65% for obama.

Obama is navigating a deadly minefield that will require him to be 15% ahead in the polls just to end up with a 1% victory.

If he can get past the smears, he will be subject the the Bradley effect (voters who tell pollsters they will vote for him, but won't). If that doesn't get him, the Diebolds are waiting for him with rigged voting machines.

LOL on the yard sign, Bill from Saginaw October 14th, 2008 5:57 pm, that's like my friend's 90-year-old, raised-in-the-old-south, conservative rural Republican grandmother who said, "This year I'm voting for the colored man." She added that the "damn Republicans have just fouled things up too much."I only hope there are millions like her out there.

"I am just so fearful that this is a man who does not see America the way that you and I see America."

First, be fearful.

Second, this is not about what Obama looks like (race), but rather it is about what Obama supposedly sees.

Third, everything is based upon a vision of America - American exceptionalism.

Fourth and finally, "our" shared vision of America is separate from, and qualitatively different from, Barack Obama's vision of America - so much so that "we" indeed should be fearful of him, and the change Obama represents.

Beyond the hard core GOP base habitually tuned to Limbaugh in the afternoon and Faux News every evening, will this softly bigoted attack formula work with swing voters in 2008? I don't know. But we will all know very soon.

On a light and more optimistic note, it was reported that in a staunchly Republican, rock ribbed Christian rural area of southwestern Michigan, a hand-made political lawn sign was seen last week planted by the side of the road in a local farmer's yard displaying the following message:

"Obama for President. He's half white. That's good enough for me."

Bill from Saginaw

Wow, CD sure went 100% to the Obama campaign propaganda today, didn't it.

Meanwhile, Ralph Nader has been doing some excellent writing lately. Just remember to go search the web beyond CD to find good writing that isn't Obama propaganda.

----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"

www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com

Man, it's so true . . . patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Racists, too.

I voted for a Republican once. Never again! Never again!

-30-