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Published on Thursday, November 20, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Would You Kill Jefferson Davis?
The bloodiest, most costly, most savage war in America's history was our Civil War. More than 620,000 died, some 2% of the population. With today's population, a war with an equivalent percentage of casualties would mean over 6 million dead. A holocaust. And yet, a new civil war, an actual shooting war, is just what some people seem to be trying to gin up these days. There has been an alarming spike in race and hate crimes:
The election of America's first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters' comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama's election to be a potent recruiting tool – one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element. -The Christian Science Monitor - 11/17/08There has been a huge spike in gun sales:
The FBI reported that, during election week, instant background checks in the U.S., an indicator of firearms sales, shot up 49 percent over the same week in 2007. This was during the most severe economic crunch in decades. From Nov. 3 to 9, the FBI logged nearly 375,000 instant checks. -The Arizona Republic - 10/18/08And there has been a general undercurrent of threat, a deliberate stirring up of hatred and the embrace of a kind of violent imagery that has not been seen in this country since the election cycle that brought Abraham Lincoln to office. Some cases in point:
In a Maine convenience store, a sign invited customers to join a betting pool on when Barack Obama will be assassinated. For just $1 you could enter "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," the proceeds going to whoever picked the date closest to when Obama was attacked. The sign added: "Let's hope we have a winner." Papers in Maine have also reported on three separate effigies of black men found hanging from trees.
In Idaho, land of militias, a sign posted on a tree with Obama's name and the offer of a "free public hanging."
In Tennessee, two skinheads were charged with plotting to travel across the country, beheading blacks as they made their way to assassinate Obama, while wearing white top hats and tuxedos.
From EditorandPublisher.com, comes the story of school children in Iowa spouting assassination threats, some as young as 7 and 8.
"There were other remarks, mostly by students who hunt. They were discussing how far a shotgun could shoot, and decided that they could get to a high enough vantage-point to shoot Obama from at least 2 miles away, without anyone ever knowing where the shot came from. 'Another Kennedy' they were saying."The day after the election, the NY Daily News reported on the reaction on Sean Hannity's radio show::
"I saw those 500,000 Bolsheviks in [Grant Park] last night," a caller said. "This is the first step toward Marxism. I'm ready to fight." Sean Hannity, who's begun calling his show "The Conservative Resistance," warned that as a first target, Democrats and their allies may push for the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, which requires equal time in media for differing viewpoints. "That would destroy talk radio," Hannity said. "The liberal media wants to kill us because they don't like competition."From a blog spot on FreeRepublic that talks about setting up and underground Obama resistance:
“'They' can’t be everywhere, and I don’t think that Orwell envisioned 250-300 million guns owned by 85-90 million people. Even if 3% decide to resist, you’re generally talking about the best armed, most skilled and most motivated people - plus their friends and families that are willing to help them in some fashion or other."
They post things like this:
They are crazy. They are angry. And they love their guns.
All this and Obama has not even taken office. Where can such hate and such delusional fear come from? The belief that he is a socialist, a Marxist, coming for their guns? Against the Constitution, free speech, free markets, freedom in general? It's not too hard to figure that out.
It comes from media people like this:
And Michael Savage:
And Glenn Beck who just moved to, where else, Fox News:
After the worst President in American history, after a tragic war and a ruined economy, 65 million people rose up, and with the greatest number of votes ever cast for a single candidate, peacefully called for change, for honesty, and for competency. And now the highly paid demagogues of the right stir hate, spread smears, deceit and dismay, and they do it all for profit. They pump up their chests with suggestions of insurrection, resistance, rebellion. The seek another fight against a War of Northern Agression. For there is always great money to be made in selling retail hate.
We have sometimes been asked if, given what we know now, and somehow given the chance, would we kill Hitler? Today it should as least be asked, given what you know now about the media outlets that are ginning up a level of hate that could produce serious violence, would you at least kill the businesses of those advertisers who pay these demagogue's salaries? Would you boycott their products? Write them a letter? Send them an e-mail? Would you at least dope slap the next wannabe Jefferson Davis?
58 Comments so far
Show AllAt some point, people who incite this kind of hatred need to be held accountable for their actions. McCain led the way by being so hands-off while his supporters were shouting "Kill him" and accusing Obama of being a terrorist and then trying to twist Obama's words when he brought it up. Palin kept bringing up the supposed terrorist ties and the "socialist" angle, getting her base all fired up. Now they both are out of the spotlight and leave anger and hatred in their wake. People like Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh use the airwaves as their forum to promote the same kind of divisive hate-filled venom among their supporters. Then they sit back and hide under first amendment protection and act as though they have every right to do what they're doing. It's possible to point out the faults of the opposing party without lying and sowing hatred. I hope that Obama's example will drive that point home to his detractors. But I'm not sure they're going to hear it. So it's up to rational, law-abiding citizens to keep their eyes open and make sure that this kind of lawlessness does not stand. People are allowed to have their opinions of the president all they like, but they're not allowed to threaten his life or his well-being.
winwalker November 21st, 2008 9:19 pm: "The Ku Klux Klan was all democrat in it's largest numbers in American history. Even the new york newspapers reported in the 1930's that a republican didn't have much political hope because of the overwhelming support of the democrats by the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was a Democrat ran organization."
That's true, up until John Kennedy sent troops to integrate schools in the South and Lyndon Johnson signed civil rights legislation in the 1960s. That's also when segregationist Strom Thurmond and other Southerners flipped parties and became Republicans.
winwalker November 21st, 2008 9:19 pm: "The voting acts were all passed by republicans for blacks and shot down by democrats. It's all out there, go look it up."
I did, and the facts are that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were both pushed through Congress by President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, voted for in large majorities by Democrats, and, as LBJ predicted, the Democrats lost the South for a generation, and more.
Here's the vote breakdown, according to Wikipedia:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Vote_totals
Senate Democrats voted 46 to 21 for passage.
Republican Party: 27 to 6
House Democrats voted 152 to 96 for passage.
Republican Party: 138 to 34
Broken down by region ('yea' is first number, 'nay' is second):
The original House version:
Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)
Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)
The Senate version:
Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%)
Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%)
Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%)
Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%)
Proof that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers from the South voted overwhelmingly against this act to end segregation.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act#Vote_count
Senate Democrats voted 47 to 17 for passage.
Republicans: 30 to 2
House Democrats voted 221 to 61 for passage.
Republicans: 112 to 24
So we see that Democrats did not 'shoot down' these key civil rights laws as you assert. You can look it up!
Oh and for the record... Since the author wouldn't know in all his ignornace of the south and racism, The Ku Klux Klan was all democrat in it's largest numbers in American history. Even the new york newspapers reported in the 1930's that a republican didn't have much political hope because of the overwhelming support of the democrats by the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was a Democrat ran organization.
Go do your research, go to wikipedia or any trusted source and dig into history and see for yourselves. And for god sakes, stop blaming the people that made the largest differences. The voting acts were all passed by republicans for blacks and shot down by democrats. It's all out there, go look it up.
Where are the good old progressives who used to give intelligent discussions before this stupid election ended and why am I coming across rightwing freaks? I was going to consider giving this site a donation but now I think I'll pass. Let the rightwingers and the blind party loyalists donate !
We're waiting for the honeymoon to end and everyone can come to their senses so we don't sound like we are raining on the hope/change parade...
or a bunch of disgruntled 3rd party whiners saying told-ya-so...
besides, after an unprecedented two-year election distraction, everyone is exhausted from the daily banter... with good reason...
Oh yeah I just bet you were.
Thank you, Barry Clemson, for being a fresh clear voice among so much rhetorical bluster.
For the last eight years, we have been told never to question the government. A citizen's duty is to obey without question. People placed, "I support the troops" bumper stickers all over their cars, which everybody knew was code for support President Bush even when he took VA benefits away from those exact same troupes. Now, ironically when those people do not care for our president they start joking about how he ought to be assassinated and taking bets on how soon it should happen. They called themselves "patriots" and "true Americans." This is only true if America has ceased to have freedom of religion, so that only a percentage of Christian thought can be represented, not Muslim, not Jewish, not Native spirituality, not Catholic, not pro-choice, not even liberal Christianity. This is only true if individual freedoms are not valued in this country and we are willing to accept the possibility of losing our lives and liberty to the whims of the majority. This is only true if we wish to turn our government into a time-limited dictatorship and throw out the checks and balances of our legislature and courts.
I was honestly on the edge of getting a visa and seeking political refuge in another country, when the American electorate proved to me that they are much more thoughtful than that. They chose a president that did not pledge to continue the harmful policies of President Bush, but who offers a thoughtful new direction and hope for the restoration of our American Democracy. This article proves however that we cannot rest on our laurels. Liberals must stand up and claim their part in the American culture or the radical right will take back the political victory that we have won.
If you want to see where the new Mason-Dixon line will be, look at the electoral map. Who is red and who is blue? You will see the balkanization of a new smaller United States for the 22nd century. We need somehow to stop this divisiveness and bring the country back together. Red washing into blue. Blue mixing with red for one purple democracy.
I still have my Obama street sign up in my yard and I plan on leaving it up in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Senator McCAin. Let's all leave our Obama signs up and remind this country that Obama is not just a black president. He is not just a liberal president. He is the American president and he deserves just as much support as President Bush ever got.
Look at me, I praise Barry Clemson for his brevity and lack of rhetoric. Then I go on and on. I am a bad boy.
Funny how these places that are first named in the piece are from MAINE and IDAHO. And he calls Idaho the land of Malitias. I guess all the people there are bad then, Another stereotype.
And Keep the Obama signs up!,... it is perfect for divisiveness. Lets not just accept him as president, but lets try to incite the McCain people instead of trying to band together as the United States. This is so childish. I am glad we have change now because I was really starting to worry that country was becoming too divided. Oh Now I feel much better! Now we all hate each other.
Lets see, lets get rid of the 1st Amendment. No Freedoms of expression or religion Unless of course it supports your point of view. I will say it again, the north sure does have a lot of hatred. And it is eveident on these boards. And the writer is ignorant to what he is saying and knows that his audience is the type that is more reseptive to these tactics.
Can anyone tell me this? Is hatred and Racism OK when it is directed towards white people in the south??? Or someone because they voted opposite of you? 96 percent of blacks voted Obama and that wasn't reflective of anything. 54% of catholics voted for Obama but it never got press.
And from the rethoric here, I gather Bush was on the ballot. You all need to wake up people. CNN isn't on your side, nor is NBC, CBS, ABC or even FOX. They profit off of stirrring us all up and creating tensions that don't quite exist reflective of thier views. And now, yes this news site is playing the same game. But hey, ya gotta stick to what works huh???
Ole' to you both !
I have lived in Spain for over 6 years.....Had McCain won, I was planning on moving to an island off the coast of Spain where there is limited access and no military bases.
Obama won.
But, my brother had told me about the radio shows that were calling Obama a "Commie" and pushing the hate.....I could not believe it and yet I knew that I had friends who voted for McCain and I couldn´t believe them either.
How can you vote to continue murdering innocent people? Over 1.2 million Iraqis have died. When you drop a "Cluster Bomb" on village because you "Think" that a terrorist is hiding there and instead you kill 40 innocent , unarmed citizens, that is called murder. When you hire "mercenaries" from all over the world and they murder unarmed civilians and you do nothing to punish them, that is accessory to murder and murder in the first degree.
How can you vote for someone who allowed the destruction of the evidence of the worst murder in the history of the United States and did no independent investigation? That is right, men were sent in to clean up after 9/11 to get rid of the evidence and they had no protection against the poisonous air. The 9/11 Commission was a Bi-Partisan Whitewash. (Saudi Terrorists being paid by the Saudi Royal Family and nobody connects the dots..."Able Danger Group" following the leader and three other terrorists and nothing done. Explosions in WTC 7 and no investigation.)
How can you vote for someone who agreed to send troops to invade two countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, that is right nothing? If any three countries are guilty, they are: The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.....all worked together to form a 100,000 Man Militant Islamic Force that operated through the 80´s and 90´s.
How can you vote for someone who helped to deregulate Wall Street and turn over 700 billion to 1.2 trillion dollars to the very same companies and men that just put the world into an economic crisis that has never been faced before?
How can you vote for someone who has helped to create the worst crisis the U.S. has ever faced?
Obama was nothing more than "Hope for Change"........
What is amazing is that so many people "HATE" anyone different than themselves. They would rather lose their homes, their life savings, and sacrifice American lives in an illegal and immoral war. They would rather listen to people pushing hate than think with their heads.........
Almost everyone in those "Red" Zones is a church going conservative, yet they never learned that, "God is Love and the sharing of that Love." "Love, yes God´s Love, is a promise never to intentionally harm another human being either emotionally or physically and to help whenever it is within your capacity to help!"
Barry Clemson
Lets support getting the Fairness Doctrine back so that outright lying on the airwaves has some practical (i.e., potential loss of license) consequences. In the meantime, lets get an economic boycott going against the purveyors of hate and lies.
Americans are patriots. Americans value freedom above all. Americans love democracy. Small minded bigots are a small threat to freedom and can't muster enough support for a full insurrection but they are pawns in a bigger game. It is the corporate fascists who threaten freedom in this country. They may be trying to stir civil unrest now but they should fear civil war because that will only happen when Americans have lost their freedom. American patriots have always fought and died for one thing, freedom. And they always will.
"Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism...Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others." Emma Goldman.
I would argue that Americans value their freedom above all and are perfectly willing to enslave and exploit others in its pursuit.
I've lived in Idaho for 25 years. I own guns. I live on a mountain top in isolation. I voted for Obama.
The people I know and call friends also own guns. And the number two reason I hear from people to own guns (reason number one is hunting. Always has been) and buy more guns, especially ones with large magazines and assault styles, are because of the impending collapse of the government and the economy that everyone has seen for a long time coming.
Around here the bigots are the ones you'd hope would know better. The educated white business people with the little fish on their car. I cannot for the life of me understand how these "christians" can buy into that ultra-conservative crap that was highlighted and exacerbated by Sarah Palin. (she's from ID and most of us think she's an idiot. She'd be fun to party with though)
I could go on for days about all this.
But it all comes back to one main theme.
There are too damned many people in the world. We're like an algae bloom that's about to implode. You can feel it and see it everywhere. And we all want to stop it but it's not gonna stop. The momentum of overpopulation is unstoppable.
So we have guns. We'll hunt for food like we already do. And we'll defend our properties and our woods from those who would steal our food. Civilization is about to come full circle. Survival.
The algae thing - nice analogy. I've always liked the yeast one. If left untouched, yeast will grow and multiply in their environment, whether a loaf of bread or a vat of beer, spewing their waste products (in their case alcohol and carbon dioxide) until they poison the environment and die. We have brains and allegedly have intelligence, but still seem to behave in the same way. Unlike yeast, we will be able to note and report on our environmental poisoning, if not complain about it, but I don't think we will do anything to stop it.
One last note. I have lived in the State of Louisiana all my life, which is considered the heart of the deep south. I know people from every step of life here from the cajuns in the swamps to the most elite here. I have been down more backroads, dirt roads and bayous and wore out shoes on the streets of New Orleans. In my 40 years of life in this great state, I never once, not a single solitary time met in all my days, not a single person in the Ku Klux Klan. I even grew up close to a town that was supposed to be the Klan town of central Louisiana and never even saw a symbol or shred of the Klan. I'm sure these people are here, but if you look at the web, you'll find more of these crazies in your back yard not ours. Ya wanna find the hatred, head north. That is where you'll find the neonazi skinheads, the klans and all the crazies including the Black Panthers.
You people are so easily coaxed into turning on your own brothers by spreading hateful lies. You are hypocrites and race baiters.
I have always gone to school with blacks and so do my children and have never had any trouble at all. We seem to get along a lot better than you guys do up north.
I grew up in LA before I left and moved to Washington and I know that you're lying your teeth out. There was plenty of racism and misogeny in that god awful hick state of yours.
You rightwing nazis are just trying to distort the truth. Go back to your Limbaugh land, you self deluded bastard.
Gee, winwalker November 21st, 2008 9:04 am, what would have happened if one of the young black men you went to school with decided to marry a young white woman? Would you have all gotten along so well then? Could black kids wash their faces in the same sinks as you did at school, or drink from the same water fountains? Could you and your black friends at school have gone to the local Woolworth's and had a Coke at the counter together?
Like many white people in the South, you think you know what black people think about you because they deferred to you -- you think you're all getting along so well because the black folks say 'yes sir' and don't get out of line.
Try reading about Birmingham, Alabama, before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. All of the whites there thought things were just peachy between the races and then King came and 'stirred up' the black people, planting 'ideas in their heads'. In fact, the ideas and resentments were there and just waiting for a leader like King to articulate them. Even without King, it was a powder keg ready to pop, as was the rest of the segregationist South.
I have met other white Southerners like you, winwalker, totally blind to the way those of other colors and cultures think about you.
Exactly the ignorance I was talking about!!!!
We don't live in the twilight zone here. And yes when I was school way back then even in grade school, there were plenty of biracial kids. Where do you get your information? Do you still live in the Rosa Parks days? You are so ignorant. There wasn't a time in my lifetime where people were segregated in any way. We are all mixed in here and all happy with it.
I'll go one step futher though, I don't owe anyone a damn thing and don't expect anyone to owe me anything. My wife is a native American and I am scotch Irish and we have two teenage kids. No one has ever said anything negative towards us or my kids. Seems like you guys have enough hostility up there. Maybe it is you that is keeping all the race issues alive. Maybe it is you that loves to keep the tensions growing until our children show up school and exhibit hatred. You people are so blind to what you don't have a clue about. You come out here and try to start fires to make yourselves all seem so high and mighty, when it is you that is the problem.
All I see also is to shut the airwaves. Odd that you all love the 1st amendment and act like crusaders until it is a voice that is of different opinion that you are. Then you throw it all out. You act so high and mighty also. You talk about assasinating people as if it's cool. Most of you here must be under 17 years old. You want to see bare hate, go to a liberal message board! You will see more garbage than anywhere else. Maybe we should stop being so welcoming and hospitible. Maybe we should just become the image you want since that is your goal to incite and stereotype. Immature, Childish, ignorant hypocrites. Get a life and stop spreading hate. It effects the kids here more than anything. But we all know how you guys love to see our children's blood. You love to talk about Christians as if they are spreaders of hate.
Where do you get all this crap from???? Ya get it from MSNBC, CNN, Fox news and the rest of the networks you love to worship and never ever seem to question. Glad we can be your entertainment for your thirst for blood.
People are friggin' people here. My question is, what would all of you like to see happen down here? Would like to see a mass suicide of the whites??? would that make you all happy? You know, I lost some people that I loved in the hurricanes that I miss, but you will never hear their names or see thier faces on Fox or Cnn or MSNBC.... because they were white. Keep believing all you see and hear as long as it makes you feel strong or empowered.
Racism and hatred will never end until you people can learn to practice what you preach. Obama is so good for America???? then why are we so divided?
winwalker November 21st, 2008 7:09 pm, you are avoiding answering my questions. I wasn't talking about 'biracial kids,' I was talking about black kids at whatever school you went to in Louisiana, sharing the same facilities and being treated the same as white kids. I was talking about a black kid marrying a white kid and the reaction of the whites in your community and your school to that. I was talking about whites and blacks being treated equally in restaurants and stores.
If you think racism isn't happening in Louisiana these days, you aren't paying attention. Did you miss the threatened lynching of black students in Jena, Louisiana, last year? Didn't you know that former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke received 60 percent of the vote in LaSalle Parish, where Jena is located? If you weren't aware of any of this, here are some things for you to read:
"It began in Jena's high school last August when Kenneth Purvis asked the headteacher if black students could break with a long-held tradition and join the whites who sit under the tree in the school courtyard during breaks. The boy was told that he and his friends could sit where they liked.
"The following morning white students had hung three nooses there. 'Bad taste, silly, but just a prank,' was the response of most of Jena's whites.
"'To us those nooses meant the KKK [Ku Klux Klan], they meant, 'Niggers, we're going to kill you, we're going to hang you till you die,' says Caseptla Bailey, a black community leader and mother of one of the accused. The three white perpetrators of what was seen as a race hate crime were given 'in-school' suspensions (sent to another school for a few days before returning)."
-- Tom Mangold, "Racism goes on trial again in America's Deep South," The Guardian (UK), May 20, 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/20/usa.theobserver
"In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a 'whites only' shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree...." [...]
"The 'racism isn't a problem any more' trope is a perennial in America. Next time you hear it, send them the news from Jena, Louisiana."
-- Rick Perlstein, "Black high school students in Louisiana threatened with lynching," CFA, June 28, 2007.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/black-high-school-students-louisiana-threatened-lynching
"I’ve lived here most of my life, and the one thing I can state with absolutely no fear of contradiction is that LaSalle Parish is awash in racism: True racism. Not the sort of affirmative action/name-calling/reparations-seeking fluff that keeps Jesse Jackson and liberal do-gooders in business, but a systematic, culture of bigotry, neglected by the scrutiny of time."
-- Eddie Thompson, "The Battle Against Racism in Jena, Louisiana," May 30, 2007.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=25922
These weren't problems caused by 'high-and-mighty' Yankees or 'outside agitators' -- they are endemic to the area and the white people who live there.
Don't tell me to practice what I preach; take your blinders off and preach to your fellow Louisianans -- and you can start in LaSalle Parish.
As far the rest of what you wrote, no one is trying to take away your right to say whatever you want, but I have an equal right to object to it, and to post facts to dispute it. I haven't read anyone here talking about assassination as if it were 'cool' -- give a specific example.
Not every white person in the South is a racist, obviously, but the culture of racial hatred has persisted there more actively that in other parts of the country. That there are violent, hate-filled nutcases posting on liberal sites is a reality that in no way detracts from my argument (and there is no reliable means to prove that these vile posters are even true liberals in the first place) -- there are just as many, if not more, vicious posts at right-wing sites such as Free Republic.
It's also obvious that some alleged Christians spread hatred -- read about Rev. John Hagee and his 'slave sales' at his church; Rev. Rod Parsley trying to start a holy war against Muslims; Pat Robertson blaming gays and liberals for inclement weather conditions; and the aforementioned David Duke, along with the demented ideas of the White Citizens' Councils in various regions of the South.
None of this may be your fault, but don't try to deny it exists.
I have no idea what you're talking about with this "you guys love to see our children's blood" nonsense. That's way off the deep end and doesn't refer to my comments, nor anyone else posting on this page.
And stop carping about people being 'high and mighty' unless you are low and weak.
We're all just people here, usually arguing with each other.
Uh well, first of all, you have two posts from left wing blogs and one from the UK. Look people, if you really believe that people down here are segregated into groups, then you are gullible enough to believe that little green men are in charge of our minds.
I know LaSalle Parish very well. Good people there, white and black. Did you notice that 20,000 people showed up to protest from out of state. There were no whites there except the usual 20 or so that show up no matter what and don't represent the people of Louisiana. There was no rule about where the kids sat outside regardless of how the mdeia wanted to spin it. But does anyone here know of a kid named Justin Barker???
I'm gonna give all of you the truth on this no matter whether you want to deny it or not. A lone Justin Barker was walking from one building to another and six thugs, most of them already with battery changes against them, jumped him and beat him mercilessly. after he hit head on the concrete, they continued to beat his lifeless body and even kicked him violently in the head. Justin made it through it, thank goodness. Justin didnn't provoke this, and there wasn't any gun involved. It was simply a gang style attack.
Since this has all happened, did any of you hear about Mychal Bells parnets who have both since been charged with battery in two seperate cases. His father assaulted his female lawyer because she didn't win for him. And his mother attacked some kids mothers with a baseball for coming to pick up thier kids from her house after finding out that a drug deal just took place.
Now I will say, back when I was a kid, eons ago, black kids and white kids didn't too often date simply because on both sides it was culture thing. Some people still don't like it very much on both sides, but for gods sake, they don't show hatred because of it. That's not a southern thing, that's more of small town thing. everyone likes to talk about everyone in a small town.
And if you want to blame the religious right, don't put all preachers in the same boat. Amazingly, some churches still preach about God. And if that isn't your thing, then you can always choose not to listen. I don't take up for Robertson or any others that I have nothing to do with.
And as for David Duke, that's a low blow. He won the rep seat by a vanact seat, and yes he had a lot of folks fooled over 20 years ago. But the voters elected a crook over the liar. And when truth came out so was the end of his political career, and Louisiana made sure of it.
But as for people being having different facilities??? or being treated differently, this is simply not true and hasn't been at any time in my life. Don't sit on your throne and judge us, we have had our difficulties also. I remember one year in summer school as a white, I couldn't use the bathrooms or get to the parking lots without a group because we, being a minority of whites at the school were under constant intimidation for being white. That is a side that no one seems to want to see. It goes both ways, but I refused to go through life hating people.
Problem is, anytime you bunch of "southern experts" want to flare up something like the Jena six, where a white kid almost got killed by a group of blacks, you want to march down here and enpower such a crime and the only result after you leave and feel all warm inside is that the kids start to become seperated all over again. And to make yourselves feel better, you want the world to belive you were liberating a bunch of people from demons that simply don't exist.
Come down here and walk in our shoes before you start to judge us. Or at least clean up the racism in your own backyards before you start pilfering through ours.
I want to go a step further about the media. Katrina was a disaster like never before, and I'll tell ya why. It was the fault of the government. I remember when the people used to help themselves but this time the fderal government said no. No one saw on the news the hundreds of trucks that flew down south with skilled people pulling boats to help, just as we have always done before. But this time they all got stopped on the Interstate and were no only told to leave but if they proceeded, they would be arrested. We help each other down here. And we filled out churches and school with displaced people, ya didn't see that though did ya on CNN? We cleaned the stores out of food and water to fed these people when we got them here in Alexandria, LA and other areas away from New Orleans, but they wouldn't allow us to bring them water or food down there. This wasn't us, this was the federal government. The overwelming majority of these people we were helping were black. It's a good thing we don't pay attention to the media down here, or we would be so racist it would be unbelieveable. We didn't call them refugees, that was name given to them by the mainstream media. We called them "evacuees".
For Gods sake people, there isn't anymore racism here than it is where you live, and no matter where ya go you can always find it if you look hard enough. But don't take away all the good in people because you are on a mission to search for the ghosts of the civil rights movement.
You know some of you people including the history deficient author needs to start looking at history before hitting the keyboard.
Let me set you guys up to date a little. The first Conservative Republican ever voted to office was Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War did not have a single thing to do with slavery. Nothing at all, go look it up. New York had it's fair share of slaves. Slavery was wrong on all levels, but again, the The civil war had nothing to do with slavery.
Everyone here seems to think that America is the great Imperialist invaders, except when it cam to thier own people. What they did to the south was almost as bad as the genocide that was thrust upon the indians. How many battles have you heard of being fought way up north in the civil war? Now how many Towns were under siege and starved that actually had nothing but women and children in them? Maybe some of you need to look up Vicksburg Mississippi. Sherman was a sadistic butcher that killed every living thing he came accross and the left thousands of slaves as refugees in a harsh world.
The Carpet bagger came down and took all the land from the landowners with excort from the Union Soldiers. What did we have here in the south. Food, crops, clothing. We didn't have gun and steel factories, we didn't control the guns and the gold. We had the food and the clothes. You people cry when you hear of an afgan village that gets raided, or school children that get hit with stray U.S. bullets in other countries, but you stand by and hail the murder and pillage of the old, the women and the children in places deep in the south such as Vicksburg.
I am a proud American, and to be honest, here in Louisiana, we have no idea what you people are talking about when speak of us and a bunch of rednecks carrying guns wanting to take over the north. It's insane how you people label and stereotype us here.
we are not the ignorant, the haters and the opressors, all ya have to do is read one of these stories and look at the posts and anyone with an open mind can see who the haters are.
And for the record also, Obama said in his speech that he wanted a Civilian force equally funded and "equally armed." go look it up for yourself.
Winwalker from Louisiana. (come on down, we'll cook for ya and make ya smile. It's what we do best.)
winwalker November 21st, 2008 8:50 am: "You know some of you people including the history deficient author needs to start looking at history before hitting the keyboard."
You should take your own advice. You left out several salient points in your diatribe, among them being that the South started the war by firing on Union troops at Fort Sumter. Also, of those serving in the Union Army, there were more than a few who were committed to abolition and 'conservative' Republican Lincoln had himself weighed in against slavery before becoming president. (Abolitionists, before the Civil War, were considered the fringe leftists of their time.) Black soldiers also served in the Union Army -- see the film 'Glory,' for example -- and ending slavery was very much on their minds. So it's just plain wrong to say that slavery played no part in the Civil War. (You must subscribe to Southern Partisan.)
winwalker November 21st, 2008 8:50 am:"How many battles have you heard of being fought way up north in the civil war?"
Maryland and Pennsylvania are littered with Civil War battlefields, including Gettysburg. One of my ancestors, wearing Union blue, was killed at Antietam. You should get out of LA sometime and take a look.
While it's true that Sherman committed atrocities as he burned his way across the South, those who start a bloody war should not complain if they suffer the consequences of losing it. In your study of history, you may have noticed that people die and suffer great pain and loss during war. The Confederate leadership should have thought of this before they seceded, and the poor whites of the South should have thought of this before they took up arms to protect the holdings of wealthy landowners in which they had no share.
winwalker November 21st, 2008 8:50 am: "And for the record also, Obama said in his speech that he wanted a Civilian force equally funded and "equally armed." go look it up for yourself."
I did and, no, he didn't. Obama said in July 2008 that "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded" as the military, but not as well-armed. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaAVJITx1Y
Although World Net Daily and other right-wing websites got hysterical over this, in fact, the proposition is pretty mild and non-lethal. Here it is (emphasis mine):
"Enable All Americans to Serve to Meet the Nation's Challenges
"Expand Corporation for National and Community Service: Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000 and they will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies."
-- http://www.barackobama.com/issues/service/
I don't see anything in there about arming anyone.
winwalker November 21st, 2008 8:50 am: "I am a proud American, and to be honest, here in Louisiana, we have no idea what you people are talking about..."
I think that's the problem, winwalker. I'm a proud American, too, but not proud of everything that's happened in our past.
Exactly my point here. So you watch shows like 'Glory' to get your history. I have been all over my friend, unlike you who live in your own little rose colored world. The Civil war and the south is nothing what you described, unless you get your education from Hollywood directors.
You have to seek out the battle fileds of the north and they don't get too high above the Mason Dixon line. You can still see the graves in every town in Mississippi of the people, not just soldiers, that died at the hands of the Union tyranny. But you guys are right, the only war you justify in American history is the war against your brothers.
And again, Abolition had not a thing to do with the Civil War. So go look up the facts from somewhere else other than hollywood.
And one last note: from seeing all the hate groups in the north, why would we want to leave the peaceful south for all the hate you guys love to spread. At least we admitted when there was distrust with bush, you guys will follow Obama into a pit of fire and still keep on believing him no matter how much he lies to you. The press and the kool aid drinkers are all one oin the same. Give him a pass on anything to keep him looking good. The guy is Marxist, and the proof is in his words, associations and ideology.
I guess you guys all think Che Guevera is a hero too huh?
The SPLC cites 200 hate-related incidents -- in a nation of 300 million, that's a relative drop in the bucket. (I actually expected more after Obama's election.)
Plus, the nature of these hate crimes are sometimes laughably fantastic.
Those two imbeciles who planned to dress in white tuxedos and crash into an Obama event? Does this sound like a realistic assassination plan? It's more like something a couple of brain-dead nutballs dream up after a night of too many Budweisers.
It's also ridiculous to think that anyone, especially these goofs, is going to shoot a human target two miles away, even with the best available scope and hunting rifle; trained military snipers would have a hard time hitting a person at that distance, if it's possible at all.
I'm 'shocked, shocked' that racist knuckle-drgaggers call the Hannity show and post at Free Republic -- I have been checking in with the Freepers for years and this quote is mild compared to some of the revolting delusional bile I've seen posted there over the years. Bill and Hillary Clinton and their daughter Chelsea are still living and healthy, so I guess the dark hateful wishes and vile threats of the Freepers haven't come to pass.
Yes, some troglodyte posted an anti-Obama sign in his Maine convenience store -- I wonder how many of his patrons were offended by that sign and will shop elsewhere in the future?
The schoolchildren in Iowa ecohing what they no doubt heard their parents say is troubling, but I wonder what kind of school they attend? Would it be the Loving God Day School, or perhaps the Jerry Falwell Academy for Humble Young Christians?
The increase in gun sales is not necessarily to bigots set on taking out our new president. Most, I'd bet, are to people who have fallen for the hyperventilated jive that 'Obama is going to take away our guns,' but have no plots in mind to attack him.
If there is one thing I've learned after years of dealing with neocon kooks, it's that they like to 'talk big' when it's safe, but won't risk their hides when it comes to backing up what they say. (Most of these people won't join the military to fight in Iraq, a war they think is being fought to save us from the Muslim hordes.)
Unfortunately, the crazies will always be with us, but they are becoming more desperate as their numbers rapidly shrink -- look at the right wing media; the ratings are falling and radio talkers like Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes habitually beat Rushbo and Savage when running head-to-head. On TV, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are building audiences, especially among the 18 to 34 age group; O'Reilly and Hannity have been steadily declining. In the past couple of weeks, Olbermann beat Billo's ratings half the time.
The country is changing, moving to the left, as it did in the 1930s, and, if these are the kinds of threats turned up against Obama, I'm not too concerned. Chief Wiggum could have broken up these dimwitted assassination plots.
they are already buying levi jeans that "fell of the truck" from the commander-in-chief Wiggam
I am a republican but I would fight to presurve the union as did my great, great grand father did. Yes I would have hanged Jefferson Davis from a sour apple tree as the saying went. It was the democrats who were fighting to break up the union and it was the republicans who sought to presurve it. I live in the south but I would fight to keep the union together and by the way most people who own firearms are not right wing wakos and I wish people would stop generalize people as such. Remember some people on the left would like to see the world burn, so do not count them out as attempting to assassinate Pres. Obama, they know such an attempt would set this country on fire.
I believe it was the post-bellum dixie-crats who were fighting to "presurve" (spell-check?) the "Onion" (spell-check?)... peel back the layers of generations of lies about both sides... and you will realize that a gun-toting citizenry "presurves" our civil liberies to exercise our bill of rights (both our 1st "freedom of speech" & 2nd "right to bear arms") from a fascist or communist takeover... However, it is paranoid delusion to believe that someone on the left (despite the fearmongering about "communists") would actually attempt an assassination on the closest thing they have seen what a liberal might be in 28 years... (hence the branding of Obomba as a "Socialist Terrorist")...
The assassinations of MLK, JFK, RFK, Ghandi, et al....have all come from right wing factions who feared true progressive change... just a thought...
JFK, RFK Really??? Can you please release those x-files, Mr. Stone? If you speculate enough, you will eventually believe your own nonsense. If you repeat it enough, you will eventually gain masses to follow you.
People also like to think that the right is always the threat. I believe a firewall needs to be on both sides, because both sides could be dangerous as hell. But for all of you that think the left is harmless, need to once again, read a little. Have you ever read the communist manifesto? Read the ten planks if don't have enough time to read the 28 pages.
Cubas and Germanys demise were both cworker parties, and both socialist fasion. Communism starts with socialism, and socialism is the doorway. As Karl Marx said, Socialism transends to communism. Socialism looks great in design but only creates the ability for power to consume while unilaterally creating a defenseless society. Castro didn't need elections, he said the people had already made up thier minds. This was all for socilaism. I'm not trying to say Obama is (or isn't) a socilaist but to overly trust a candidate because of their party is as ridiculous as defending bush if you are a republican.
You should never be too dedicated to either side of politics, but instead be dedicated to the smartest, and honest side. I supported McCain just because I didn't trust Obama. The man had way too issues in the closest and the only people that dispelled this were close allies to him.
I despised George W. Bush and his father because they were new world order freaks and loved to make money off of us. I liken them both to Johnson. I am a conservative first. A lot of people don't realise what conservatism really is. Abe Lincoln was the first Conservative Republican to ever be elected president. I share his philosophy. I don't believe feelings should run a presidency, I believe experience and knowledge pertaining to the job should.
In my opinion, Mccain OR Obama were both a bad road to travel. Have any of you asked how had come to these choices??? Maybe we are all the suckers.
"most people who own firearms are not right wing wakos and I wish people would stop generalize people as such"
"Remember people on the left would like to see the world burn, so do not count them out as attempting to assassinate Pres. Obama, they know such an attempt would set this country on fire."
Hmmm... stop generalizing huh?
Also what makes you remain a Repulican? Conservative I understand, but Republican?
The Republicans have sold out the Conservatives even more than the Democrats have sold out the liberals.
"Four legs good, two legs bad...Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"
--George Orwell
I don't agree with your posting the Alex Jones show segment to illustrate your point about violent reactions to Barack Obama's election. You ignore very real concerns many have about Obama's apparent acceptance of "new world order" supporters and policies. The very idea of a national, required, youth service contingent, equal in number and support to our existing military -- with readily available excerpts of Obama speeches to that effect -- is really scary. That's what Alex Jones addressed. Alex Jones and others see Obama as just one more figurehead for a power elite (cabal) bent on wrecking the constitutional structure of our country. No use hanging or assassinating the front man.
Other recent articles have addressed the possible "militarization" of our universities. This is something about which all progressives ought to concern themselves.
The other examples you offer are on point.
Alan Donelson
Nevada City, CA
I have to wonder if the inclusion of Alex Jones in this article isn't just a psyop to discredit Alex Jones and Infowars. Alex Jones is certainly no friend of the O'Reillys, Becks, Hannitys, Savages, and the rest of that ilk. But then, neither is he a friend of the "liberal left" posers who represent another tentacle of the Globalist Order. Even though Alex considers himself a "paleo-conservative", he does have a depth of knowledge about the political power structure, both nationally and globally which has been quite eye-opening, even for someone like myself, who comes from more socialist tendencies. He brings on a wide variety of guests from many different political persuasions. If the "New World Order" seems like a "buzz word" to certain liberals, I would suggest listening to his show on GCN, and listen long enough to decide for yourself. Sometimes he can be a little hard to listen to when he starts getting dramatic, but it's worth it in my opinion. I think Alex Jones is the real deal when he talks about the New World Order.
Getting back to the article--starting out quoting a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, raises a little red flag for me. Morris Dees, contrary to popular perception has been pretty much discredited as an opportunistic money-grubber who set up the SPLC to make a bundle from well-meaning contributors, not to mention
questionable connections to elements in the FBI.
Alananda November 20th, 2008 10:42 pm, just one slight correction. Obama's proposal for public service wouldn't be 'required' -- just a voluntary way for kids to get money for college. They also wouldn't be armed and dangerous -- what Obama proposed was more of an extension of the Peace Corps rather than a paramilitary group.
I'll second that. Jones isn't just an Obama basher. He has been bashing anyone in power. To put Jones in the same class as Savage is unfair. Savage is a partisan hack. Jones is not. Jones is bipartisan in his dissent. If it were McCain as President elect, he would still be warning the people. Jones has had true conservatives and liberals on his show like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and has praised both. He even has praise for Cynthia McKinney. While I don't agree with everything Jones presents, I think he is right in presenting it. And lets face it, Obama is no Kucinich or McKinney. I voted for the latter by the way.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."-Thomas Jefferson
gnken
Well if these Racist, Redneck, NeoCons, Conservative Talk Radio Nuts and whatever else I can name. All I can say is I was educated to do right and to fight injustice. As well I only own a shotgun, but I can breakdown a rifle including an m16 and reassemble in less then 5 and I know how to use such tools. I dont wish to, but if these hateminded folks want a civil war I guess we will have to fight them much like the North did in the Civil War. Over the years I have heard many times the "south will rise again", But can it sustain? That is the real question.
Mr. Obama is half white and half black, that makes him bi-racial not multiracial or African American.
Get it?
Mr. Obama is half white and half black, that makes him bi-racial not multiracial or African American.
Get it?
This guy Nolan sounds like Bill O'Reilly. Same sort of garbage, different verse.
The day after the election in CA, I learned that many of my workmates voted in favor of Prop 8 (bans same-sex marriage). Asked why, they repeated, "Well, if we allow this then what's to stop people from marrying dogs...and you know they will fire teachers who refuse to teach about same-sex marriage; that violates our free speech". These people are not particularly rightwing and are not religious at all.
Asked where they got these "ideas", none of them could really remember. The week before the election, I was in an email debate with an out and out rightwinger who gave essentially the same reasons for his support for Prop. 8. I didn't ask him where he got the "ideas". I should have.
These responses are not in fact "ideas" or even "thoughts". They are programmed responses contrived to generate fear and to be easy to transmit, from one fearful, insecure person to the next. They have no logical or factual basis (nobody is pushing for interspecies marriage; nobody is pushing to have public school teachers teach anything about marriage one way or another, let alone gay marriage). They are what you might call "anti-thoughts", since they are propagated primarily to destroy the actual process of thought.
Where do these "anti-thoughts" come from? Well all the other commenters pretty much hit on it...from talk radio. And of course the stuff on talk radio does not erupt spontaneously and independently from the hosts. It's planted . This is a loose system and of course, much can go awry (Obama got elected), but it is far more effective than simple, blunt State-originated, Mao or Stalin-style propaganda, because it operates under the illusion that it is just part of the big public debate.
Well, if you believe an army of crazed sexual deviants will be moving into the neighborhood soon and trying to persuade your kids that marrying dogs is OK, then it's not that big a step to joining a militia and teaching your kids vile chants for the ride in on the school bus. If you believe that in fact, you will probably believe almost anything that the big alpha males tell you. That's what happens when everybody is lying; when the Dems categorically refuse to challenge Repub lies; when utter BS is sanctified as official truth; when policy is whatever the hell the elite wants now and rabid, inane slogans like the "War on Terror" for the rest of us.
When the leadership becomes an edifice of lies, everything loses meaning. People sense that. Then they start to believe whoever sounds "forceful", "decisive","pious", but also resentful enough to give them the emotional release they need from their cognitive dissonance.
At times like this, it might be best to make friends with the neighbors. They might be your last hope when the big, black boots come thundering up to your door.
Barry Clemson
We are rapidly becoming a post-literate society. By "post-literate" I mean that we don't read much anymore, we rely on slogans and images. And these slogans and images are propagated by large corporations, TV "news" shows that don't inform, and talk radio and so on. The post above got it exactly right; the point is to prevent people from thinking at all, much less thinking for themselves. This trend does not bode well for democracy but is very encouraging for would-be demagogues and the corporate elite who would like all the rest of us to be consumers rather than citizens in the Jefferson sense.
On the other hand, peasants and poor people around the world are banding together to fight the rapaciousness of the the global corporations and we did elect Obama. As an unquenchable optimist, I intend to keep fighting for fairness, equality, and liberty. If we keep pushing we might even get Obama to win some really important fights on global warming, war and peace, etc.
Not that he would, but Biden has the most power to limit this nonsense. If he would make it clear that an Obama assassination would lead to serious investigations to determine whether the right-wing radio hatemongers knowingly and criminally stirred up hatred of the president to the point it led to the assassination, and that the penalties would be extremely severe, he might get their attention.
When you write to Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, etc., let them know that if Obama doesn't live to complete his second term, their own lives won't be worth a dog's drool.
FELLOW PROGESSIVES: "Lock and load!" (just kidding)
John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta
PS. Senator Russ Feingold for Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (replacing Biden)
And, sooner rather than later, we'll have tens of thousands of "private security contractors" returning to the homeland after too many years in Iraq - a jobless homeland mired in an economic depression. Battle-hardened, unemployed, and trained to kill.
Should be fun...
Conservatives are scared shitless that Obama will re-instate the Fairness Doctrine Reagan took away that gave the fearful elites, racist skinheads, reactionary fundamentalists, violent rednecks, corporate criminals and assorted greedheads a monopoly megaphone for so long.
Tirebiter November 20th, 2008 2:15 pm
I would have let the South secede rather than fight a civil war to 'maintain the union'.
The Confederacy would eventually have attacked what was left of the Union. They had deadly serious, well organized and grandiose plans for an empire in Latin America. To do that they would have needed guns, guns, guns and boots on the ground. The North had the industrial base and the bodies. The imperialist, murdering jackasses who ran the Confederacy (who were very much like the Bush regime) would have tried to conquer the Union. And they would have done it just because they loathed and detested the yankees so much.
ROFL - you have no idea what you are talkin bout- do you?
You know how those Yankee's are.
I don't listen to the cess pool called AM talk radio but my car battery is weak and so every time I start my car I have to program the station presets. When I get to the AM side of the dial I dread it. I need AM because we live in hurricane ally and they give the traffic reports about Houston's city traffic.
One day just after the election I heard two of these reptiles, (I guess this means I've insulted reptiles) were joking about how Obama supporters were comparing Obama to JFK and then quipped about assassination as if it was a joke. Now imagine if someone had joked about a Bush assassination on AM talk radio when Bush was the President-Select back in 2000.
Though this various nut bag SA like whining has an amusing quality to it in a schadenfruede sense: they have lost part of their grip on the national conversation and have been relegated to the status their ancestors imposed upon others and which they are deathly afraid of, irrelevance. They were already scared because demographics and the cultural mainstream was going against them, and now their life ways is on the slow slide towards the dustbin of history along with the Antebellum South & Debtor's prisons. It is incumbent upon progressives to aid this process along in any way possible, and at any opportunity possible: the window of opportunity is now open.
www.wunderman-comics.com
I would have let the South secede rather than fight a civil war to 'maintain the union'.
I would let Alaska secede without a second thought.
I would let Texas secede without a second thought.
Thus once again proving that the civil war was not fought to prevent the south from succeeding... oh, wait....
But what about the natural and human resources (wage slaves) in alaska and Texas....?
And not to mention the military bases we already have there?
Oh, yeah, I guess that was what the civil war was about after all ....
"I would let Texas secede without a second thought."
There are days I wish we could.
Addition: There are day's when I think we should.
Can I secede?
Only if you play nice and eat your spinach.
While most kept such thoughts to themselves, many hoped Cheney and Bush would get assassinated, and many would applaud saying justice was served. Most US presidents have proven to be killers; it's very hard to think of one that didn't back a policy resulting in deaths. Obama has already vowed to continue that "tradition" of murduring people in pursuit of policy goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while continuing to abet Israeli murders in Palestine. Obama may not openly show his pleasure for killing the way Bush and Cheney do, or openly wish the US was a dictatorship as Bush did, but he will head the government of an Empire, and Empires are loathed because they kill their subjects and others to maintian their "interests." If uncertain about this, one must ask why the first Bush felt he had to tell the world the US Empire would become "kinder, gentler," which it of course did not; it became much worse. A rational observer would see the USA as an outlaw nation where lying, lawbreaking and violence is the norm, not some sort of quirk, and that profit is worshiped and promoted way before the wellbeing of people. That the behavior reported in this article is considered okay by those performing it proves just how dysfunctional the Empire's metropole is and how far we are from being civilized. The civil suit brought by the King family against the US government proved the US government responsible for MLK's assassination, and at the time I was surprised the riots after his murder weren't more extensive; imagine what will occur after an Obama murder, however justified it might be since he will surely be a killer. Now that's a problem, isn't it: If presidents are killers, what's wrong with killing the killer? Is Obama more civilized than the culture he's within? No. Will that culture kill him? Perhaps.
Spiro Igloo, aka Sarah Palin, belonged to a serious, organized secessionist movement and no one in the MSM said boo about it. It never seemed to be an issue in the election. That alone, regardless of her unfitness for office, should have disqualified her. So are we looking at a noisy shadow Confederacy developing, with additional "honorary" members like Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Utah? quickstepper said this below: "Obama is inheriting an office that may be stained forever by the ruthless cynicism and incompetence of George W. Bush." This is so true, just as we are still living with the crimes and deadly paranoia of Nixon. Drip, drip, drip. So it goes.
We all pay for the sins of our predecessors. The second husband or wife stands accused of the faults of the first. A new football coach is hampered by expectations arising from the incumbency of the old coach. A mechanic puts up with relentless questioning by a customer just ripped off by a less ethical tradesman.
Obama is inheriting an office that may be stained forever by the ruthless cynicism and incompetence of George W. Bush. He must fight an uphill battle against deeply rooted - and often justifiable - suspicion of the federal government inculcated by Bush's crimes. Add to this unease the poison of racism and the developments described in the article become easier - and more troubling - to understand.
The most despicable aspect of this situation is the role being played by the Hannities, Limbaughs, Savages, Becks, and other similarly inclined corporate asslickers and professional malcontents.
Can the average citizen do anything to fight back? Well, as Nolan suggests, there's always economic pressure. Why haven't Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson organized boycotts against the companies who advertise with these scumbags? What they do every day is just as bad or worse than Don Imus' idiotic comments about women playing basketball.
The majority of the US population who don't listen to these gasbags (I force myself to do so on occasion) don't understand how vitriolic and insidious they are (and have been). Groups opposed to the right-wing disinformation campaign could use some of the same fund-raising strategies which put Obama into office to bring the indecencies with which these goons foul the airwaves to more general attention.
I may be naive but, in spite of the past eight years, I still believe that the majority of Americans prefer to deal with the truth. They just need a little help in finding it.
q
This being true... and sports analogies aside... we pay the sins of our own predecessors through the death squads that JFk & RFK unleashed in latin america against unionists, liberation theologists, and democratically elected officials..., and hiring the mafia and a rag-tag team of cuban ex-pats to kill Fidel Castro, which backfired in '63 (regardless of what the CIA was doing with the Bay of Pigs).. crimes of state-sanctioned terrorism, assasination, election-meddling, pre-emptive war tactics, et al... did not begin 8 long years ago, no matter what we choose to believe, due to a lack of information... as citizens we are all customers being ripped off by tradesmen for the last 60+ years... only now the information is declassified... so those who quote government documents are no longer considered crazy...
check out "legacy of Ashes" by Weiner