at a certain point calling it a mere difference of opinion is a lie

[rm]

I have to confess, I've hit the point in this race where I'm waiting for McCain of Palin to have a A Few Good Men moment in which someone loses their temper and says exactly the evil and vitriol they've been dying to unleash since the beginning of this.

I've been watching reports about this on the news, and the Republican commentators shrug it off as the party firing up their base and some people getting out of hand.

Sorry, not good enough. These people want pitchforks and torches and they scare the shit out of me. It's bad, BAD, when I've run out of eloquence for what's happening.

We are losing our grip on ourselves as a nation.


Effigy of Obama alarms George Fox campus
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/racial_incident_rattles_george.html

NEWBERG -- Students and campus leaders at George Fox University denounced the hanging of a life-size cardboard cutout of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on campus, vowing to work together to fight racism and intolerance.

A custodial crew at the 3,355-student Christian university found the Obama likeness hanging by fishing wire from a tree at 7 a.m. Tuesday and tore it down before students arrived for classes.

A sign taped to the cutout said, "Act Six reject," referring to a scholarship program for Portland students, many of whom are minorities.

*

Who'll Call Obama A Terrorist?
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/wholl_call_obama_a_terrorist.php

You can hear it clearly on this video clip taken from MSNBC-- after McCain asks "Who is the real Barack Obama?" the first, loudest voice can be heard answering "Terrorist!"

*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/obama-hatred-on-display-a_n_132572.html

In the latest instance of inflammatory outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, a crowd member screamed "treason!" during an event on Tuesday after Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of criticizing U.S. troops.

*

Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602935.html

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

...

"One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

*

McCain, Palin, Tacitly Approve Assassination
http://thepoliticalcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/10/campaign-is-becoming-dangerous.html

Twice yesterday and again today, when McCain was giving a speech and asked the rhetorical question, "Who is Obama?" someone in the crowd shouted back "terrorist" followed by someone else yelling "kill him," to hearty and approving applause. The same threats echoed during Palin speeches since Sunday, as well. The videos are all over YouTube.

Neither McCain nor Palin stopped their speech to lecture the audience about offensive, inappropriate and illegal comments. Why not?

...

When McCain and Palin use silence to give tacit approval to suggestions from supporters that their opponent should be shot, then they are tacitly signalling that it'd be alright for someone to take a pot shot.

Comments

[delicatetbone.livejournal.com]

this all makes me want to weep and weep....especially after that episode with my father yesterday.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

My mother's watching tonight's debate entirely in the hope that McCain has his Few Good Men moment there on camera. We could never actually be so lucky.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm this close to starting a betting pool.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I'm very much hoping for a slip like the one that ended Virginia Senator George Allen's poltical career. One racial epithet on national TV and I won't have to worry about the monsters winning this time around.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I have moments where I'm watching the news and I feel like I'm in some horrible, horrible science fiction novel. Usually I'm trying to figure out how to push all these people out the airlock before they bring the ship down.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'll be writing a post about this soon, but this is the end result of the Republican party, first in the early 1970s, and more actively in the late 1970s not only openly embracing bigots and impressively intolerant religious fanatics, but of making such people the core constituency of their party. It started with Nixon's "southern strategy" and continued with Reagan's aides jumping on the fundy bandwagon in 1980, and it continues to this day. For the last 30 years we have had one of our two major political parties (at least on the federal level) that has been devoted to fear, hatred, & intolerance. That's not OK in ways too numerous to mention.

[sethg]

Yes yes yes yes yes.

Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have been talking about "liberals" as enemies to be eliminated for years, and the conservative base cheers them on, and them mainstream press shrugs it off as humor.

I fear that an Obama victory will be followed by an increase in "Christian" domestic terrorism (abortion-clinic bombings, etc.), and by Republicans rediscovering the value of civil rights and restraints on executive power. (Still, of course, better than the alternative....)

[placate-me.livejournal.com]

Great post. It is all terrifying, and I completely agree about the A Few Good Men moment.

I posted a video of McCain in my journal a few days ago, that you may want to check out. I think it really illustrates how dangerous this election is.

[mobobocita.livejournal.com]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

I've never been so terrified of an election in my life.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

The really sad thing about the George Fox news is that the majority of the professors and students there are very wonderful people--many of whom do not vote Republican.

This kind of hate is shocking, but even worse is that many try to excuse it and get away with it.

[billijean.livejournal.com]

I have a question.. I admit to lacking any real knowledge or understanding and being completely unsophisticated about all this..

Those people who are yelling,"terrorist", and such.. are those people plants? Or are they just regular people who showed up for the rally? Twice yesterday and again today, when McCain was giving a speech and asked the rhetorical question, "Who is Obama?" someone in the crowd shouted back "terrorist" followed by someone else yelling "kill him," to hearty and approving applause. Three times in two days seems unlikely to be random. It seems more likely to be intentional and planned - perhaps to incite the crowd, to start rumours, or.. I don't know.

So, I come to that conclusion and then another part of my brain goes, "Really? You would believe that?". I don't know what's real anymore. What do you think is going on?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think they're plants, simply because yeah, people are this nuts and ignorant. I'm not saying the campaign wouldn't stoop to that -- just saying they don't need to.

[mangosteen]

This is what the panic button looks like.

[natf.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I agree that this is despicable and terrifying, and I am not even in the US!

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

Alarming...I hope those people were plants.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.. Them's fighting words.

[mme-furiosa.livejournal.com]

Thank you, THANK YOU for reposting these. They've been on my mind all day.

I don't know if people don't remember prewar Germany or if they are justed blinded stupid by the demagoguery of their party.

Excuse me while I go find a nation that will take me in as a refuge. Sigh.

[lavendergem.livejournal.com]

As awful as these kinds of things are, the Republican Party doesn't have the corner on the kooky market. Humans, regardless of their leanings, have a tendency to adopt mob mentalities just as part of our very nature. It is the rare odd duck who does not join the swarm when things get heated.

Whoa, sorry for so any mixed metaphors in so short a paragraph. *shakes head*

Anyway, my point is that not all Republicans are bigots, or idiots or slavering warmongers, any more than all Democrats are any of those things. People are just sheep, driven by fear and the bellies, no matter what their paradigm.

After all, Woodrow Wilson was a Progressive, and possibly the worst pres this nation has ever had-- as well as being one of the biggest bigots ever. But our nation survived his presidency. The Dems have a longer history of bigotry than the Republicans-- whom I might point out, were the ones to free the slaves in the first place. ;-)

Please don't fret... our lives will probably not shatter, regardless of who becomes pres-- though on either side, there could be some unprettiness. It's easy for me to feel like my freedoms will be stripped away-- from either choice-- but I have to stave off those worries, because as bad as I can imagine it could be, we aren't there yet so best to be prepared for the worst, yet hope for the best.

I don't have much hope for the mob. The mob will always do what the mob does-- with torches and pitch forks. But until I have to face the mob down, I will do my best to love and encourage the people around me, and trust that if it's not ok, then it's not the end.

[stef-tm.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, without sounding like a domestic terrorist myself, is anyone *surprised* by this?

The racists will get more and more vocal as we draw closer to the election. I grew up in the South; *I'm* surprised it's not much worse.

I think it's important as a society to point out those individuals and not demonize an entire party - instead, ask a given party if they support the opinions of those individuals and ask them how do they respond. Let them show their true colors. We, as voters, should be pushing the candidates hard.

edited because I can't type

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

George Fox University caught the perps and acted. Not only were the students sanctioned, but the college treated the hanging as a teachable moment.

Good article. ""These students were very sorry and deeply grieved by the impact of this event," Lau said. "Regardless of their intentions, the image of a black man hanging from a tree is one of the most hurtful racist symbols of our history."

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Well, at least its naked fascism.
If they were smarter , they'd be subtler.:(

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Orcinus has had a lot to say about the right wing's encouraging violence for years now. He's a scary blogger to read; he knows a lot about fascism, and he doesn't use it as an idle epithet.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

[eac.livejournal.com]

I can't breathe when I think about this.

I went to college in conservative places, and I spent years hearing people who were warm and friendly to me come out with this kind of thing unexpectedly. It was never everyone, and it was always unexpected, but I found it chilling - particularly because the people in question always seemed surprised when I didn't tacitly agree with them.

I'm terrified of what those kind of people might willing to do now and it makes me angry that the Republican Party is willing to give them a voice. (The George Allen thing a few years ago makes it clear that it's a significant number of bad apples, not just a fluke.)

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

When McCain and Palin use silence to give tacit approval to suggestions from supporters that their opponent should be shot, then they are tacitly signalling that it'd be alright for someone to take a pot shot.

The mind reels. This is absolutely something worth feeling sick, frightened, and angry over. I'm glad George Fox caught the perps and sanctioned them, but lynching is still a living memory for America, and it thrived on that sort of tacit approval.

Some days, the words "culture war" feel all too literal...

(May I link to this, by the way? I feel the urge to spread it about a little.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. You can always link to stuff here (if I survived both the LJ election, the great "trolls think you're a tranny" flamewar, and the "I prostituted myself to go to Australia" post last year -- I'm sort of past distress any reaction to stuff here people have).

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Good-good. I know people who, if they do not have this info already, will...well, not benefit, exactly, but will propagate it in a necessary way.

Or, if nothing else, be duly horrified.

[lordcamiliano.livejournal.com]

These racists are far more numerous than we'd like to admit and, yes, McBush and Umbridge are only too happy to have one of them so angry that they go and pull a Sirhan Sirhan on Obama. I hope it doesn't happen, but you can bet the Obama camp's more than ready to handle it (they've already quietly stopped two attempts on his life that I know about -- one at a rally and one where his plane's door suddenly burst open at 12,000 feet).

The GOP needs to shut up and watch "Blazing Saddles"

[blucrowlaughing.livejournal.com]

some one needs to hand out copies of They Might be Giant's "Your Racist Friend"