The most loathsome part of this is that, should any of the GOPs daffy redneck acolytes actually ever make good on their angry threats, McCain and Palin will deny ever having fomented this kind of sentiment. They'll wash their hands of the whole thing.
The Huffington Post: Obama Hatred at McCain-Palin Rallies: "Terrorist!" "Kill Him!"
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
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7 comments:
"who is Barack Obama?"
Who is John Galt?
In between the Palin pick and fomenting (or even just allowing) this stuff at his rallies, John McCain has sold his soul to the dark side to win an election. Sickening, horrifying, revolting, blood-chilling, and terrifying.
this is all just symptomatic of the decline of the United States in the World - both as a political power and as a moral force. McCain and Palin will win this election because they appeal to the lowest common denominator (fear and loathing) in the populace of the US - and those people (it will turn out) out-number the rest of 'us' by a wide margin. it's doom and gloom, yes, but as Palin might put it 'these are the end times for the US'.
cocktails anyone?
I think it is also telling how suddenly people at these rallies are also turning on the media thanks to the Snow Bunny. I'm not sure I'd want to take the job of covering a rally for the McCain campaign right now. Never know what might happen.
I think what is also telling is the video where a bunch of people watching the VP debate actually laughed at a man getting choked up about the deaths of his family. How much of a heartless asshole do you have to be to prove yourself? It's not like he's crying about Elvis. This was his wife and daughter. They'd be the first ones crying foul if the shoe was on the other foot, if McCain was being laughed at for the same thing. They'd spit nails if someone laughed at them for it. Mocking the grief of others is never okay.
This campaign disgusts me.
I would like to know if any of the reporters who where harrassed have reported it on their networks. I don't have television, and could not find anything on the web other than huffington.
It seems that the republican base is like a sick and dying dog, snapping at every hand alike, that will have to be put down.
How easily we can be taught to hate people we've never met and know little about.
I haven’t commented in a while, but could not keep my mouth shut on this one. When I read the comment, “how easily we can be taught to hate people we’ve never met and know little about” I wanted to scream that I was never taught to hate people I never met and certainly never someone I didn’t know, but in fact I was. My parents and the circle I was raised in – sometimes knowingly passed on prejudice to my sister and me and sometimes it was done in a non-verbal manner – crossing to the other side of the street when someone approached that looked unlike our family unit; etc. I remember looking at my mother’s face when the prejudice came forth and what I always saw was fear. I don’t think it was until I confronted my parents when I was eleven or twelve as to why they felt the way they did about “minorities” that they truly sat back and thought deeply about what they were teaching their children. Over the years, the intolerance has quieted, but yet my mother still holds close to her fears that she we brought up with and that have become engrained in her very fiber.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his 1st Inaugural Address in 1933 stated, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." What fear was Roosevelt speaking of that evening? Was he just talking about one fear as he spoke? I can imagine in 1933, people leaned in a little closer to their radios to listen to this man; were they all identifying with the same fear? Were they looking to be told what to fear; I don’t think so. You see, Roosevelt couldn’t speak to each of their fears – for the emotion of fear manifests itself in as many different ways as there are citizens of this great land: fear of the unknown; fear of what was and what is not; fear of change; fear of failure; fear of being wrong and yes; the fear of what if I am right – now what do I do? I believe what he was speaking to was the importance of not allowing fear to be the only thing that motives you.
We don’t need to be on the brink total annihilation to personally know fear; nor do we need to be thrust into an eye of a camera to have to face our fears. I send my children to school each morning with a hug and a kiss and hope; but yes fear is also in the back of my mind. Fear of what if they don’t make it safely to the school bus; fear of being targeted by a bully at school; fear that slowly rises in my gut if they don’t call me when they arrive home from school as expected.
Fear is real and fear can be debilitating and cause actions in each us that are sometimes unexpected and yes at times frightening. At times fear can result in people moving forward through hateful deeds and actions. Unfortunately our readiness to hate which at times is the direct manifestation of fear unchecked all too often rears it nasty head and we saw this yesterday in one of the McCain/Palin rallies. I am an adamant supporter of Obama/Biden; but I have been on blogs in the past where I have unsubscribed because of the fear and words of intolerance were so debilitating and therefore I know the fear and hate pendulum swings across both parties.
There are many issues that can cause us to choose the path of fear and hate. Fear is personal to everyone, but words and actions of hate cannot be tolerated in the America we live in if we wish to thrive and be true responsible world citizens we so desperately are striving to become. We can choose to hate those we do not know or understand; or we can push our fears aside and hush the speed to draw the chasm deeper. We can choose and work to understand what the fears are that divide us and stop the hate that tears us all down. I am not naïve in my thinking that there are not real divisions in this world we live – there are; but at what point do we put down our swords and begin to build upon the blocks of freedom for all; a willingness to give a hand up; listening through hope and the continued trust to build the great bridge across an invisible chasm that divides and cuts us so deeply so as to forge a new future that truly embraces that document signed on a hot July day in 1776 that changed the world forever with three simple words, We the People… !
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