Monday, October 13, 2008

Prisoner McCain

I've been called a racist for mentioning that the fad for tiny wheels on cars has changed to giant wheels. I was called a racist for mentioning that blood pressure medication I take is ineffective with men of African descent (says so on the box.) I've been called a racist for saying Batutsi rather than the Tutsi people by people who apparently aren't too familiar with Swahili. Everybody is out hunting for witches and witches will be found.

There are plenty of them amongst us; racists, that is -- not witches, despite what Mrs. Palin believes.

This is what one looks like: smiling, avuncular, someone you might meet anywhere, talk with about the game at the Barber shop, have a beer with at the Elks Club. Odds are he's a Palin Supporter, or at least that he gets along well with anyone who hates Obama. I said hate, of course. There are people who don't like his policies or who disagree with what he says, but they're not the ones screaming for his murder, his beheading. They're not the ones who have such a distorted view of reality that they think he's a militant Islamic terrorist, or the ones who think it's really funny to dress up a stuffed monkey as "Little Hussein."




They're the ones who think Rick Davis is right that the Democrats are running a dirty campaign and if the Republicans are hitting hard, it's a response to the low down dirty "Libs" who mention things like Rick Davis' two million dollar a year deal with Freddie Mac. Calling Obama a "terrorist" and a liar while crowds scream for his head isn't fostering a climate of hate at all and the actions of an angry mob are simply their own responsibility, riot act notwithstanding. In fact Obama should apologize for bringing it up, says Davis. If the infamous Alabama school bombing resulted from George Wallace's hate rhetoric, there's no comparison possible with Sarah Palin's "he pals around with terrorists" because McCain was, along with hundreds of others, a POW in the 60's.

Make sense to you? Not to me either. Of course McCain isn't in Hanoi now and he hasn't wasted a shining moment denouncing the insane hate rhetoric coursing through the nerves of the Internet like Rabies, or the lies told on his behalf in TV ads. Mrs. Palin was born while John was in Hanoi and her excuse is even more obscure. At any rate, I don't think Davis will be getting the Nobel Prize for logic this year nor Sarah Palin the peace Prize.

To be fair, I think McCain was being genuine when he assured the many headed beast that Obama was a decent man we don't need to be afraid of, but he's trapped by sliding approval and the desperate need to win and he can't afford to alienate the sickos, the bigots, the idiots and the madmen whose votes he needs. After all these years, John McCain is a prisoner of war again and this time he can't call it anyone's fault but his own.

3 comments:

RR said...

Its getting completely crazy... The GOP machine has whipped the faithful into such a frenzy that they are likely ready to commit violence on behalf of their illusions.

Could the fore-fathers have predicted that the Enlightenment could be extinguished a mere 200+ years later? ... amazing.

billie said...

i think you made the bigger point- that these 'people' don't look different than anyone else. they are our neighbors, co workers, hell, they could even be us- readership or whoever. the point i have been trying to make lately is- these people didn't really slither out from under a rock- they live amongst us- and while the rabid wingnuts might be a minority- racists are not. on either side. keep telling the truth no matter what they call you :)

Capt. Fogg said...

A perfect example of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." Give such people a government that let them act out, and ordinary people will commit atrocities.

I think Jefferson actually did foresee a time when another revolution would be necessary - something about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots. He also advocated that we all be armed - a gun your constant companion - and I think it was for that reason.