I maintain that the Republican nominees for President and Vice President with their constant positioning of Barack Obama as some great unknowable "other" who associates with terrorists are whipping up lynch mobs (we've heard their crowds' cries of "kill him" "treason" "terrorist").
Here's a video from a rally in Ohio which shows just how primed these mobs are before they even enter the event:
I believe that McCain and Palin's speechwriters -- under the direction of their top campaign strategists -- know exactly what emotions and fears they want want to exploit when they write the words their candidates speak (hell, they'd be lousy at their job if they didn't).
I believe by now that McCain and Palin are certainly aware of the ugly and even dangerous responses their words are evoking.
You would have to be willfully ignorant to believe that this is not a strategy -- pretty much the only one they have left -- and that is why McCain and Palin continue to yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
(h/t to Daily Kos)
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and they are doing a good job of it. it's sick and hateful. it's about the lowest i've seen a campaign go. it even beats the republican crap, that kennedy would take his orders from the pope because he was catholic. there was a lot of negative sterotyping in that race and a lot of hurt and damaged relationships with that. i was a kid, but i had ears to hear it and eyes to see it and being raised catholic, even as a child i was well aware of it.
ReplyDeletethis, this is worse.
But Al "Digital Brownshirts" Gore gets a pass over whipping up lynch mobs.
ReplyDelete"He betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."
Using your logic Obama is guilt of encouraging Palin email hacker.
Just as Republicans know what response (lynch mob) to expect with their trigger words so do the Democrats. But whereas R's scream out "kill him" D's scream out "impeach him." Perhaps the difference is too subtle for you so I will give you a clue: one response is within the rule of law and the other isn't.
ReplyDeleteheir,
ReplyDeleteYou say that we gave Gore a "pass over whipping up lynchmobs."
The dateline on your link is March, 2004. How often do you think Mr. Gore "whipped up lynch mobs?" How persuasive a speaker do you think that he was, or is? How does he relate to the kid in TN who hacked a private e-mail account that Gov. Palin was using for official AK state business?
To the point: How much KY jelly did you need to pull that 4+ year old mention of one speech by Al Gore out of your ass and relate it to Obama, and, since you claim that Mr. Gore was "whipping up lynch mobs," make it at least the equal of the McCain Campaign's current tactics?
For more recent examples of progressives yelling "fire" I forgot in my post.
ReplyDeleteHow about the screams of "racism" every time someone criticizes Obama.
Or the black panther yelling threats at the accrued in the Duke Rape hoax.
John K: Get real and stop playing the victim left wing kooks. The scroll at the top of this blog says the mantra of the left. Impeach. You've posted false pictures of Rove in cuffs. Your picture of Cheney is that of an angry actor. There have been books and movies published calling for the assassination of Bush. You left wingers need to stop playing the victim and grow up.
ReplyDeleteJohn K: Remember Hussein Obama has sat in the living room and on various committees with Ayers and Dorn. Knowing full well they are domestic terrorists. LMAO LMAO Run as fast as you can Hussein Obama. You can't escape your past. LOL
ReplyDeleteJohn K: By the way left wing kooks. It was Democrats who rioted in Chicago in 1968 and Los Angeles. Still waiting for some left winger in here to name the last time a Republican rioted over anything. LOL LOL
ReplyDeleteHere you go.
ReplyDeletejohn k. check again. after the freedom of info it was found that the republicans sent people in there to start the riots.
ReplyDeleteas to ayers, yes, he was, yes, at the time he was caught he WAS unrepentant(and damned in the wrong. i do not condone those actions OR statements)
but are you saying that 40 years and a debt payed to society means nothing?
if so, then no one that has ever done anything wrong can never be rehablitated?
he is a teacher, he has spent his life trying to do good things, to work within the system. the board that he and obama sat on in chicago was funded by the annenburg foundation. that's the foundation that you see mentioned after a lot of pbs programing. they were/are(not too sure if they are alive)a republican husband and wife and from what i've read, were friends with the reagans. there were a number of republicans on that board with obama. lets check into them too. hey maybe we can trace domestic terrorism all the way back to president reagan thru the annenburgs!!??
go for it john k.
use "the google"
John K, this blog pretty much does announce its position up front, you are correct. So if you wish to argue a different political position, you may need to be persuasive. Instead I find you dismissive. I can't remember ever seeing you concede a point.
ReplyDeleteNow, even I would say the Brooks Brothers riot thing doesn’t sound like the sixties’ and seventies’ riots in LA, Chicago, Newark, and I can’t remember where else. But wasn’t the riot in Chicago at the Democratic national convention? I don’t think the Democratic party had anything to do with instigating those riots.
But here’s the thing, the people in the video, in Strongsville, Ohio, are saying Obama could be a terrorist, which means they actually think he is one. They’re egged on by conservative commenters who do things like harp on Obama’s middle name, which was given to him by a Kenyan and an American, 47 years ago, before most Americans had heard of Saddam Hussein. 4000 Americans have died in Iraq, tens of thousands more have been maimed, many from small, patriotic towns like Strongsville. We have not had an assassination of a major political figure in many years, but then again we have never had a black man run for President (in one of the two major parties).
You know, cackle about how Obama wants to add to the national debt, cackle about how his national health insurance plan won’t cover everybody and yet might be more expensive than John Edwards or Hillary Clinton’s proposals, cackle about how Obama does spin away form admitting he was against the surge.
But consider that Obama might be assassinated, just because he wanted to be President.
Oh, and also consider that Ayers and Dorn were never charged with murder. No one died in the bombs they planted. As terrorists go, they were kind of minor. I did hear that a San Francisco policeman died in connection with a weatherman bomb, but apparently that was nothing to do with Ayers. Of course, his girlfriend and two other weathermen were killed making a nail bomb, which probably was intended to kill people.. Supposedly there is some speculation that she decided she couldn’t go through with it, and set the thing off. Obviously it could have been one of the other two. Of course, we’ll never know.
The Brooks Brothers Riot was actually far more insidious than the riots you're all thinking of. This riot was carried out by Republican operatives/government officials posing as ordinary citizens and it actually changed the outcome of an election.
ReplyDeleteJohn K: Remember, it is Hussein Obama that has associations with known racists, who do their best to incite crowds, Rev. Wright, with false information and a known terrorist bomber, Ayers, as well as a known left winger who advocates the overthrow of the US Govt, Dorn. LMAO Tell me again about rioting. Still waiting for some lefty to give me evidence of the last riot started by a Republican. LOL
ReplyDeleteJohn K: And as Ed Heath points out, the top of this blog proclaims in HUGE type, impeach. And you folks like to run that fake photo of Rove being led away in hand cuffs. Secretly, I think some of you actually masturbate to that photo. Talka bout inciting violence. Your problem, you can't handle it when conservatives throw it right back at you. LMAO LMAO Grow up!
ReplyDeleteSo, this is it?
ReplyDeleteIt's ok or McCain and his operatives to label Obama a terrorist, and, by adding Obama's middle name to the mix, make it seem as if he's a pal of Islamic terrorists, because of the wrongful prosecution of the Duke LaCrosse team?
And, heir, if saying "He's got the bloodline" isn't racist, what is it?
So you are saying the Trinity Church (something something) has has a riot a week for the last twenty years. Or ever?
ReplyDeleteAnd I take your point, Maria, that the "Brooks Brothers" riot was evidently a staged event. After all, George Bush did not have the majority of the plurality, so the Republicans needed a display of indignation by "ordinary" citizens.
It takes a winger to conflate calls for impeachment with cries to "Kill him," meaning one of our Presidential candidates.
ReplyDeleteAnd conservatives should be taken seriously why?
Stay classy, John K.
I would just like to bring up what David Gergen said last night on Anderson Cooper.
ReplyDeleteGergen is a Republican but even he said that Palin and McCain need to tone down the rhetoric because of the ugly, ugly response it is generating from their supporters.
Unlike our little gaggle of wingers, Gergen doesn't equivocate; he doesn't rationalize; he doesn't justify.
He makes it perfectly clear that candidates are responsible for the words they use and the reaction it provokes. He was very disturbed by the cries of "terrorist" and "kill him," as any sensible person would be. And he also made it perfectly clear that Palin and McCain have an obligation, when they hear such things at their rallies, to stand up and denounce it; to make it explicit that there is no place for that kind of ugliness in our politics.
Let's not equivocate, dear wingers.
Let's not rationalize.
If you are so endowed with moral clarity, as conservatives presume, then act like it.
Otherwise, man-up, stop making excuses and accept the violent rhetoric now being espoused by Republicans.
Dumb ass voters.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see many black people in those video clips. They seem to be missing from most of the McCain clips I see.
ReplyDeleteListen. These people should frighten us all. They are the mindless mob that thinks only with its reptilian brain. They are the road ragers of politics. But scarier yet, they vote...and they pass this racist crap on to their children.
ReplyDeleteIs it no wonder that Rush and his ilk do well in the marketplace of ideas? They happily tap into this hideous base of stupidity and anger.
I used to be amazed at the mere idea of the Roman Forum. No more. Take away these people's TV's and NASCAR and Cheetos for a week and we'd be there....
Clyde
I take solace in the fact that these folks wouldn't vote for Obama anyway.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of ignorant people out there that, sadly, are armed with the vote... hopefully, these people will make up the minority of voters on election day
These McCain/Palin supporters are cowards, just like their candidate.
ReplyDeleteLike Obama said, if McCain has something to say to him, say it to his face.
But I don't think that will happen because John McCain is a spineless coward. Too bad his daddy and granddaddy aren't alive today to advance his career, though I'm not sure there's much those honorable men could do for their most dishonorable son/grandson.
Have any of you seen the video of the vacant-eyed children singing praise for Obama?
ReplyDeleteThis is just creepy, disgusting stuff to watch.
Jaywillie, I actually agree with you...McCain should have spoke up in the debate...that debate was very boring. The people asking the questions seemed unhappy about being there.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely wasn't what I was expecting...
I've seen that video and ya know what C.H.?
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to compare American children to the Hitler Jugend, which is a comparison offered up in the side-bar accompanying that video.
And who originally made the video? I don't understand why that information isn't divulged - it seems like something that should be.
But, to be honest, if you see in that anything more than children singing and signing a song, you have far more serious problems that you should be focused on.
I'm simply not going to equate American children to dictators and the Hitler Youth and all sorts of nasty associations that those children do not deserve, nor does the group who produced the video.
Is it really so surprising that a grassroots organization in California would hire a film production company to shoot the video? I suppose, perhaps, to those who are confused daily about simply things. It seems no more unlikely than a business hiring a film company to shoot a commercial or a candidate for office doing the same.
I just fail to understand how so many conservatives have managed to convince themselves that they are the only people who love our country - it is the pinnacle of delusion, it is a blatant and anti-social condescension unnecessarily directed toward your countrymen.
If you cannot deal with people who do not share your views and engage in a political discourse worthy of our Republic, I see no reason why you should be taken seriously.
Why should we take seriously the accusations conservatives lob against ACORN when conservatives ridiculed people who raised concerns about disenfranchisement and voter fraud 4 years ago?
Why should we take seriously the accusations that Obama "pals around with terrorists" when conservatives condone the actions of murderers that have killed doctors and innocent bystanders(which only reveals their deep disdain for our Constitutionally established judicial system)? Bill Ayers never killed anyone.
Why should anyone take seriously the conservatives' whine about "socialism" when their own candidate and the party most of them belong to just signed off on a $700 billion Federal program?
Why should we take you seriously when you have reduced yourselves to the most base forms of hatred?
Why should anyone ever take conservatives seriously again when they clearly seek to exploit racism in a desperate attempt to win?
You shouldn't be raising questions about songs sung by children, C.H.
You should be wondering what happened to the party of Ronald Reagan.
Or do conservatives think Reagan would approve of what we've been seeing at McCain/Palin rallies?
uh, uncle ronnie HATED john mcstain.
ReplyDeleteHATED.
actually, that makes me think, no wonder he's not been the republican candidate until now. he had to wait for ronnie to kick the bucket so that the gop would agree to name him the heir. no way in hell raygun would have allowed it.
Hold on just a sec, Jaywillie, don't get ahead of yourself. This list of questions...are they for me? Or are they for conservatives?
ReplyDeleteAs I have stressed on here many times, I am not a conservative. Besides the fact that I do not know of anyone who is a prominent republican or conservative who condones the actions of abortion clinic bombers, I'll also note that you probably don't know my views on abortion. Its an issue I prefer not to touch, and I consider myself to be 100% neutral on it.
Also, it is not conservatives or "the right" that exploits racism. You can rant against the attacks on Obama for his connection to Ayers all you want, but to say it involves "racism" as some are saying is laughable and totally ridiculous. If you don't think the Ayers connection is an issue, by all means then, speak out about it. But please don't say racism is involved.
It has become painful and exhausting to see Obama supporters counter every argument against their candidate by saying that racism is involved.
I have been quick to condemn the dumb statements made by some conservative commentators about Obama being from a Muslim background or any of the other nonsense some people are saying about him. Read my post if you want to...
BTW, you know very well that if a connection was discovered between McCain and some guy who had bombed abortion clinics across the country in the past, the left would be beating him with it every night on the news, making sure every American knew about it. They would also call into question McCain's judgement. Am I wrong? What would you do, Jaywillie?