Right wing hatred becoming really scary!
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Right wing hatred becoming really scary!
| Sun, 10-12-2008 - 12:55pm |
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/10/obama_threat_white_powder.php
What is up with this garbage? McCain and Palin have to put their foot down to stop this. McCain bears some responsibility because his campaign has fostered nasty rude attacks that dehumanize Obama. But at least McCain was man enough to realize the monster he has created and McCain tried to calm down his angry mobs of supporters.
Palin, on the other hand, doesn't seem to know or care how to act like a decent human being. She is really scary.

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Regarding what Lewis stated, I happen to agree with him.
Except did you notice when that deluded old lady said "he's an Arab" and McCain started to correct her by saying "no, no, no....he's a decent family man..." that the unspoken subtext there was that of COURSE "an Arab" was different from "a decent family man" - or, said a bit more bluntly, McCain instinctively put "decent family man" and "Arab" in opposition to one another, as if no male Arab has ever been or could ever be a decent family man.
This is how they think, unscripted.
Frankly - though I'd be willing to entertain the notion that such bad phrasing was merely an inadvertent slight against pretty much every Arab in existence - I don't find that one small repudiation of a clearly deeply deluded follower to be particularly laudable. The truth that McCain knows full well - and Palin perhaps even more so, since she is "one of them" - is that their audience and their base of supporters if FULL of people who think much the same thing. In the last two days, we've been witness to someone on this very board saying that she wasn't sure whether Obama is a Muslim (and following it up with the obligatory "not that there's anything wrong with that" comment that one must append to one's statements in order to not appear like a spittle-flecked xenophobic ranter). Arab and Muslim are not synonymous, but Obama is quite easily proven to be neither one of those things...and in the minds of those who think that the boogeyman is around every corner, I'd wonder how much airspace there is between their understandings of "Arab" and "Muslim."
Regardless, though, McCain is a smart-enough politician to know full well that if he's actually standing less than two feet away from someone saying these things, listening intently to her, and the whole thing is being recorded on camera, then he has to correct the record of something so obviously false, or else reporters and anyone else witnessing it on YouTube or wherever will be able to credibly say that McCain at least tolerates such falsehoods from his supporters or possibly even agrees with the statement (since he didn't correct it). I consider his having corrected this woman to be an act of political butt-covering, nothing more. Frankly, telling that other gentleman that he didn't need to be "scared" was far closer to a true act of standing up to slanderous charges on behalf of his opponent. McCain would've been able - or his flacks would - to credibly cast just enough doubt on the issue of that man's self-assessment of "scared" that he probably would have been able to get away with not correcting or reassuring that man - since every person's definition of "fear" or assessment of what makes them afraid is different enough that no one can tell anyone else with 100% certainty that they CAN'T fear any given thing. But when the error is a glaring, factual one like "Obama is a Muslim" or "Obama is an Arab," or even "Obama is a terrorist"....he's pretty much got no choice, with cameras rolling, but to repudiate it, unless he wants to open himself up to credible charges that he owns that - or even agrees with it.
>>Except did you notice when that deluded old lady said "he's an Arab" and McCain started to correct her by saying "no, no, no....he's a decent family man..." that the unspoken subtext there was that of COURSE "an Arab" was different from "a decent family man" - or, said a bit more bluntly, McCain instinctively put "decent family man" and "Arab" in opposition to one another, as if no male Arab has ever been or could ever be a decent family man.
EXCELLENT point. Thank you for sharing that. I obviously have my own bias to deal with on this measure.
Laura
No, it doesn't. While Wikipedia remains theoretically "editable by anyone," they DO have people who fact-check things and filter new entries through the lens not only of partisanship and bias (which is why you'll see some entries that have a "challenged for impartiality" flag - or whatever they call it - on them) but also checked against the known facts. Being as ubiquitous as it is, Wikipedia's very aware of their own liability with regard to libel. I'm not a lawyer, but I feel pretty certain that Wikipedia - just like Brittanica or World Book or any of the traditional print encyclopedias - would be open to lawsuits if they allowed an article to state, for example, that, say, Larry Craig IS gay. Since no one but the Senator himself knows, and he has consistently said that he is NOT gay, encyclopedias can talk about the "airport bathroom controversy," being careful to state the facts....but they cannot claim something which isn't able to be demonstrated pretty conclusively by the facts.
You may argue that ACORN is everything you say it is (I have no idea what you posted), but unless what you posted is pretty much unquestioned fact, I'm not surprised at all that Wikipedia either edited it heavily or removed it altogether. I might, for example, believe that Larry Craig's actions speak much louder than his words on the subject of his homosexuality....but since Senator Craig has consistently denied those rumors, and even the facts in evidence don't conclusively PROVE his ultimate sexual orientation, I can't state as fact that Craig is gay - nor would Wikipedia be able to print such a statement without exposing themselves to potential legal liability.
Huh? No, not at all. I don't care how many "people" one side or another has, necessarily.
It's the fact that those "people" on the right who are responsible for formulating and disseminating these smears and vile attacks come right straight from the heart and mainstream of that political party, not its fringes, as is the case with the nut-cases on the left. What we see is a protest sign here, or a shout of "booo" at a rally there....not deliberate and consistent dissemination of the worst of the smears using the bully-pulpits of news and opinion outlets. If it were only the conservative fringe that were doing this, you would not see or hear the people I've been mentioning dittoing along with those fringe-dwellers (or often, even, LEADING them).
It absolutely is his job to silence anyone he wishes to at his OWN rallies. If people showed up at a McCain rally wearing full Klan regalia and carrying signs reading "The KKK Supports McCain - send the n----- back to Africa," do you not think that McCain would a) find it in his interest to "silence" these people - or at least address them directly and say that he could not disagree more with their hateful rhetoric, and b) credibly be said to have tolerated and permitted - if not SUPPORTED such awful language and sentiments, if he IGNORED them?
Let me turn it around: suppose someone arrived at an Obama rally wearing "death to America" t-shirts, and carrying a large and visible banner which read "burn down the system - American capitalism is evil!" What do you think would be the reaction of the conservatives - and even simply the newspapers - if Obama simply allowed them to be present without so much as voicing his disapproval? How would YOU feel, and what would it do to people's impression of Obama, do you suppose?
John McCain isn't REQUIRED by any law or rule to "silence" such sentiments. But it's certainly in his best interest to do so, if he does not wish to appear to be condoning or agreeing with them. And, somewhere on a level of moral decency, he has an obligation to do so out of basic fairness and agreement with the notion that campaigns should be waged with a general agreement on reality and decency as an underlying framework. He needn't actually have the deluded old woman muzzled or led away in handcuffs or anything so draconian....but snatching the microphone back from her and telling her flatly that she's wrong is the absolute least he can do. It's HIS rally, and while that lady has as much right to her opinion - however incorrect - as anyone else, McCain does not have to hand her a microphone paid for by his campaign to allow her to disseminate or even give voice to stuff that's so obviously incorrect and harmful.
I think it was my amazement that he said anything which kind of caught me.
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