Hate comes out of the closet

[sauronsfinger]

Much has been written and discussed that the election of Barck Obama as President of the USA signals a new day in racial tolerance and understanding across the land. Maybe for some that is true. I wish it were true for all. Sadly, there are many people who are using this as a platform to vent all of their pent up racial negativity. And some of this is coming from children.

This article gives details and many such incidents:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... country-1/

Probably the most disturbing thing I have read is the following

In Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak hill General Store read "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. At the bottom of the sign was written "lets hope someone wins."

What do you think is the motive for this sort of behavior and attitudes?
If some Americans have taken giant stride forward are there not many who also have taken giant strides backwards? What should be done about such public displays of outright hatred and advocacy of death to the new President of the USA?

[Primula Baggins]

People panic when they realize they're losing a fight that's important to them, and that the world is no longer the word they thought they understood. Maybe they've even seen the attitudes of friends and neighbors changing.

From the article:

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

...

Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

Certainly the country itself has given a pretty strong signal of change—not that racism is dead, but that racists of that particularly nasty stripe can no longer assume that every white person in the country is secretly with them, and that most of those who aren't white are too cowed to vote.

My hope is that the worst of this will fade quickly and go back underground where it's been for so long; and that maybe, meanwhile, as people get used to the idea of having a black president and see that Obama isn't doing any of the horrible things the fear-mongers predicted, some people's attitudes will begin to change.

In the meantime, these incidents seem to be being handled like any other racist flare-up, though I'm sure ones that contain threats against the president-elect are being taken very seriously by the Secret Service.

[sauronsfinger]

Good post Prim.

Here is yet another in an endless series of foolish and angry people... this guy offering free public hangings of Obama and others. The FBI is investigating but he claims its just a political statement.

http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/art ... 338058.prt

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

These are the same people who probably thought anti-war demonstrators were anti-American. Sometimes I think America needs its own Australia to send people.

[Dave_LF]

These are the same people who probably thought anti-war demonstrators were anti-American. Sometimes I think America needs its own Australia to send people.

How about Texas? Half of them are already there anyway.

[solicitr]

Liberals, of course, never being bigots.

[Primula Baggins]

I see you got the memo.

Conceding your point, I still have to say that I doubt there are many liberals issuing death threats against the president-elect, which is the topic of the thread.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

These are the same people who probably thought anti-war demonstrators were anti-American. Sometimes I think America needs its own Australia to send people.

How about Texas? Half of them are already there anyway.

Dave, I know you are trying to be humorous, but let's avoid categorizing groups of people, be they Texans, conservatives or liberals.

[solicitr]

Prim, I'll concede that I'm not aware of any death threats against GWB (although I expect there probably were some). But *hate* directed at "Chimpy McBushitler" is not far to seek. Nor was the display of classist venom visited upon Sarah Palin and her family.

[Ellienor]

Well, Ms. Palin came out swinging. She said regarding Obama's community organizing experience that being a mayor was kind of like being a community organizer, but only as mayor you were expected to do something. Later she said that our president elect "didn't see American as you and I see America" and that "he palled around with terrorists." A documented significant spike in death threats to Obama and his family date from around this time.


With regard to Sarah Palin and her family and "classist hate." Well, if one displays pride in one's anti-intellectualism, for a position where arguably knowledge and learning is important, one should be prepared for a little flack coming their way. Obama is arguably from the lowest class possible--a "mulatto" from a broken family--and yet nobody scorns him because if his "class." Well, other than a certain segment of our society, that is. He is an an intellectual and his "class" is earned.

[sauronsfinger]

Whats a "chimpy Mcbushliter" ?

and welcome back solicitr

[Dave_LF]

Liberals, of course, never being bigots.

Aha! So we send the right-wing bigots to Texas and the left-wing ones to California, and the non-bigoted Texans and Californians can take over whatever the bigots were doing before. It's win-win-win, I tells ya.

But *hate* directed at "Chimpy McBushitler" is not far to seek.

The distinction in my mind is that most (not all) of the hate directed at Bush is based on what he did rather than what he is. It is legitimate to hate someone for doing hateful things (though it may also be kind and moral to forgive).

Nor was the display of classist venom visited upon Sarah Palin and her family.

This is more fair since people certainly attacked/attack Palin for being a "redneck" or "trailer trash". I have seen very little of that on this board, though, for what that's worth. For my part: I was initially charmed by her folksiness; started to oppose her when I learned how utterly wrongheadedness many of her positions were, and learned to loathe her when she started making blatant appeals to the worse angels of human nature.

[Primula Baggins]

Call me Pollyanna, but I don't think hate should be part of our public discourse in this country or any other. Or of our private discourse here. We should all be capable of making our choices for rational reasons, or at least positive ones (as exemplified by the bumper sticker I saw in the grocery store parking lot this morning: DOPELESS HOPE FIEND).

[vison]

. . . . Nor was the display of classist venom visited upon Sarah Palin and her family.

I saw no "classist venom" on this forum. I'm curious, though, is Mrs. Palin the sort of person you yourself chum around with? Like, is she the same "class" as you are, solictr? The thing is, she IS the same "class" as I am, me and mine. Our ilk. What passes for "rednecks" in my neck of the woods.

I don't look down on her, not for her "class" at any rate. For what I have seen revealed of her principles and character, though, that's a different matter. I don't exactly have "classist venom" in my heart. We needn't go into what my feelings are, exactly. But I guess it's safe to say I don't respect her - however, my disrespect has nothing whatsoever to do with any perception of her "class" or mine.

solictr, do you believe you were well served by your party - assuming that the GOP was "your party" - in the past election? Are you satisfied that the candidates, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin, were fully qualified by experience and character to take on the roles of POTUS and VPOTUS, respectively?

[solicitr]

Are you satisfied that the candidates, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin, were fully qualified by experience and character to take on the roles of POTUS and VPOTUS, respectively?

John McCain? I gave him money 8 years ago, and worked full time for his campaign from the convention until Election Day. I can think of no American politician I would rather have in the Oval Office. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Sarah Palin? Well, the 'role' of VPOTUS consists in being a citizen over 35 with a pulse (or, in Cheney's case, an electronic simulacrum thereof). And I'm sure she would look good in black at various foreign funerals.
More to the point, she's at least as qualified, dare I say more so, for either job than Barack Obama, whose resume is singulary devoid of bullet-point accomplishments beneath those impressive tittles.

do you believe you were well served by your party - assuming that the GOP was "your party" - in the past election?

I don't believe I've been well served by the GOP for the last ten years. Sad to say, the Republicans needed a good kick in the seat, so that they can start remembering what they once stood for.

Unfortunately for the nation, a discredited and disarrayed opposition is unlikely to be able to serve as such, and I fear a rapid descent into the hard-left abyss. Those who voted for Obama believing him to be a centrist, a moderate, a bi- or post-partisan figure, a uniter or a healer are quite possibly going to be extremely disillusioned.

is Mrs. Palin the sort of person you yourself chum around with? Like, is she the same "class" as you are, solictr?

No. But she is representative of the people I have known all my life and my ancestors before me in the Faulknerian South. I have great reaspect for the 'salt of the earth'- especiallty threirplainspoken sound judgment on most things. The same is largely true of the urban working cvlass like my wife's family. OTOH, as an intellectual and borderline blueblood myself I do *not* trust my own class, being as it is prone to subscribing to ideas, as Orwell put it, "so stupid only an intellectual could believe them." Bill Buckley, no mean mind himself, once ventured that he would rather the country were run by the first 400 names out of the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty, and I'm inclined to agree.

I saw no "classist venom" on this forum

No, but neither were there any threats against Obama here. In the wider world, however, you can't deny that a great deal of the oppobrium directed at her was naked bigotry. There isn't any problem with opposing her views or those of any politician, including the President-elect. But to sneer at them for belonging to an "inferior" group is unacceptable, in either direction.

Ellie: Obama came from about as privileged an upbringing any American not named Bush or Kennedy can have.

[yovargas]

Bill Buckley, no mean mind himself, once ventured that he would rather the country were run by the first 400 names out of the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty, and I'm inclined to agree.

I'm inclined to disagree.

[River]

The worst classist venom I saw spewed at Palin was from a McCain staffer. There was also some nastiness in the press right after the RNC regarding how she's managed her family but that was thankfully swept under the rug.

solicitr, you're posing as a populist right now but in the past you've spoken of taking the vote away from the poor and you made some rather horrifying comments in a thread about teen pregnancies a while back. What gives?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ellie: Obama came from about as privileged an upbringing any American not named Bush or Kennedy can have.

soli, you have said this in the past, and I just don't get it. His father was not part of the picture, so that can't be what you are talking about. His mother was certainly not well-off, so that can't be what you are talking about. His grandparents were very solidly Middle-class (even lower Middle-class). Yes, he attended good schools, but he also had school loans in addition to scholarships. How can that be considered more priviledged than thousands or even millions of children of wealthy families?

[Inanna]

Quote:
I saw no "classist venom" on this forum

No, but neither were there any threats against Obama here. In the wider world, however, you can't deny that a great deal of the oppobrium directed at her was naked bigotry. There isn't any problem with opposing her views or those of any politician, including the President-elect. But to sneer at them for belonging to an "inferior" group is unacceptable, in either direction.

I agree.

But we also saw classist venom on both sides. We saw the McCain campaign with "Wasilla hillybillies". And suddenly, "Intellectual" became a dirty word.

[vison]

I have great respect for the "salt of the earth" myself. But a fool is a fool no matter how salty or earthy.

Thankfully, Mrs. Palin continues to shoot herself in the feet and soon will hobble back to day job.