13
Oct
Seeds of Hatred
“What a man sow shall he reap —
And you know that talk is cheap…”
- Bob Marley
John McCain was right in August when he called John Lewis one of the “wisest people” he knew.
So when Representative Lewis — a Georgia Democrat and veteran of the civil rights movement – recently denounced the McCain/Palin campaign for its use of divisive rhetoric and said the negative tone of the Republican presidential campaign reminded him of the hateful atmosphere that segregationist Governor George Wallace fostered in Alabama in the 1960s, he was calling it like it is.
I have been writing, speaking and blogging extensively of late about the hate speech epidemic in America, which has been mostly playing out on the airwaves of shock jock talk radio. Knowing the tenor of the times, I was unsurprised when the tone of the presidential campaign veered into similar territory. The truth is that Lewis simply called it like it is when he said McCain and running mate Sarah Palin were ‘’sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.'’ Rather than rejecting his remarks as ‘’shocking and beyond the pale,'’ McCain should have listened to Lewis, who is one of three people the Arizona Senator said he would “rely heavily on” if elected president.
Lewis was also right that the fear and loathing being expressed on the campaign trail in 2008 is frighteningly similar to that of the dark days of 1968. Those of us who were around at the time remember well what happened then, shortly after the hate speaking began. As Lewis noted, ‘’George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights…. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.'’
Instead of being viewed through the partisan prism of the heated presidential campaign, Lewis’ statement should instead serve, as he said as “a reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior.” So when McCain and Palin supporters shout ‘’traitor,'’ ‘’terrorist,'’ ‘’treason,'’ ‘’liar'’ and even ‘’off with his head'’ at campaign stops in reference to Barack Obama - and when reporters are threatened and castigated with racist remarks - it’s time for all truly patriotic Americans to stand up and speak out. Instead, McCain denounced Lewis’ remarks as “shocking and beyond the pale.” But it has really been his campaign - and his running mate Sarah “Beyond the” Palin — who have stepped over the line of acceptable political discourse by floating absurd charges such as the laughable one that Obama has been as ‘’palling around with terrorists.'’ After all, terrorists present a mortal threat to this country – and we all know what happens to them when they’re finally caught…
So it doesn’t take a genius, or a lot of imagination, to think of what could happen next. Remember the recent shooting at the Unitarian-Universalist church in Knoxville? Remember the 1968 shooting at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis?? And the subsequent one at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles??? I certainly do! That’s why I believe the wise man John Lewis when he points out that the McCain/Palin ticket is “playing with fire.” And as the late political analyst Robert Nesta Markey once aptly remarked, “Catch a fire - you’re gonna get burned!”
So please, John McCain: You’re better than that! Stop the hate speech before it’s too late. If not, I fear the fire next time may consume us all for decades to come…
I agree with you as far as the devisive hate speech going on but it’s not specific to John McCain’s campaign and you well know it. You note in your article that un-named McCain ’supporters,’ not John McCain’s campaign staff, shout hateful comments which I agree does no good for McCain or any right minded person. However, this is going on with Obama supporters as well. Shouting down Sarah Palin and screaming sexist, hateful comments that add nothing to the debate. I’ve read blogs questionning McCain’s military service, if that can be believed - - So, please, be fair - - there’s enough mean spiritedness in this campaign to go around that you can paint both with the same brush.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:22 amHow do we get CBS to ask this question of John McCain at the debate on Wednesday night? “Senator McCain, will you state uncategorically to all of America that Barack Obama is not a Muslim and does not keep the company of terrorists? Will you ask your running mate to keep the conversation civil and not resort to imflamatory rhetoric that might inadvertently ignite racial hatred?”
October 13th, 2008 at 12:07 pmWhen I see these rabid crowds at the McCain/Palin rallies, I have to wonder how many of them get their news from FOX news, which constantly preaches hatred — of liberals, democrats, college professors, artists, minorities, etc.
The problem which most articles do not consider is the fact that the Fairness Doctrine for radio and TV, would have prevented this kind of hate-spewing on the airwaves. Ronald Reagan removed that doctrine when he came to power. So the ugliness of the McCain/Palin campaign is motivated partially by another of Ronald Reagan’s “deregulation” mania.
Fox news would be off the air in a matter of weeks if they had to give equal time to other points of view, rather than using our airwaves to promote the GOP championing of rich, white folks.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:53 pmPS to Gary: There is no equivalency here. Neither Barack nor his running mate are suggesting that John McCain is a traitor or keeps company with people who are dangerous to America. Let them quibble over facts, but this is an appeal to mob psychology in hopes of causing, if not an assasination, something ugly. This is not a moment for the “fair and balanced” argument. If you would like to catch up on the place of this kind of strategy in history, read “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” (Eric Hoffer, 1951). Here is one thing he has to say on the demonization of Obama: Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without believe in a devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jews must be destroyed, he answered: ‘No….We should have then to invent him. it is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one.’ F. A Voight tells of a Japanese mission that arrived in Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voight asked a member of the mission what he thought of the movement. He replied: ‘It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can’t, because we haven’t got any Jews.”
October 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pmEvery time some reasoning mind tries to bring realistic standards-based evaluations, attested facts and defined science to bear on neocon Republican extremist-wing adherents, the same response occurs. Haven’t you noticed it, increasingly , after nearly 60 years of its being repeated? I
October 13th, 2008 at 1:39 pmsuggest you have but refused to call it what it is. the same three lines of response are used: 1. pathologically lying denial; 2. attack upon the speaker as “not knowing , y or z” and 3. attack upon those who present that persons attested facts, evaluations and scientific conclusions as being “liberal”, “biased against the wrongdoer being targeted, unpatriotic, or incredibly postmodernist, part of an elite, ‘attacking’ the person, acting in a partisan manner etc–when these are the very crimes of which the accused stands accused, proven or self-evidently guilty, not his whistleblower opponent. How many thousands of times does this same mantra have to be used against citizens’ rights, Congressional oversight and truth-telling individual eyewitnesses before even those who are products of neocon-controlled public-school diseducation “get it”? Here. in a moderately strong article condemning the recent race-baiting, jingoism, smearing, swiftboating and hyperbolical hate-mongering engaged in by neocon Republicans and their pseudo-theocratic extremist supporters, what do we hear as a response? Replies that accuse the moderate Democrats of the same behavior toward Gov. Palin! I beg your pardon? Isn’t the scale of the difference here worth noting? Democrats dislike Palin, for four cogent reasons–zero experience, her demonstrated lack of scientific comprehension, pathological lying for her imperial-presidency-advocating constitutional side, and also her self-evident unpreparedness for the office. We felt the same loathing for Danforth Quayle, for Harriet Meiers and for Robert Bork–on the basis of their ideas–and it wasn’t personal for those of us who can think and never will be. We are the U.S. patriots, not senseless invaders of Iraq; we are the pro-life advocates, not pro-miserable- existence ideological radicals; we are those who define America’s constitution–supposed to guarantee each citizen life, liberty and the pursuit of self-chosen happiness–as “liberal”–the product of thinkers ‘concerned with the rights and freedoms of the individual as apart from any collective”. We reserve our reasoned hatred for those who are an active and/or present enemy to the fundamental principles of an American–as opposed to a neocon–constitutional and economic structure. The difference between compassionate but not necessarily brilliant Democrats and pro-CEO closet totalitarian Republican neocons is too obvious to require much defending by me. Any racism, bigotry, hate=-mongering, neo-fascism and pseudo-religious infalliblism=otherworldist fantasy morality is almost all on one side in the division, 97%–3% I would suggest. There is a litmus paper test in the prsent economic disaster that will easily tell the reader as to who is sane and who is an extremist-postmodernist reality ignorer, basher and hater; here it is: Ask one question–Given a choice of assigning 3% or 97% of the blame for the constitutional, economic and political crisis in the U.S., do you personally assign 3% to citizens and 97% to government-corporate neocon leaders–or do you assign 97% of the blame to citizens and 3% to ‘compassionate conservative’ leaders who have had a president and more than 40 senators on their team and have had them for 8 years? Anyone who blames the borrowers on junk housing loans and not those who offered these loans for the present crisis is a neocon, an unrealist, and quite probably an immoral bigot. It really is that simple. The man with the gun and the money is responsible for fraud, theft and treason. Not his unwilling victim, who would have rejected the dictatorship of such an infallibility-spouting ‘tsar’ and rejected his ‘deal” if he had known what was being planned against him–and against American ideas and values.
Give me a break! Groups have been calling for the death of President Bush, burning pics of him, etc etc and nobody says anything.
Plus, just because you disagree with a person’s socialist policies doesn;t mean you are speaking “hate”.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pmI have been following this election as closely as anyone else but find it amazing that the biased liberal media promotes Obama and defames McCain. I have looked up various facts to see whether they are true and here they are. Obama’s 2 college room mates were from Pakistan and at 21 he visited Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and his father in Africa. Where did he get that kind of money at 21 to make this kind of a trip. His connections with Rezko and his Iraqi friends. How could Obama afford a house right next to Rezko for $1 l/2 million when he only earned about $20,000 as a community organizer. He first claimed he didn’t know Ayers the terrorists and then said they were on a few boards together but not friends even though Ayers helped to raise money for his first campaign. Now he said he knew him but thought he was repentent. What’s the story? Is he friends with this terrorists or not. Obama was also the lawyer for ACORN and gave them large sums of money. He made a statement to George Stephanopoulos that he was proud of his Muslim faith and then George corrected him and said your Christian faith. He also made a statment about the 56 states. Guess what, we have 50 states by the Arabl nation has 56 states. You talk about speaking hatred, read Mrs. Obama’s thesis from Princeton and then tell me that’s not HATE. Why hasn’t any of this been broght to light by CBS, NBC, ABC or CNN. If John McCain stubbed his toe it would be all over the news about him being old and unsteady on his feet. I’m sure there is a lot more the public does not know about Obama but what I do know the thought of him running this great country scares me. I wish the American people would wake up before it is too late. I realize most Dems won’t change their opinions nor will the republicans but please read all the facts before you vote and don’t listen to the biaed media
October 13th, 2008 at 7:04 pmI think that Rory makes the point. Those who equivocate protests against Palin with the venomous and nasty stuff that supporters of Palin & McCain have been spewing are just misguided.
There’s an enormous difference between the hysterical orgy of racial & xenophobic hatred that made the news from Palin’s & McCain’s rallies (that McCain addressed only at the end of the week, around the same time the findings of “Troopergate” were released–during the news dump period, when things could be buried), and Lewis’ historically accurate observation.
Lewis wasn’t attacking anyone. He’d been active in the civil rights movement when it was a very dangerous thing to be an African-American in the South demanding one’s rights as a citizen. The McCain campaign is dishonorable in saying, in essence, that Lewis was dealing a low blow.
As for saying mean things about Palin? Well I am certain that an experienced politician/runner up at a beauty pageant such as she is should be able to roll with it. What I don’t understand, however, is why she gets a free pass when it comes to her own association with a treasonous group, which wants Alaska to be independent from the United States. Personally, I don’t think she really loves America, and I don’t think she’s qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency of our nation.
If I say she stinks on policy and is ill-informed about the SCOTUS and the job she’s trying to get, I’m not being sexist.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pmSay, your info intrigues me. You suggest I read Mrs. Obama’s thesis from Princeton…so, how exactly do I do that? (like, how did you do it?) Also, do you have accurate dates of just when he bought his 1 1/2 million $ house and the dates of his community org work (so that I can compare/verify??) thanks. stan
October 13th, 2008 at 9:45 pmthis response if for Jean:
October 14th, 2008 at 12:08 amSay, your info intrigues me. You suggest I read Mrs. Obama’s thesis from Princeton…so, how exactly do I do that? (like, how did you do it?) Also, do you have accurate dates of just when he bought his 1 1/2 million $ house and the dates of his community org work (so that I can compare/verify??) thanks. stan
It’s almost impossible not to think that some people wish to be nisguided in their thoughts, even when they say that they have conducted research. The point is that all of us live in dangerous and unstable times. To think that inciting a mob is the same as calling someone’s credibility into question is ludicrous. It is so very easy to point and blame the messenger. What has become of the people who populate this country? Is it really possible for so-called right thinking people to desire power so freatky that there is nothing that they will not do? For shame on Sarah Palin and for shame on Jean for not recognizing that she is dancing with the devil!
October 14th, 2008 at 1:12 amAll I can say is if Obama is elected president, you who voted for him deserve everything that happens to you. I think you are misguided by the biased liberal media. I know I am not dancing with the devil but God watch over you if this man gets into the White House.
P.S. Palin is not inciting riots, she is telling the truth about Obama and you are all afraid to hear the truth. You don’t think it was hateful for people to say her daughter gave birth to Sarah’s new baby boy and the Palin’s were trying to hide it. That is hateful.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:06 amjean you have the only message that is coherent.Mr Lewis and Clyburg have been making racist statements since the primaries were being conducted.I no longer watch tv especially cable—they have been promoting Obama just too much to be believed anymore.They no longer even hide it.Since when do we have to be told who to vote for and scolded and called racist and stupid when we do not do as we are told.I am sure the DNC and Acorn have this election in the bag.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:28 pmJean, don’t speak of “facts” when you don’t have them.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:09 pmIt was 57, not 56 that Obama supposedly said (I never saw it.)
Obama was an Illinois senator when he bought that house. (He spent 7 years in that job, which repubs don’t count as “experience,”but I do.) And his wife makes a lot of money herself, so they could afford it. They couldn’t afford the adjacent lot that came with the house, so he sold it to Rezko’s wife. It does NOT mean Rezko financed Obama’s house for him!
Trying to create something sinister about Obama going on vacation to Pakistan with his college “roommates” is a stretch. Obama’s major was political science with a specialty in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. I admire that he has traveled to many countries. It gives him special insight on how to deal with foreign countries. McCain sees all foreigners as enemies and thinks all problems can be solved with war. That’s the scariest thing about him! While Obama studied international relations and constitutional law in college, McCain goofed off in the Naval Academy, partying like Animal House, breaking all the rules. He even got captured because he broke a rule, disobeyed a command to return to the carrier, and just had to make an extra pass over N.VietNam! He’s a maverick alright–one who couldn’t follow orders, one who always bucks the rules!
Thankyou 1863, Lincoln Abraham, that morning He wrote the entire Emancipation Proclamation. That afternoon and the next day He rewrote the entire draft, He told Sumner,”"I know very well that the name connected with this document will never be forgotten”.”Abe had outrages pressure, from all over, including His wife. He dipped his pen in an inkstand, held the pen in the air over the paper, and hesitated, looked around, and said:”I never,in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper”. Later He was accused of being selfish, Lincoln said,”There are no emoluments that properly belong to patriotism. I brought nothing with me to the White House, nor am I likely to carry anything out”. We all must be brave and take a stand. All beginnings are difficult, yet walking into the unknown is growth. Your mind was made for discovery, not repetition, McCain is protecting the past, Obama protecting the future. Jefferson, “the earth is made for the living, not for the dead”. McCain is still fighting his loss in Vietnam, wishes not to have a second loss, Iraq. Knowing how to shoot a gun, doesn’t make a good President or Vice President, Chaney shooting his friend in the face, friendly fire. The nation can’t live by war alone, or the mantra of fight, fight, fight. 72 year old cancer patient reliving Vietnam, looking exhausted, stiff and robotic, with a Vice President that has 3 kids at home which include a down syndrome infant, that needs breast feeding for the first year, read the brain studies, your heart will go out to that infant. She has an unmarried, pregnant 17 year old, and another girl about 4, 19 year old to the army, I like to see His school grades, Other than military, what other options were looked at. My time, the kids that couldn’t make it, went to military or Police. Both a no brainer at 19 years old, maybe He’ll get caught, like McCain, and start a political career. There is very little here that makes sense, or gives one confidence, that these two,(Palin&McCain), know what there doing. I’ll vote Obama, just because he didn’t kill anyone and isn’t screaming fight fight,Mac, at 72 He should know better, He didn’t learn much in that pow camp, least of all those qualities for President.I suggest vote for the least harmfull, you know that One over there, the One that hasn’t killed. Reasonable intelligence, move forward with Obama, or relive the past. The choice is ours, a new beginning sounds great! thankyou.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:17 pm