The ugliness of the last week replaces one watershed in American politics with another. Until now, the big question of the election was this:
Would a majority of American voters vote for a black man named Barack Obama?
That question has now been replaced by another:
Will a minority of Americans accept a majority vote for a black man named Barack Obama?
Polls show that McCain and Palin's attacks on Obama are pushing undecided voters to Obama, and perhaps even pushing away some who previously considered themselves "decided" for McCain. I am not suggesting, as some have, that the election is "over." I have lived through far too much politics to be that naive. But with red states from North Dakota to North Carolina teetering between pink and blue on pollsters' maps, my attention cannot help but be drawn to the toxic brew that is forming from an equal mixture of the top-down politics of the McCain/Palin campaign and gutter-up politics of their most devoted followers.
With all the focus on Bill Ayers, it is a good time to remember that the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history was committed not by 1960s radicals in Chicago but 1990s militia members in Oklahoma City. The militia movement of the Clinton years was never dismantled by legal authorities. Some of their members stepped back from the horror of Oklahoma City, but what finally drove them from the political scene was the election of GW. You just couldn't get any political traction ranting about an imagined United Nations takeover of the United States while Bush was running over the UN on his way to invading Iraq .
Now the tables have turned. What is truly dangerous is how the garbage spewed out by the McCain/Palin campaign is such ideal fodder for the paranoia that was the meat-and-potatoes of the militia movement. Republican strategists don't really believe that Obama is a terrorist or that ACORN is going to steal the election. They just hope that innuendos in that direction will sow enough doubt in the minds of independents and conservative Democrats that when they finally get alone in the voting booth they will vote their prejudice.
Thus far, polls show that this campaign of fear is having the opposite effect.
But what about the hard core true believers? The ones who take McCain and Palin's words and ads at face value, because they provide "official" confirmation for what they already believe. The ones who will believe that Obama actually is a terrorist who really will steal the election. Ask yourself: what would you do if you really, truly believed that a terrorist was about to steal a presidential election?
If they can put aside their survivalist and Turner Diaries fantasies, they might consider that, as Sarah Palin has suggested, they're mostly in small, rural areas, while we "socialists" (in their minds) populate the suburbs and major urban areas. You know, there all the products and services originate, the critical control centers of America.
Tell me, they're going to infiltrate Newark, San Francisco and Chicago and start an urban rebellion? I think not.
No need to go in after them, they'd starve to death if we cut them off. America isn't the Columbia rainforest, full of a large disgruntled population. It has some older reactionaries and the small towns are places the young people flee from. The American Nazis are jailbirds that the REAL Nazis would have exterminated.
Let's not be complacent, but the fact is that those 200 million guns ordinary Americans have are spread among the average citizens that are about to elect Obama, it would seem. They won't take kindly to violent radicals while they're trying to recover from a recession, keep their jobs and have some peace at home and overseas.
The mani stream media has also given McCain a pass on his connections to lobbyists who lobbied for Iran, North Korea, Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, Syria and the worst dictators in Africa.
McCain also got a pass on his connections to the organization that worked with the Taliban in the 80's durign the time that bin Laden was palling around with the Taliban.
Just as with their Latin American buddies like Pinochet, this wing of the Republicans is willing to use violent guerilla war to jack and stack electoral boards that then give them the color of law.
The Bush regime has used this method to jack and stack the Justice Department after being appointed by a stacked Supreme Court. They've used this method to falsely prosecute their war against voters with the myth of massive fraud. US Attorneys were fired for not going along. Iglesias is "astonished" by their scare tactics. Powell says "they've gone too far."
Ari Fleischer said it of Saddam: a single bullet would be cheaper. The McCain/Palin campaign advisers, neocons all with Kissinger chief among them, have a pattern and practice of using violent militias to do their dirty work. IMO, they're hoping to provoke an assassination. Failing that, they're splitting off a home-grown terrorist group.
This has been their MO since our reigns of terror in Asia and Latin America began in the late 50s. They're using religious imagery and existential threats on their base, and attacking the rest of us for lack of patriotism and exaggerating that threat.
Goering would be proud.
knock-knock
(who's there?)
BUDDHA!
(boota? boota who?)
KNOW! (pause for effect, mug to the camera if you can) BUDDHA YOU!
This is the poem I gave my roshi (Zen master) upon our first face-to-face.
Or,,,, If you are old enough to remember the SLA and the Manson Family.
The Manson Doctrine was to stir up racial fears in America and cause so much HATE and unrest that the Government would be forced to over-react, declaring Martial Law and suspending the Constitution.
In the,,, Helter Skelter,,, OR chaos that he thought would follow, he saw himself taking over after a carefully planed assassination of American Leaders.
WRONG!
Americans are much more resilient than that. We love out Constitution too much to see that happen. Try to divide us as some may,, More of us love the Constitution than have any angers toward temporary occupants of the White House.
We know true power lays in our LOVE for America and the RULE OF LAW, than any would-be, wana-be, dictator could ever offer us.
You saw this same UNITY and American Spirit after the loss of Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
These folks may shoot us in the streets, but they will never dash our beliefs in America, her founding principles and the Constitution that brought this dream to life.
Angry as we may become with each other,,, we still LOVE America MORE, a DREAM and inspiration to the whole world!
A Nation of Kings,, one person,,, one VOTE.
JMO
All the best
Knute Neo-LIB
In the Palin household, when they sit around the kitchen table to talk, don't you think the conversation would cover AIP's view of the world. Palin is well versed in AIP/militia talking points and when she visits those "pro America" small towns she knows just what buttons to push to get the fringe lunatics motivated.
The fact that Todd, who stumps for the ticket, has gotten a free pass on his AIP connection is mind-boggling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAm-Nvk3FAw
I stand corrected. CNN did cover this story.
Very informative too.
But how is this separatist movement that backed Sarah Palin for Governor suppose to make us more comfortable with Palin’s appointment?
Isn’t this sort of Ultra Right Radicalism thing against the LAW?
Is it permissible to advocate for pulling out of the Union?
All the best
Knute Neo-LIB
Thanks for the you tube link. Rick Sanchez did do a great job getting the AIP story out, but it never got any traction beyond his 3 pm et slot, that one day. Word was that McCain's camp threatened to sue CNN, so the story went away. No coverage by Blitzer, AC360 or Dobbs. Nothing that I'm aware of. This association is so much more important than the weak Ayers linkage, but there you have it. It makes it pretty clear who actually owns the "liberal MSM".
I'll give you a hint, it ain't the liberals. That's how you end up with Ayers 24/7.
Thanks again
Why is not a single MSM outlet looking into Todd Palin and his attempts to force Alaska’s dropping out of the Union? Do they think if it is by Democratic means,,, that is ok?
Didn’t we once fight a war against such rebellions?
Mind Boggling INDEED.
I say,, SAVE THE UNION!
Protect America and the Constitution.
Sheeese,, Free Pass indeed.
All the best
Knute Neo-LIB
Timothy McVeigh was not a lone wolf.
http://wvgazette.com/News/200810180251
Numbers. Big numbers. It will be the only way to counteract the Republican's malicious intent to give this election to their pals. VOTE!