Race is Not the Only Reason for Jump in Assassination Threats to Obama
President Obama has gotten more death threats in a shorter period of time than any other president in US history. The legion of right side talk radio gabbers, the GOP induced professional mobsters who commit orchestrated mayhem at health care town halls, the birthers, the countless websites and chatrooms that crackle with anti Obama venom, and the endless montage of race baiting cartoons, characterizations and depictions of Obama and First Lady Michelle have created a viperous climate of hate and that knows no bounds.
The stock assumption is that race is the reason that Obama is a bigger target than any other president. That's a huge factor. The mere sight of a black man at the helm is more than enough to drive countless loose screw unreconstructed KKK, Aryan Nation, Skinhead, and the just plain wacky fringe into a froth. But anti-black hate is only one reason for the record number of death threats against him. Threats against presidents often come fast and furious immediately after their election. The reasons are varied; many are the chronic cranks and nut cases, others hate the views of the president, fear change, or just get a titillation from making the threat.
But the GOP strategists and their stealth talk radio and blog allies are playing for much bigger stakes than just bashing a black president. The stakes are a rework of the GOP to take back power. A full throttle destabilization of the Obama administration on everything from the economy to health care is the obvious attack point. The GOP and their surrogates have snatched a page from the playbook used against every Democratic presidential candidate and president by the GOP since Nixon. That's create havoc through character assassination, rumor mongering, fear, intimidation, and emotionally charged code words. The operative tag they've slapped on Obama is socialist. That sets off a Pavlovian drool; reason quickly goes out the window and the red flags run up the mental flagpoles of countless Americans.
Obama's message of hope and change feeds into rightist paranoia. He has drawn an instant global throng of admirers who see in him the embodiment of change and a fresh direction for US policy on the war and the easing of global tensions. He's also seen as a potential president who can put a diverse, humane face on American foreign policy.
These are the exact qualities that stir the deep fury, hatred and resentment among a steadily growing frenetic number of malcontents and hate mongers. The thick list of fringe and hate groups as well as the hordes of unbalanced violence prone individuals running free in America can fill a telephone book. The long history of hate violence in America is more than enough to raise the antenna on the danger of violence against prominent political figures.
The gun culture of the nation adds even more fuel and danger to the mix. Gun and ammo sales have gun through the roof since Obama's election, with many openly bragging that they are ready for a war to win back the country. Whether it's the wholesale wipeout of families, gunning down police officers, or the shoot up of a women's fitness center, the police invariably find that the cracked shooter has made some rant about guns and spouted wacky extremist views.
Obama, of course, has been the target of unbounded hate from the moment that he announced that he was a presidential candidate in February 2007. The personal death threats began flooding in to his campaign. Obama had the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. As the crowds grew bigger at Obama rallies and his public visibility grew even greater, the Secret Service increased the number of agents assigned to guard him.
Obama campaign aides and volunteers continued to report occasional racial taunts and jibes when they passed out literature and pitched Obama in some areas. This further increased the jitters that Obama was at risk. As the showdown with John McCain heated up in the general election, the flood of crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promise murder and mayhem toward Obama continued to pour in. This prompted the Secret Service to tighten security and take even more elaborate measures to insure his safety.
The troubling question though is how tight can the Secret Service clamp the security shield around Obama as president. The same report that there's been a four hundred percent leap in death threats against Obama also noted that the Secret Service is under-agented and under resourced. That's not very comforting. But threats come with the presidential turf, a turf that Obama stands firmly on, and for some that's just to much to stomach.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard weekly in Los Angeles Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com
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The right has been so successful in getting the fringe nut-job to go out and do the killing for them. They are counting on their divisive words and flagrant lies to spur more and more violence until sooner or later they get their primary target.
I agree with one poster...t
They are not a political party, they are a gang of thugs that work against democracy and reward the rich. They've committed enough outright crimes to be hauled in and jailed...i
If ever there was a time for law enforcement to actually enforce the laws of this land, now is the time.
The very ones that promote this hog-wash (Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, Beck, Dobbs) are millionaires who will never be affected, they are safe behind their gated community walls and eating steak, sipping wine and writing their next diatribe for their suckers - the "common people" to swallow, digest and go forth with guns blazing.
It's his color. Period. Bush screwed up this country and there was no outrage. Obama is trying to clean up Bush's mess and all of a sudden people are mad.
Foreclosures, economic collapse, ponzi schemes, lies about going to war and total incompetence happened under Bush and people just shrugged it off. Why? Because he's a white guy.
Sorry, Earl. The right also tagged Bill Clinton as a crazed socialist, and there was none this frightening haze of violence hanging in the air
Sure, it's not the only reason, but I do think it's pretty fair to say that, if Obama were white, the scare tactics that the right is using would be LESS affective to the average white American.
When you've lived your entire life in a world where your race is the one "in charge", it's sad to say that there are some deep-seated fears associated with the idea of the status quo changing. It's that fear of the unknown, and I do believe there are a good deal of white Americans who aren't true racists, who do picture an America with non-whites being the ones "in charge" being different than the one they are comfortable with and used to.
You have got to watch this...
Rachel Maddow = voice of reason
http://www
Thank you VERY much for this link!! Listening to Schaeffer makes clear what we have all been fearing. We must shine a light on what is going on.
Yes, threats come with the Presidential turf. The thing is historically as Americans we collectively were outraged. Instead we now have a whole party not only not outraged, but actively fueling it.
From the moment John McCain turned the abominable Sarah Palin loose to drum up as much hate as she could for Obama (as a campaign strategy - now isn't that a recommendation for leadership? Disgusting) the GOP have decided that hate is just the ticket. I loathe them for it. They want 1/2 of America to be afraid of the other half and Obama is the lightening rod for the storm they're doing their level best to create.
Here's the thing though that I don't know if they consider. Not only are Independents like me watching and certain that having seen their true colors that they'll never get a vote again, but...and I shiver at writing this. But should, God forbid (I pray daily for his safety) but if the unspeakable should happen? We'll know just who to blame. The GOP will have to pack bags and leave the country. They'll be the most despised people on earth. Not just in America. On earth. They should have invested in Mars exploration. They may need a place to colonize.
We shouldn't have to be afraid of our own people. But I am very afraid of the GOP. I don't see them as formidable. I see them as hideous.
Their heads exploded when a black family moved into the "White House." There is evil in this country, and the rethugs have enlisted its forces into their pursuit of power.
I would say that there's a link between race and the "socialism" issue - as I have no doubt you know, Martin Luther King was often accused of being a Communist. I also just saw an excellent documentary about Jewish professors who fled from Nazi Germany and ended up teaching in black colleges in the South, and some of them were targeted by McCarthy and HUAC for their work in the nascent civil rights movement. (Being Jewish didn't help either, I'm sure.)
Xenophobia is the word.
Fear of anyone not part of The Tribe, The Family, the Clan!
And you can't trust some of those Cousins, either...
I was blindsided when Kennedy was assassinated because it was so unexpected. I had been taught in school about historic assassinations but I was young and naive enough that I thought it couldn't happen again. Then came the attempt on Reagan's life and again I was stunned but somewhat placated because the assailant was "mentally ill." But these days the hate is so obvious and those that might attempt an assassination so vocal that I profoundly fear for my president. There may be any number of reasons why anyone would want to try, but I believe the primary reason is that there is a black man in the Oval Office and the haters cannot reconcile that fact with "their" America.
I was only 8 or 9 years old when McCarthyism 'died,' but I remember the hearings on TV, it was one of those events that seemed to be on 24/7 in those days.
As an adult, I retained trace memories of that coverage, and when I noticed a new documentary or literature on the subject I chose to enlighten myself and fill in the gaps.
It was indeed a particularly nasty period in our history, and a cause for shame that we let it happen at all. In my naivete`, I felt relief that this could never happen again. I was clearly wrong, as wrong as I was assuming that the atrocity of the holocaust of WWII was unlikely to be repeated.
It's as if we have brief periods of elucidation in this country, then somehow the education system begins to experience a period of 'dumbing down'--and the whole foul mess cycles right back where we started.
" A man is what he thinks about all day long".....
Why couldn't we have let the nut-jobs stay their own country in the 1860s?
Bravo Mr. Hutchinson!
Fear has been the principal tool used by the GOP since it became a refuge for Dixicrats. Perhaps the defining moment for what the GOP has become was when president Johnson's uttered "We shall overcome". Fear as a tool has many handles, and race may be the handiest.
Today the word "socialism" is used to describe just about anything we have to accomplish on the first Tuesday of November. "Big Government" is a code word for your power to regulate. "Property Rights" as the rational for a child's tooth unfilled, along with the Dred Scott Decision.
Too bad we have yet to invent a word for those who insist that patients are "consumers". We can start with "Social Darwinists".
Bumpy
The people who might try to *organise* the assasination of Barack Obama would no doubt have a number of motives, none of which would be race. That's true enough, and not especially remarkable.
What's also the truth is that the person who might *carry out* the actual assasination is entirely likely to be motivated by race.
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