One would have to look far and wide to uncover any rhetoric that apocalyptic said about previous presidents. Even Bill Clinton, whom the right dearly loathed, never was characterized as a would-be dictator, whose re-election would potentially spell the end of America, or whose presidency was seen as literally endangering the republic. Indeed, even when Clinton proposed health care reform that was about as moderate and lukewarm as Obama’s, those who opposed the plan never accused Bill of advocating death panels, or using health care to exact racial revenge on whites, or looking to take money from old ( people ) and spend it on health care for undocumented immigrants.

Interestingly, the extent to which Obama has been effectively othered thanks to racial resentment, actually causes ( people )to oppose his health care reform plan, even while they profess support for the very same plan so long as they’re told it was Bill Clinton’s.



So to suggest that there is something fundamentally un-American about Barack Obama’s views — that, for instance, his belief that the rich don’t build their fortunes alone, or his support for government intervention in various arenas such as health care or housing, or his support for slight tax increases for upper-income individuals place him beyond the pale of the American political tradition — is so transparently nonsensical as to leave very little doubt that it is his visage and not his vision that provokes much of the hostility.

After all, Abraham Lincoln agreed that labor created the wealth of business owners, and that labor was indeed prior to and superior to capital.

It was Dwight Eisenhower who presided over some of the biggest government projects in history like the Interstate Highway program, the expansion of the FHA and VA loan programs for housing, and under whose leadership tax rates on the wealthiest Americans reached a whopping 91 percent: well above double that which would exist even if all the Bush-era tax cuts expired, and President Obama got his every wish on tax policy.

Ronald Reagan signed one of the biggest tax increases in history so as to protect the solvency of Social Security, and ran up massive deficits by substantially expanding military spending,

and it was George W. Bush who spent money like a drunken sailor on a three-day pass for the projects he believed in (principally unfunded wars and a prescription drug benefit), all without incurring the kind of “otherization” to which Barack Obama has been subjected.

those are rarely if ever disagreements in which these persons are placed outside the orbit of mainstream Americanism itself.


And to consistently contrast the president with the founders, as the Tea Party is so quick to do, is hard to countenance other than as an implicitly racial message about how the nation has changed, and not for the better.

After all, other presidents have created government programs every bit as large or larger than anything implemented by the current administration; they have created far higher taxes, and added much more to the deficit. Yet it is this president, whose beliefs and actions we are to see as uniquely breaking with the nation as the founders envisioned it.

And more to the point, we are to revere without comment that bygone nation, making no note apparently of the founders’ racism, sexism, or classist elitism. Indeed, to critique the founders for their prodigious shortcomings in this regard is seen as an unjust and evil calumny. The nostalgic reverence for people who openly held to a belief in white supremacy, who believed in restricting the franchise to white male property owners (as do at least some among the contemporary right wing), and who in all regards intended to establish a white republic, with liberty and justice solely for a few, is an inherently racial message.



Hard though it may be to remember, there was once a time when movement conservatives, precisely because of the patrician erudition to which they aspired, tended to speak in measured tones, and sought to engage on the battlefield of ideas with a rhetoric that — however filled with nonsense it may have been — nonetheless imagined itself as the very embodiment of enlightened reason.

Would that conservatives today were even half as introspective about the more extreme of their own ventilations. When one can be wistful for the likes of a Buckley, or even a Goldwater or a Reagan for goodness’ sakes — who for all their mendacity and support for policies the effects of which were racist and classist to the core nonetheless would have likely avoided calling the objects of their political derision “vermin,” who should be “hung high” or “human parasitic garbage,” or that they should be beaten to death with shovels — one knows, or should, that respectable conservatism is dead.

It is rotting in a grave, out of which hole has crept the most nefarious and zombified substitute, reeking of an acrid and putrescent characterological rot, upon which no calm and dispassionate bit of reason may find even a temporary home.

Of course, even as the right has changed (and for the worse), in quite another way, perhaps there’s really nothing new to see here. Black and brown peoples have always had to prove, even to the more restrained among the conservative cognitariat, that they were really human beings and deserved to be treated as such.

And it is this reality, about which peoples of color are so well aware and white Americans so splendidly naive, which makes this process — of having to prove, again and again that the world really is round and that people of color really are experiencing their lives and are more capable of interpreting the meaning of those lives than we are — so maddening. Being forced in every new generation to demonstrate, whether you’re Barack Obama or anyone else, that you really belong here — indeed that for most, your ancestors were here before most white folks’ ancestors were, and in that sense you are, if anything, more entitled to be here than they — is exhausting.

Having to prove that you are not, in the main, looking to go all Nat Turner on our *****, to burn all of our proverbial barns, to rape “our women,” to take “our jobs” or “our children’s college slots,” but that instead you would like simply that for which you have worked, and toiled — that which you have Goddamn earned — is like having to prove that one is not an alien from Venus, or a child molester, or a wife-beater, or a Satan worshipper. In short it is something that can never be proved to the satisfaction of those whose minds have become so besotted with fear and insecurity that the lie is, to them, more comfort than the truth, for it allows their tidy worldview, however stressful, to be maintained; for their sense of righteousness and superiority, amid substantial evidence of their own utter and stifling mediocrity, to be kept whole.

Their mentality is transparently obvious, and sounds roughly like this within the echo chambers of their own ideologically diseased brains:



excerpted from http://www.timwise.org/2012/08/if-it-walks-like-a-duck-and-talks-like-a-duck-racism-bigotry-and-the-death-of-respectable-conservatism/

Tim Wise 26 up, 18 down

House cracka, Uncle Tom of the white race, or simply Uncle Tim, is your typical self loathing liberal with a body cavity filled with guilt instead of gut who wants all white people to integrate into the mainstream society in order to eliminate racism that persists in this world.

What you don't know about Tim Wise is that this left wing scum is just like any other Hollywood filth who lives in a segregated neighborhood with a few token black friends with names like "John Thompson" he knew that he believe to be a good representation of all the jungle hood-rats from Harlem and Compton.

Tim Wise, I hope that you see yourself as a lunatic and a crackhead if you ever stumble across this.
Tim Wise's motto is "Diversity, I can afford it, but can you?"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tim%20wise

touche in regards to those like Herman Cain and 'mychal' massie,,,

i guess we really DO all have opinions, even about those who get rich stating theirs,,,

Now you're an expert on Mychal Massie?...A few hours ago, you didn't even know his gender....

as much an expert as someone with an opinion about Tim Wise

its amazing how much of an idea you can get about someone by reading THEIR OWN WORDS across the internet

I must say I don't share that opinion...too one dimensional....

Liberal and Conservative. Democrats or Republican. Lets keep arguing with each other. Both have done nothing to fix the real problems. The only thing I will find exciting is the few amount of people who will vote in 2012. Not because of laziness or carelessness, but because they realize that politicians do not have the best interest for them. Once they get voted in they don't give a **** about you.

Don't forget Independents Andrew....

Yes them to.

TY

When I was growing up I was taught to show respect for the president. (Even if the president was a member of the "other party.")...Of course we didn't always agree with a president's policies or "political leanings." But we didn't "go whacko" and "trash" the president in mean and childish ways...I was taught that my words and my behavior serve as reflection of my character...All of the "mud-slinging" that goes on today makes me feel sick to my stomach at times. I feel ashamed. What happened to our country? When did respect fly out the window?...I'm not against a little humor or satire once in awhile. (In good taste.) But some of the "stuff" that goes on today and some of what is "said" is downright mean and cruel and "tacky" and childish. (In my estimation anyway.) And I don't want to be part of any of it...I don't want to "win" at all "costs." I don't want to cheapen myself or tell lies or become a "scuze-ball" in order to "win."...I will accept whichever candidate wins the coming election. And treat him with respect even if I don't agree with all of his policies.

Respect the office. Not necessarily the person.
If the person is a lying, kenyan, jackass trying to ruin our country, they deserve not one iota of respect. Adding, IMO, Hussein and his old lady have nothing but contempt for the US and what we stood for.

Wow, you really have guzzled the birther kool-aid.

Egads! Someone didn't pay attention when George W. Bush was in the Oval Office. I can't count the number of times when people called him a dictator. His presidency was repeatedly called a regime. Bush was even compared to Hitler.

Here is an excerpt from a CBS News report:

I didn't join in or get involved with the "psycho attacks" against Bush.

Try reading all of the false claims made about President Bush that Snopes debunked. Here recently, someone was trying to link him to Hitler.

I voted for Obama in 2008. And I've felt free to express my disappointment in him at times. (Even today.) But I don't believe a lot of the propoganda and "whacky stuff" that's put out about him...Just like I don't believe everything that's said about Romney or other politicians right off the bat either...I've run into some people in my area who say "awful stuff" about Romney and the Mormon church. And some of what I hear sounds pretty "whacky" to me.. A lot of people tend to rely on "hear-say information" and spread it around to everyone they run into...Or they listen to radio talk shows or TV stations that tend to be "biased" and favor one party and "one side" only.

that would be nice if candidates could actually win by explaining the details of their plans

but its a fairy tale to believe the average american viewer has the attention span or education to follow without becoming much more disinterested than they are now,,,