Anti-Obama sentiment rooted in racism?

[krazeeboi]

This would normally go in the politics forum, but I think it's important enough to be in this subforum.

By this point, I think we're all familiar with Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) outburst of "You lie!" during President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9 in response to the president's statement that the proposed healthcare reform legislation would not cover illegal immigrants. Former president Jimmy Carter says that this outburst, along with much of the anti-Obama sentiment, is rooted in racism instead of pure ideological differences. What do you guys think? Is the extreme right-wing exhibiting their discomfort with a Black president, or is it that they just think he's too liberal?

[kitty]

Hey Krazeboi,
I think it is a little bit of both.... I also think it is done to cause doubt of Obama by the American public in "general". I say in general because for decades the U.S. has had a policy to treat everyone citizen or not who comes through the door of an emergency room. So Obama plan wouldn't be changing anything in that sense.

Personally I believe this a good policy. Time is of the essence to save many lives and I would hate to see people die from things like car crashes and street violence because they couldn't show proof of payment or an insurance card in a time when most are knock out cold or unable to speak. Or worse simply because they weren't a citizen...

Truly this is a racist move on Republicans part in the sense that they under Bush supported the biggest scam where illegal immigrants were concerned. Does anybody recall that policy that Bush tried to pass which would have allowed them to stay in the U.S. for an unlimited time, making it legal for them to work, but never really getting the chance to be a U.S. citizen?

Who woulda been paying the bill for their health care if THAT bill had passed?!

The very same group of folks that Rep. Joe Wilson claims his outburst is meant to protect... The American People! Except under the Republican law... at least the rich white folks and big companies would have gotten their use of the people by being able to work them to death legally and just never have to pay them benefits or those people pay into S.S. cause they were NEVER going to be able to be U.S. citizens....

Sadly... I have to say that in that case I was just glad that the American population was smart enough and yes racist enough to say "No" to republicans on that deal.


Kitty

[anointedteacher]

I say it was more racism than differences... Joe Wilson outburse was racist... he voted for hospital to be reimbursed by government for illegal immigrants... like Kitty said it didn't go through. They know this country can not survive without some form of healthcare reform and they know it is a good plan and will save this country in the long run.

[Nikkol]

I saw it as a way of making sure that illegal imigrants weren't included. The outburst (tho I don't think was right) did put many ppl to focus on if the bill would help those who shouldn't be in this conutry to begin with. Many times, I think that if someone does something controversial, it puts more ppl to focus on certain things...

A good example of this is Kanye... when he made that comment, I didn't really know who in the world "Taylor Swift" was...nor would I have ever really heard anything about her. But based on his "not best comment" it put focus on a young lady that possibly many ppl knew nothing about.

Not sure if "race" could play that big of a role because truth be told, this idea of health care bill, etc. wasn't just made up by the president. Rather he's the one who's either praised or ridiculed based upon it. Even if we had a white president, I think that nothing would've been different.

I'm not really a "fan" of the health bill...but we'll all just have to see what happens.

KITTY: So are you saying that if Obama was white, that the outburst wouldn't have occurred and that everyone would be on the healthcare bandwagon, so to speak?

[anointedteacher]

Nikkol, If Pres. Obama was white, there would not have been an outburse from Sen. Wilson, since they all agree there need to be an healthcare reform... 70% of the American ppl want this reform to go through with public option... PPL didn't care much when Pres. Cliton was in office... but now they are desperate. They don't have to be a fan to this health bill... we are looking at the lies and the attitudes.

[krazeeboi]

I really don't want to focus on the merits of the proposed healthcare legislation itself in this thread (we already have one in the Politics forum for that purpose), but whether or not all of this opposition against our president--whether it be Rep. Wilson's outburst, Glenn Beck's outrageous claims, the town halls, the tea parties (including the big one in DC on 9/12--is largely rooted in racism or genuine ideological differences.

[kitty]

Nikkol,
Honestly No... I don't think he would have had an outburst.

But again... I think this idea that the republicans are against the american public paying for illegal aliens health care is a joke! I think people forget that as of now WE ARE STILL PAYING for it NOW! It's a policy law the republicans were never seeking to change that all the years they were in office. The republicans just wanted to make it legal for all of those people hiring them not to be taken into courts and fined for being too cheap to pay citizens a mininum wage! Since let's face it folks... if those people weren't getting a bunch of illegal jobs...they wouldn't be trying to come into the U.S. in the first place.

The funny thing to me is that people get all upset about it when they imagine the illegal aliens as being mexican or latino.... But we got millions of illegal aliens who are russian, asian, and currently one of my ex's is dating a woman who is italian and on an expired student visa... I know of another woman who was here for years that was korean... Why aren't we as American people as upset about them? Isn't that racism as well?

Not mention we are paying for MILLIONS of their kids to be educated FOR FREE!

Now that's something I think should changed immediately!

As a Christian I don't feel it in my heart to deny anybody health care but we do PLENTY for illegal folks that goes way past health care...

For example... I know for a fact that certain states like New York and Florida are even allowing these people to apply and GET WELFARE!


Kitty

[anointedteacher]

Kitty, here in Florida they do get welfare and food stamp while American citizens are denied

[anointedteacher]

I think this is good for this tread

The Impeachment of President Obama

www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-impeachment-of-presid_b_297330.html

by: Bob Cesca, Political Auther, Blogger and New Media Producer

If the Republicans ever manage to retake Congress, they will absolutely try to impeach President Obama. And it'll be based upon a supremely ridiculous charge such as, say, the president refusing to nourish our crops with a sports drink instead of water.

Okay, so maybe the Idiocracy example is over-the-top, but if we follow the current trajectory of far-right attacks to their logical yet insane conclusion, it makes sense in a very eerie way. Have you seen the television commercials solemnly defending our right to poison our kids with "juice drinks and soda?" There you go.

I've been following the Republican descent into the realms of the bizarre for some time now, and it wasn't until the "czars" thing broke that I became convinced that if they retook Congress the Republicans might try to impeach the president. The grounds for both the impeachment and the language used to sell it will likely be fabricated by either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, 100 Republican members of Congress have signed onto Rep. Jack Kingston's cartoonish czar bill. 100 House Republicans out of 177 have attached their names to a bill that was essentially invented as a television bit by Glenn Beck without any regard for the fact that "czar" is a nickname invented by the press, and that every president -- all of them! -- has employed policy and political advisers within their administrations. But it functions as an effective Beck attack because he knows his audience isn't bright enough to distinguish "czars" from "communists." By the way, not to be out-crazied by his House colleagues, Senator Ensign introduced an amendment to the Finance Committee health care reform bill called "Transparency in Czars." This might as well be "Transparency in Hobbits" because it's just that ludicrous.

Nevertheless, there's a growing conventional wisdom in the press alleging that both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of wackaloon attacks and conspiracy theories.

Granted there might be one or two very fringe exceptions but this is otherwise a false equivalency written by the establishment media as part of their self-conscious effort to seem balanced. The distinction is that any "fringe" attacks from the left during the Bush years weren't mainstreamed and legitimized the way the wingnut attacks are today, even though the fringe attacks from the left turned out to be mostly accurate.

On the right, we're hearing about communist takeovers, birth certificates, Oval Office dress codes, teleprompters, death panels, czars and a return to segregated buses. During the previous administration, on the other hand, the left insisted that Iraq didn't have WMD. This turned out to be true. The left insisted that there wasn't a connection between Saddam and 9/11. Also true. The left alleged that George W. Bush was incompetent. The rest of the nation caught up with the left when Katrina slammed into New Orleans, shattering the levees while Bush was eating cake with John McCain.

Some, but not all, of the left thought Bush had prior knowledge of the September 11th attacks. It's a matter of record that he knew an attack might be imminent based upon the famous PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." So that one was partially true.

The left also accused the administration of using illegal wiretaps, torture and other human rights violations. All true. Did Bush have business connections with the Bin Laden family? Yes. Did 100 Democratic members of Congress co-sponsor a bill calling him out for it? Of course not.

And throughout the Bush years -- no matter how accurate the left's "fringe" attacks might've been -- liberals were marginalized and laughed off by the establishment press, ignored by certain leaders in our own party and attacked as unpatriotic by the Republicans. Sean Hannity, Tom DeLay and Bill O'Reilly, who are all busily ripping the current president an array of new holes, actively accused the left of undermining the troops because we were criticizing the commander-in-chief during wartime. Ah yes. They abandoned that one faster than Newt Gingrich abandons sick wives, didn't they?

As for the name-calling, it's to be expected given its long and distinguished history in American politics. (Teddy Roosevelt once called Howard Taft a "puzzle-wit." Fightin' words!) But again, it's a matter of who's doing it and in what context. Yes, some people on the left were guilty of violating Godwin's Law and compared Bush and Cheney to Nazis. But in terms of the ideological spectrum, it's far more likely that a conservative, reactionary, corporate-friendly administration engaged in secret detentions, eavesdropping, torture and endless war might have fascist tendencies. On the other side of the coin, I don't know when Nazis suddenly began to embrace biracial, liberal children of African immigrants, but if I missed this development then bravo Nazis! You're doing better than South Carolina! Of course I'm kidding, South Carolina. Maybe.

Yet on the right, we have legitimate politicians, talkers and writers accusing President Obama of being everything from a fascist to a communist to a foreign usurper -- as if all of those accusations are somehow interchangeable. In other words, on the left there were fringe protesters ballyhooing the "Bush is a Nazi" thing, but on the right, everyone from cable news people to members of Congress are questioning whether the president was even born in the United States.

Fortunately, no Republican members of Congress would stoop so low as to compare President Obama to Hitler -- oh wait. Correction. Congressman Gohmert did exactly that back in July on the Alex Jones radio show no less -- Alex Jones, who makes Glenn Beck and Michael Savage appear centered.

All of this is all set against the backdrop of the infamous Republican Southern Strategy: a well-known tactic from the GOP playbook employing racially-suggestive code language and imagery for the sole purpose of consolidating white support by stoking racial resentment.

This is nothing new, and so it's a little strange and nearsighted of the very serious Sunday morning television people to laugh off racial connotations in right-wing attacks against the president, given the Strategy's prevalence in Republican politics. Pat Buchanan, the official cable news grampy, practically invented it. Later, Lee Athingyer laid out the semantics like so: Republicans "can't say 'black person' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff." In the present day context, Athingyer might've been happy with dog-whistles like "ACORN" or "community organizers" or "third world" or "exotic."

So some of these Republicans need to drop the "who me?" act. Credit where credit is due: at least Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of the Republican Party, is honest about his racial dog-whistles and epithets. Calling for segregated buses in order to protect white kids from violent black kids in "Obama's America" is pretty obvious, no? In light of what happens on his show for three hours a day, it's remarkable that there's such denial coming from the press. (The Obama administration has no choice but to deny it, or else they'll only succeed in feeding it.)

Ultimately, this is how the Republicans will likely proceed with an attempted impeachment of the president should they manage to take back Congress next year. If precedent is any indicator, they'll likely concoct some sort of ridiculous charge torn from a Beck or Limbaugh transcript, while generating public support for it using a Brundlefly hybrid of the Southern Strategy and neo-McCarthyism. And why not? It's exactly what they're doing now.

Vice President Biden said this week that the administration's agenda would be crushed if the Republicans manage to take back Congress. He's right, but I think it'd be worse than that. Much worse. The 1990s will seem quaint by comparison, and it's clear that no matter how ridiculous the charges, the media will devour the spectacular drama while simultaneously excusing their behavior using false equivalencies and overcompensating with right-leaning conventional wisdom.

Of course, I hope I'm very, very wrong on this one.



Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-impeachment-of-presid_b_297330.html

[krazeeboi]

^While I don't think the Republicans will take it to an impeachment--that's a very serious charge that has specific grounds upon which it can take place--I agree with most everything else the writer says. This opposition from the extreme right is much more vocal and widespread than anything coming from the extreme left in the Bush years. Sadly, it's even worse in my region, the South.

[anointedteacher]

Obama Facebook Poll: "Should Obama Be Killed?" Pulled From Site, Secret Service Investigate - UPDATED (PHOTOS)

Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/28/obama-facebook-poll-asks_n_301860.html

A poll was posted on Facebook asking users to vote

"should Obama be killed?"

The responses include:

"yes,"
"maybe,"
"if he cuts my health care," and
"no."

Over 730 people had taken the poll, which was later removed from Facebook. The poll is now being probed by the Secret Service, reports the Associated Press. Read more about the investigation here.

Included on the list of the top 100 most popular polls on Facebook was a poll responding to the "should Obama be killed" query, and which asked users to vote, "Should the creator of 'should Obama be killed' be arrested?"

FBI ans SS are investigating this poll

[anointedteacher]

UPDATE: Facebook Obama Death Poll No Threat, Kid Behind It: Secret Service

Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/facebook-obama-death-poll_n_306637.html

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service has determined that a juvenile was behind the online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, an agency spokesman said Thursday.

No criminal charges will be filed against the juvenile or the juvenile's parents, spokesman Edwin Donovan said. Donovan would not identify the names of the child or parents or say where they are from.

The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents took no chances.

The poll asked respondents "Should Obama be killed?" The choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.

After Secret Service agents met with the child and the child's parents, they determined there was no intent to harm the president.

"Case closed," Donovan said. "I guess you could characterize it as a mistake."

The poll was not created by Facebook, but by an independent person using an add-on application that had been suspended from the site, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said earlier this week.

[krazeeboi]

This kid won't learn a lesson unless he suffers for this stupid mistake. SOMETHING should have happened in this case--fine the parents, make him do community service, something. You don't take stuff like this lightly and he needs to understand that you don't play when it comes to the president's life.

[anointedteacher]

Oct 1, 2009 19:06:42 GMT -5 krazeeboi said:

This kid won't learn a lesson unless he suffers for this stupid mistake. SOMETHING should have happened in this case--fine the parents, make him do community service, something. You don't take stuff like this lightly and he needs to understand that you don't play when it comes to the president's life.

I think he should have been punished too... and the parent should be in question and fined... where he learn to hate? ... Secert Service should investigate those who voted yes...

[Nikkol]

Fortunately (or unfortunately), his statement wasn't a threat on the president and fining him probably could've been seen as taking away his freedom of speech right.
I do understand (somewhat) the issues surrounding why ppl feel the way they do about Obama.... at the same time, ppl said things about all the presidents....it's what ppl do. Part of me feels that because he was considered the first black president, there is SO MUCH publicity around him that some things that may be minor are being made out to be major. Truth be told, what we really need to focus on isn't really the fact that some ppl don't like Obama or even how the polls are or even that he went to Copehagen to put a bid in for the Olympics to be in Chicago.... We have Iran building Nuclear weapons, we have the war going on in Afghanistan (where I believe the request to send 40,000 more troops has not been ok'd as of yet). We still have situations in Iraq. Tho I haven't heard anything regarding Korea, I HIGHLY doubt that Korea isn't doing anything.....

Another part of me wonders if all this stuff going on regarding racism and the president is some type of scheme being put together....purposely....