Arguments in favor of California’s Proposition 8 are a fascinating study in hate apologetics. Just as with the “life begins at conception” anti-choice movement or the pro-creationism lobby, from the start there is an intense pressure to hide the religious foundations beneath the nearest available logic-like substitute. It comes down to an often hilarious yet very sobering look into the kind of people who think discrimination belongs in the California state constitution.
The favored defenses of institutionalized bigotry are:
An Obama aide tells ABC News that Secret Service headquarters “would be notified of anything that mentioned” Obama. But adds that “it never rose to any sort of serious level,” which explains why Obama’s personal detail was not notified.
Rather than explaining why the candidate’s detail was not notified, it raises questions about how seriously the government is pursuing these plots. Despite the FBI’s push to charge the Colorado Three, Troy Eid (a Rove Apppointee) dismissed the charges. This makes me wonder:
Is this administration — and particularly this Justice Department, as deeply compromised as it has become by the Bush White House’s crass politicization — capable of ensuring that true threats against Democratic figures like Obama are taken seriously and dealt with appropriately?
These men were found with firearms, and further investigation may lead to more charges. The Attorney General for Tennessee is Democrat Robert E. Cooper Jr, appointed in 2006. His office can be contacted here by phone. It can’t hurt to encourage his office to take this threat with appropriate gravitas.
The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.
In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.
No more details are available currently. Lot’s of questions remain:
Barring another stolen election (ironic given the white noise being made about acorn), Barack Obama is heading towards a decisive victory in November. The stakes are as high as the passion and personal investment being poured into both sides of this campaign.
While there has been much focus on both candidate’s pledges to fight foreign terrorism, right-wing domestic terrorism has remained off the campaign radar. This is deeply problematic given the anticipated likelihood of an increase in anti-liberal, anti-gay, anti-women and anti-minority violence come November 5th.
The source of that violence comes from the level of legitimacy we afford the ignorant and hateful dehuminization of target groups. The Republican party has straight up embraced the crazier elements in their ranks for fear of losing their last vital reserves of faithful supporters. Faithful being an apt word to describe the sheer lack of knowledge or reason informing their tenous grasp of reality.
I think its safe to say this is not a group of voters the Obama campaign will win over. It is however a group of people who should not be left to their insane notion that their ideas are even valid. Leaving these views alone to fester leads to closed door decisions like the one to install a nativist on the Prince William County, Virginia Board of County Supervisors (Hatewatch).
The outpouring of hate is not hard to understand given the games the McCain campaign is playing (The Guardian):
The Republicans have played on those fears and prejudices extremely well over the past week or so, but with the escalating hatred and disturbing language that has been espoused by some of their supporters at recent Republican rallies it seems that even McCain – forced this weekend to backtrack and start telling people what a “decent, family man” Obama is – now realizes that they may have gone a step too far.
At the most recent rallies, Republican supporters have cried out “kill him!”, “bomb Obama!” and “terrorist” in reference to Obama. Shouts of “treason” and other racial epithets have also been hurled.
I don’t think there is any solid indication McCain’s campaign realizes they’ve gone to far. I think they’ve simply locked up a section of the vote at the cost of future political stability, a price they are all too willing to pay. So much so their slogan “Country First” takes on a whole new meaning.
What we need to do is smash the lies and reason-like-substitutes being pushed around as firmly as we can. This level of willful ignorance and anger will only be exacerbated by a Democratic win.
