[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]I just saw another one of those videos. You know, the type that Fox “News” loves to show of the clueless teabagger with tears in her eyes, complaining that she wants her country back.
They're designed to tug at our heartstrings. They have the opposite effect on me.
I see a social bigot who thinks the world is about to end because Barack Obama is the President instead of the White House butler.
The irony of the clip is that the Black man she's complaining about is actually the one who's trying to give her a country that she can call her own.
Meanwhile, the Republican she is crying to secretly looks upon her, and her kind, as ignorant trailer trash, only good for contributing to their wealth and power, pumping out babies that they can grind up in their war machine, and making a fool of herself in their staged videos.
The man can barely disguise his disgust as he's looking at her.
I find myself making the very same point article after article.
Of Course They Know the Truth
What else can I do when such a large part of the population has been so thoroughly brainwashed they can't see what's right before their eyes?
Let me amend that. They can see it. But they refuse to recognize a reality they don't want to accept.
Not all, but many of these people know that it's driving them crazy that a Black man is in the White House. Since it no longer is socially acceptable for them to be blatantly racist, they have to disguise their racist attitudes by couching them in other issues with a wink.
“It's not that I hate that Black man in the White House,” they say, “it's just that I hate everything he represents, even if what he represents directly benefits my family.” These people are indulging in a classic example of cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
One might argue that many people were also against health-care reform under President Clinton, and he was white. That is true. But they hated Bill Clinton, liberalism and the Democratic Party almost as much as they hate Obama because all three advocated the slippery slope that led to Obama.
The GOP is very good at marketing. , They mounted a brilliant campaign to demonize the word “liberal” in the political lexicon. During the Sixties, they mounted a campaign against liberalism by equating it with the push for civil rights, being “soft on crime,” and promoting welfare, politispeech for coddling Black people.
It’s Just Code Talk
By repeatedly combining these concepts, the word liberal became associated, at least in the uneducated mind, with “those who coddle Black people, who are criminal, lazy and want to take your money while they sit on welfare and take drugs.”
Through the use of that tactic, the GOP successfully turned liberal into what is essentially a racial slur.
No wonder the teabaggers are up in arms. As far as they are concerned, the country is being run by a criminal (who's probably taking drugs in the White House), who wants to take their money so he can set up his lazy people on welfare and have babies at their expense.
Many of these teabaggers have been programmed all of their lives to believe that propaganda.
The mindset is as much a part of them as their religion. The Republican Party is reinforcing the belief with every sound bite. With every teabag rally, the GOP is purposely trying to incite insurrection.
Am I overstating my case? Is it possible that the GOP is legitimately concerned about the plight of the American people? I don't think so.
Republicans have become so blatant in their attempt to manipulate the people that they've become predictable. I did an experiment. Right after I heard about the Fort Hood shooting, I rushed to Twitter to record my prediction that GOP supporters were going to find a way to twist the facts to involve President Obama as part of their demonization campaign:
Twitter:
Let's see how long it takes for the Republicans to try to twist the Fort Hood shootings into a political attack on Obama. 12:39 p.m., Nov. 5, from web.
The next day's entry:
Yesterday I said let's see how long before wingnuts blame [the Fort Hood] shooting on Obama. Well… http://bit.ly/uLhxS, 6:31 p.m. Nov. 6, from web.
Just as I predicted, an article was published on WorldNet Daily, a publication founded by arch- conservative, Joseph Farah, claiming that the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was an advisor on President Obama's transition team. But of course, it was a lie.
And Farah's not just some blogger who didn't get his facts straight. He's a lifelong “journalist” and long time conservative operative. Prior to founding WorldNet Daily, Farah was executive editor of the now defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Later, he became editor of the Sacramento Union, where he persuaded Rush Limbaugh to write a daily front page column. He also collaborated with Limbaugh on the book “See, I Told You So,” in 1994.
Farah is a prominent birther. He is quoted as saying, regarding the birthers’ claim, “It'll plague Obama throughout his Presidency. It'll be a nagging issue and a sore on his administration, much like Monica Lewinsky was on Bill Clinton's Presidency,” and, “It's not going to go away. It will drive a wedge in an already divided public.”
There you have, in the words of a prominent conservative operative. The Republicans' primary agenda is not to pull the people of this country together in order to weather two wars, the loss of homes and jobs, and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Rather, to “drive a wedge in an already divided public.”
What a fine group of patriots we have leading the Republican Party.
Mr. Wattree is a writer, musician and poet who may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net
You may learn more about Mr. Wattree at wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think and act like me. It's just that God does.
