Should've Asked Them About a Black President

Old LIFE magazines are now available, in full, on Google Books. It's a great treasury of American life. In my first random sample of a 1970 issue, I found this survey of White America.

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Note how the last question is phrased. It's a not-so-subtle conjuring of the old "big Negro men coming to take away the white women" vision.

Obama The Regular Guy

Coates nails it:

But Barack Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study--and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness--and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date--and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them. Dig the audio of his response to Kanye West--the way he says, "He's a jackass." He sounds like one of my brothers. And that's the point, because that's what he is. Barack Obama refuses to be their nigger. And it's driving them crazy.

Regarding his "jackass" comment, (which everyone agrees with) the right wing accusation, Hannity leading the charge for the last two days, is that it was not "presidential."

You know what? It's time to ignore these fucktards. There simply isn't anything the man can do that will ever be worthy of any recognition in their eyes. He could turn around tomorrow and adopt every policy they want, and they'd accuse him of having no moral center and appealing to polls.

You can blast Jimmy Carter all day long for admitting that there is racism in this country (SHOCKER!), but the man is right. "Crazy old coot," they call Carter today. (Whatever happened to respecting your elders?) But Carter (a Christian) was never welcome in their Christian circles anyway, because he also would never play their game. (Plus he dared to look at the other side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Traitorous failure peanut farming bastard.)

I Might Have To Take Up Stop-Motion Animation

Using these props as the main characters. Endless fun, I'm sure.

Is Your Powder Dry, Patriot?

The internet is abuzz today with news of Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst of "You lie!" shouted at the President last night.

Who couldn't have seen this coming? After a summer of armed citizens showing up to town hall meetings about healthcare, topped by a nationwide uproar over the President urging children to stay in school, some lowly Congressman lost his cool and will now be both a villain and a hero.

I heard a lady call into Sean Hannity the other day, barely conversant in the English language, yelling about how it was "unconstituional" for the President to speak to the school kids and "take over our schools." As is his wont, Hannity allowed her to rail on in ignorance, so long as it makes his opposition look bad. Hannity will only stop someone if they cross a line that will get him in trouble, such as when his callers intimate that it might not be a bad thing if Obama went the way of Kennedy and Lincoln. "Unconstitutional" for the President to speak to school children? I must've missed that in US Government class.

Glenn Beck, the raging madman masquerading as a revolutionary, has created a group he calls "U.S. Constitution Watchdogs," as if his loyal army of listeners understood the ragged document they claim has been shredded by Obama. If they don't like something, it's automatically "unconstitutional." Mr. Beck also offers a cute dashboard statue on his website, wryly likening Obama to Jesus. Beck knows exactly how this works. Create alarm, create hate, create a "movement" and you can cash in like a huckster evangelist selling healing oil. The statue works double duty, not only making the buyers laugh at the President, but reinforcing their deep-seated fear that Obama is perhaps the Antichrist. Nevermind that this same "Left Behind" crowd, already swindled by Tim LaHaye's stupid books, have long held the belief that the Antichrist would be from Europe and most likely a Jew. But now an "African Muslim" fits the bill? I can't figure it out. But Glenn already has.

Joe Wilson's outburst will actually be a big boost for the right wing, convinced beyond any need to even argue the issue further, that Obama is Hell-bent (and likely sent by Satan) to destroy our country. Joe Wilson may lose his seat in '10, but that will only make him twice the star he is today, a martyr, a hero, the man with the courage and conviction to "stand up" and "speak truth to power." Expect "You Lie" to appear as ubiquitously as "Don't Tread on Me" signs and flags. It will be a rallying cry.

As things get worse and everyone's armed and dangerous, and admitting to someone how you voted is an invitation to be punched in the face, we can thank the amateur scholars like Beck and Hannity, who took us back to the rabble rousing days of early America, when common citizens were fed lies to whip them into a mob. Not that those two clowns could do this on their own or could muster half an original thought between them. Hannity and Beck get their marching orders from Gingrich and Rove, which is easy to detect if you listen carefully.

Truth is false. Logic lost. All that matters is propaganda.