Seemingly unimpressed by CIC Barack Obama’s recent ‘surprise’ visit to their country, tens of thousands of Iraqis today demonstrated against continued US military presence in their country in Baghdad’s Firdous Square, where the statue of then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was pulled down on April 9, 2003. Iraqi protesters call for US exit
Did Obama’s election mark a milestone against racism in America? In fact it’s elevated a new flavor of bigotry that I can really get behind.
I glared into a lot of faces arriving for Sarah Palin’s last engagement in Colorado Springs. My disdain was unbridled, it’s true, as I expressed my personal shame that they were the folk giving our town its wretched national reputation. Sarah Palin needed an audience of dumb-asses, so they sent her to dumb-ass central, Jesus Springs.
But looking across those faces confirmed an observation that has been disturbing me for some time. There’s a familiar similarity in their facial features. My “White American” title not-withstanding, this telltale feature transcends race, age, gender, and beauty. The trait is more than the unblinking glare of the born-again. I might have dismissed it to a haircut, or malnutrition, or fetal-alcohol syndrome, but clearly it’s more pervasive. And it certainly grates against the American ethic that we are all created equal.
It may be nothing new, that intelligence, or significant lack of it, is a perceptibly physical trait. But the occasion of an Obama sea change has let loose my sense that I’ve license to make fun of it. I feel confident to report to you that, compared to average, the Sarah Palin supporters stood out like, well, stupid people.
They didn’t need campaign buttons, it was written on their faces.
Now I see it in photographs of the campaign rallies. Next to the Chicago crowd, the Tuesday Arizona audience looked like pellagra victims.
It’s a purely visual cue. Hearing their voices on video only confirms the book covers adroitly judged. This game might be well and good in the privacy of my own TV viewing, but what of my new impulse to have at these irritating sods? Will there be social therapy for this bigotry? What of my angry resentment that for so long these bastards held a poster child aloft as the American president, screwing all of us with his malevolent, immoral idiocy?
COLORADO COLLEGE- Energized students held a successful march on Monday from the CC campus to a downtown early voting location. Though billed as a non-partisan EARLY VOTING MARCH, the event was purely a pro-Obama rally, and as such, was rigidly controlled.
For example, unannounced speakers included pro-war US Senator Ken Salazar and other local Dems. The marchers were dispatched ahead of schedule, to thwart other participants and sent along Cascade Avenue instead of the highly more visible Tejon Avenue a block away.
It was great to see college students activated and excited, but really they were just wound up and herded like cattle to the polls. As if the local Dems didn’t trust the students to listen their speeches and remember to go vote. The organizers provided further encouragement by bringing a grill and promising a cookout for after the students emerged. Bluegrass accompaniment too. After all, the students had missed lunch to attend the rally. I’ve heard it explained once before by student organizers. If you want participation, serve food.
The upside I suppose was that the students didi take to the street. They felt the excitement of ringing chants. Of projecting a political purpose in public.
Once when a heckler pulled alongside, to boo and display a NOBAMA sticker, the students answered back with boos, until curtailed by their handlers. The same handlers collected the various Obama signs when the group neared the polling place. Will these activist types be lending their skills when things don’t go as planned on November 4th? Will they be rallying the student to take action when elections don’t offer remedy?
A topical greeting card to leave where you see McCain/Palin lawn signs:
Finally a chance to do more than throw watermelon rinds at their lawns signs on the drive to school. Tonight’s tentatively calamitous main event offers a chance to elevate neighborly political discourse. Before tonight’s Sarah Palin debate appearance, hand deliver a greeting card to neighbors on your block who have McCAIN or NOBAMA signs on their property. Whether they’re selfish, bigoted, uninformed, or just idiots, make them feel the transparency of their Republican affiliation.
A lot of people are still irrepressibly buzzed about electing Barack Obama to the presidency. For many months now the prospect has buoyed such hope, that Obama’s victory over John McCain has seemed almost foregone. I hate to suggest we’re starting to catch a whiff of an ill wind change.
School children still jump up and down at the mention of Obama, who they know is clearly better than smells-like-farts McCain. But while you might marvel that schoolteachers are passing along this election enthusiasm, they’re also making sure not to get the children’s hopes too high. “America, the children explain soberly, may still have too much racism.”
Or too many nay-sayers. Or discontents who’ll split the vote.
Anyone who thinks that public protest of Obama, or criticism of Obama, or too spirited derision of Sarah Palin, will sink Obama’s bid for the presidency, is ignoring who the real party pooper is already showing itself to be. It’s their party and the corporate shills are going to cry when they get their cue.
The media had to get excited about Obama when their focus groups confirmed he’d caught the public’s interest. In the meantime of course they gave McCain a free ride, with the exception of telling old man jokes at his expense. But now that they’ve played along with the DNC, and given equal time and a half for the RNC, the mouthpieces have liberated themselves from nonpartisanship.
Did you watch any of the RNC? Are the media describing it with superlatives where you’d have used expletives? From now until November, the pundits are going to cover John McCain on the campaign trail according to scripted GOP talking points. And they’ll report the travails of Barack Obama, according to the GOP talking points too.
You’d almost be convinced that there is a difference between the two corporate parties, considering the ferocity the media displays in protecting its apparently conservative interests. On the other hand, the more uphill the challenge looks for Obama, the more ad revenue MoveOn members will pump into the effort. All that campaign spending pours into one place, the national media.
Wake up and smell the shit coming from your television.