Paq

dc, that sounds like something obama said after the reverend wright stuff started appearing. someething about how we have to talk about the issue, accept it as real, then move on....


that's pretty much what i see while others are saying "No way, no how, it doesn't exist, lalalalaallalalallalalalla" and we're making it up, ya know. i don't get it

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dc_dux

paq....one encouraging sign is that the racial (and religious) fear and smear tactics of the McCain campaign arent working as they may have in the not so distant past...with swing voters, older voters, blue collar voters.....
-----Added 24/10/2008 at 10 : 01 : 43-----
BTW,this incident goes beyond a mentally unstable young women....its been reported that the Communications Director of the Penn Republican Party is the one who told the local media that the "B" stood for Barack.

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SabrinaFair

Everyone above me has said it more articulately than I could have, but yes, racism in America is very real. Mostly it's covert, which I think makes it easier to ignore, but that doesn't make it any less real. It does, however, seem to make people less likely to deal with it.

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matthew330

Despite Obama's ridiculous monetary advantage, the nonstop rhetoric similar to and demonstrated by the last few posts via mainstream media and Acorn preying on the vulnerable - this remains a relatively close race, so much so that the left is already talking about widespread voter fraud "in the event" that McCain wins. I got news, common sense at some level trumps all of this shit.

Is it easier to believe that I think racism doesn't exist because I question your use of it, or that you simply use it. Guyy can't speak a sentence without accusing someone of it, Paq thinks he hears it from someone who's conveniently covered in McCain stickers and runs wild. Its tiring, its transparent, and your reactions will be comical if McCain wins, for a day anyway.

Willravel

Racism exists. People act racist and say racist things. Many racist people are racist against black people. Barack Obama is half black.

How is this complicated?

matthew330

Liberals use and promote racism because it works for them. How is that complicated?

Willravel

How do you end racism without bringing it into the light? And why is ending racism something that's only associated with a liberal ideology? Does that mean that conservatives are passive, or worse still active, in racism as a part of their ideology?

dc_dux

Mathew...there is a pervasive tone of racism and religious bigotry in and around the McCain campaign that is tolerated as long as McCain can say, after the fact, that he doesnt support it.

This incident is only the latest example....not the actions of the woman in question, but the fact that it was McCain's communications director in PA who reported to the media that it was "a politically motivated attack by a 6'4" black Obama supporter" without knowing the facts.

Other examples,

a mailer from a McCain state campaign staff or republican party official in one state that included an "Obama" dollar with his picture along with fried chicken, watermelon and food stamps.



campaign robo-calls and mailers in other states that question Obama's religion and say that muslims are evil

the list is endless.

But you only see what you want to see.

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matthew330

and would an example of "bringing it to light" congressman Murtha accusming the eastern half of pennsylvania of being racist, no wait....rednecks........no wait ...... old people who want change but not change enough to vote for a black person.

I mean, Murtha ain't a "mailer" for Obama...........seriously where the fuck did you hear that (you must have been looking for it). And do you REALLY fucking believe McCain had anything to do with that, or would you just like to make other people think he did? and we're back to my original point that was basically ignored in the first place.

Willravel

Murtha being racist doesn't negate conservative racism, and you're changing the subject. Please answer my questions.

guyy

Unlike others here, i'm not losing any sleep over the possibility of a McCain victory. None. Zilch.

One reason it isn't close is because McCain has tried to use essentially racist identity politics when people want him to talk about economic problems. There are racists voting for Obama! They're saying that racism is a luxury they can't afford, but McCain's crew isn't listening. They're the pros, they know what they're doing, they know how to win. Why should they listen?

dc_dux

No..I dont believe McCain personally condones those mailers nor do I believe that Obama condones Murtha's remarks.

The difference is how frequently racial and religious slurs have been played by McCain campaign staff or Republican party officials at various levels...always with a half-hearted apology after the deed has been done.

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Charlatan

I can see how you might come to that conclusion. Are you suggesting the opposite is true for Conservatives?

Interestingly the woman in this story, a conservative, seems to be using racism (or the fear of Blacks) to get people to not vote for Obama (rather than vote for McCain).

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mrklixx

matthew:

Are you a genius?

Do you think Paq is a liar?

Do you believe that racism exists in America?

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Willravel

Too many responses here. We should only have a few people respond.

Bowing out for the moment.

roachboy

matthew--the structure of your argument was some kind of conspiracy. all i did was make it explicit. the game you're running is not one that interests me, so i have no motivation to make things up. sorry if you don't like the outputs.

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Paq

i think i'm a bit offended that i relay what happened at the place where i work a few hours a week and i'm accused of being a liar..kinda like a girl who carves a B into her face.

it's kinda funny, though, bc i was standing there, i have witnesses, and we all heard the same thing....

the only disbelief or "I thought i heard' was based on the 'wtf did she say" factor, not the fact she said it, but the fact she said it out loud in public.

but believe what you want. It's convenient she said "I heard this story and put more buttons on my bag" as a show of support for her cause? that was actually the only thing about her i understood. I don't get what you're trying to say, or i'm understanding you're saying i'm a liar or she's a plant... it's a bit offensive either way

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matthew330

...and I have nothing further to say. My "game" is over. I made my point, I liked (expected) the outputs just fine. Again it was a fairly simple point, that NONE of you could comprehend, so ten people ask me questions as if they never heard me in the first place.

Not gonna say the same thing over and over and over.

"Are you a genius?"

Might not be a genius, but i'm not insane either. Don't worry about me roach. I'll be aight.

dc_dux

mathew....never let the facts get in the way of a good rant!

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matthew330

it's a bit offensive that you're using this to paint me as a racist. you heard that, and came her all excited that it was another "example" of how conservatives are racist. If that wasn't your intent, why did you mention it.

and now I'm repeating myself. I'm done, and I don't care that your offended Paq. As much as I hate this expression - it is what it is.

Paq

i'm not calling you a racist, i'm saying it's kinda like sticking your head in a hole and saying LALALALLALALALALALLALALA anytime something racist comes up. big difference.

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matthew330

did you get it all out dc? you feel better?

dc_dux

mathew....all i'm suggesting is to try bringing facts into discussions.

try it once, you might like it!

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roachboy

forget it.

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matthew330

I already have.

Paq

roach, dc, thanks greatly for the inputs in here.

btw, scott mclellan just endorsed obama.

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matthew330

hahaha, what the hell was that? Will was involved too. That was a diss to Will. You gonna take that Will?

dc_dux

Ending it on a lighter tone.

All the frightening rumors about Obama that you never knew existed:

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Paq

sorry, thanks will

dcdux, that last vid was awwwesome

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mrklixx

3 simple yes or no questions.

I guess that was too much to ask.

I apologize for being a superfluous respondent.

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Paq

aw man, i liked those three questions, too

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matthew330

no, no, yes.

There ya go. Have fun with that.

mrklixx

See, now that wasn't so hard now was it? Simple. Direct. To the point.

If you will indulge me a few follow up questions:

Do you think it is possible that there are McCain supporters that are racist?

Do you think that some people immediately believed the OP attack story was true?

Do you think that it is possible that some people still use the word "nigger" when they are angry or upset about a black person?

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Halx

As Bill Maher said.. if you can't laugh at a black joke, you're the racist one.

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Willravel

Heh, np. Matthew jumping to my defense, that was an interesting turn of events.

I've found elsewhere that the dog-pile approach really only works when the bottom dog has the energy to answer each question, to support the full weight of the pile. I am one of few liberals on several conservative forums, and I'm regularly piled on by posts from dozens of people faster than I can respond. I can set aside time to respond because I'm an insane forum addict, but most people can't which is why I suggested streamlining this. Maybe have one or two people from the more progressive side pose questions of Matthew, so that he can respond.

roachboy

ok so next day, without a couple beers under my belt...what i found strange last night, and find even more strange today, is the idea that the racism that's surfaced in some clips, and so which frames the relations of *some* conservative voters to mc-cain, is only visible because "liberals" want to use it for their own advantage.

now there are two ways that this could be interpreted. one was the conspiracy route that i went through last night, which is absurd. the other is that the selection of clips is not neutral---this is a different issue, and there's no doubt that this is the case--the problem here is that the way matthew framed his position last night tended toward the former, but that latter seems to me a stronger argument.

there is the question of what kind of imagery is "newsworthy"---it is continually the case that for every clip involving a racist outburst from somebody there's an unknown number of other possible clips that do not include such outbursts. and if you think about the total number of possible clips, the set that includes racist outbursts is probably quite-to-vanishingly small in comparison with the other (hpothetical) set of clips of the same rallies which do not include them. that the clips which would circulate would come from the smaller set is not surprising if the mediation is a news organization, because from that viewpoint, clips that show people walking into or out of a palin rally, say, in the context of which nothing particular happens apart from walking into or out of a rally is probably not going to be understood as "newsworthy"---but this would obtain regardless of the political biais that you might assign to any given news outlet--fox news is no more likely to air clips in which nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens than is any other. but in selection of anomaly as information has consequences, and one of them is that the Image (in the metaphorical sense, the Impression) that is generated is not that *some* palin supporters are also racist, but rather that to be a palin supporter is to probably also be a racist. this doesn't follow. but i think everyone knows this--on the other hand, if television imagery really is a basic battleground across which various conceptions of the world are built, then these clips are a Problem for conservatives. but the Problem follows from the fact that anomaly=information in a "news" context and that racist statements are anomaly, so are information in a "news" context.

there's no need for any paranoid claim about "liberal plants" (i still want to make jokes about my geraniums here)....

i can see how conservatives who are not racist would be offended by the impression that's generated by these clips---but the response seems to me problematic when the issue is dodged--and the issue is that, like it or not, there *are* people who support mc-cain and palin because they're racist. but elementary logic tells you that it does not follow that therefore all do.

beyond that, i think the previous posts raise other framing questions---that you have a conservative identity politics that pitches toward xenophobia, which in turn rationalizes racism by legitimating it (when it seems functional for political reasons--ask almost any arab-american about how much fun it was for them right after 9/11/2001 to be arab-american...)---that the mc-cain campaign has pitched itself way to the right in order to shore up the "base" and so finds itself locked into using this kind of language, even as they try to distance themselves from the bush administration, which legitimated it's "war on terror" using the same kind of language---these are tactical problems.

all this in a thread about the action of a crazy=seeming person who apparently thought this discursive situation was an interesting space for theater....

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Willravel

Anyone see THIS attack?
Yes To Democracy: In all the faux (and Fox) outrage......

Yes, you read that right. A McCain supporter beat an Obama volunteer, and he admitted it.

I'm waiting, Druge.

mrklixx

Those stupid crackers are attacking honest, hardworking people who happen to be Obama supporters, and I am voting just to show them who's boss.

(Paid for by the conservative plants of America)

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Glory's Sun

*looks up*

wow.. that's a pretty tall horse you have there... must be difficult breathing in the clouds like that.


Seriously. wtf are you smoking?? Conservatives here have been throwing Nigger and Arab and Terrorist around more and more since the Primaries began. What was once more a private discussion on the racial views is now public and in the open. So please stop thinking that it's just some liberal conspiracy that's bringing up racism. I can only speak from what I see and hear around here.. and trust me, it's not the liberals throwing around the racist remarks. It's the so called christian conservatives and their followers.

Paq

gucci, i forgot you were in NC and i'm glad there is someone else from this area who know hears the same shit i hear.

thanks man. This stuff is getting t be bloody...

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