A friend of mine on Facebook asked my I considered Republican criticism of President Obama to be racist. Here's my answer.
It's actually fairly easy
to justify most conservative criticisms of President Obama as racist.
Why is that, you ask? Because in so many words, almost all of those
criticisms are pure, unadulterated bullshit, and swept away with
little or no effort, which leaves you with white people being
critical/disrespectful/hateful towards a black man for no reason
whatsoever. Using Occam's Razor, the only logical answer is that
those criticizing are racist. Let's debunk the major hysteria points:
“He's not a Real
American”
Horseshit, people. Like
it or not, Barack Obama was born in Hawai'i in 1961, with two
separate Honolulu newspapers announcing the birth. Even WorldNet
Daily eventually accepted that he's an American citizen. The ultimate
irony is that Orly Taitz, the high priestess of the Birther movement,
is not a natural-born American – she was born in France, and is a
naturalized citizen. What it all boils down to is older white people
frightened by the concept of an empowered black man. Although let's
be honest for a moment: Bill Clinton was the first 'black' president.
I would go so far as to suggest that Obama is actually our first nerd
president. Ironic side note: Texas Senator Ted Cruz is rumored to be
considering running for the Republican nomination for POTUS in 2016.
Cruz is not legally eligible to become President, because he was born
in Canada, regardless of his parents being Americans. Where do you
think the nickname 'Calgary' comes from? An irrational love of
Stampede Wrestling?
“He's not all that
smart”
Uh, I don't recall
Harvard Law School accepting just anyone, let alone handing out
degrees to anyone. Please note that had it not been for politics, his
career track as a constitutional law scholar had him pointed towards
a career in jurisprudence. Which leads to the next point:
“He's a
commie/nazi/socialist/librul”
Remember Harvard Law
School? Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, which has
never been known for having a liberal bias. In fact, many of his more
liberal colleagues were quite upset with him for not taking the
Review in a more liberal direction, and for his surprisingly close
associations with more conservative members of the Review.
Now let's look at those
buzzwords for a moment. We've already eliminated 'librul', so let's
move on to 'commie'. What makes him a communist? Is he, for example,
making you stand in line for bread, or shoes? No. Do you even know
what communism is? In its purest theoretical form, communism is
democracy on steroids, as every person in the community (that's where
the word 'communism' comes from, after all) has a say in everything
the community does. Which is also why communism is simply unworkable
at any level beyond say, a group of a hundred people. Lenin tried to
install the collectivist principles of communism, but his stroke and
eventual death from said stroke in 1924 pretty much ended the
communist experiment, and Josef Stalin dressed up a megalomaniacal
state-controlled apparatus replete with a massive personality cult
centered upon himself (something Marx, Engels and Lenin found
abhorrent) in Lenin's old suit and called it communism. Conservatives
bring up this buzzword (as well as 'socialism') as the Obama
administration has attempted to re-regulate the various sectors of
the economy, something actually applauded by no less than the grand
poobahs of deregulation and supply-side economics that set America on
the path to economic collapse under George W. Bush.
Now let's look at
'socialism'. Do you even know what it means? Conservatives use it
like they do 'communism', to paint the illusion of a megalomaniacal
President trying destroy our freedoms. The funny thing is that the
word 'socialism' is actually a put-down of states and governments
that either fail to implement collectivist principles, or only go
part-way in doing so. The term was actually created by communists to
mock states and governments that didn't have the fortitude to finish
the job.
And now, let's look at
'nazi'. People who call the President a 'nazi' make me laugh. No less
than Rush Limbaugh has called the President a nazi, his reasoning
being that the Nazis were socialists. I almost pissed myself laughing
at that. Let's explain the fat guy's lunacy for a moment. “Nazi”
is actually a diminutive word, essentially a nickname. Here's the
full name of the Party (pardon my sucky German):
National-Socialist
Deutscher Arbeitung Partei
That
translates to “German National-Socialist Worker's Party”. Of
those five words, the only two that accurately described the party
were “German” and “Party”. The rest, to use the words of
Geroge Carlin, was a marketing decision.
Let's
go back in time a bit, to the time between the World Wars. The
defeated Imperial German government was recast into a constitutional
republic, with the organizational meetings held in the city of Weimar
– hence the term for the period's government being the 'Weimar
Republic'. The Republic was under threat almost immediately from
communist agitators from within and without, as German communists
attempted a coup d'etat in 1919. Hitler attempted his own coup (or
putsch, in German) in
1923, and was promptly arrested for it. The governments of the
Republic were usually left-of-center, mildly socialistic, and the
German people generally liked the idea of 'socialism', though not
really aware that the word itself was actually a perjorative as I
mentioned above. Hitler came upon the idea of branding his party as
“National-Socialists” in order to attract voters to his party,
while portraying the actual Socialists as being secret tools of a
foreign power trying to keep Germany down – any of this sound
familiar?
The
ironic thing is that this false branding isn't without precedent. In
post-Czarist Russia, there was actually a brief attempt at democracy,
with Communists winning a majority in the Russian legislative body
known as the Duma.
However, a split developed between the Communists, with a tiny
minority breaking away from the larger bloc. This breakaway group
contained all the major players of what was to come – Lenin,
Stalin, Trotsky, Molotov, etc. - and they had the balls to declare
themselves Bolsheviki – Russian
for “majority”. And in a response that doomed them to history –
not to mention firing squads – the larger bloc of Communists
declared themselves Menesheviki
- “minority”. Stupid, no?
But
why use such words in the first place, when none of them are remotely
true? Welcome to politics, Lee Atwater-style. Atwater's first rule
was that if enough people repeat the lie often enough, eventually
people will believe it to be the truth, no matter how audacious the
lie is. Look around the darker corners of the conservative
blogosphere, where you'll see bloggers making the most ridiculous
accusations against the President, the First Lady, even their
children. These accusations eventually bounce around the blogosphere,
and those that gain the most traction among the faithful eventually
move on the biggest manure spreader of all, FOX News. Case in point
being the President's trip to India last year, and the accusation
that this one trip alone cost the American taxpayers two billion
dollars, when the reality was that the trip cost a tiny fraction of
that. Calling the President a 'communist' and such is merely red meat
thrown out to an audience conditioned to believe anything told them.
And it's also safer than using the word many on the right wing prefer
to use – you know, six letters, starts with an 'n', rhymes with my
favorite resident of the Hundred Acre Wood. And we're not talking
about Eeyore.
But
here's the funny thing: if Obama is an unintelligent
socialist/communist/nazi, then why is the economy improving? Why is
unemployment going down, the Dow at record levels, corporate profits
at all-time highs? If he's a socialist, he's the worst socialist
ever. If you actually look at his voting patterns and policies, what
you've got is an Eisenhower-era Republican, business-friendly and all
about getting Americans back to work repairing our crumbling
infrastructure. If only the party in opposition didn't consider
putting Americans back to work in something other than minimum-wage
jobs (oh, and the Republican-controlled House just voted to eliminate
the forty-hour work week and overtime pay for hourly workers –
remember that) to be part of some evil plot to destroy America.
“He's
Coming To Take Our Guns!”
This
is the current lie in vogue. Believe it or not, there actually are
people on the Left who wish that somehow the President could just
snap his fingers and presto! No more guns. We have words for people
like that: ridiculous, silly, unrealistic. And here's the one that's
most important to the current debate: IGNORED. The Second Amendment
guarantees the right of the public to bear arms, that is without
question. The problem is that conservatives consider this right to be
God-given. God didn't write the Constitution, folks. The people who
wrote the Constitution lived in a world where a trained marksman
could maybe get off three or four shots a minute (I do count
black-powder rifle enthusaiasts among friends, and I'd hope you all
saw old Lou Huber demonstrate his love of muzzle-loaders in school).
Modern military-grade weapons can fire dozens of shots in a second.
Does the average American need access to military-grade firearms, or
more importantly, why
does the average American need access to such weapons? Is an invasion
imminent? Are Chinese paratroopers descending upon us, like in the
recent remake of Red Dawn?
Oh, I know, the writers of the movie crossed out any references to
China in the script, and wrote 'North Korean' over the top of those
crossed-out references. But that's who they were thinking about.
So
if there's no invasion a-coming, why on earth does Joe Sixpack need
an M-16 and a thousand rounds of ammo stashed in the basement? Fear,
people. Fear and paranoia. The commies are gonna get you! They're
gonna steal your guns! ATF agents are going to parachute into your
house and steal your guns, then those dirty libruls are gonna make
you have gay sex and abortions, and.... and.... read books from
people other than Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity! Yeah, that's right!
But
why? Why be so afraid? Here's why. The genesis of the current gun
hysteria actually has very little to do with the recent mass killings
in Colorado and Connecticut. What it does have to do with is a
United Nations arms treaty cracking down on the illegal arms trade
that the current Administration is in support of. Now mind you, this
treaty is about rogue nations (North Korea, Iran, et al)
selling arms to terrorists, or arms dealers selling to backwater
hell-raisers with armies of child-soldiers. But since this treaty is
about restricting sales of arms, the NRA (who really is a mouthpiece
for the arms industry and not you, Mr. Responsible Gun Owner) created
the lie that this treaty will somehow make private gun ownership
illegal, and is busy pushing the lie to any and all who will listen –
even if they aren't interested. Here's the rub though – the UN
matters about as much as a bag of beans when it comes to orderly
democracies, and said treaty means exactly zilch in this country. But
the NRA would rather you not know that, so instead they stoke the
fear and paranoia, because making people think that the President
will be personally parachuting into your front yard tonight
with a hundred ATF agents in tow to steal your guns and rape your
wife and daughters.
I
wish I was kidding when I said that. But such is the state of the
wingnut id, where
darkest nightmares have become feverish, fetid reality. The funny
thing is that no less than Ronald Reagan said that the American
public had no need to own assault rifles, and as recently as ten
years ago Wayne LaPierre himself said that extended background checks
were more than copacetic with the NRA, to keep guns out of the hands
of criminals. But now? THE BOOGEYMAN'S GONNA GET YOU!
So
what does it all mean? It's trust issues for the most part. When
their guy was in office, they figured that kind words would be enough
to placate the masses without actually doing anything. Now that their
guy isn't in charge, and the big
scary black guy that isn't their guy in office might actually do
something, it must be part of some commie plot to enslave the
populace, right? Now that the other guy
is in office, suddenly law enforcement is irrelevant if not in on the
conspiracy, and that 'the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a
gun is a good guy with a gun'. That's the job of police, not of
paranoid vigilantes.
And
even if somehow private gun ownership were to be banned in the US,
how could it possibly be enforced? According to best estimates, there
are over three hundred million firearms in the hands of private
owners – which would probably make the American public the single
largest army in the world. It would require an inconceivable amount
of manpower to somehow go house to house and physically remove every
firearm from every home, needing every soldier and policeman in the
entire world and then some. Which – let's be honest here – is
completely ridiculous, let alone unrealistic. This was why during
World War II, Germany or Japan never even considered the idea of
invading the continental US. When the great Japanese naval strategist
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was asked in 1942 if an invasion of the
continental United States would be successful, he was quoted as
saying that an invasion would be doomed to failure because 'there
would be a rifle behind every blade of grass'.
“But,
but.... what about....”
Oh
yes, you and your scandalmongering. Everything, every last little
perceived slight is some sort of 'scandal' to you. Do you even know
what a scandal is? Watergate was a scandal, a sitting president's
plan to undermine his political enemies by quite literally stealing
their secrets – never mind the fact that Nixon would've won the
1972 election regardless of whatever dirty laundry G. Gordon Liddy
and his cohorts might have found. Iran-Contra was a scandal, selling
weapons to repressive regimes and brutal insurgents (you know what
they say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter), and
financing the entire scam by inventing crack cocaine and turning it
loose upon America's inner cities. Reagan only survived the scandal
because in all likelihood, Alzheimer's Disease had robbed him of any
serious mental capacity. By those standards, the 'scandals' of
today's wingnuts are tempests in teapots, and for the most part they
only exist in the minds of those who invented them. Obamacare is a
scandal! The nerve of that idiot Marxist Kenyan usurper, how dare he
propose legislation that might help us all, let alone get it passed!
“What
about Benghazi, you librul prick?”
What
about it? It might not have ever happened had GOP intransigence
forced budget cutbacks – especially for embassy security! And
what about the e-mails that suggested a cover-up? Well, it turns out
that ABC – those who broke the story initially – they didn't
even read the fucking things all the way through. Turns out that
there was no cover up.
“What
about the IRS investigating Tea Party groups?”
Gee,
where was your manufactured outrage when your President let
the IRS investigate liberal groups? It's okay when your guy
does it, but it suddenly isn't when someone else does it, right? Hey,
give Obama credit: he fired the head of the IRS when the incidents
became public.
“What
about the Marines?”
Oh,
don't make me laugh. For those unaware, there are wingnuts out there
claiming that the President somehow violated the rules of the Marine
Corps by having Marines hold up umbrellas when a sudden downpour
interrupted a joint press conference between himself and Turkish
Prime Minister Erdogan. Uh, I hate to break this to you, but the
Presidential cadre of Marines are under the President's personal
control – if he asked them to start doing improv comedy for the
crowd of reporters, they'd do it, because he's the fucking President,
that's why!
It's
just like I said in the beginning, when you boil away the lies and
bullshit, you have white people hating a black man for no reason
other than being told to. Sounds like naivete, fear, paranoia, and
racism – a toxic mixture at that. And that's exactly what the
people controlling you want from you, wingnut. They don't want you to
think. They want you to be scared of the intelligent black man. They
want you to be so scared of him, they created the lies they want you
to believe. Never mind that the House Republicans just voted to end
the forty-hour work week and eliminate overtime pay for hourly
employees. Never mind that those same people are hard at work trying
to eliminate voting rights. Never mind that they're busy undermining
the rules and regulations that keep your food safe, your air and
water clean, the products you use in every facet of your life safe
for use. Never mind that they think it's perfectly okay to
anonymously purchase weapons of mass destruction and thousands of
rounds of ammunition for those weapons – weapons then turned on
innocents, on children! None of that's important to you, is
it? Not when there's some other imaginary scandal about!
I
pity you, wingnut. I pity the people around you, the people who have
to live with such a paranoid lunatic. But there is a cure for you.
Turn off FOX News. Quit listening to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck. Quit
reading Drudge, Breitbart, Malkin – you do know that they're using
you, right? The only reason they want you watching, listening and
reading – aside from keeping you stupid and scared, of course –
is to sell you things, sell you rip-offs and scams like
credit-monitoring services and scrap-gold buyers that will give you
maybe one-fifth of what your scrap gold is worth, all the while
telling you that you're getting 'the best price available'.
I
pity you. And if you don't like what I have to say, then fuck you.
You're what's wrong with this country – not me, and certainly not
our President.
