to an Obama supporter's car in Hays County, Texas. Go read the story at Mock, Paper, Scissors.
The mood in the country is ugly. The darkness comes into the light, and it's not pretty. What I see and what I hear make me quite sad. Is this my country?
H/T to FranIAm.
The Bitter Old White Guys are very worried these days. The New York contingent is very anxious. The old Polish guys who hang out on Nassau street almost came to blows when one of them said he was for Obama.
ReplyDeleteThe prospect of the United States electing a black president, and potentially by a substantial margin, I'm sure makes my brother apoplectic.
I'm not surprised at this attack. The resort to violence is always a confession of weakness.
I don't know about Louisiana, but the conversations here in NYC are all politics. I sat in a restaurant on the upper West Side a few days ago and heard 4 passionate political discussions going on around me. They included a young man trying very hard to talk his very angry, and frightened, right wing father into voting for Obama.
Judging from the turnout in St. Louis last week, I suspect conversations like this are going on everywhere.
Counterlight, this is huge. My question about my country was answered at its founding, with slavery still operative. This has always been my country, but, what I mean to say is that we have not come as far as I'd like.
ReplyDeleteThe same is true in Louisiana, all politics. Some of what I hear is quite frightening.
Jane R. linked to a YouTube comedy video that gave me a laugh today when I really needed it.
My great concern with McCain and Palin is the damage they cause with the suspicions they raise and foster. They are nursing vipers and after the election those vipers will still be around. This isn't at the level of the battle between Obama and Clinton -- though that was hard enough to mend. I find it hard to imagine a return to civil discourse after some of the things McCain and Palin have said... and I fear for the worst. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.
ReplyDeleteTobias, a Real American
Tobias, it won't go away! I fear that the consequences may go beyond uncivil discourse to violence. "They know not what they do." And, as far as I can see, they appear not to care. When, on more than one occasion, someone in your crowd of admirers yells of Obama, "Kill him!" or "Terrorist!", wouldn't you consider that whipping up your crowds into further frenzy may not be a great idea? But they don't stop.
ReplyDeleteChere Mimi
ReplyDeleteI'm literally aching for you all, these days as you approach your election.
I can't help believe that this just might be another case of the night being darkest before the light.
As counterlight reminds us, violence is always a confession of weakness- or a lack of imagination. But I hope we just might have seen enough cracks in the old white-boys, big-business monster for hope of real change. Cracks, as my fellow Montrealer Leonard Chohen reminds us are how the light gets in.
There are just too many stories like my brother's elderly mother-in law in North Carolina, a life-long Republican, voting for Mr. Obama, for me to despair.
Yes, racism still exists, and violence will always remain a possibility, but I truly believe Mr. Obama, +Gene New Hampshire and ++Katherine (PB), are all elements of something very holy going on.
Perhaps what scares the old boys most is that they know it will, and can never be the same.
And to that I say Thank God!
David@Mobtreal
Perhaps what scares the old boys most is that they know it will, and can never be the same.
ReplyDeleteDavid, that's right. Their world is shaken, dying really, and they smell possible defeat in the air. I'm not counting my chickens, yet. I continue to pray, and I have hope. That's as far as I go.
Thanks for your kind words.
The fact that the Palins and Bachmanns are out there suggesting people with the "wrong" bumperstickers aren't actually Americans doesn't help. There was a time when McCain was a great man who didn't stand behind the enablers of this trash... maybe humankind hasn't fallen, but he sure has, and he and his surrogates are taking us with them.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, Tobias. But I take hope in the fact that once upon a time, our elections included such accusations as "electing my opponent will lead to open rape in schools." We recovered from that, and we'll recover from this. As a former professor of mine, historian Robert Dallek, likes to say, this nation survives in spite of its leaders, not because of them.
Personally, I actually thought the Clinton vs Obama thing was bad enough.
ReplyDeleteEven I across an ocean could hear the racial innuendo...
But this is unspeakable.
We can only hope and pray for the best.
Unspeakable, despicable, low, low, low. There was a time when I actually admired McCain. Perhaps he was a different man then, or perhaps I didn't know him. I'm inclined to think it was more the latter.
ReplyDeleteWell, not quite as bad, but I admit to dropping the dog poop in the front lawn of a house with a McCain/Palin sign instead of in the trash.
ReplyDeleteMy mood is pretty ugly, too.
John, good for you. I guess that shows that my mood is not pretty.
ReplyDelete