What's the difference between a KKK meeting and a McCain/Palin rally?
What's the difference between a lynch mob and a McCain/Palin rally?
What's the difference between inciting a riot and a McCain/Palin rally?
a. They aren't wearing sheets
b. They aren't carrying a noose
c. They aren't yelling "let's go get 'em"
d. None of the above
-- more --
It is really starting to become frightening to watch the frenzy at the McCain/Palin rallies lately. Palin, especially, has been inciting the mob crowd to verbally abuse the press in attendance. People are threatening press personnel, screaming racial epithets at minorities among the press corp, and generally making the atmosphere an unsafe one for members of the press corp.
Stories circulated yesterday that reporters at Palin rallies are no longer able to go into the mob crowd to ask questions. One person, who refused to give her identity, of course, said that it was because they sometimes write bad stuff afterward. Reality, I think, is that the McCain/Palin campaign is very, very afraid that their rabble rousing is going to result in someone getting hurt, perhaps killed. So they have to make sure there is a buffer between members of the press corps and the rabble at the rally. (That might make a good song title: Rabble at the Rally)
More worrisome is the vitriol being spewed about "That One". There are a LOT of nuts out there who would gladly answer the call to "get" Obama. It is a fear that is very, very real in the Black community. We have heard it since Obama first announced his run.
What is being done is not very subtle. It is despicably denigrating. "He's not American like you and me." "He has a secret agenda." "He will subjugate you if you let him get elected." All those subtexts are code words that will encourage the imbalanced wingnuts to consider their "greater cause".
These verbal attacks are doubly dangerous because they are issued against Obama. They would not dare say that about a non-minority candidate. The backlash would be swift and decisive. But somehow it is alright to say it about Senator Obama.
I could not believe that the man who yelled out "Kill him" at the event the other day was not immediately wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and carted out by the Secret Service. There was a recommended diary yesterday that noted that the person is "being investigated" by the FBI. WHAT??? Investigated? What's to investigate? Imagine that it happened at an Obama rally when someone else was mentioned. What do you think would happen? How many injuries would the person suffer while being "subdued"?
We can't have these disparities or the nut cases will only be encouraged. Clearly McCain and Palin are not bothered about instigating the low lifes in their base. Neither of them said anything to disparage the perpetrators of the bile. In my opinion, that makes them fellow travelers and equally guilty should anything happen as a result of their venomous rhetoric.
It is time for these baseless attacks to stop. Any suggestions as to how to make that happen?