The Media Lynching of Barack Obama

[McCamy Taylor]

I. The Ghost of Racism Not So Past

Jesse Helms is dead, but his words live on. For those of you who do not know how anti- African-American bigotry works in this country, let Helms be your guide. These are the smears which the John McCain campaign is using at this very minute via right wing media whores and RNC oppo strategists to undermine the presumptive Democratic nominee.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/racist-homophobe-jesse-helms-is-dead.html

Black men are scary "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."

Black men are dishonest "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

Black men are a danger to (white) women "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?”

Black political leaders are unpatriotic con men “Black civil rights activists were ‘Communists and sex perverts.’”

Black men are stupid "To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing."

Memorize these lies. Since many white Democrats are not familiar with them, they will fly right under the radar when you are reading political propaganda put out by McCain supporters. You have to be vigilant.

II. The Author of the Southern Strategy, Pat Buchanan

If you want to study racially charged right wing propaganda, the place to look is the oppositional writing of Pat Buchanan. The man is fixated upon the subject of race. In the summer of 2006, he told Countdown viewers that Congressional Republicans needed to remind their base that Democratic control of Congress meant Charlie Rangel and John Conyers in control of Committees. Buchanan has a serious case of Fear the Black Man-itis .

Here is an example of his work.

In a link through The Huffington Post “Pat Buchanan Compares Obama Speech to ‘Old Shakedown that Black Hustlers Run’” from March, 2007. No, that is not Pat’s title. It is better than his title. More accurate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/24/pat-buchanan-compares-oba_n_93075.html

It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

The message here is that Obama is dishonest and criminal. Straight from the Jesse Helms playbook. And Obama is unpatriotic, through his association with Rev. Wright, whom Buchanan criticizes for being ungrateful for all the good things America has given him---like Jim Crow, segregation, a two tiered justice system, unequal wages. Man, there is just no pleasing some people. Bonus points to Pat for conjuring up images of race riots and Black on white crime. Oooo, scary!

III. When McCain Said He Would Attack Obama as a “Typical Chicago Politician” Back in January He Really Meant He Would Paint Him as a “Scary Black Man “

For real. Do not be fooled. “Typical Chicago Politician” is just code for “Scary Black Man”. The qualities that the RNC and its media whores are trying to associate with Sen. Obama are 1) dishonesty 2) criminal behavior 3) hypersexuality 4) lack of patriotism 5) scariness just like our Ghost of Racism Past described to us in Part I.

Remember how Michelle Malkin kept the issue of race in the race with “Baby Mama “? She will tell you that she is just following the McCain strategy guide, trying to paint Obama as a typical politician with this squirrelly smear piece about ACORN entitled “The ACORN Obama Knows” from June 29, 2008

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/OPINION03/806290308/1031

But note that this innuendo hit job refers to the debunked story about Black voters in Ohio receiving crack cocaine in 2004 and other attacks on ACORN’s voter registration work. In fact, ACORN was the target of a GOP sponsored voter suppression effort that worked in conjunction with the Rove/Gonzales politicized DOJ. See the full story here.

http://www.iefd.org/articles/ohio_voter_suppresion.php

Malkin’s whole article is premised upon lies. And it is intended to paint Obama as a Scary Black Con Man who hands out crack cocaine for votes and who only went into politics so that he could bleed tax payers dry.

There is a reason why the Gonzales/Mukasey Department of Justice has been targeting African-Americans for sting operations and prosecutions for crimes that the feds do not ordinarily pursue. Ever since Bush-Cheney took office, they have been waging what I call “The War Against Black Folks”, trying to portray African-Americans as criminals while looking the other way when Whites commit similar crimes. This is because African-Americans are faithful Democratic voters. Now that the Democratic presidential nominee is Black, the campaign has been stepped up several notches.


IV. Rush Limbaugh Knows His Jesse Helms, Too

Check out this transcript of a Rush radio show as documented by Media Matters and see if you can spot the stereotypes.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200806020006

LIMBAUGH: We know that George Soros is involved with Obama, but there's somebody that's putting the words in his mouth. 'Cause you're right -- when he goes off the teleprompter, he is a different guy. He does not come off as the messiah, he doesn't come off as this great unifier. He has trouble articulating with a bunch of stutters and pauses and so forth.

There is one myth. Blacks are stupid.

LIMBAUGH: That's not what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid, too, but I'm not -- I mean, I'm afraid of Obama, but I don't think Obama has a prayer.

There is another. Blacks are scary. And then, there is the underlying theory, which is that the whole Obama campaign is about hurting women and about a conspiracy by the rich and powerful (Soros), which makes Obama a criminal.

“Typical politician” does not even begin to cover what the McCain campaign is doing here. In 2004, Karl Rove portrayed John Kerry as a typical politician. This time around, they are trying to make us believe that Sen. Barack Obama is something worse than that. They want to transform him into every bigot's worst nightmare.

V. Troubling Imagery

In “Imagining the Election” by Victor David Hanson in National Review On Line July 3, 2008 the author plays fast and loose with the facts. We expect that from the right wing. I am more concerned about the use of some highly charged imagery.

Obama seems more a youthful (“She rocks!” he shouts about Hillary Clinton to a crowd), frisky and sometimes impatient stallion.

Excuse me? Frisky and impatient for what? If not for the inserted remark about Hillary Clinton, I would give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that he was trying to contrast the youthful "stallion" Obama with the “old warhorse” McCain (who maybe needs some Viagra). But why did Hanson insert Hillary in there? I can tell you what the racists are imagining. It is the same thing that got Jesse Helms’ blood boiling at the thought of mixed race dancing.

We all knew they would get around the Blacks are hypersexual myth eventually. And what are we to make of the comparison of Obama to Mohammad Ali, whom the left considers a hero, but who will always be a draft dodging Black Muslim to many others? Be careful where you aim that imagery. It can be a dangerous thing.

VI. Charles Krauthammer, Veteran of Gore is a Liar, Edwards is a Phony and Every Other Anti- Democratic Smear of the Last Decade Participates in Another RNC Oppo Attack

We have seen what the racially charged smears look like when they are in the right wing press where the media whores are allowed to be blatant (because what reader of Michelle Malkin is going to write in and complain that she is a racist bitch after she called Asians stinkier than stinky tofu?). Now, look at what the conservative pundits are dishing up in the so called mainsteam media at the Washington Post and ask yourself if they would write like this about a white guy---say John Kerry or Al Gore. Bill Clinton, maybe, but they treated him like a Black dude.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062603653.html

“Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced.” (gratuitous use of sexually imagery) “pledging to force a renegotiation, take "the hammer" to Canada and Mexico” (violent imagery) “Now flush with cash, he is the first general-election candidate since Watergate to opt out. Some goo-goo clean-government types chided him, but the mainstream editorialists who for years had been railing against private financing as hopelessly corrupt and corrupting evinced only the mildest of disappointment.” (gratuitous use of the words “Watergate” and “corrupt”) “True, Obama's U-turn on public financing was not done for ideological reasons, it was done for Willie Sutton reasons: That's where the money is. It nonetheless betrayed a principle” ( bank robber and betrayal----oh man, this is getting thick) “his other calculated and cynical repositionings” (liar) “the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.” (remember, Jesse Helms warned us that Black politicos are all communists, meaning that they can not possibly be patriotic as the reference to Moscow tells us) “He is just a politician (though of unusual skill and ambition)” (criminal through and through) “He tosses lustily.” (sex again) “Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous.”

Krauthammer is a psychiatrist in addition to a media whore. He does nothing by accident. In this editorial, he attempts to portray Obama as a communist bank robber conman devoid of morals, interested in only one thing---self advancement. With sex on the side. Now try to tell me that is not the very stereotype that Jesse Helms described.

There is a sequel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/03/AR2008070302451.html

More about seduction and lack of principles. Fear the Black Democratic Presidential Nominee.

VII. You Think The Press Does Not Launch Racist Attacks on Black Political Figures In America? Look at What They Did to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm

Although government officials outside the FBI were not aware of the extent of the FBI's efforts to discredit Dr. King, officials of the Justice Department and of the White House did know that the FBI had offered tape recordings and derogatory information about Dr. King to reporters. The Attorney General went no further than complaining to the President and accepting a Bureau official's representation that the allegations were not true. President Johnson not only failed to order the Bureau to stop, but indeed cautioned it against dealing with certain reporters who had complained of its conduct.

Assistant Director Andrew Sullivan said

It should be clear to all of us that Martin Luther King must, at some propitious point in the future, be revealed to the people of this country and to his Negro followers as being what he actually is – a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel.

The FBI attempted to leak selected contents of these tapes to reporters. We know about those who declined and turned the FBI in. We will never know about the ones who played along:
After Director Hoover denounced Dr. King as a "notorious liar" in mid-November, the FBI apparently made several attempts to "leak" tape recordings concerning Dr. King to newsmen. One offer involving the Bureau Chief of a national news publication has been discussed at length in the preceding chapter. 353 David Kraslow, another reporter, has told a Committee staff member, that one of his "better sources at the Bureau" offered him a transcript of a tape recording about Dr. King. Kraslow said that his source read him a portion of the transcript on the phone, and claimed that it came from a "bug" operated by a Southern police agency. Kraslow said that he declined the offer. 354
It is not known how many other reporters were approached by the FBI during that period; Nicholas Katzenbach testified that at least one other reporter had informed him of a similar Bureau offer, 355 and other witnesses, such as James Farmer, have mentioned additional "leaks" from the Bureau. 356
Snip
In late May 1965, a reporter from United Press International requested the Bureau for information about Dr. King for use in a series of articles about the civil rights leader. The Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta recommended that the Bureau give the reporter both public source and confidential information about Dr. King because the reporter "is the UPI's authority in the South on the Negro movement and his articles carry a great deal of influence and that he would prepare anything flattering or favorable to King." The Director approved a recommendation that the reporter be supplied with a public source document and with a "short summation" of allegations concerning communist influence over Dr. King to be used "merely for orientation purposes." 411
In October 1966, the Domestic Intelligence Division recommended that an article "indicting King for his failure to take a stand on the issue and at the same time exposing the degree of communist influence on him" be given to a newspaper contact "friendly" to the Bureau, "such as ... Editor of U.S. News and World Report."
It is felt that the public should again be reminded of this communist influence on King, and the current controversy among civil rights leaders makes this timely to do so. 412
Attached to the memorandum was a proposed article which noted that the efforts of several civil rights leaders to denounce "Black Power" had been "undermined by one man in the civil rights movement who holds in his hands the power to silence the rabble rousers and to give the movement renewed momentum." The article attributed Dr. King's equivocation to his advisers, who were alleged to have had affiliations with the Communist Party or organizations associated with the Party. Dr. King's decision to oppose the Vietnamese war was also attributed to these advisers.
Snip
In March 1967 Director Hoover approved a recommendation by the Domestic Intelligence Division to furnish "friendly" reporters questions to ask Dr. King. The Intelligence Division believed that Dr. King would be particularly "vulnerable" to questions concerning his opposition to the war in Vietnam, and recommended that a reporter be selected to interview Dr. King "ostensibly to question King about his new book," but with the objective of bringing out the foreign policy aspects of Dr. King's philosophy.

The authors of the document conclude by speculating about the effect the FBI’s campaign had on Dr. King.

Perhaps most difficult to gauge is the personal impact of the Bureau's programs. Congressman Young told the Committee that while Dr. King was not deterred by the attacks which are now known to have been instigated in part by the FBI, there is "no question" but that he was personally affected:
“It was a great burden to be attacked by people he respected, particularly when the attacks engendered by the FBI came from people like Ralph McGill. He sat down and cried at the New York Times editorial about his statement on Vietnam, but this just made him more determined. It was a great personal suffering, but since we don't really know all that they did, we have no way of knowing the ways that they affected us.”

The lies which Hoover sought to disseminate through the press—newspapers like the New York Times—were racially charged, the same kind of biased nonsense that Jesse Helms spouted when he was alive. If you look at the pattern of smears against Dr. King, you can see the same attacks that are now being launched against Sen. Obama.

VIII. “Fraud, Demagogue and Scoundrel” That Is What They Tried to Call Dr. King

Let’s see how many reporters and newspapers have done the same thing to Obama in the last week, starting with the newspaper of record, the one that made Dr. King break down in tears four decades ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/opinion/04fri1.html

July 4, 2008 “New and Not Improved” That refers to the NYT, which published smears about Dr. King in the 1960s for Hoover and which is now participating in the NeoCon/McCain smearing of Barack Obama as a “Scary Black Man” though we are supposed to call it “Obama is a Typical Politician” since the RNC does not want to get caught dead introducing race at this stage of the race.

Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.

Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt.

Where do I begin? “Hustings” was chosen for its similarity for “hustling”. “He broke his promise” is clear enough---except that he only said he would “try”---so he tried and failed. How could he not fail when John McCain had already broken his legal obligation to accept public funds and started collected cash like it was going out of style? Has the NYT ever heard the word “sucker”? That is what Obama would be if he took federal funds and McCain didn’t. “High-roller hunt”. Yeah, yeah, we get it. Money makes the world go round.

“Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling.”

Way to burst that bubble. Except that Obama always had lobbyists involved in his campaign----just not Washington lobbyists. So nothing has changed. Except the way that the NYT tells the story.
“The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster “ ----this is beginning to sound a lot like Charles Krauthammer. “cynical Washington deal” (What is McCain’s opinion on this “cynical Washington bill”?) “a policy that violates the separation of church and state” (Lock up your Bibles! Obama is coming!)----I have to stop for a minute. The NYT may employee a lot of journalists with prizes, but they are not Constitutional Lawyers. There are a whole bunch of religious organizations who have been performing public service for years and sometimes they partner with government agencies to do it. Groups like Catholic Charities. Lots of times, the money comes from the religious groups. Or the equipment and manpower and vital resources within the community that the government lacks. Who does the NYTs think runs the majority of the nation’s homeless shelters? Religious groups. Where do support groups find facilities to meet? In churches. Most Americans are not afraid of churches doing charitable work.

But that is not what this is about.

But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

Don’t look now, but Right to Life has accused Obama of altering his position on abortion (though NARAL says he did not alter his pro-choice position) and the NYTs has accused him of changing his Iraq position.

So, what is the NYTs trying to tell us? Just what Assistant Director Andrew Sullivan wanted the nation to believe about Dr. Martin Luther King 40 years ago. Barack Obama is a fraud and a demagogue. They did not quite make it to scoundrel. Yet.

IX. Oh, Look, the Boston Globe Gives Us “Scoundrel”. Is That a Trifecta for John McCain?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/?page=full

Remember how Hillary Clinton said that Barack Obama had associated with slum lords way back in January, 2008, and the press said that she was very rude for making accusations like that and that she should shut up?

Well, now that Obama is running against John McCain, the press wants to talk about it. So, the Boston Globe gives us pages about how private developers used government money to build housing projects in Obama’s Illinois district and then they ran out of money to maintain them, so the buildings fell apart. The authors do not prove that Obama even knew about the state of the buildings or that any wrongdoing was involved. But they paint Obama as insensitive and an ally of fat cats who make money off the government while poor folks live in squalor. So now, McCain has achieved “Scoundrel”, too.

X. Any Day Now the RNC Will Unveil Attack Ads Accusing Obama Of Being Just a “Typical Politician”

…and these ads will have subtle racist overtones to them. Some people on the left will claim that Obama brought these ads upon himself, even though issues such as Iraq and matching funds and faith-based have been distorted by the press. McCain will claim that he has nothing to do with them. See, this article in the NYT even says that McCain isn’t attacking Obama.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/us/politics/04strategy.html?ref=politics

Though they will get there eventually.

“We think there is a developing pattern with Senator Obama where he is willing to reverse core positions, like on Iraq, and which show he is not a change agent but just a typical politician,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for Mr. McCain. “We’ve got a long time to go to make our case.”

I don’t know about you guys, but I am saving my sense of betrayal and my feeling being insulted for when the McCain camp tries to shove a phony sex and drug scandal down my throat. Because that is always part of the package when the right wing launches a "Fear the Black Man" smear.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Link to media primer

it goes well with your post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6457271

oops forgot linky

[opihimoimoi]

2. KnR...The Pubs do not have Positiveness in their ammo can...only Neg BS Crap

They Fear Obama for his Positive Message...something they have not.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Exactly. The Dems can win with positivity.

[opihimoimoi]

7. The Dems WILL win with good shit....not BS Crap...promote OPTIMISM. Vote BLUE

[mmm413]

33. Right. That's always happened before.

[Richardo]

4. Saying bad things about someone is not a 'lynching'

It's hyperbole, and disrespectful to those who really were lynched.

[McCamy Taylor]

9. Please read the whole report about what was done to Dr. King. "Verbal" lynching is possible.

You can degrade, intimidate, humiliate and oppress people through words. Words are violence, too. Indeed, the physical act of violence that we call a "lynching" is just one spectrum of a whole range of violence that includes violent words, violent actions such as denying hospitality or compassion, beatings, police brutality, the violence of denying adequate health care and nutrition to growing children because they are the wrong color. "Lynching" becomes possible only because of all the other forms of violent action and expression that our society advocates towards minorities, gays and women.

Those who were lynched would not have been lynched if we lived in a world where people like Jesse Helms and their ugly, bigoted speech was not tolerated and applauded. Those who claim that their burning crosses are first amendment protected free speech to be celebrated as one of the great glories of America are full of shit. They do what they do because they are trying to make some other people very, very afraid.

[Captain Hilts]

21. Our society "advocates?" "violent action" against minorities, gays and women?

I wouldn't say that at all.

[bettyellen]

26. degraded humiliated and depressed people are still alive, whereas lynched people

not so much.
denying hospitality is akin to murder now? that's a fucking joke.

Clarence Thomas started this BS that ANY critcism of a black man was a "lynching" and you know what? he's wrong, and so is anyone who applies is to BO.

[mmm413]

34. Yep. Just the word got Thomas on the SCOTUS

[1Hippiechick]

85. Lynching -violent acts performed by lawless mob - and this IS about race - accurate descriptor, IMHO

Have posted repeatedly, my husband's GGGF or GGF was 'lynched' by the Klan for refusing to join. I know it is not the same as coming from a history of slavery and living in fear, and I would never besmirch or belittle that awful history.

BUT, we ARE talking about RACE, and what the Repukes are doing IS lynching, IMHO. What else would you call it? Media is "crucifying" Obama? MSM is "talking ugly" about Obama? Hell, no! Their intent is much deeper, darker and more sinister. To me the term lynching conjures up a lawless,violet, angry mob bent on destruction or death. Sounds like Repukes or FBI, to me.:shrug:

[Captain Hilts]

20. LOVE your Clemente avatar!

Mookie fan.

Good men - GREAT men, both.

[Richardo]

39. Hey thanks, man!

:toast:

I'm lucky enough to have seen #21 play.

[shayes51]

23. And reminds me too much of C. Thomas!

[bettyellen]

27. should Hilary have claimed to be "raped" by the press? because that's even less of a stretch than

this lynching claim. honestly, I have almost always agreed with you in the past, but this kind of overblown overheated claim helps no one.
Pls don;t use the word lynch so lightly. It's very offensive.

[Captain Hilts]

35. Good points about Clinton and language. Kind of like throwing the

term 'fascist' around.

[Richardo]

37. Exacto.

"war criminal" is another.

:hi: Mookie!

[Captain Hilts]

43. United, Roberto and Mookie could have made the world a great place to live. nt

[highplainsdem]

5. McCamy, I'm sorry to disagree since I often agree with you, but "typical Chicago politician" is NOT

code for "scary black man."

I suspect the words "typical Chicago politician" would with most people conjure up images of the late Richard J. Daley.

I won't for one second deny that racism is a factor to some extent for some people opposed to Obama. But I believe it's a mistake to try to stretch that too far. It weakens the credibility of the argument when it is aimed at the right targets, and it annoys hell out of people who aren't racist but who simply aren't all that impressed with Obama, or even basically like him but can see flaws.

Obama is not being "lynched" by the media in general. He's being criticized for apparent reversals on some positions, and that criticism is also coming from progressives like Huffington, Kos, and Hayden, as well as the MSM.

[WCGreen]

6. That's exactly what I was going to add...

[skepticscott]

10. Thank you

The OP is (again) hyperventilating based on a complete lack of knowledge. Anyone who's actually lived in Chicago for any length of time knows that the label "typical Chicago politician" has nothing whatsoever to do with race. That she would claim that it does makes me wonder how many other things in this post she's simply made up out of thin air to support her (again) overly long, rambling and unfocused diatribe.

[BlooInBloo]

12. +1

[Faygo Kid]

16. Overall, McCamy is right here, and events will continue to show that.

You can pick at certain passages (I always do), but this column overall is spot on.

[Captain Hilts]

19. CORRECT people think 'Daley' or 'Rostenkowski'. Well said, Highplansdem. nt

[highplainsdem]

30. Thanks, Mookie! Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Cook County Democratic machine that

I should have posted last night

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County_Democratic_Organization

since it helps explain why attacks on Obama for being a "typical Chicago politician" aren't about race.

We really haven't heard very much on this meme from the GOP attack machine so far, and I'm worried that means they're planning to emphasize it closer to the GE.

Though that doesn't mean individual Republicans won't bring it up before then.

I was checking Google News for stories on Obama this morning and ran across this, which I hope his campaign will respond to quickly:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/33028.html

I'd never heard of Miller before, but I did some googling and discovered he's connected with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

And he's also more of a McCain supporter than many conservatives, as I discovered from an article he wrote last month

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/32602.html

telling conservatives why they need to vote for McCain even if they don't think he's conservative enough, and using arguments very similar to what you see here from Obama supporters defending Obama's move to the center.

I have no idea if Miller is directly connected to the McCain campaign, but if he's connected to the Heritage Foundation and he's defending McCain against attacks from the right, then possibly his new piece on Obama and Chicago politics shows us what to expect. It is an attack on Obama as a "typical Chicago politician" but it has nothing to do with race, and it would be naive and useless to try to deflect this sort of attack by calling it "racist."

[Captain Hilts]

36. Best of luck to the Cubs and the Pale Hose! nt

[1Hippiechick]

67. example: This has been a "colorful" election season, Obama is "exotic" - see clips

The OP's point is that these attacks are subtle, but they aren't if you are paying attention. One of the most infuriating "apologies" IMHO was Liz Trotta's so-called "apology" on Fox News! She got a "double-shot" at him: first in her remarks, and then in her apology which was dripping with sarcasm!

Verdict: Pat Buchanan’s Racist “Exotic” Code Words
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/13/verdict-pat-buchanans-racist-exotic-code-words/


Liz Trotta apologies for "knock off" Obama comment
What I found absolutely astounding in her "apology" was that it was dripping with sarcasm, and she ended her "apology" with a little laugh about "...this has been such a colorful election season...." :puke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLCCoD87l5E

[highplainsdem]

80. Liz Trotta's comment about knocking off Obama was horrifying.

But I don't think the words "colorful" and "exotic" are code for "black."

I believe any references to Obama as "exotic" have more to do with his international background, his father and stepfather coming from different countries and cultures. After all, you don't hear the word "exotic" applied to black politicians from more typical backgrounds.

The adjective "colorful" is often used for elections that are at all interesting. And I'm not sure I ever heard it used more often than to refer to Ross Perot.

[1Hippiechick]

82. Oh, man...we differ in opinion on this - these are prime examples of "subtlety". If it were blatant

it would be easily recognizable and called out for what it is,

[Imagevision]

8. Hey M$M - Black men and women found floating dead in Katrina while Bush decides if it's an emergency

[janetblond]

11. I don't watch TV news anymore ... why bother

Nothing but propaganda and stupidity.
Everyday when I go to work, the right-wingers I work with tell me what they heard on fascist news networks.
Anybody who watches that $#!T and believes what they hear is a fool.

[1Hippiechick]

68. The purpose of listening to the RW BS Faux News is to KNOW what propaganda is being perpetuated! n/t

[blondeatlast]

13. rumor and speculation are now what constitutes the "news." While we pat ourselves on the back that

more people are getting their news from the internet than traditional outlets we have to consider they aren't always getting their news from the same ones we are.

We KNOW they will drag race into this--it's already happened on this Democratic board; I've been shocked by things i've seen written by people with some degree of "bona-fides."

I'm not sure I'm up to taking DU anymore because those methods are so damn effective HERE.

[Cha]

55. We need you...we will persevere

and those who don't want Obama elected will be gone.

[blondeatlast]

58. Thanks. It's getting harder but I think it will improve like it did in 2004.

That was slow going too if I remember right.

[Cha]

59. I don't know..I left for awhile..I

was a Deaniac:) When I came back ..DU was in full swing for Kerry.

[1Hippiechick]

69. Older RWs are getting their news from Faux and Limpballs - and THAT is a great concern to me. n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. K&R!!! Everyone here on DU needs to read this!!

I hear some of this same rhetoric right here on DU and it sounds exactly like what the Wingnuts are doing to Obama.

[1Hippiechick]

70. AMEN! n/t

[flpoljunkie]

15. McCain's best friend started the "he'll do anything to win" meme on Meet the Press two weeks ago.

Sen, Lindsay Graham was on MEET THE PRESS with Senator Joe Biden on June 22ndm hosted by Brian Williams.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25313596/page/2/

[Captain Hilts]

22. Obama's team said that about Clinton. nt

[Cha]

56. And they were bloody well

right.

[blm]

17. One of your most important posts ever, McT. The MEDIA will be complicit every step of the way.

We, as citizens, cannot be lax this election cycle.

[ProSense]

29. Obama can handle it.

Kerry should have handled it. Obama should fight the media until he runs out of money.

:sarcasm:


Seriously, this is a huge problem.

[1Hippiechick]

71. Absolutely fabulous post, IMHO. It bothers me that so many on here cannot see or hear the subtlety

that exists in the MSM. They "slip it in" and use it over and over until it is embedded in our everyday language.
I have posted elsewhere Liz Trotta's "apology" to Obama - that she got a double shot at him: first, her remarks, and then with her dripping-with-sarcasm "apology" re "this has been such a colorful election season..."

Pat Buchanna's referring to Obama as "exotic"

O'Reilly's "lynching" comment about Michelle Obama

It goes on and on

The overriding concern for me is that so many RW depend on and applaud Faux and Rush Limpballs propaganda. We HAVE to be on the alert and call them out!

[Captain Hilts]

18. It stinks, but they did the same thing to Hillary Clinton. nt

[Evergreen Emerald]

54. They sure did the same thing to Clinton...indeed I believe

there were many posts on it here on DU.

[bertman]

24. The only ones who DIDN'T KNOW THIS TYPE OF CAMPAIGN WOULD BE AIMED AT OBAMA

are the yet-to-be-born, the comatose, those too youthful to have yet gained the knowledge, and the dead.

Of course, the reich wing will use this against Senator Obama. Why would they not? It's been successful for years.

They're scared to death of a charismatic, energetic, articulate, highly intelligent black man being elected to ANY OFFICE, most especially the Presidency, and they're gonna throw everything at him their fevered minds can conjure up. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

The right to free speech can be a very scary thing when it is used as a bludgeon of hatred, fear, nationalism, racism, and any other "ism".

The use of words like "lynching" when a lynching is not involved can be equally as incendiary and un-called for.

[Frisbee]

25. Has Rush seen His guy?

"LIMBAUGH: We know that George Soros is involved with Obama, but there's somebody that's putting the words in his mouth. 'Cause you're right -- when he goes off the teleprompter, he is a different guy. He does not come off as the messiah, he doesn't come off as this great unifier. He has trouble articulating with a bunch of stutters and pauses and so forth."

The Shrub can barely put together a coherent sentence when he's off the teleprompter, and stutters and stumbles like he has a major reading disability when he's on it. Furthermore, while Obama's speaking ability is impressive, I am more concerned about his thoughts, ideas and plans. The ability to express them so eloquently is merely a bonus (albeit one that helped to propel him to where he is).

BTW, John McCain isn't much better than the Shrub.

[Richardo]

40. Also: I don't think I've heard Limbaugh utter a complete sentence in years

If stammering were an energy source, he could power the Western Hemisphere.

[Frisbee]

44. I've never been able to listen to his show...

Just can't bring myself to listen to him. Catching the videos here are about all I can stomach of him. BTW, is that your puppy? If so, it's a real cutie. Oh, and I love the Clemente avatar!

[sandyj999]

28. I Have An Idea! Just Don't Listen to It or Read it.

Focus on accomplishing our goal and don't let them win by putting any credence to their crap! It's not that hard. I am being bombarded by e-mails. This person may or may not get it but I am now deleting any more political crap he sends without reading it. It is off limits!

[1Hippiechick]

72. Forewarned is forearmed. We have to know what the propaganda is in order to counter it. n/t

[rhett o rick]

31. The race issue is perfect for KKKarl Rove and the republicants. Don't be surprised

to see an all out effort to have a major race confrontation before the election. It's going to be a black or white issue (no pun intended). My mother-in-law is a good example of the latent racism in this country. She is 90 fairly progressive, pro-choice, anti-war, anti-Bush, etc. She informed us that she will be voting McCain.

[psychmommy]

32. i understand what you were shooting for please don't

use lynching. the term apparently means something way different to you than it does to me. it is still being practiced today and the wound is still quite raw. it is not a word to be taken lightly. your op was good but, that ruined it for me. i don't want that to the word du jour.

[1Hippiechick]

73. That's the point. Race hate words are being used over and over by MSM until they BECOME mainstream

and accepted. I am caucasian and part-Native American, but my husband's great grandfather was lynched by the Klan because he refused to join the KKK.

The terminology is already out there - that's why we HAVE to acknowledge it and call it what it is.

O'Reilly's comment about lynching Michelle O'bama?
Some golfer's comment about "lynching" Tiger Woods in order to win a golf tournament
Imus' calling the girls' basketball team 'nappy-headed hos'
Liz Trotta's calling Obama Osama- and killing them all; then, she gets a double shot with her dripping-with-sarcasm apology, chalking it up to "this has been a colorful election season...."
FAUX news attack on Black America (go to YouTube and search videos for Fox News Black Attack)

The point, I believe, is that racist MSM is trying to "legitimize" this type of racist hate talk, and we have to be visible and vigilant to call their hand on it. This is as much a civil rights issue as ever, IMHO.

[psychmommy]

87. yes it needs to be addressed but not by doing the same thing

they do. this isn't new. i am glad you can see it now, but, i live it everyday. why do i have to see the crap here? i know what faux news, joe scarborough, pat buchanan, gerri ferraro and many other folks think. it disgusts me when i have to see it here. here is where the people that are working for the same thing come. we all want a dem president. can't we focus on that. we know the msm's agenda is to divide and conquer us. know that i am offended by your use of the word. please be considerate of me and others like me.

[1Hippiechick]

88. What would your propose, then? Because it is obvious to you and to me and some others, it isn't to

everyone who frequents our boards, including freepers. I'm guessing from your response that you are African American. What about all the predominantly WHITE MSM and their viewers? It is sickening to me that Faux News and Rush Limbaugh have such significant followings, so from my perspective WE have to mount an organized attack on this kind of BS. Do you know how disheartening it is to me to read posts on this very topic where others here think that some of the terminology is not racist? That tells me that they either have not been around long enough, or the subtlety is already working--on them. If WE don't stop it, it will only get worse. So, who do you propose should fight it if not us? And if not here, where? To pretend that it doesn't exist and that it will somehow magically "go away" is not rational. And, no offense, but if you read the title of the topic that includes the word that is so offensive to you, why did you participate? Not a put down to you - an honest question. I won't be told that I can't use terminology that is the TOPIC of the discussion.

[psychmommy]

90. you call them on it.

you email the msm. you boycott their sponsors. don't watch their crappy shows. i can't tell you what words you can and can't use. i thought i was replying to the original poster my apologies. know that when you and the op use the word, you are oking its use and thus perpetuating something that op is railing against. there are plenty of words to describe what is going on in the media. the choice of this word-knowing that it offends others is very revealing to me.

[McCamy Taylor]

91. The phrase "media lynch" should trouble only one group of people---the media whores doing it.

They should be typing their little fingers raw protesting that they do no such thing and that it is an atrocity for anyone to use such a term for what they do when they practice their Constitutionally protected right to dispense propaganda that ensures that their corporate masters will be able to split the working class vote next election by encouraging one part of the laboring class to hate, fear, despise, threaten, intimidate and act out with violence and hatred (that includes verbal and passive and active physical violence) towards minorities----

Because the members of the press like Rush who try to make Latino immigrants out to be rapist disease carriers and Blacks out to be subhuman welfare cheats and gays out to be pedophile communists know that they are encouraging the sickest individuals in society, the ones who were deprived of familial love and the ones who have gotten all the worst breaks to commit acts of violence.

Hate speech is meant to produce hate acts. Hate speech is meant to make Latinos and women and gays and Blacks live in fear and it is meant to make children have low self esteem so that they will not battle the system that keeps them down. Hate speech is a very physical yoke around their collar.

Study the work of the propagandists in WWII and you will understand why I see little moral difference between the one who incites the mob to lynch and the one who actually throws the noose over the tree. If you do not point a finger at the first people in the chain, you will never stop the violence.

Whites in this country have no idea how much they suffer from the effects of the hate speech which they listen to and absorb and do not protest with all their being. It is not merely a karmic debt. When you are taught to believe that you are better than others because of your skin collar, it violates a basic human belief in fairness and love which children all possess----it dehumanizes us and teaches us to be afraid of other people. Once you allow yourself to fear one person for no good reason, you open the door to all sorts of prejudice, including self loathing, for if skin color can make one worthy of scorn, so can being ten pounds overweight or having the wrong color hair. We must be perfect! Forget variety. Uniformity is the only acceptable way. And if we are taught that people of other colors and religions are inferior, then we see a Black man who is richer or more successful, that breeds self loathing, anger and resentment----are we even more inferior? Did he cheat?

Hate speech kills. It kills the soul and it kills by inciting violence. We must not restrict free speech, but I believe that we must not restrict the ability of people to denounce hate speech. And therefore, I reserve for myself the right to say that those who take part in these systematic attacks upon African-Americans designed to make whites fear them, hate them, act out violently against them, are trying to incite people to do what the lynch mobs did----kill a few and make the rest too afraid to challenge the system that oppresses them.

[1Hippiechick]

94. Hear! Hear! Please journal this or make it another topic...outstanding..I applaud you.

:woohoo: :woohoo:

:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:

:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:


:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:


:headbang:

:yourock:

[psychmommy]

97. well i am sorry but i didn't bother to read your post.

here is my response anyway. when i see the term lynching-i see a black man beaten, castrated, burned and hanging from usually a tree. he is surrounded by a bunch of caucasians pointing, sometimes smiling. they brought their kids out. i see a black female, beaten, probably raped, with a baby cut from her belly and her genitalia mutilated. she is probably burned along with her now dead fetus. she is surrounded by a group of caucasians and their families pointing proudly. what is worse another poster found post cards commemorating these tragedies, i will get you the website if you are interested. i know these things happened and they are in the past. the problem is when folks like you want to bring it up over and over. i don't want those images in my head. i want to concentrate on this election. this is america and i respect everyone's right to free speech. i may not like what you say but it is your and my right to free speech. just so you know, so that you are aware, there are some people that have a visceral reaction when they see that word.

[McCamy Taylor]

100. "i know these things happened and they are in the past." you just made my point

The word "lynch" contains a myth as Roland Barthes conceived the word. The myth is that violence against minority groups, in this case Blacks but also Latinos, Asians, Muslims and also the majority group which is women is a thing of the past . If we do not utter the word lynch , if we avoid thinking about it, if we put it from our minds and consign it to attic of our consciousness along with hoop skirts and horse drawn carriages, then we can pretend that we live in a world where all people have equal access to educational opportunities, equal wages, the same justice system, the same health care system. We can pretend that African-Americans are not followed by store clerks when they shop and that they do not have to dress especially nicely to avoid being stigmatized as lower class. We can pretend that Blacks who live in poverty "deserve" their fate and that their children deserve their fate, too. Because all that racism is a thing of the past, like "lynching".

Violence is committed everyday in America against every person who is a victim of income disparity, regardless of race, sex, religion. Since Blacks, Latinos, single women and their children are disproportionately affected by poverty and things like malnutrition, domestic violence, depression, substance abuse, gun violence and the other ill effects of poverty that means that we are witnessing a rash of violence all the time. It just can not be photographed in commemorative postcards quite as well. But it happens all the time, like after Katrina at Gretna

[1Hippiechick]

93. And how do we disseminate the information to make people aware of it in order for them to "call

them on it."? I'm sorry that you find the terminology upsetting, but the bigger picture here IS to make AWARE the very people who are UNAWARE of what is happening so that they CAN take action. Look at the other topics and forums posted here. How many times have you seen topics where we are asked to take action? That's what makes this messageboard relative to me - it's one way to reach a group of committed Democrats from all over the United States to make them aware of something they might not otherwise be aware of. And, unfortunately, that message is getting lost in the posts about using one word that is offensive, and to me that is the shame.

"the choice of this word-knowing that it offends others is very revealing to me." I don't know what you are implying by that statement...if you think I am a racist, you couldn't be further from the truth. This whole topic about what is being done to Obama is a Civil Rights issue with capital letters because it is not just about Obama - it is about anyone who defies the RW propaganda, and that includes those of us who are civil rights activists. There were and are choice names for us "whities" and others who fight for civil rights. I have devoted my life to civil rights, and I am not going to stop now. As I said to you in an earlier post, the word that disturbs you was in the TITLE of the post. Don't participate in those topics if the word is upsetting to you. I really don't understand why you as one person would try to stop what civil rights activists are trying to accomplish?!?!? If this topic is upsetting to you, don't participate. If your objective is to "educate" me about an upsetting word, I am already educated, and I am trying to keep other racist hate terminology from becoming accepted in speech and attitude. You are one person and I respect your right to be offended by that terminology. But please respect my right as a civil rights activist to do whatever I deem necessary to continue the fight for civil rights. The bottom line, to me, is that you and I have a different opinion on how to handle this issue. I am sorry that that word is upsetting to you, but please try to see the forest instead of the trees.

[psychmommy]

98. lynching isn't the appropriate term.

there are so many words describing what is going on the media against our presumptive and our party. would you say that they they are executing obama with out due process of law? would you say they are murdering obama in the press. those words don't apply and neither does the term lynching. they are attacking his credibility-just like they did kerry. they are calling him a flip flopper or an elitist. they are using racial buzzwords just like hillary's campaign did-but none of you cried lynching then. they are propping up mccain and distorting obama's statements. they are ignoring blatant mccain misdeeds but magnifying any little thing about obama. use a dictionary or a thesaurus-there are ways to get the message out without offending part of the base and he's doing pretty well.in a response to the op i described what comes to my mind when i see the term lynching. i will send you the website also so you can see what lynching really means.

[1Hippiechick]

99. I don't need for you to send any website to me to "educate" me....

and I'm not discussing this with you any further. You apparently can't hear the "message" for focusing on one "word." Please go debate with someone else. Post a response if you like. I am not responding to any more.

[fiamma mama]

38. adding another disguised racism link

http://www.martinlutherking.org/

that website url looks innocent, doesn't it?

It is anything but. The page is hosted by Stormfront, and it is a smear site designed to deceive anyone researching Dr. King, especially school children.

The OP is correct in stating there will be a lot of veiled racism expressed in this election. This stuff is out there, and the white supremacists are very good at sounding rational and reasonable. We need to call them on their bullshit.

[1Hippiechick]

65. Welcome to DU! :)

[nomorenomore08]

41. K&R! Excellent work!

:applause:

While some on this thread have quibbled with certain details, and I might do the same, I think the basic premise is spot-on. Folks, there's a REASON a hateful nutjob like Helms got re-elected over and over again, and it's by no means something confined to the South (or "Dixie," as the racist asshole himself might call it). Just take a look at yesterday's threads on Free Republic, all the comments praising Helms as a "true American patriot" and other such bullshit. These are people who either couldn't care less about his blatantly racist tactics and attitudes, or are actively supportive of them. Truly disgusting. :puke:

[McCamy Taylor]

42. I completely forgot about the Freepers. I should go see what they are reading.

[1Hippiechick]

74. Hear! Hear! Applause! You Rock! Headbang! * & I'm from NC!

Helms has been an embarrassment for years!

[n2doc]

45. "Scary Black Man"

Need to have NYT, AP and Wash Post logos on that van....

[McCamy Taylor]

46. Discussion from CBS -Viacom about why McCain's racial attacks will have to be subtle.

I found this linked at the Freepers.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/30/opinion/main4220027.shtml

Which leads to the third point: While many Americans harbor conscious and unconscious racist attitudes, they don't much like to be reminded of them. Indeed, in a general election contest in which John McCain desperately needs to beat Barack Obama among white women, flirting with racism could be particularly hazardous to the GOP. As John Judis pointed out, public opinion research suggests that the modern-day "gender gap" between the two parties is at least partly attributable to the antipathy many white women have expressed towards Republican racial attitudes. Along those lines, Republican "racial inclusiveness" rhetoric has long been aimed not at attracting African-American voters but at convincing white swing voters that voting Republican doesn't mean voting racist. All that could be at risk if McCain abets too much anti-Michelle Obama talk.

The author is from The Nation but this is reprinted by one of the two TV news networks that are most firmly in the GOP's pocket. Viacom desperately needs McCain to win so that it can continue to thimb its nose at federal media compliance rules that allow it to own more TV holdings than is allowed by law.

And the article is linked by the Freepers,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041175/posts

so that they will know to keep comments like "How about un-American, afro-centric BITCH" to themselves.

This is why I believe that most of the racially charged attacks will not come in the form of "terrorist fist bumps" or "Obama's Baby Mama". Most of them will be more subtly worded---and packaged as part of a code, like "That Obama is nothing but a demagogue, a fraud, an inner city politician who pretends he cares about people in order to line his own pockets." With hints at sex, drugs, money, violence, crime to make people afraid.

I am not over reading. The McCain camp does not dare get caught overplaying its hand. Except that these people can not help getting caught. Anyone from the South can recognize what they are up to, because we grew up listening to this bullshit. We recognize the code.

[nikto]

47. Why don't we just come out and say it:

GOP Rightwingers are vile, immoral people.

I mean, c'mon, they prove it every day a million different ways.

Righty Gopers are rotten and unethical like water is wet.

Sheesh!

[LowerManhattanite]

48. While I appreciate the serious amount of work put into this post...

...and the point-by-point rundown of the smearing and slurs, you might think my issue with the piece is a trivial one—but for me and a LOT of people, it's NOT a small deal at all.

It's the semi-cavalier use of the word “lynching” in the title.

I'm not trying to be “The Word Police” or anything, but that word is SO immensely freighted in American lore, that to use it to describe verbal skullduggery is in my mind a severe diminishment of what it really means. I'm a child of children of the violent, Jim Crow South, and the small town my parents hail from in North Carolina is still something of a stealth “Sundown Town” with a scores-of-years-long series of battles with the people who actually DO lynch people—the Ku Klux Klan.

An actual lynching is a brutal, murderous and freedom-killing thing. I need not link to the discomfiting “picnic” photos of hundreds of so-called “good” Americans standing about like patrons at a county fair as a Black man hangs by his neck from a tree-tied noose, burnt to a crisp, oftentimes hacked to bits or dragged and body-broken beforehand.

It is unjust MURDER by gang, meant to terrorize the surviving folk akin to the victim and is punctuated by celebration of said murder by the larger oppressive community. It is macabre. It is scarring—through generations and damages the very fabric of society itself.

It is NOT in my mind, smears, slander and lies.

I blanched at the mis-use of the word when Clarence Thomas used it as a cheap race-card shield against people who had actual issues with his policy stances.

I blanch at ANYONE mis-using that very specific word to describe lesser practices.

It's a word that shouldn't be trifled with—along with “Holocaust” and “Rape”, and when folks mis-apply those words, they hear from me as well.

I understand that hard and incendiary language is a thing to use (I'm a writer too) to garner attention and snap the reader to attention, but some things I think, you just don't fuck around with.

Lynching is one of 'em.

Nobody gets “raped” on a deal. (I've heard insensitive people use that word for the ultimate theft of dignity in that loosely a way)

A mass layoff of people at a company is not “a fuckin' Holocaust, dude” (Heard that one too in the corporate world, spoken by a truly callous asshole who himself would be fired for sexual harassment at the same job)

And a “lynching” is not a smear campaign.

We have disagreed on opinion before, but I think this piece you've written is a more than decent one—it's just that damned lynching analogy that seems a bit of a gratuitous kick in the emotional nads that isn't really necessary.

Just thought I'd lay that out.

[bertman]

50. Beautifully worded, LowerManhattanite.

From one Tarheel to another, your description of a "Sundown Town" really struck a nerve, having come from a town where crosses were burned and Klan rallies were held OFTEN during my high school years.

[McCamy Taylor]

51. Words can kill. Lies about WMDs have killed 3000 soldiers and many more innocent Iraqis.

Had Bush and Cheney picked up automatic weapons and aimed them at U.S. troops, they would be out of office and in jail now. Because they deliberately lied and got their subordinates to lie to start a war that has killed many thousands of people, there is discussion about whether or not that constitutes murder.

Why is there discussion? Those who conspire to commit murder can be tried along with those who pull the trigger. Why are they less guilty because they used words instead of bullets?

After WWII, those who planned the Holocaust were found just as guilty as those who actually herded the victims into the gas chambers. The people who wrote and dispensed the propaganda which lead to the hatred and scapegoating of the Jews were a necessary part of the atrocity. Without them, no German would have been willing to murder other human beings in cold blood. Germans had to be convinced, over a period of years, that some of their fellow Germans were subhumans and dangerous. In the trials at Nuremberg, they recognized that the coordinated, deliberate, systematic effort to portray one group of people as dangerous, subhuman, criminal for the political purpose of using them as a scapegoat who could then be physically abused, intimidated and finally murdered was just as criminal an act as the actual murder.

I draw the line at using the term "Media Lynching" to refer to situations which do not involve racist attacks. However, in a situation like this one in which the purpose is to incite Americans to fear, anger, hatred and possibly even acts of violence towards African-Americans----because in an economy like ours, once you get people mad, they tend to get violent---I can think of no better way to describe the verbal attacks from powerful sources.

Read the posts at the Free Republic if you doubt that the intention is to incite fear and anger. Propaganda is a very dangerous thing. It can not be outlawed, but the media whores who engage in racist propaganda attacks can be criticized.

Right now, we live in a world in which racist propaganda is not tolerated. However, sexist propaganda is tolerated, as is homophobic propaganda, anti-immigrant propaganda, anti-choice propaganda. Not so long ago, back in the late 1970s, a lot of what people get away with now----gay bashing, woman bashing---would not have been tolerated. We began to backslide during the Reagan era.

The only progress that we made during the 1960s and 1970s which was not undone during the Reagan-Bush era was in the area of race. It has never become "ok" to be an open racist bigot. At least not yet. The right wing is working on this one.

[1Hippiechick]

75. As a writer, then, you are aware that words can be used literally and figuratively. GGF was lynched

by the KKK for refusing to join the Klan (actually it was my husband's GGF).

I'm also "born-and-raised" in North Carolina and originally from a small-minded town that in the 60s I renamed Peyton Place. I will be 61 years old this fall, so I have a lot of "memories" of deep south racial hate, not from my own family, thank God. But that racial hatred that I saw growing up had a great impact on shaping the person I am today - Civil Rights activist. And the Civil Rights didn't end with the passage of the Civil Rights act. The fight for civil rights will never be over, IMHO. And, calling out MSM or anyone else for racist hate talk, code words, or whatever is part of the fight for civil rights, IMHO. We have to acknowledge it and be aware of it to counter it.

[AmyCamus]

79. Thanks you, LowerManhattanite.

Excellent post.

[McCamy Taylor]

49. Remember what Geraldine Ferrarro said? Michael Barone at "Townhall" just said the same thing.

Man, those Freepers do not miss a trick. If you want to keep up with the whole "Obama is a scary Black Man" smear campaign just read what they post. Michael Barone over at "Townhall" has this

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2008/07/05/obamas_candidacy_is_a_test

On balance I think Obama's race has been a political asset. I believe that most Americans think it would be a good thing, all other things being reasonably equal, for our country to elect a black president. I know I feel that way myself. I think that impulse has inspired many voters, ever since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, to give Obama a sympathetic look-over, to be readier perhaps to appreciate his strengths and to overlook his weaknesses than they might be with an otherwise similar non-black candidate. The refusal of a very small number of voters to support a black candidate does not, I think, offset this significant advantage. The Obama candidacy is indeed a test -- a test not of American voters, but of Barack Obama.

Translation: Obama got where he is by voter affirmative action. He is weak but Americans, out of the goodness of their heart will vote for him anyway. So, if you happen to one of those 10% who doesn't want to vote for a Black man for president, don't feel guilty about it. You are one of the smart people, who isn't getting hoodwinked by that conman, Obama, and his blackmail scam.

Now read what response this article provoked among the Freepers:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041045/posts

Obama is called a "simpleton" a "Marxist" a "dumbass" a "fraud". We get this immortal line: "I don’t vote for some who’s education appears to be more of a gift than deserved...and also who didn’t seem to absorb much of that education."

This is the kind of reaction that the RNC and the John McCain camp are trying to provoke. The four descriptive nouns are straight out of the Jesse Helms racist guide to Blacks. The quote embodies much of the anger which the bosses have persuaded working class white to deflect away from their corporate masters onto racial minorities. If not for affirmative action and welfare, you would not be stuck in that dead end job. Somebody else is getting rich off your labor. Yeah, somebody else is getting rich off your labor. Dick Cheney and the bosses at Halliburton, you dumb schmuck.

Karl Rove has overestimated America's anti-Black racism, however we can not underestimate the latent tendency of people to look for others to blame for their problems.

That is why Obama needs to keep his positive message. As long as he keeps offering hope, even in the face of this despicable attack, the voters will listen.

[Number23]

60. I think you're right

This is the kind of reaction that the RNC and the John McCain camp are trying to provoke.

It does not and never WILL matter to Freepers and their ilk that every single one of Obama's teachers from grade school through law school described him as one of the single most brilliant people they'd ever come across. It doesn't matter that Michelle is also highly regarded by her former classmates and neighbors from grade school on up. As far as the Freepers are concerned, the Obamas and every black person in this country with a fantastic education got it because of Affirmative Action. Not because of hard work or brilliance -- solely because of Affirmative Action. To deny that would be to humanize blacks and to acknowledge that brilliance, dedication and achievement flows as freely through our veins as it does through those of white folks. And Freepers ain't having NONE of that.

But neither Obama, and certainly not Barack, has reached the level that they've attained without the thick skin that most educated, successful blacks have had to acquire to be successful in America. The first time you see that your work, temperament, work ethic etc. are judged differently from your white co-workers and friends, you start growing that skin. And for most blacks, that skin starts growin in your early 20's. So just imagine the thick hide that must be on both of them by now. They know what they're up against and I think they've proven that they are ready for it. So the Freepers can throw out the "scary black man," "Muslim" and every other kind of lie they can think of. I'm sure it is not all that different from what the Obamas have encountered and overcome before.

[1Hippiechick]

76. Sitting at my 'puter yelling "all right! and "amen" reading your post! Great post, IMHO

[butterfly77]

52. Recommended..

[pansypoo53219]

53. the gnews have to

so people watch their dreck.

[Number23]

57. McCamy...

It's interesting that you're on this mission to find negative or stereotypical black imagery in the media. And while I'm sure that you will not lack for examples, many of the ones you used in your post seem to be overblown in your efforts to prove your point.

But why did Hanson insert Hillary in there? I can tell you what the racists are imagining. It is the same thing that got Jesse Helms’ blood boiling at the thought of mixed race dancing.

It seems to me like YOU are the one suggesting that Barack is getting all hot and bothered over Hillary, and not The National Review. I read that comment without picking up even the slightest sexual innuendo and am truly mystified as to how you jumped to that conclusion over that comment. Perhaps you are the one who needs educating that black men are capable of thinking about things other than sex and jumping on the first (presumably white) woman that they come across.

“Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced.” (gratuitous use of sexually imagery)

Are you serious?

“the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.” (remember, Jesse Helms warned us that Black politicos are all communists, meaning that they can not possibly be patriotic as the reference to Moscow tells us)

This is just getting sad. I think it's great that you are attuned to the issues of racism in the media. But your assertion that anything bad said about Obama is not only racism, but somehow *sexy* racism is bizarre and detracts from what is a very real and potent issue.

[McCamy Taylor]

61. I am heartened that so many Democrats have never heard these particular racist smears.

However, I have heard them many times in the South.

From that Freeper Link I mentioned before:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041045/posts

Check out references to Obama as "socialist" even though the Socialists call him a corporate Democrat and the picture of Che that morphs to Obama. That trick of identifying Black political leaders as revolutionaries and commies who are unpatriotic---that did not end with the assassination with of Dr. King.

Here is what Free Republic has to say about Hanson's article:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040144/posts

"Let's face it, Marxist Metrosexuals aren't much good in a fight or anything else for that matter, besides running their mouths."

ON a completely unrelated note, the DOJ' War On Black Folks continues. Looks like the feds have been wiretapping the Conyers family.

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=55ceb5e0-83c7-4cdf-9347-e05c4ab4e98a

[Number23]

62. Who the hell cares what Freepers think?

McCamy, you know as well as I do that Freepers represent the worst of our nation. They are pimples on the ass of America.

Whenever I come across white people who try to act as if racism doesn't exist in America anymore, that's the first place I send them. I haven't had one yet come back to me and NOT say something along the lines of "well, now I know" after going to Freeperland. Hell, if I had to choose between hanging out with the Crips and Bloods or going to a Freeper gathering, I'd put on my bullet-proof vest, tell my family I love them and be off with the Boyz in the Hood before I'd associated with those people. And I imagine you feel much the same way.

So why do you care so much that the cretins on that site are calling Obama a Marxist or a socialist? What do you think they called Kerry? Or Clinton, Gore, Carter or anyone else with a "D" by their name for that matter?

And I too am originally from the South and have heard many of these types of smears you've mentioned. As I said before, your passion is fantastic. It's just where it's currently directed at that I don't get.

[McCamy Taylor]

63. I write about media atrocities. This is the latest atrocity. In my experience the only thing

that will stop one of these right wing crusade/inquisitions/witch hunts whatever you want to call them is to actually start naming the names of the media whores who are doing the writing and the newspapers who are printing the lies. No one wants to be immortalized like Margaret Carlson was by the Rolling Stone in their seminal article about "Gore is a Liar" in which she is quoted as admitting that the whole story was a crock of shit and that everyone knew that Bush was a bigger liar but it was more fun doing a dogpile on Gore. She is never going to live that down, because that article will always be the first thing you get when you google "Gore is a liar". It is going to be her 15 minutes of fame.

That is where you stop these media atrocities---at their most vulnerable spot. The egos of the individual writers and TV news reporters. Most of them think of themselves are creative artistes. They want to take pride in their work. They absolutely do not want to follow John Solomon into the purgatory of the Washington Times or become the next Ceci Connolly.

[Number23]

64. There are lots of media atrocities

I guess we may disagree on what exactly constitutes an atrocity, but I think we both completely agree that there are plenty out there. And I get the distinct feeling they are going to get a hell of a lot worse before they get any better.

I'm looking forward to future discussions on this.

[1Hippiechick]

77. Do you not come into contact w/Freepers? I do, and I need to know what they think to counter....n/t

[1Hippiechick]

66. O'Reilly clip - "lynching" Michelle Obama; YouTube video - media impact on VietNam war

Forewarned is forearmed - we don't want to look at this election in retrospect to see how we were "duped" AGAIN by the MSM!


O'Reilly using "lynching" re Michelle Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uec9k7krp8g


Great example w/anti-war film footage - demonstrates how MSM distorts reality and controls ppl

Media Impact on the VietNam war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqayiS3NnuY

[AmyCamus]

78. Words = Lynchings? That's an ultimate disrespect of the ultimate victims of racism.

Someone should take a break from faking outrage over the use of language and check a mirror.

[1Hippiechick]

83. husband's white GGGF was lynched for refusing to join the Klan. I'm not offended about how the

word "lynching" is used, literally or figuratively. But that's just my opinion and my one vote. :) But I think I understand what you mean: using the term loosely is disrespectful to a race where the horrors of lynching were a daily fear and a way of life.

IMHO, I prefer the term lynching to hanging - with lynch I visualize the violence leading up to the act; with hanging, I visualize the end result.

[Cherchez la Femme]

81. Your choice of the word

'lynching' is an insult to those who were truly lynched -- brutalized and murdered via hanging, burning, etc.
Criticizing or casting verbal aspersions, however unfair some may be, do not even come close.


And shades of Clarence Thomas!
...which we rightfully protested against when he used such tumescent balderdash.


While the media has indeed used racist, unfair and psychologically inflammatory language against Senator Obama; bombast such as this will not help his cause but hinder it; for one, giving good cause to reduce our arguments as overblown and hysterical.

--and you KNOW they'll conveniently forget about Mr. Thomas' coining of that kind of rhetoric against such non-violent declamations.
Of course.

The truth is bad enough to stand on its own for exactly what it is. It doesn't need to be exaggerated to additionally rile up the readers
...no honest citizen could possibly miss it.

[1Hippiechick]

84. Your opinion. Husband's white GGGF was lynched by the Klan for refusing to join.

Not offended by the word. Rather, it is exactly the right word to use because lynchings were performed by a lawless mob - which pretty much describes the Repukes, IMHO.

[skooooo]

86. I disagree with point 3

Chicago politics has its own reputation that is built on corruption and using muscle. I don't think this refers to race.

[McCamy Taylor]

89. "Lynch" is one of those words that have become myths as Roland Barthes described it.

You can you read "Myth Today" at this site.

One last element of the signification remains to be examined: its motivation. We know that in a language, the sign is arbitrary: nothing compels the acoustic image tree 'naturally' to mean the concept tree: the sign, here, is unmotivated. Yet this arbitrariness has limits, which come from the associative relations of the word: the language can produce a whole fragment of the sign by analogy with other signs

snip

Motivation is unavoidable. It is none the less very fragmentary. To start with, it is not 'natural': it is history which supplies its analogies to the form. Then, the analogy between the meaning and the concept is never anything but partial: the form drops many analogous features and keeps only a few:

snip

The nature of the mythical signification can in fact be well conveyed by one particular simile: it is neither more nor less arbitrary than an ideograph. Myth is a pure ideographic system, where the forms are still motivated by the concept which they represent while not yet, by a long way, covering the sum of its possibilities for representation. And just as, historically, ideographs have gradually left the concept and have become associated with the sound, thus growing less and less motivated, the worn out state of a myth can be recognized by the arbitrariness of its signification: the whole of Moliere is seen in a doctor's ruff.

I note that a number of people try to cut off the discussion by insisting that the use of the term "Media lynching" dishonors the memory of people who were lynched in the past. I think that this provides a clue about what the problem is here. Barthes discusses how myth limits the meaning of things. In his example, a Black African saluting a French flag loses all the real life meaning such an individual has when he is in an photo on a French magazine and becomes a mythic (propaganda) image supporting French colonialism. Mythic imagery is meant to limit discourse.

"Lynching" as many people want to define or think of the term is supposed to mean something that happened long ago, around 1900, when parties of White people rounded up Blacks (most people forget about the Asians, Latinos, union organizers and others) and murdered them in public. It is something of the past. When people talk about "lynching" it is with a certain satisfaction as in "we have come so far from the days when we did that." Never mind that Rodney King was beaten in LA and in Texas one Black man was dragged behind a pickup truck and a Latino boy was sodomized with a pole within the last two decades, both victims targeted because of their ethnicity. "Lynching", some people seem to want to believe, does not describe anything of our world. "Lynching" exists in the same world where people had "tea socials" and "barn raisings".

And this is not true. Lynching exists here and now as the FEAR of being lynched. And what makes people afraid of racially motivated violence? Hearing hate speech. Seeing Black leaders reviled and threatened. There are many degrees of lynching behavior, some of which fall short of actual murder.


Right wingers and racists are especially eager to consign the word "lynching" to America's past---so that they can paint the present as a world in which Blacks rule and whites are oppressed. In the same way, right wingers are especially eager to restrict the use of the word "fascist" to Nazi Germany and Mussolini and genocide to the Holocaust----and they are the very first people to proclaim that any attempt to discuss modern fascism or modern genocidal activity insults the memory of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. By creating the myth that all fascism was Axis fascism and all genocidal atrocities were Nazi atrocities, they make it impossible for anyone to use language to point out the fascist and genocidal tendencies of the world's current right wing political movements. Speech becomes neutered.

Consider the irony. The right wing commonly compares its ideological enemies to Marxists, communists, Stalinists, but invoking the name of Adolph Hitler, who wrote one of the major strategy guides for how-to take over a democratic state and turn it into a fascist one is akin to invoking Satan. They have successfully convinced otherwise sane people on the left that such language is too dangerous to use.

Words are just words. Comparisons to historical figures are never dangerous is the comparisons are accurate. When we censor speech and make certain words taboo, we are more likely to be doing the right wings work than the left's.

We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature. We now understand why, in the eyes of the myth consumer, the intention, the adhomination of the concept can remain manifest without however appearing to have an interest in the matter: what causes mythical speech to be uttered is perfectly explicit, but it is immediately frozen into something natural; it is not read as a motive, but as a reason. If I read the Negro-saluting as symbol pure and simple of imperiality, I must renounce the reality of the picture, it discredits itself in my eyes when it becomes an instrument. Conversely, if I decipher the Negro's salute as an alibi of coloniality, I shatter the myth even more surely by the obviousness of its motivation. But for the myth-reader, the outcome is quite different: everything happens as if the picture naturally conjured up the concept, as if the signifier gave a foundation to the signified: the myth exists from the precise moment when French imperiality achieves the natural state: myth is speech justified in excess.

What does Barthes suggest as a response to myth's ability to rob language of potential meanings?

It thus appears that it is extremely difficult to vanquish myth from the inside: for the very effort one makes in order to escape its strangle hold becomes in its turn the prey of myth: myth can always, as a last resort, signify the resistance which is brought to bear against it. Truth to tell, the best weapon against myth is perhaps to mythify it in its turn, and to produce an artificial myth: and this reconstituted myth will in fact be a mythology. Since myth robs language of something, why not rob myth?

However, we always have the myth police in our midst, telling us that Serrano can not put a cross in a glass of urine.

Men do not have with myth a relationship based on truth but on use: they depoliticize according to their needs.

There is therefore one language which is not mythical, it is the language of man as a producer: wherever man speaks in order to transform reality and no longer to preserve it as an image, wherever he links his language to the making of things, metalanguage is referred to a language-object, and myth is impossible. This is why revolutionary language proper cannot be mythical. Revolution is defined as a cathartic act meant to reveal the political load of the world: it makes the world; and its language, all of it, is functionally absorbed in this making. It is because it generates speech which is fully, that is to say initially and finally, political, and not, like myth, speech which is initially political and finally natural, that Revolution excludes myth.

Finally, I note that several people object to the use of "lynch" to describe verbal attacks upon an African-American, because Clarence Thomas used the word in this context. However, consider that Thomas was nominated precisely because he was 1) unfit for the job 2) an arch conservative and 3) African-American so the Democratic Congress would feel compelled to confirm him. The Republican administration used him in the same way they used Willie Horton. He was their "proof" to their own base that less qualified African-American applicants for jobs---a man with a troubled personal history---would be selected where better qualified white applicants had been turned away. This was supposed to stir white anger and resentment towards Blacks. Clarence Thomas was presented to Congress and the American people by the very Republicans who nominated him for the express purpose of being mocked and humiliated. (The current Bush administration has continued this practice of attacking its own minority employees and cabinet members in order to perpetuate stereotypes ).

For someone like Thomas to use a word like "lynch" was problematic. As I mentioned above, the American Myth capital M is that we are always improving ourselves and we believe that the Civil Rights Movement has ended such atrocities as lynching (it didn't). Plus, the Democrats who opposed Thomas would never ever do anything so outrageous as attack a Black man for being Black (They didn't. The Republicans just happened to pick Thomas who had problems that are stereotypically associated with African-Americans).

However, when one woman cries rape when it is not rape, that does not change the meaning of the word.

[1Hippiechick]

95. Please include your OP and additional posts into a journal - one I want to use over and over...TY!!!

[McCamy Taylor]

102. I have a huge journal. It goes way back.

[LowerManhattanite]

96. Well, I guess we're going to have to agree to very much disagree on this point. :(

I don't quite know where you get the idea from that the rather specific term “lynching” is something that is actually relegated to the era of flagpole-sitting and Stanley Steamers, but I can assure you—as an African American man in America, that so-called “dustbin” of history where lynching lay isn't way out back somewhere where no one can see it. It sits at our feet, like the wastepaper basket next to your desk at work or at an arm's reach like those in one's kitchen.

What happened to James Byrd in Texas, and the Sean Bell police posse gone mad here in New York a year ago brings into stark relief the sad fact that these are not some crimes from the tinkle-piano-ed days of yesteryear.

This is real. This is here. THIS IS NOW.

To be snatched from a “safe space” in the dead of night, spirited away to be tortured for a while in secret—perhaps burned or branded, definitely body-broken and violated in ways imaginable and some not, and then...brought back to the town square to be hanged from a light-pole or tree, often dangling by celebratory picnic-light for all to see and pose with giddily...that is the image conjured up by the word lynching. Oh yes...it varies. Lots of times, it's not as “glamorous” as all that. It's dirty and furtive, without the pomp and circumstance of the post-death buffet of bounty, just raw hate-fueled sadism. But when the rubber meets the road—or rather, when the braided hemp meets the tree limb, it is always sadistic, violent and incredibly, incredibly final. It. Is. Murder.

And it's meaning is so very strong—it's power so eternal and lasting, that the heinous act has developed it's own “Barthes-ian” shorthand through symbol and sign—witness the furor over folks brandishing the violent little reminder recently that “Should you demand your rights, we can still take your life with impunity”—namely, the noose.

As seen in the infamous “Jena Six” incident from last year, the thought that lynching per sé—as far as Black folks go, was some sort of antiquated pish-posh like the medieval rack is a fallacy and a half. When those racists hung that noose from the tree in that segregated schoolyard, they were sending a centuries-old message that the sendees didn't need but a second to decipher—in spite of the fact that the last lynching in their area was decades ago (not a century mind you, but mere decades as the slaughter of one Emmett Till will grotesquely attest), and they'd never seen it. This is NOT the power of myth, but rather...the power of REALITY AS THE EVENTS STILL OCCUR. Now of course, the affected kids didn't cower before the noose. They took it for what it was—a championing of the worst terroristic excesses of this “great” land and confronted it head-on, in some cases with direct physical action (the ensuing beat-down of those who taunted them), but for the most part with the massive civil actions that shamed the perpetrators and let the country know that fear would not rule the day, here. But that immediate, incendiary, red-cape-to-a-bull reaction to the noose from the children, of the children of the children who were probably the last to see that heinous hemp in its awful action is quite telling.

For all the alleged pointy-heads' supposed trying to relegate it to a sepia-tinted past, the crime is so instantly fresh today in the minds of the people who it matters to—that the claim of it 's being swept under history's rug comes apart like so many dandelion bits under a child's breath.

And the talk of this disagreement with the word's being bandied about as some kind of “censorship” or “squelching debate” is for me, a canard, when the real issue here is the precision or rather, the im-precision of words—particularly evocative words to get across a point. As a writer, I am in love with “the word”. Writers use them to describe, or prompt a visual, or stoke an emotion. And in so doing, their precision of use seems an important thing to me. I often think of that old Eric Burdon & The Animals song “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood” when I'm writing, because as a communicator—especially when I'm trying to communicate about important things, being misunderstood or worse, thought cavalier with language just for effect is one of the worst things that I can have happen.

Which kind of brings us back to Barthés and “meaning” I guess. As much as I may admire him for his deep focus into myth, meaning and expression and the way his writings (particularly his work leading up to “Death Of The Author”) provoke debate on the Western way of verbal presentation in terms of tropes, signs and so on, my problem with him is what would happen down the line with him where he seemed to deride (no, not a pun on Derrida :) ) structure itself—eschewing standards themselves for the sake of ultimate artistic and expressionist freedom. After 1968's “DOTA”, he seemed willing to say that the best form of presentation was that which could be utterly reversible—free from context, and open to almost ANY sort of interpretation, which I always thought of as quite the ultimate in cop-outs for one trying to make a particular point. His “lost in the sauce-ism” on this point is what makes using his theories (IMHO) such a daunting thing, because he in many ways contradicts himself when you look at his work nearing the end (“SZ” and “Pleasures of The Text”). What are we to believe or to take from as the “best” or most keen of his analysis? The earlier work that probed meaning, myth and canon, or the later work that seemed to de-construct everything to the point where nothing mattered? He's an easy doctrinaire to fall in love with, but an increasingly hard one to justify when taking his work in toto, as the near willy-nilly freedom in expression he espoused flies in the face of one's clearly trying to express one's self in the statement of fact and pointing out of reality. We can present analysis like Joyce's “Jabberwock”—open to all manner of meanings by all manner of reader, but in the end, it doesn't hold up as analysis. It's “Jabberwock”. Fun and free, but convincing and informative? Not so much. Barthés work ended up nearly as didactic as the communication systems he tried so desperately to analyze and tear down, and that contradiction is what ultimately makes me take him with two grains of salt in terms of application to the journalistic essay or reportage.

I mean, there are between 600,000 and 1,000,000 words in the English language to muck about with. It's a glorious palette to “paint” from...and I take great pains to choose wisely from that palette. I sometimes choose wrongly. My greenish sea may clearly appear to be a meadow to many others. Perhaps I was too hasty in my choice of “greens”, going for an obvious one that screamed “meadow” because it was convenient and vivid—instead of maybe choosing one more subtle, with a different, more nuanced brush stroke to communicate “greenish sea”?

While I understand your sticking to your guns here on the usage of the word “lynching”, consider that it may be a bold, meadow “green” sort of word, where one actually needs a deeper “aqua” with a bit more brushwork to say “sea” more clearly. This is no call for censorship—merely a request for more precision, as the point you want to make is being impeded (not just in my mind) by that odd, boulder-in-the-road word in the OP up top. The word “lynching” is NOT taboo, but I feel a mis-application of so loaded a word is kind of brutal AND yes, diminishing.

You noted yourself: “However, when one woman cries rape when it is not rape, that does not change the meaning of the word.”

This is absolutely correct. Absolutely, because it doesn't change the fact that that awful dehumaniztion happens. But for me, when some jerk at the steakhouse table next to me goes on and on proudly about how he totally “raped this guy on a deal”, well...once we let slide that gross mis-application of that word (where say...“fleeced”, “mugged”, “robbed”, “took” or any other number of synonyms would apply), we begin to have a problem. It doesn't “change the its meaning. It again...diminshes it. And as words are evocative things—each one with its own freight, when we get to the point where its okay to “sand off” their edges to the point where they have no hard shapes at all, well...that strikes me as the end of real expression. That's something I don't ever want to live to see. But hey...I suppose it's a challenge in a way to we who “paint” with words. Maybe it means we'll just have to keep augmenting the language with new, fresh verbiage as the established becomes softer and meaningless. What that will mean for all that has been written before doesn't seem good. But hey,...

You're a damned good writer. And words you know...have meaning. All 600,000 to 1,000,000 of 'em. I merely say, we should choose them wisely.

Lest we all wind up in six billion, raspy-voiced, Eric Burdon howls of our each and very own...pleading “Oh Lord, Please Don't Let Me Be Mis-understood.”

[McCamy Taylor]

101. Roland Barthes was a Marxist. So am I. I do not think that his work is useful to most people

unless they at least tend towards Marxist thinking. For those who are not willing to go that far politically, I suggest reading Wallace Stevens, instead. He wrote about all the same things that Roland Barthes did, but without any political frame of reference. This made his work less didactic and more poetic. You just fill in your own value system.

There are several people who have posted that "lynch" means something that happened in the past. "Lynch" is the myth society uses to tell a story---the story that America has progressed so far that once upon a time we were the land of injustice where groups of white people murdered innocent Blacks in cold blood for sport, but not any more. That is all in the past and we must keep that word sacred and reserved for the memory of the revered dead. There is a lie behind this----oppression is still ongoing. But the dominant majority polishes it halo and dares anyone to disagree on pains of being called a traitor to the memory of those who have suffered. As if nature alots each of us only a tiny bit of outrage at the victimization of others and we must not waste any of it over what happens now, no we must save it all for events that happened 100 years ago. Because if we feel outrage now, then we will surely use up all of our empathy and we will cease to care about what happened to those who died back then, right?

Sounds pretty silly when you put it that way. Empathy is like love. Ir feeds itself. The more you experience the pain of others, the more you walk in their shoes, the more of the emotion you have. No one feels the agony of the 100 years dead murdered man less because he first felt the shame of the recently reviled man---even if the same word was applied to both acts. The word is just a word. The mind can conceive of the action being described.

There is a worse lie behind the lie I describe above. It is such an insidious lie that maybe I should do a separate post about it. Call it the lie of misplaced atonement. There are people in America who think that they can get off the hook for present racial discrimination and present bias against ethnic minorities and present violence against women and present income disparity---- by celebrating at the altar of martyrs past . So, they decry the deaths of those lynched by their ancestors. They celebrate the abolitionists. They talk about how if they were there, they would have surely helped with the Underground Railroad. And they would have advocated the vote for women (if they are men). They cry for the lost Native American nations. It is all so tragic----

And these same people cross the road when the see a Black man approaching them on the sidewalk, and they move to all white enclaves and send their kids to all white schools and they worry that affirmative action means that there will not be a slot for their son or daughter and they do not volunteer to help those who never had a chance to attend even grade school to learn to read and they do not donate money or time or speak up to defend the oppressed when their white coworkers or family workers or neighbors get ugly, because they do not want to start a scene. The do not see the richness and beauty in diversity, they see only strangeness and something to fear----they can't be blamed for this. Society raised them this way. But instead of trying to reach out to the living people around them, they reach out to the dead, who are safe because they will not reach back.

Around the time that Native Americans were finally beaten down and enclosed in Reservations, sometime in the 20th century, Americans became to worship them, their fighting spirit, their noble ways. In parts of Europe, where Jewish people have been driven away, they celebrate Jewish culture now. How nice it would have been had these same people treasured the living people back then.

[McCamy Taylor]

92. Just as I predicted, a very subliminal RNC ad about Barack Obama w/ darkness and scary music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8_NecN3WA

McCain is surrounded by light and greenery.

Then a very darkened, grim looking Obama surrounded by darkness with the word No repeated over and over the way Aldous Huxley used it in Ape and Essence and then finally the dark screen with Barack Obama's name.

That is pure subliminal imagery. The music is even subliminal. There is an ominous drum beat in the background, but there is an almost angelic melody when McCain is on screen and this changes when we get to the images of Obama. So scarrry.

I wonder if the rest will be like these.

Compare to Obama in this ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckjF6nT07gw&NR=1