Anyone who has read my comments on this blog has probably come to the conclusion that although I do have some conservative republican views, for the most part I’m a mixed up DemoLiberCrat. (Democrat/Libertarian). There’s also a fairly broad streak of Independence in there too, although that’s not really a political party.
However, I definitely have not had good things to say about the crop of Republican candidates that were put in front of us, and now that it looks like Romney is going to be the one, it appears that I’m not left with any choice at all. I don’t know the man personally, but I wouldn’t want him in charge of planning my next vacation, much less running our country.
An article over at Gawker has caught be by surprise though I suppose it really is just something I could have predicted had I thought they would stoop so low. Apparently the conservative media is now attempting to make news that doesn’t exist by hyping up a non-existent race war.
Yes, all over the south there are still pockets of white americans who insist on living like it is still 1940. Who insist on judging a man, not by his character, but by the color of his skin. Some of them, I am ashamed to be related too. Some of whom told me in 2008 that they could never vote for no damn n*gger. I was mortified, and still am.
Yet, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly seem to be pushing on their radio and tv shows that race problems are now worse than they have ever been, that gangs of black young men are rampaging through neighborhoods, terrorizing white people, and it is all Obama’s grand plan.
I can’t make myself listen to Limbaugh or O’Reilly, so all I have to go on is what I read, but considering that both of them would do anything to raise their ratings and bring in another advertiser dollar, I can’t help but think it is true.
Now there are certainly things about the Obama presidency that have made me unhappy, just as there have been with every president I can remember. But nothing he has done or not done leads me to believe that his race or anything racial has anything to do with anything.
The republican party has made some serious mis-steps. They have managed to anger most women in the country, and all the gays, lesbians and queer gendered people (and their money), and polls show that over 90% of black Americans are still with Obama, so I suppose that scare tactics are what they have left in their arsenal.
Making up stories about gangs of black youth terrorizing neighborhoods, and playing it heavily in the deep south will certainly froth up the waters, but it may also do more. It could actually cause things to move from fiction to fact. Get a bunch of drunk rednecks all riled up about nothing and who knows what could happen, and of course, I would almost bet that is the point. It would give Limbaugh a chance to stage a whole week of shows with the theme “I told you so”, and O’Reilly could appear even more sanctimonious than usual.
Never have I wished more profoundly that I had my own private island, far from everywhere, with no news of the outside world.
I hate election years.