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John McCain has obviously lost his fucking mind and Sarah Palin obviously does not have a mind! The bullshit that they have been edging on in their town-hall meetings and other campaign get together's with their base is nothing but the most obscene political dirty tactics known to mankind and this shit should be stopped! If some of the crazies at these rally's actually do something stupid, it will be on John McCain's head, not that he would care.
The next McVeigh is on McCain
by ron ray @ DKos Fri Oct 10, 2008
I hoped, perhaps, it was just me.
I saw the hateful crowds at at McCain and Palin rallies. I heard the weak denials (they can't hear the threats, I watched a mouthpiece tell a talking head, though it's clear on one video that McCain reacts when some yells 'terrorist'.) I waited for the candidates to at least say that calling for violence is uncalled for. Still waiting.
It worried me. But perhaps, I told myself, I worry too much.
I grew up in violent times. My earliest political memories are watching on TV the processions that brought Bobby and MLK to their graves. But that couldn't happen again, could it?
Of course, it has.
I've visited several times the site of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It happened when political divisions and hatreds inspired a community of vigilantes armed against their own country, which helped hide a couple of even crazier extremists -- who made their statement by blowing up a building of innocent workers including 19 children.
When you start calling people traitors, or calling Obama a terrorist -- the modern equivalent of calling MLK a communist -- you help people excuse these sort of acts.
So Mr. McCain, if one of these crazies turns to violence, you share the blame.
If you've never been to the Oklahoma City memorial, it's sobering place. Monuments freeze forever the time -- 9:01 a.m., on April 19 -- that the bomb went off.
On a grassy lawn are 16 chairs representing the victims. Nineteen of those are tiny, for the children who's only crime was being in a day care center when the blast occured.
Among President Clinton's statement at a the time blaming hate speech for inspiring the blast -- which got conservatives and talk-radio folks up in arms. But he was right.
This was not long after the GOP takeover of Congress, through campaigns that often fed off conspiracy theories and outright hatred of anything democratic. I covered one as a journalist, of a woman named Helen Chenoweth, who courted militias.
At the time, you could go onto Phyllis Schafley's Web site (she an inspiration for conservative women like Sarah Palin) that suggested the Clintons were about the hand the country over to the UN. There were secret messages on the backs of road signs, and black helicopters in the air. As crazy as that sounds now, the video featured a number of GOP lawmakers.
On talk radio, they insisted Clinton and Reno killed the followers of David Koresh, actually the victims of a murder/suicide by their leaders. Forgotten was the fact that the Koreshis opened fire on cops.
But then again, the right wing entirely forgot the old Republican committment to supporting law officers. The NRA christened them jackbooted thugs. G. Gordon Liddy, friend to Republicans like John McCain, instructed listeners to shoot them in the head because they wore vests. Rush Limbaugh said "The second violent American revolution is just about--I got my fingers about a quarter of an inch apart--is just about that far away," according to the Washington Post.
A lesser talk radio head circulated a bumper sticker that read "Lee Harvey Oswald: Where are you now that we really need you?"
It was against that background that Timothy McVeigh acted. Oh, he was much crazier than anyone on talk radio, a race hater from a far-right christian sect. But he clearly thought he would inspire a revolution.
What I see today is eerily similar. Just as Newt and his closest allies didn't officially say Clinton was a traitor, McCain and Palin don't say exactly say Obama is a terrorist. They're just 'raising the question' about his 'associations,' with a wink and a nod. Other people say it for them.
Drill down just a little from them and you find the conspiracy theorists and haters. Drill on down and you'll find the crazies.
Again, I had hoped it was just me. This couldn't be real. John McCain is at heart an honorable man, he wouldn't play this game. Then again, he did pick Palin -- whose husband until recently belonged to a secessionist party of kooks -- to be his attack dog.
As I read this morning, I see sober people like David Gergen seeing the same things I do. A former governor of Michigan and the son of William Buckley denounce McCain. It's not just me.
I pray nothing happens, but this is a scary moment in politics. I've never seen major candidates for president and vice president stoop so low.
And I think of those tiny chairs on a lawn in Oklahoma. McCain, the next time, it could be on you.
