Joan Walsh: Is GOP using race to block Obama agenda? Ya think? — There is one main reason the U.S. doesn’t have the social democratic traditions and programs enjoyed by most Western democracies — we are the only such nation without some kind of universal healthcare — and that reason is our history of ethnic, racial and class strife. (The bounty of the eternal frontier and American exceptionalism fit in there too, but I’d pick our fractious and well-manipulated heterogeneity as the top reason.) The irony is the last 50 years have seen brutal class warfare in which the forces behind the wealthy transferred income and privilege consistently upward. Yet now the forces of reaction are claiming Obama is the class warrior, and the race warrior, declaring war on whites, and trying to snatch the status-quo privileges — like healthcare, allegedly — from the haves, to provide for unworthy have nots. [ READ MORE

Should Beck apologize for his comments?: An Ed Show panel debates whether Fox News' Glenn Beck should be forced to apologize for calling President Barack Obama a racist.

Kweisi Mfume and Joan Walsh on Beck's Politics of Personal Destruction

Rush Limbaugh vs. Colin Powell

References:

1. Too Hot for Fox News: "In its anti-Obama hysteria, Fox has mainstreamed voices once relegated to the fever swamps. This is most immediately clear in the apocalyptic buffoonery of Glenn Beck, and in the way the network has indulged the delusions of the so-called birthers, who insist that Obama was born in Kenya and thus can't legally be president. Yet that's just scratching the surface. On the weekly, hour-long Freedom Watch, which began airing in February, Fox gives its imprimatur to the kind of rhetoric once confined to the short-wave radio broadcasts of militia movements. After eight years of championing increased executive power, the network now hosts a show whose anti-government fixation sometimes leads to cheerful talk of dissolving the United States and dark warnings of impending tyranny. [ READ MORE ]

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The highest office in the land is occupied by a black man, and some whites, even those with NO TEETH, NO HEALTH INSURANCE, NO FUTURE …Zero! NOTHING!, …and would benefit from Obama’s policies, are up in arms — scared of a “BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE-HOUSE!!!”

Right-Wing media “blood-hounds” know this and they are drumming up the FEAR like never before, while laughing all the way to the bank.

These “poor souls” have been played, duped, cajoled and mis-used by Republican politicians for years, through fear-mongering and race-baiting. However, the demographics have clearly shifted around, though the Republican Party seems nearly blind — and tone deaf — to the fact, writes John Ridely, for the Huffington Post.

Conservatives have gotten too complacent playing race-bait-your-way-to-victory and failed to notice that in 2008, it’s minority voters who decided the outcome of the presidential election, and will continue to do so in the future!

[URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyj1DSEQuy0&fmt=22 ]

Screwball Glenn Beck: Obama is A Racist

Meet The ‘Birthers’

Southerners ruining the GOP?

Citing Dobbs, Maddow says “CNN’s helping” move birth certificate story from “the fringe into the mainstream”

On MSNBC, Deutsch calls birtherism “hate-mongering,” “fear-mongering,” “racist”

Campbell Brown mocks birthers as “a very small sliver of ultraconservatives”

Apparently, it’s not “dead”: Dobbs finds “new developments” to report about Obama birth certificate “controversy” on CNN

1. Playing With Fire: The Obama White House may see political advantage in exposing the ‘Birthers.’ But they shouldn’t discount the dangerous sentiment of the radical rejectionists.

2. Keyes, Birthers, Buckley and Birchers: Oh my!: One conservative’s call to end the so-called ‘Birthers’ movement

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Automated calls from political parties should be outlawed, they are a nuisance and they do nothing to enlighten voters about the issues.

John McCain is down in the polls, and out of desperation he is blanketing the battleground states with automated calls that portray Obama in the worst possible light.

Here’s the text of a typical John McCain robo call:

‘Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans,’ the recorded message said. ‘And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.’

The call ends with the legally required disclosure, informing the listener that the call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee.” — More Here

This robo call is replete with errors, lies and exaggerations. Barack Obama has never had a close working relationship with Bill Ayers, and we don’t need to hear McCain’s pack of lies. Ayers was a terrorist in his younger days, but today he is a respected college professor. Obama had the good judgement to oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq from the start, McCain has marched in lockstep with Bush’s foreign policy.

When a Jehovah’s Witness disturbs the peace of my home, I quickly get rid of him. Every voter who is a victim of McCain’s robo calls should get even by voting for Obama.

‘I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America — as the greatest source for good in this world,’ Palin said of Obama to 2,000 supporters at a rally in Clearwater, Florida this morning. “I’m afraid this someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.’

‘This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change that anyone can believe in, not my kids, not for your kids,’ Palin added.” http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-plays-fea.html

With only a month to go before the general election, McCain finds himself behind in all the national polls, and most importantly trailing in all the battleground states. McCain feels he has no choice but to play the fear card, and so once again we are forced to endure the spectacle of GOP gutter politics.

Palin is playing the fear card, she is misrepresenting Obama as a radical with dubious personal associations.

It’s ironic that the McCain camp choose Palin to deliver the opening blow of their campaign of dirty tricks, when nobody inspires more fear than the governor of Alaska.

I tremble when I think of the awful prospect of McCain winning the general election, and then quickly dying. That would leave a woman who isn’t even qualified to be a White House clerical employee as leader of the free world.

The choice is quite clear, should we vote for Obama who represents and embodies hope and change, or should we go with a grouchy old man who resorts to playing the fear card?

Playing the fear card is bad enough, but the McCain card is also subliminally playing the race card. Racists see African Americans as different from other Americans, they are the “other” who think differently and act differently. Palin is arguing that “You and I” (read: Whites) see America one way and Obama sees America another way. Obama like most blacks, Palin is subliminally suggesting, is criminally-minded and likely to pal around with other scum like terrorists.

Reckless and desperate politicians rely on fear and racism to inspire citizens to vote for them, and statesmen trust in the goodness of the American people.

Vote for hope and change, and say no to fear and racism by voting for Obama the first Tuesday in November.