If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #5)
At a campaign stop a few days before the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton seemed to mist up briefly or get a slight lump in her throat while talking about her commitment to public service and her hopes for America. Or maybe she was just suppressing a cough; hard to tell.
Jesse Jackson Jr., the National Campaign Co-Chair for Barack Obama, ridiculed Hillary as “crying” over “her appearance”:
Father Michael Pfleger, a long-time friend and confidante of Obama’s, ridiculed Hillary as a racist weeping in frustration over a “black man stealing [her] show”:
21 Responses to “If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #5)”
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Kiuku says:
ugh
October 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm EST -
Alwaysthinking says:
I can’t look again, but clearly the false racist charges were a well-planned and widely implemented part of the Obama strategy.
Really, even though I remember McCarthyism well, this seems much worse. And way too many people are being hurt. Many minorities also recognize this and worry that his campaign has set back race relations. Did the campaign do it simply to win or do they have a larger agenda of civil unrest?
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Violet says:
I think just to win. Or rather, to control the dialogue. If Obama is elected I expect him to continue to use accusations of racism as a shield to deflect criticism of his administration and as a ploy to maintain support.
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Alwaysthinking says:
I’m afraid you are right. The side effects, then, could mean a very unpleasant time for all.
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Kiuku says:
If civil unrest were their agenda they’ve done a pretty good job. Though I blame misogyny. Obama should not even be where he is.
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sister of ye says:
We just got rid of a black mayor who consistently cried racial victim every time he got criticized. It took a black woman prosecutor to bring him down - and he still cried that he was victimized even as he pled guilty.
Of course, that’s an old political game around here. The big city black mayor cries racism and the white suburban mayors dog whistle about “them” for their voters. Then they go smooze with each other at their political meetings while it’s the poor working shmucks who have to live with the increased tension.
That’s a major reason Obama became unacceptable to me. I’ve seen this show before too many times and know it doesn’t end well.
And for Michael Pfleger, Catholic priest, to sneer at anyone else for being privileged is rich. Catholic priests reek of a sense of entitlement and sexism. I’ve known a few really good guys who were actual decent human beings, but that’s despite the church’s culture, not because if it. And they’re the ones, not the Pflegers, who end up in hot water with the hierarchy.
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goesh says:
Fine, fine and dandy but you better be prepared to lay your defenses because these same energies will be directed at you and others to discredit and silence your voice, unless you are on the band wagon. You are beig counted on to defeat the GOP at any cost, right? I think the hesitancy and undecideness of Hillary supporters was factored in by the Obama machine - and you hated Karl Rove, lol! It has indirectly fueled the meme that he will win - Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. If you can’t fight dirty and you can’t be a Republican, what are you going to do?
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myiq2xu says:
What’s really sad is the rantings of those two men are far from the worst things that have been said during this long campaign.
At the time they were made they seemed very ugly, but practically every day the envelope is pushed farther and farther into unexplored areas of disgusting behavior and commentary
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kenoshaMarge says:
No worry about voting for Obama for me. I saw the kind of tactics he used and knew this was NOT someone who would get my vote. I was conflicted and wondered if I, as a lifelong Democrat, could vote for a, gasp, Republican.
I wonder no more. I voted McCain/Palin last Friday here in Wisconsin. The world didn’t end. I got to vote my 30% solution and I am at peace with myself in a way I never was when I voted for gasbag Kerry in 2004.
Now if only we could count on an unbiased media and a fair election like they have in some democracies.
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Kat says:
Well, here’s a story about Palin being hung in effigy in West Hollywood.
http://cbs2.com/local/Sarah.Pa.....49299.html
Here’s the quote that jumped out at me:
“I know if we had done it with Barack Obama, people would’ve probably thrown things through our windows,” Morrisette said. “The image of a hanged black man is a lot more intense than the image of a hanged white woman — for our country — in the history of our country.”
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InsightAnalytical-GRL says:
And then there is the questionable committment to women!!!
The whole system is rigged to keep women out of the top spot! The Democratic Party and Obama’s acceptance of misogyny and failure to address this and now the hatcheting of Palin…women and racism, all so clear this cycle.
kenosha Marge should be writing for the NY Times instead of the insider Dowd and others like her…
Read this…
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Greenconsciousness says:
I will not cry if BO loses yet the Opponent blatantly supports the corporate elites and I Will cry if they win.
According to Nader on C-Span this weekend, Norm Chomsky and Howard Zinn have endorsed BO joining their heroes the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and similar male left types who have killed for ideology and now live wealthy because of their parents wealth and influence, and, of course, Wright, Farrakhan, Kenya’s Rail (Sharia) Odinga, and the usual leftist wanabees who profit from creating artificial divisions instead of coalition.
These, the male left, were the ones BO was talking about when he said Clinton supporters would vote for him but his supporters would not vote for her. These are the ones who would never have voted for Clinton, who will never accept any woman in power. These and those who buy and promote their policy were the ones BO was talking about.
I can only hope that when real feminists organize again they will recognized the male left as well as the male right as the enemy of women and women’s freedom.
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TheOtherDelphyne says:
Kat, that is one disturbing article and that quote is disgusting. A hanged white woman - like in Salem during the “witch scare” - is virtually a non event, but the image of a hanged black man is “more intense in the history of our country.”
With the obots as crazy they are, they may have done more than just throw rocks at this idiot’s home - he might have found himself hanging from that noose. And if that idiot is a gay man, he should really be ashamed of himself knowing the hate crimes that have been done to so many gay men and women simply because they are gay.
Sickening.
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Kiuku says:
I voted McCain/Palin
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mojave_wolf says:
A friend of mine suggested the other day I should just be happy that America has progressed to the point where we can elect a black man president. That is good, but that he used so much misogyny and false claims of racism more than made up for it in my mind. Advance anti-racism (assuming Obama getting elected has done this) by deliberately advancing misogyny at the same time?
Anyone who would deliberately make this trade-off loses in my book despite everything else. And I think of all the candidates running, even the minor party ones, he’s the one most likely to advance the surveillance state apparatus that Bush/Cheney have up and running, and his energy policy is awful and that’s only the future of the entire planet and the survival of much of life as we know it other than jellyfish and cockroaches that is possibly up for grabs, and these two things more than make up for what minor advantages he might have on the economy vs. McCain (McCain’s energy policy is equally awful, and he’s not a sure bet for goodness on the police state issue either, but I’m hoping he is more open to learning and/or the dems will stop him from doing much and we can get a dem in in 4 years etc.)
So definitely not voting for Obama, but haven’t made up my mind where to direct my protest vote yet, and need to get my ballot in the mail soon–a whole bunch of propositions I care deeply about. I was all set to vote for McKinney/Clemente, and am still leaning that way (first all woman ticket! first all person of color ticket! and why has the media given this no coverage, or that we have *three* minorities on the ballot at the top of the ticket and two latinos as vp candidates? these things should be stories) despite the apparent batshit crazy statement made by McKinney about thousands of prisoners being executed in south Louisiana after Katrina, but another part of me would like to vote for MacPalin simply to compensate for the sexism directed at her (this would be my vote if I thought McCain had a prayer of carrying California, but since he doesn’t, I really haven’t much liked his campaign either, to be honest), and for all that I’m still deeply, deeply angry at Nader over 2000, his calling Bill Maher out on his sexism was a good thing.
Also still unsure whether to keep pushing this on my own blog; over 3/4 of my American online friends, even those who were formerly pro-Hillary, are pretty much totally in the tank for Obama and I don’t think anything I say at this point will matter, I have little to say that doesn’t imply they are being easily manipulated fools, and I *like* these people otherwise. I hate being as alienated from the same people I normally feel most comfortable with as I do from the good folk chanting “drill baby drill”. (I would say I feel like Fred at the beginning of the Jasmine arc in Angel, but I’m pretty sure someone would construe that as racist . . . )(am tempted to say it anyway just to have that discussion, but another part of me says why bother?) I think I shall write one more post later this week, directing anyone who cares to some posts here and anglachel and by riverdaughter at the confluence, relating the promotion of sexism in the campaign that you and riverdaughter were talking about with the rape culture that anglachel was talking about and mentioning that *this* is what I think people are supporting when they vote for obama. I just wonder if it’s worth pissing off some of my best friends on a possibly permanent basis on behalf of what I’m pretty sure is a lost cause . . .
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mojave_wolf says:
greenconsciousness,
I fear it isn’t just people who would never have voted for Hillary or who don’t want any woman in power who are supporting Obama, trashing Palin and ignoring McKinney.
Most of the former Hillary supporters on my live journal f-list are totally in the tank for Obama now. (which isn’t to say there aren’t at least three people suffering from CDS there, too) These are all very smart, and for the most part media skeptical people, yet someone mentioned in a recent post on their blog about “I love to trash Palin with the rest of my feminist friends”.
I really don’t get it; I know some people are that easy to sway w/media & publicity manipulation and/or by charisma, but that group seems to have expanded to people who normally are relatively immune to that sort of thing in this election.
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octogalore says:
Mojave_wolf, I agree re the leanings of many Hillary supporters. Even those who decried the sexism in the primaries. It’s the victory of cognitive dissonance over healthy skepticism.
And I hear you re the bonding over trashing Palin and the risks one runs of pissing off folks. I threw caution to the wind yesterday, but then most of my former Hillary-supporter friends have alreay decided I’m a lost cause.
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Greenconsciousness says:
mojave-wolf
love everything you said - love everything Violet said — still had to vote for the sexist creep. But I have hope for Palin if MC dies —
I had a butcher abortion and see choice as fundamental to women’s self actualization. — I see the earth drowning in overpopulation as the root Eco problem. But most of all I see a class war that the US working class must win or it will be the end of freedom.
Yet everything you say is true true true!!
I believe our impossible position is because we put our faith in the left democrats, and opposed the war even though it was obvious that betrayed our Muslim sisters who are held in slavery by patriarchal theocrats. We did not speak for women and say smash the theocracy by any means necessary. We said what the boys wanted us to say without thought of what was good for women.
Many feminists are still self righteous, still washing their hands about the status of women in Afghanistan and Iraq even though our troops are there and Condi Rice has established 17 regional women’s centers in Afghanistan and there is a terrific struggle to the death for women happening right now. What we did in supporting male politics over women’s rights has come around to our rights betrayed by that same left democrat party.
I tried to tell women we had to be independent from the male left and the democrat party - work with the Office of International Women’s Issues to force the war machine to protect women’s rights and insist on a secular constitution, not just chant anti war slogans building the boy’s party/movement. We should have been on our own, building an independent political movement, fighting for women’s rights in coalition with right women.
But no — feminists in lockstep with the democrat party built the male left’s power through their anti bush /war machine and BO’ campaign is our thank you.
Still I cannot vote for the oligarchs though the alternative may be just as bad. We must as women begin to work for women’s rights intelligently meaning we must change conditions globally not support uncontrolled immigration to the US. We must bring the US to the world not overpopulate and lose control of democracy in the US. This means working with all women in coalition for women’s rights and Violet’s a hero as she is actually starting to organize in that direction
.n. My issues are not necessarily the ones her group has chose but I support her work and the similar work of other women in separating from male policy to work on equality and freedom for women, domestically and globally.As we build power for all women, we build our own political power in the US.
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propertius says:
Violet,
When Donna Brazile threatens “blood in the streets” if Obama doesn’t get the nomination, it’s hard to believe that civil unrest isn’t a part of the agenda.
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Kiuku says:
I hope that McCain wins and they try their “blood in the streets” tactic so we can rid ourselves of the cancer once and for all.
This is America.
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Carmonn says:
Greenconsciousness, I have noticed that a lot. All kinds of male leftists who were too pure to vote for Clinton or Kerry (and I don’t blame them, I’m all for principles) are now for BO. Why? It should be just as much against their principles to vote for him as for any other Democrat and they sure as hell wouldn’t have voted for H. Clinton out of fear of McCain. BO is no more a leftist than Palin, for god’s sake. Unbelievable. I have to wonder what the hell their criteria is, I’ll vote for someone I consider to be a corporate rightist stooge who goes against everything I stand for–provided he’s running against a girl.
