Totally unrelated soothing image. Well, there is the food angle.
Any hope that the hatred unleashed by the Obama movement would subside post-election is starting to fade. The signal features of Obama’s movement have always been fanaticism and misogyny — and note that I’m talking about the real Obama movement, not the Obama™ movement — and these were ratified at the polls on November 4. They’re now part of acceptable behavior.
I was over at Lynette Long’s blog this morning, and two of her front-page posts are disturbing testament to this phenomenon.
“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.
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One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.
“He said, ‘You should be crucifixed.’ It was kind of funny because, I was like, don’t you mean ‘crucified?’ ” Catherine said.
Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be “burned with her shirt on” for “being a filthy-rich Republican.”
Catherine is lucky she wasn’t physically assaulted. Others haven’t been so fortunate. Lynette’s second disturbing post is about what happened to her and her friends at a restaurant last night:
Last night I met three friends for dinner at a popular local restaurant. When I arrived my friends were already there. One was sitting at the corner of a packed bar while the other two were standing behind her. Beside them three guys would not release two seats they were saving “for friends” for at least 30 minutes. When I arrived, one of my friends, eager to find me a seat, tried to take one of the seats held by the guys, saying she would be happy to return the seat once his friends arrived. He pulled the seat back and yelled, “You are just a bunch of C****.” What??? Haven’t we seen that word emerge during the very recent Presidential Campaign? I was flabbergasted. I have never in my life heard a woman called the C word. Ouch.
The women asked the bartender to take charge and ask the guys to give up one of the seats he was saving. The bartender would not intervene. His response was a cold, “His friend is parking the car.”
The second of the four of us was infuriated and went and had a long talk with the manager. I could not hear what she said, but the manager sheepishly asked one of the guys for a stool. No, again. Frustrated, the woman who had spoken to the manager poured a glass of water on the head of the most aggressive of the guys. He turned around, grabbed her by the hair with his left hand, pulled her down, and dragged her across the restaurant floor while punching her in the face with his right hand. Three patrons pulled him off.
As I watched, it all seemed so surreal. I had enough of my wits about me call the police as soon as the fight started. As we waited for the police to arrive, the three guys took off angry and triumphant. I followed them for a couple of blocks hoping they would slip in to one of the many restaurants around the corner, which they did not.
When the police came we stepped outside to explain what happened. When the woman who was assaulted told the police they called us a C****, he said, “That’s a part of a horse.” When she showed him her broken glasses and bruised face, he said, “You started the fight.” Something is not right here, a woman’s been pummeled in the face and you tell me it’s her fault. Disgusted, we left, found another restaurant and had dinner.
Lynette’s friends weren’t wearing McCain T-shirts, but they are middle-aged white women — which presumably is just as bad. As Lynette says:
I think we cannot dismiss the election’s place in all this. The world watched as Hillary Clinton and Sara Palin were eviscerated by the mainstream media. Calling women C**** was tolerated. Demeaning and disrespecting women was deemed OK. A young potent male was victorious over an older women. It was a symbolic victory on many deep psychological levels. I am afraid last night was just the beginning and that there will be more crimes against women. Times have changed and not for the better. I can smell it in the air.
Posted by Violet in Barack Obama, Election 2008
