Does it get any better than this?The only thing that Johnny and Gidget have to run on at this stage in the game is the issue (or non-issue, really) of the character of Barack Obama. Watching the people at the Reichstag....I mean, rallies....will be remembered as classic moments in the history of unintentional comedy; a virtual treasure trove example of the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American people:
"I ain't votin' fer no nigger A-Rab!"
Nice! No, it doesn't get any weirder than that. It really doesn't!
But there is something which is also very disturbing and deeply ominous about the McCain/Palin events - the visceral shouts from the crowd, implying threatened violence:
"Kill him!"
"Off with his head!"
"Terrorist!"
"Bomb Obama!"
All of these choice nuggets of electoral discourse were captured by the microphones of MSNBC this week. In an interview a few days ago with CNN's Anderson Cooper, David Gergen said:
"There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence. I think we're not far from that. I really worry when we get....the kind of rhetoric that you're getting at these rallies. I think it's really imperative that the candidates try to calm people down."
The typical McCain/Palin rally has all the look and feeling - not of your average campaign event - but of an out-of-control lynch mob! It seems that much of Middle America, as mythologized by Thornton Wilder in his literary masterpiece, Our Town, has lost it's fucking mind.
There is the malignant cancer of racism which affects the American body politic that Camp McCain is willing and eager to exploit. How else can you explain Sarah Palin's constant, suggestive inquiry, "Just who is Barack Obama"? All last week she has been trying to transform Senator Obama's casual acquaintance with former sixties radical William Ayers into a full fledged plot to blow up America.
Her desperation is quite touching, really. She is loyally following the tried and true Lee Attwater/Karl Rove playbook - the three D's: Divide, Distort and Distract. She is trying to hoodwink the American people into foolishly swallowing the fiction that the Republican party is the party of traditional middle class goals and values. That won't work any longer. Sure it will always work with the type of idiotic Nazi wannabes they were able to dredge up for their rallies in Wisconsin and Florida last week - but the grand old party is over. The era of half-witted, right wing ideological perversity which has polluted America's national political dialogue for nearly three decades is over.
The pendulum has swung - with a vengeance, baby!
I've been waiting for this moment since the day I picked up Dick Gregory's autobiography from the shelf of my high school's library one afternoon in the spring of 1974. I knew that an African American would make it to the White House in my lifetime. I can't explain to you how I knew it - it was just a feeling I had. Call it intuition; call it prophecy; call it Degan's dumb Irish luck - But I knew it, Buster!
The irony is that I always thought that the first black man to live in the White House would be a centrist Republican (Let's face facts: Middle America would never have sent a black woman to the White House at this point in time, no matter how bad things are). Even a slightly left-of-center black Democrat traditionally scares the shit out of Middle America. A Black Democrat in the White House? It'll never happen, I thought.
But these are not ordinary times and President Obama....Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself....Senator Obama is no ordinary politician. Forgive me for flipping the switch of my cliche` machine but I just can't help myself: This is the dawn of a new era in America. Four centuries of struggle and hardship for our African American brothers and sisters have led to this moment. Barack Obama is not an historical accident - he is an historic inevitability. Wake up and face the dawn.
In the early days of his campaign, the expected musical question was raised in some quarters:
"Is America ready for an African American president?"
Oh, get a freakin' life, huh? As I said on this very site on January 6, the morning after Barack won the Iowa primaries (Yeah! Yeah! I know! It's immodest to quote one's self. So sue me!):
America has been ready for a black president since the day Shirley Chisholm announced her candidacy in 1972.
America has been ready for a black president since Martin Luther King declared, "I have a dream" in August of 1963.
America has been ready for a black president since the day in 1957 when federal troops had to escort nine children into a public school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
America has been ready for a black president since late in the afternoon of December 5, 1955, when a tired and fed-up Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.
America has been ready for a black president since the Supreme Court of Earl Warren ruled on Brown vs. the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education in 1954.
America has been ready for a black president since Harry S Truman desegregated the armed forces on July 28, 1948.
America has been ready for a black president since the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson on April 15, 1947.
America has been ready for a black president since that day in 1939 when African American contralto Marion Anderson sang "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after having been refused the opportunity to sing before the Daughters of the America Revolution because of the color of her skin.
America has been ready for a black president since the night of October 16, 1901 when President Theodore Roosevelt invited George Washington Carver to dine at the White House in the face of southern political outrage.
America has been ready for a black president since January 1, 1863 when Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation became the law of the land.
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America has been ready for a black president since Frederick Douglas put pen to paper and wrote, "The life of the nation is secure only while that nation is honest, truthful and virtuous."
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America has been ready for a Black president since March 5, 1770. That was the day a man by the name of Crispus Attucks - A BLACK GUY - became the first human being to give his life for this country.
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Yeah, America has been ready for a black president for a very, very long time. Three cheers to Barack Obama for waking us up to this fact.
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Bearing all of these historical facts in mind, the case against an Obama White House is starting to look pathetically thin. Senator McCain's latest argument du juor is that Barack has never stood up to the leadership of his party and that he, John McCain, has stood up to his. There's no argument to that statement. There have been more than a few times throughout the years where McCain bravely challenged the assholes who comprise the "leadership" of the senate Republicans. But think about it for a minute: Although the Democrats are far from perfect, there are far less reasons to stand up to their leadership than there are to challenge the insane and corrupt positions of the GOP. It's almost like Satan criticizing Gabriel for not standing up to his leadership. A silly argument any way you slice it or dice it.
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My message to my fellow honkies who may have trepidations at the thought of an Obama administration would be this. His will not be the first black family to live in the White House. His will be the first black family that did not live in the servant's quarters of the White House. There's nothing to be afraid of. The world will not come to an end when this happens. Big rocks won't be falling from the sky. The sun won't refuse to rise in the morning. As a matter of fact, the world might even improve a little bit - maybe even a whole heck of a lot! Certainly, it cannot be argued that the way the rest of the planet perceives the United States will improve dramatically if President Barack Obama is inaugurated as our 44th president on January 20, 2009. If we continue down this twisted road of Conservative lunacy, we're going to look like a bunch of knuckleheads, don'cha think?
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The piece I wrote on January 6, which was called "Making History in Iowa" ended this way:
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"You know, I was just thinking: This son-of-a-bitch just might be able to pull this thing off! Wow!"
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Wow indeed!
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Dear Lord, keep him safe.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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SUGGESTED READING:
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Parting The Waters
by Taylor Branch
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In one-hundred days, George W. Bush will be out of the executive mansion forever. Someone, please pinch me, I must be dreaming!
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