All posts in the topic Civility Re: Palin incites Obama assassination (Short link)
Summary
- There are 5 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Laura Waterman Wittstock at Oct 12 23:17 UTC
John McCain deserves kudos for his clear statement of the need for
civility and comity in our political process. Unfortunately, the booing
from his supporters is a sign of how bad things have become with the
increasing radicalization of the Republican Party
The intolerance which, IMHO, has been driven by the Religious Right,
anti-abortion forces and radical right wing talk radio has apparently
even gotten the attention of Senator McCain. His statements reinforce
my opinion that he is at base a decent man. However, in picking Palin
and using the very people who scurrilous engineered his defeat in 2000
he has shown a willingness to go places to win I find troubling.
The Acorn voter registration effort is seriously flawed by design. As
we saw in Minnesota, when you pay people piece work for voter
registration, the incentive is to cheat by manufacturing registrations
to get paid. These are not "voter fraud" in the sense of attempting to
cast fraudulent votes but employee theft since the goal is to be paid
for work not done. PIRG, ACORN and Cleanwater Action, among others,
make their employees earn their keep without adequate supervision and
management invites problems as we saw in Minnesota and now in other states.
I am really impressed by the unanimous vote of the Alaska Legislative
Council to approve their investigators report. The response of the
Palins that ethics only can involve money is sad. Watergate did not
involve financial discretions, it involved abuse of power which is
exactly what she is accused of by the report.
Marc Asch wrote:
...the booing from his supporters is a sign of how bad things have become with
the increasing radicalization of the Republican Party
Well, let's be clear here; a pox on idiots. Partisanship is what gives us
choices, from which (ideally) to fashion, in our imperfect and bumptious way, a
compromise (in lieu of a phony "consensus").
But back on topic.
There is not a single credible Republican who condones the behavior of the thin
film of louts who spoiled the Lakeville rally (to the delight of the major
media). Not one.
As, I'm sure, there's not a single credible Democrat (other than Paul Begala
and Keith Olberman - y'all don't want to claim them, do you?) who gets all
tingly about the same thing on the other side. Right?
That this is the longest, most involved thread on this "forum" in the year or
so I've been lurking here shows what a worthless exercise this "forum", like
all E-"Democracy" "forums", have become; a mindless echo chamber for those
who've abandoned all perspective.
Mitch Berg
The Midway
Tim Nelson: "Partisan behavior is partisan behavior. Both parties have run
partisan campaigns. Both candidates have a history of saying they hate that
sort of thing. The candidates are at fault, or the party bases are at fault,
but to create a wrestlemania atmosphere, on both sides, has been done in this
case."
Mitch Berg: "Partisanship is what gives us choices, ..."
Partisanship can only give us choices if candidates confine themselves to the
issues that need solutions which each partisan, theoretically, would have a
plan to address. Because today's campaigns cost so much (stupidly, IMO),
whichever contenders can get the money, from whatever source, are those who get
the attention in the media. (We are not a city state of 600,000 as was Athens,
but a nation of 300 million.) That leaves us, the huddled masses, captive to
money interests. In this instance; coal for Obama, oil for McCain. One of the
candidates, the most prominent, who has no moneyed interests is Ralph Nader.
Enough said.
Incivility, as a mark of partisan behavior, is another issue altogether.
Incivility in politics has been a tradition for centuries. There are, for
example, well documented stories of incivility to the point of murder in the
Roman senate.
The wing nuts in the Wisconsin crowd shouting about Sen. Obama, "Kill him!"
were knuckle draggers whose first solution to someone, something or some idea
they do not want to entertain is death. (They make ferocious soldiers,
operating always solely from the lizard brain.) There will always be nutters at
rallies, that's what they do.
The more insidious incivility is the partisan advertizing. The swift boating of
John Kerry, the Willy Horton ad have been the most execrable in recent years,
but we have tolerated advertizing for a long time and all of it is, at best,
hyperbole, snake oil.
John McCain showed himself an experienced politician at the rally in Lakeville
with knuckle draggers. Palin showed another segment of her lack of political
skills at her rally in Wisconsin. The bigger question has to be: are we in
danger of putting uncivil nutters in office only to bear the consequences,
intended and unintended consequences world wide?
On Oct 12, 2008, at 2:30 PM, WIZARD MARKS wrote:
>
>
> The wing nuts in the Wisconsin crowd shouting about Sen. Obama,
> "Kill him!" were knuckle draggers whose first solution to someone,
> something or some idea they do not want to entertain is death.
> (They make ferocious soldiers, operating always solely from the
> lizard brain.) There will always be nutters at rallies, that's what
> they do.
>
Those that come to rallies and "town hall" meetings don't just drift
in from off the street. They are screened and in the case of
candidate George W. Bush, right down to the kinds of t-shirts they
are wearing.
Perhaps the McCain people wanted to sprinkle their meetings with
spice and thus sampled from some of the scum on the pond, perhaps
not. Either way, it has made news and for the silent imaginary
assassins, created an echo.
A raw chord has been struck and it is highly risky. Calmer heads are
rushing to the hot center of the McCain campaign to try to save it
from itself.