Sunday, August 3, 2008

There Will Be Racism II: “White People, Vote Race – Not Party!”

Exitus acta probat (the outcome justifies the deeds) — Niccolo Machiavelli

After processing what I heard the other day, the reality of this election season, this is what the message in the upcoming election boils down to:

For democrats, it’s Corporate America (big business) vs. the people.

For republicans, it’s blacks and muslims (terror) vs. white people.

In a nutshell, that’s how this all plays out. Democrats are going to point out the classism inherent in our current state in America and how it’s created the ills we’re seeing economically. Republicans are going to focus on terrorism and remind everyone of their fears of terror, whether it be from muslims or from blacks who they will try to conflate with them, whether muslim or not. For the vast majority of Americans, the economy is the urgent issue. For conservatives, it must be shifted to fear and terror.

Yeah, I know, Sen. John McCain was quoted this week as saying “I do not want race to become an issue. I think we should move on.” My response to this? Bullshit!

The GOPpers are going to do whatever is necessary, even if it takes inciting the black community into demonstrations of social unrest, to scare white voters away from democrats. Always be mindful: these are the undisputed masters at Machiavellian campaigning. It would not surprise me at all if we discover that neo-con operatives are planting seeds of discontent in the black community and encouraging discontent a la Obama’s recent stop in St. Petersburg.

Being from Texas where Republicans pulled an unprecedented mid-term redistricting specifically designed to remove all the white democrats and toss a bone to one extra black represented district in a weak attempt to make it look fair, this should be unsurprising. It wasn’t spoken in those terms nationally, but everyone in Texas knew exactly what they were doing. It was politics that was all-but-openly about racial polarization.

Texas’ redistricting (gerrymandering) was manufactured by Tom the “Hammerhead Shark’ DeLay (the only politician who can’t look you directly in the eye because he has eyes planted diametrically on each side of his head), the other Tom, State House Speaker ‘Crash’ Craddick (the man who makes his money off the dead aka: the official state ghoul), and Gov. Rick ‘Vacuous’ Perry (motto: “don’t out me! I’m still in the closet … even though my I appointed my boyfriend to a political position!”) If DeLay’s own self-image of invincibility and hubris didn’t sink him, he would’ve completed his dream of a two-caste political system of straight white people on one side (GOP) and queers and swarthy types on the other (Democratic).

Once his partisan ethnic-cleansing was complete, King Hammerhead’s machine would slowly siphon minority hopefuls over as it became the only political party with any money (thus any hope) for sociopolitical success. But to do so, you’ve got to kiss the ring and genuflect nicely, parroting the oath of “wealth and power first, country second, people last.” It all looked great, at least on paper….

Sadly for them, over-eager greed ended up leapfrogging their designs. Their incompetence in handling war as well as economy became impossible to ignore, and their move toward a one-party pseudo democracy (read: Mexico, pre-millennium) unraveled. Economic pain is pandemically working its way up the food chain, and the American standard of living is in a death spiral. GOPpers are suddenly having a tough time diverting our attention.

As a result, their brand-damaged nominee for president is the one that most rank-and-file in GOPland least preferred: John McCain, a self-advertised maverick who styles himself as a different kind of Republican that eschews negative campaigning and business-as-usual big government.

So is McCain really “a different kind of Republican?” Look at the campaign commercials and the rhetoric: the shameless distortions of truth, the deceitful flip-flops in his official position, and his desperate deconstruction of anything Sen. Barack Obama does regardless of which approach he takes. They set up another Catch-22 campaign structure. It’s shades of George W. Bush and Karl ‘Turdblossom’ Rove.

This is no surprise. GOP-folk kiss the ground that old Turdblossom walks upon and he’s being (has been) wooed about reactivating with GOP campaigns. It’s desperation time. So McCain is no longer doing the “straight talk” and “avoiding attack campaigns.” They’ll just do like before, find ways to word what they do to make it seem something different. For instance, the recent commercials comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and (Bush-supporting) Britney Spears are simply laughed off by McCain as “injecting humor” into the campaign!

(Suggestion to the Democrats: start becoming pointedly “humorous” with Republicans in return!)

To avoid direct scrutiny, it will again be McCain’s subordinates and most especially the Swift-boat crew doing the bulk of the dirty work as election day grows closer. Example: Fox/Faux News coming up with graphics similar to showing Michelle Obama with a tagline stating “Obama’s Baby Mama.”

“It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be clean. Just win, baby.” — Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders

Essentially this is the only way for McCain and the Republicans to win is the same as the past campaigns: tear down the Democrat’s character. Negative is mandatory. If the campaign focuses on McCain’s policies or on McCain’s character or background, Republicans lose. Whether it’s fear of a black president, fear of a liberal president or fear of a president who’s not under Republican control, their abject fear means that under no circumstances can they allow McCain to lose – regardless of how they feel about him personally.

As a result, McCain now has a new and menacing glint in his eye. Turdblossom and his acolyte, the ‘Turd’s Egg’ Steve Schmidt (the undeclared, but currently-in-charge campaign guru) will do everything they can to draw the African American community out, especially anyone with ties to the Obama Campaign, to respond in a controversial (media-worthy) fashion. Then McCain can turn around and claim “race card” and “respond accordingly.” Essentially, they create conditions that start the fight and then fight back with self-righteous indignation. It’s the perfect crime (so long as they’re not nabbed due to loose lips).

As mentioned in my previous blog, racial unrest benefits Republicans. They won’t be afraid, and will even be encouraged to instigate it if they must. As a result, now more than ever, all non-black democrats – especially white democrats – need to get out in front of this and push back unmistakably hard.

We cannot allow them to get the crowbar in a seam and wedge us apart! All non-black democrats need to take them to them to the mat each and every time they pull this crap. We need to burn up the blogosphere, get the message out to the Randi Rhoadeses, the Keith Olbermanns and Huffington Posts. If Republicans want to make this election cycle about race, let’s give them their worst nightmare and make it their Waterloo. It’s Republicans who would rather win a campaign and lose a country – the USA – by invoking the three P’s: Phobia, Polarization and Prejudice.

Is this what they consider Patriotism: a house divided upon itself?

If in this coming campaign ‘war’ it becomes clear that Republicans will pull out the nukes, Democrats should not stick to conventional weaponry and wagging fingers to point out the Geneva Convention rules. If that happens, expect GOPpers to gleefully pull out their neutrons and bunker-busters and go for a scorched earth program while McCain continues making “humorous” snarks like “bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Obama” on Faux News and other corporate-owned media outlets.

Remember, McCain went clean in the 2000 primary race. He also got mercilessly swift-boated by Bush, Rove and the neo-cons with his “apology” to the VietCong at the Hanoi Hilton, his unstable temperament and his illegitimate black child. McCain learned a lot from Bush and the RNC that election cycle, and we’ll see all he learned of that painful lesson in this cycle.

Right now, our country’s economy and it’s very future hang in the balance. We can give it to more of the same corporate, neo-con, religiopolitical leadership that we’ve had the past eight years, or we can seek a different path. But regardless of which path it is, even without Obama responding at all, we are likely going to see the ugliest campaign season of all time.

It will be a war, we should take it seriously and do everything possible to hang together and to win. The time is now.

“There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
In the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come….” — My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen

3 comments:

HRC Watch said...

And so it begins.
Check out the blog post by Pam Spaulding: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6947

HRC Watch said...

I forgot to post the other article Pam wrote, sorry about that.
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5311

Thanks for blogging about this Vanessa. Keep the information flowing.

Unknown said...

You forgot one of the republicans favorite tactics, voter turnout suppression. Along with the old standby of fewer polling places in non-white neighborhoods they now have restrictive voter ID laws in place in some swing states.

The Republicans will do anything to win,this election will get a lot more viscous.