I have a wonderful internet pen pal who lives in the southern U.S. She and her son came to Vancouver to meet me and my best friend a few years ago. She and I have an intuitive sort of understanding.
I wrote her about my emotional problem with my relative's racism/region-generated blindness. This is what she replied:
"Today I went to a friend's house to let her plumber in. The appointment was scheduled for a window period between noon and four p.m. so I didn't eat lunch beforehand. When they finished at 2:30, I was hungry and in the mood for pizza, so I stopped at the Pizza Hut nearest my house. At that hour, they were practically empty, but I got into a conversation with a man sitting near me. When he got ready to leave, he put on his official Obama cap, and I told him I had a T-shirt. We chatted about the election, and he commented that he fears for Obama's life. The waiter, who had overheard some of our conversation, later told me he has that same fear, as do I.
"I certainly hope the Secret Service is up to the job, although I suspect they've had to double up just to assure the cowardly ******* who occupies the White House that he's safe from harm."
Okay, I think I mentioned the possibility of this in these threads before. But I had pushed it into the back of my mind because there is nothing I can do to prevent it. And to even mention it may give 'someone' the idea.
But now I see that I'm not alone. Might as well open up the topic.
Do you think the president-elect will be assassinated?
And do you think that if he is, America will face its greatest crisis since the Civil War?
If it has occurred to us, it has occurred to Obama. This makes him a very courageous man. And his wife is a very courageous woman.
Posts: 6596 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Our nation has had ten presidents during my lifetime, from Ike through George W. Bush. Of these, JFK was assassinated, and there were assasination attempts on both Reagan and Ford. That's three of the ten.
The current conversation has made me wonder if there aren't plots to assassinate every President. There are nutbuckets and groups out there who have strong political, military or economic differences with either the United States or with a President in particular.
Posts: 8102 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
Now that Sarah Palin isn't out on the campaign trail accusing Obama of all sorts of things, stirring up the meatheads, the threats against him will at least diminish.
Posts: 2007 | Location: Boise, Idaho, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I've been a contributing member of the SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center) for the past 23 years. It's an organization started by Morris Dees for the purpose of combatting racism, the KKK in particular and hate groups in general. Because these groups always manage to operate within the law they generally escape prosecution in the criminal courts. Dees' technique has been to take them, or their leaders, to civil court and bankrupt them by seizing their compounds and camps and as many of their assets as possible. Another example of considerable courage because SPLC has been fire-bombed and Dees lives under constant threat.
What the general public doesn't seem to recognize is the scope and danger these bigots, skinheads, racists and white supremacists pose to a whole range of potential targets. At the present time Dees, chief trial counsel, prepares to go to trial against the Imperial Klans of America. The lawsuit is brought on behalf of Jordan Gruver, a teenager who was beaten by Klansmen at a county fair, and is scheduled to start today. Supporters of the SPLC have been advised to stay away from the trial - even though it is open to the public, because of security concerns. Gruver was attacked because he was suspected of being "Latino". He is, in fact a U.S citizen of Panamanian Indian descent.
The possibility that there are several "meatheads" as Gar calls them, ready and capable of attempting to assassinate, is a very real one.
Morris Dees ... another example of considerable courage because SPLC has been fire-bombed and Dees lives under constant threat.
What is the address of this org. ? I don't have a lot of money, but what I have, I want to use wisely.
The racists are quite sufficiently stupid to imagine that if they assassinate him, the "problem" will go away.
What I think is that they will unleash the fury of those who love democracy -- normally a peaceable lot.
Then the bigots, who due to their characteristic "Bush-think" are easily found in their silly little "compounds", had better clean and load their arsenals.
Posts: 6596 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Now, with the weight of the Southern Poverty Law Center behind him, Gruver is fighting back in a civil courtroom. Gruver and the center are suing the Imperial Klans of America, and they hope to win damages large enough to put the supremacist group out of business.
Frank, you have previously told us of your support of the SPLC & I applaud their efforts & your involvement. The article I cited also says that in 2000 the center won a $6.3 million jury verdict that forced Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler to give up the group's Idaho compound & in 1987 a $7 million verdict in Mobile, Alabama, targeted the United Klans of America.
Good grief, how many 'Klans' are there?!
Posts: 2065 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
Holy ****, this really rings a bell. I didn't know the Klan was that rampant in Kentucky. On another site, I had serious problems with a member of this site who claimed she was a Klan member.
Dorian, if this is not appropriate, feel free to move it, but it's true.
Edited for with an eye to legal issues.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 6723 | Location: Land of Lincoln, USA | Registered: 07-04-02
If possible, an attempt will be made. And yes it will be for the ugly reason not because of his policies or principles.
I do believe that the Secret Service is making adjustments to accommodate 'extra' potential problems.
While the media and the campaigns have worked rather hard at discounting race as an issue in this just past election, that does not mean it is not an issue.
One of the conversations I overheard about 'choices' in this last election was that one guy had a hard time deciding if he wanted a woman as president or a n*** (his word, not mine the word woman sound just as harsh as the N word). In reference to the Democratic Ticket.
So there are backward people out there - folk who live in the 18th century not the 21st. I fear that some of them may have their principles and sense of morals staunchly grounded in 1708, they own firearms that are crafted in 2008.
I was frankly surprised that Bush made it this long I thought for certain that hunting season would have opened up somewhere along the line. But it didn't happen. But Bush was just a petty dictator, a thief and a liar. Folk are more accepting of that than they are of 'dark skin'.
I hope, truly hope, that the election of Obama as president is a mile marker in how far America has come in 50-60 years to overcome its internal struggle of equality of all people. I hope he is the First Black President and not the ONLY black president of the USA.
History is in the making, we sit at the threshold of a future that can fall either way.
IF no attempt is made, then we can rest assured that the racial crises has ended.
IF one is made, or there is success, I fear that the LA riots will look like a Sunday School picnic to the civil unrest that America will go through.
Posts: 4018 | Location: Leaving land, heading for the ocean | Registered: 06-03-02
Well, they don't all have Klan in their name, but there are at least 888 active Hate Groups identified in the country. Some of their hatred is directed against Jews, Homosexuals, Hispanics, as well as African Americans.
... one guy had a hard time deciding if he wanted a woman as president or a n*** (his word, not mine the word woman sound just as harsh as the N word).
Yes, there are sometimes subtle ways of showing hatred and contempt. Take sports announcing. When women's sports began to be covered, some sportscasters resented having to report them. "Real" sports news was about men's sports.
But they were told to do it. So they began to use 'FEE-male" to describe the games and scores.
e.g. "In hockey, the A's defeated the B's by a score of 3-2. The winning goal was scored by X with an assist from Y. blah blah blah..."
Then in a footnote "In FEE-male hockey the C's beat the G's 2-1."
They never used the term 'male'. It was all about 'men's' and "FEE-male". The latter said with undisguised scorn.
Canadian women athletes do all right in the Olympics! Cindy Klassen, speed-skater, became the first Canadian Olympian to win five medals in one Olympic Games and the only Canadian with six Olympic medals.
Among Canadian men in the Olympics, Marc Gagnon won five.
Posts: 6596 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
The most powerful anti-racism song ever. It's all the more meaningful when one considers the courage it took for a black woman to sing it in the 1930's.
Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.
The most powerful anti-racism song ever. It's all the more meaningful when one considers the courage it took for a black woman to sing it in the 1930's.
Absolutely! Billie Holliday first sang it in 1939 (in Harlem, apparently), and it was recorded that year (not that it got much airtime ).It was written by a Jew.
She was one of the great heroines of student women in Britain in the late 1960s/early 1970s.What was odd about that was that they thought of her as a subject for feminism, not racism and 'Strange Fruit' was not in their choices much.She'd been dead for some 25 years by then. It must have been her inspired way of singing her subject matter. There was certainly nothing of the Doris Day or Cilla Black about her, or it! Their heroines were an eclectic mix: they liked Mae West films a lot,too and that feeble poet Sylvia Plath.
The Billie Holiday recording of Strange Fruit is included in the 'Jazz' series by Ken Burns, throughout whose work racism runs as a common thread.
There's some irony in referring to Billie H. as a 'heroine', since she was, in fact, a heroin addict -- another tragic component in her life as a brilliant musician.
Posts: 2065 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
I've been a feminist since before I knew the word. My dad, a farmer with an eighth grade education, was a feminist.
(If any guy had ever called him that, though, look out! because Daddy didn't know what a feminist is either. And he'd been a semi-pro boxer in his young days. (What that meant in those days was that he fought in a ring for a per-fight purse, which was collected by passing the hat. At least they wore gloves! Which Daddy called 'mitts'.))
I just cannot imagine why some women find Plath's works worth reading, yet they were the subject of many a psychology or sociology thesis in the 60's and 70's. I mean, I do understand that it had to do with some kind of hypethesis that male oppression makes women crazy and causes them to commit suicide. But it's extremely naive. Female oppression is a product of a social system that is composed of both sexes, and it takes the majority of both sexes accepting it to make it work.
And to revere women such as Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Zelda Fitzgerald, seems to me to be completely wrong-headed. They succumbed because they were weak, perhaps genetically flawed. They may be pitied, surely; but to blame the entire male sex for this weakness -- and in some cases to even seem to admire and wish to emulate their behavior -- is just plain nuts.
Because it encourages weakness and irresponsible behavior. And full and equal citizenship demands a sense of responsibility. The kind that Obama shows.
Posts: 6596 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Going back to the original post for a moment, I guess the lunatic fringe that merely wants to impeach Obama (is that technically possible before he's sworn in?) is relatively benign.
).It was written by a Jew.
