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What a day it was back in Waco, Texas on May 5th 1916! A beautiful spring day and folks were anxious to be outside –a good day to lynch some N-word.
A crowd has gathered around a makeshift gallows in the West Texas town to watch a black man hanged. Earlier some men had come down Main Street screaming that a N-word was going to be lynched. Eager heads popped up in anticipation. “My God, this is going to be something to see.”
They dropped what they were doing and hurried to the spot where the lynching was supposed to take place. The victim was too scared to walk so some men drug him to the noose. When they slipped it around his neck, he let out a scream. “Momma, Momma, don’t let them do this to me.” It was all he got out before four men pulled the rope and up he went. The lynch mob was silent until his legs stopped flaying about. Then a cheer went up.
The heinous torture and murder of a man would not naturally spring to mind. But that is exactly what these well dressed citizens of Waco were watching that day, and, by their presence, empowering.
I wonder if the mother of the victim managed to get a view the gallows from some hiding place out of sight of the mob. If she did, what went through her mind as she watched the rope tighten and saw the look of horror on her son’s face the second before his neck snapped? Did she think of the baby she suckled, remember the little boy she read to – we will never know.
With only a wardrobe change and the addition of a hundred or so hateful signs this crowd could be transformed into a Tea Party rally. Of course their victim is not hanging from a rope. But the only metaphor for their actions is a modern day lynching. Both crowds, old and new, are conservative, church going people and sure of their superiority.
This is an early photo of Sarah Palin’s Real Americans. Little has changed in the last century except that the N-word on the gallows is now the President of the United States. It is tempting for white Americans to show pride at how far African Americans have come. “Only in America”, you might say. But for a large minority of Americans, it is always a good day to lynch a N-word.
Some 3,446 African Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1933 by mobs made up of people looking very much like those you see in the photo. This is not the final tally. There were certainly many more carried out under cover of darkness in secluded places and down dirt roads now lost from memory.
When the Civil Rights Movement came along, the lynch mobs made a comeback.
African Americans marched for their rights and endured threatening crowds of racists who showered them with bricks, drenched them with fire hoses and attacked them with dogs. But they persevered and the angry mobs once more faded into history.
Now, with the election of Barack Obama, the horrors of the past are coming back. The culprits are ultra-conservative organizations backed by corporate wealth and a compliant news media. They have been so successful in creating a purpose built organization in the Tea Party that rallies all over the country are now common place. All of them are attended by angry mobs whose sole goal is to demonize President Obama. The participants carry signs, not rope, but their aim is still the same – to do the maximum damage they can get away with.
For many Americans, the fear of blacks in positions of power is normally tucked away in a corner of their minds seldom visited. But when Barack Obama came along as a candidate for President, that fear began to stir. At first it just lay there with its eyes open; then, when Obama was elected, it stood up and became a part of their everyday lives.
Right wing leaders like Dick Army were crouching in the shadows, waiting to turn this fear into hatred and meld it into the Tea Party.
Just consider their luck. The country was in a historically bad recession and people were looking for someone to blame. The first African American had just been elected president presenting opportunities to exploit racism. Right wing ideologues like the Koch brothers were worried about their profits and willing to bankroll any plan to stop Obama’s agenda. Front organizations like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity stepped in with organizational skills and turned the mob loose in the summer of 2009. Town hall meetings were broken up and speakers intimidated, reminiscent of the bully boy tactics of the Nazis before the Second World War.
Tea Party warriors were heady with victory and wanted more, but none of it would have been possible without help from Limbaugh, Beck and O’Reilly. In 1871 the Ku Klux Klan delivered hatred in person, today Fox and Rush do it over the airwaves.
Excerpts from “The Perpetual American Lynch Mob” by Frank Schaeffer in the Huffington Post on April 15, 2010
“Who is the "Tea Party"? It's today's incarnation of the Perpetual American Lynch Mob.
In one generation the Perpetual American Lynch Mob is burning Pequot Indian women and children alive.
In another time and place the Perpetual American Lynch Mob string up black men.
A few decades pass and they can be found calling President Roosevelt a communist, Jew and the anti-Christ and/or marching on Washington in support of Germany.
At another time and place the Perpetual American Lynch Mob call themselves a "Tea Party" and gather to hurl insults and lies at our first black President.”
The harshest rhetoric comes from Rush Limbaugh. A dedicated race baiter, he will tell any lie and distort any issue to his detriment. This extends even to the President’s family. A few of his worst rants:
“Obama wants to get the US out of Iraq so he can transfer troops to the blacks in Darfur and South Africa. His reason is to appeal to the black vote at home that he needs to get elected. Standing behind Nelson Mandela, who was bankrolled by communists, is another idea of his. Then he will move on to Ethiopia and do the same thing there.”
He repeatedly plays a racist song on his radio show; “Barack the Magic Negro”, to the tune of Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”.
Attacks on the President’s wife and children are common. Mocking her program to fight obesity saying, “White House monitors will report citizens’ food choices to the First Lady.”
“The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”
Even his run of the mill racism is vile in the extreme: “New York Governor, Patterson, is a “Massa” – “Obama is uppity” - “Obama is more African in his roots than he is American and is behaving like an African colonial despot; Obama is an angry Black guy.” - “Obama is a Halfrican American.” - “We need segregated buses – this is Obama’s America.” - He responded to a call to his radio show by an African American woman; “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” - “The NAACP should have riot rehearsals. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
Almost psychotic in nature, Glenn Beck twists news into a fantasy world of lies and fake conspiracy theories. His escapade at the Lincoln Memorial taunted African Americans by demeaning Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
Beck attacked Michelle Obama on his radio show by discussing her breasts in what he called her shimmery, sapphire colored gown at the state dinner for Mexican President Calderon. “She looks positively like she’s trying to be some Greek statue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the First Lady with her, excuse the expression, but with her breasts all smooshed up.”
He attacked Michelle Obama’s program to draw attention to obesity with this taunt, “Will lead to a food nanny state”; and, at an appearance of the Right Nation he taunted her again; “Get away from my French fries, Mrs. Obama. First politician that comes up to me with a carrot stick, I’ve got a place for it. And it’s not in my tummy.” (The remark drew loud applause.)
An attack on the President’s daughter: “Obama remarked yesterday during his press conference that Malia asked him about the Gulf oil spill: “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” then affected Malia’s voice: “asking Daddy why he hates black people so much” and demeaning the intelligence of his children: “That’s the level of their education - that they’re coming to Daddy and saying ‘Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?”
Tea Party types swan every time Sarah Palin opens her mouth. As with the rumors, they could care less if any of it makes sense.
Since the 2008 election, Sarah Palin has traveled the country attacking the President. Just as in the election, she is so vague and nonsensical that it is hard to know exactly what she is talking about.
“Death Panels”, is a Sarah Palin original. Whether or not she is actually telling a lie or believes what she is saying is unclear – anyway, with her it really does not matter.
“Don’t tread on me”, is the Tea Party’s standard. It was a worthy flag in the American Revolution when the “me” in the flag was America itself. Now, the flag bears are the ones doing the treading – and the President is their victim.
Excerpts from “Rage, Racism and American Unreason” by Susan Jacoby in the Washington Post on September 14, 2009:
“We have entered what columnist Kathleen Parker calls "a political era of uninhibited belligerence," that is finding expression in sermons, at town hall meetings, on radio talk shows, even on the floor of Congress. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times told it like it is in her op-ed column Sunday, when she said that the real meaning of South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's health care speech was not "you lie" but "you lie--boy. Many Americans spent a good deal of time last November patting themselves on the back for having elected an African-American president. What we are seeing now is the bitterness of an un-reconciled minority that will never accept the legitimacy of that election.”
Signs carried by this un-reconciled minority prove Ms. Jacoby's point:
The zoo has an Africa lion and the White House has a lyin’ African - Impeach the Muslim Marxist - Obama Bin Laden – No, No to Anti-Capitalist Congress = Slave Owner Tax Payer = N-Word - Hey Big Brother, show us your real birth certificate - Obama’s Plan, White Slavery - President pictured as a witch doctor - Obama, Monkey See, Monkey Spend - Cap Congress and Trade Obama back to Kenya - The anti-Christ is living in the white house - Gimme Yo Change (Obama pictured as a Rapper) - Obama is a destructive unpatriotic black Muslim - Barack Obama, the new face of Hitler - Obama is the Anti-Christ, Oust Obama
Conservative warriors frustrated by their inability to thwart social progress and backed by the Religious Right saw the election of Barack Obama as a call to battle.
His election was the catalyst that molded these forces into the phalanx of opposition the President faces today. Terrified at the specter of a black President being carried to Washington on the shoulders of a majority of adoring Americans was just too much for them to bear.
Their reaction was visceral. Enraged enough to rally in the streets and follow anyone they thought could lead them out of their perceived danger. Reason was abandoned and there was little they would not do or believe to get rid of Obama: unbelievably silly rumors – “no problem”; nonsensical rants by Sarah Palin – “no problem”; gutting most of the social progress of the twentieth century – “no problem”; letting their racist colors show through – “no problem”; lynch the President of the United States “hell yes”.
Having gotten away with racism, the Tea Party has evolved into an ideologically radical political platform. Right wing radicals use it to launch attacks on all the social progress made during the last century.
Jim DeMint: “Conservatives might have to ‘take to the streets’ to stop America’s slide into socialism.”
Sharron Angle: denounced “domestic enemies” in Congress and called for the use of “Second Amendment remedies” if not elected.
Rand Paul: Should owners of privately owned business be able to segregate? Rand Paul’s answer is yes.
Joe Miller: on social security – “But longer term there is no question there has to be a transition”.
Prior to the Civil War, “States Rights”, was used by the slave owning states to justify their position and has reappeared in American politics every time the Federal Government enacts legislation expanding social programs. The better off whites see this as a give-away to undeserving minorities – money that will be taken from them in higher taxes.
The mob will use this argument to not only repeal and radically dilute social programs, but to limit the Federal Government’s right to make such laws in the first place. Once again, the ruse of states rights is being called on to advance a racist agenda.
Only two years after taking control of the executive and legislative branches of government, Progressives find themselves on the defensive and struggling to hang on. Why?
The short answer is the economy. A longer answer would include the disproportionate impact on the electorate of the Tea Party and the new funding landscape created by the Citizens United case. But, as important as all of these issues are, they do not fully answer the question.
Would the Democrats be in the shape they are in now, if, for example, Joe Biden had been elected president? He would still have had the economy to contend with, but the outrage factor would be much less – in my opinion. I also doubt that the Tea Party would exist in its present form – again, in my opinion.
Although the classic confrontation of conservative vs. progressive continues, the election of Barack Obama has heightened the awareness of race and class in America and, in particular, the entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
In the midst of a deep recession and the public concern that there may be a permanent restructuring of the economy, especially with regard to employment, many Americans are beginning to question the sanctity of these programs. And not just conservatives, Independents too are having second thoughts. As baby boomers retire, this concern may deepen.
In the near future, Progressives may have to fight just to hold on to the social progress achieved over the last century, much less expand that progress. This will likely not be a gentlemanly fight and Barack Obama will not be the last person the mob will lynch in America.
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