January 15, 2009

Hate Speech for Me, not for Thee?

Hate Speech for Me, not for Thee?

It is difficult to distinguish between being clueless about hate speech, and intentional propaganda. (ADAM REILLY, “Toxic talk: Hating Obama,” Boston Phoenix, January 15, 2009) Any response to this one-sided essay should include that Bush was hung in effigy too.\

Why stop treating only “rabid right-wingers as benign?” What about rabid left-wingers? Who decides “what they’re actually saying?” Why does Columbia’s Michael Massing demand that only “responsible conservatives [. . .] condemn rhetorical overkill on the right?” What about responsible liberals condemning rhetorical overkill on the left?

Is it a “fact that Obama wasn’t really born in the United States?” Why doesn’t he just show his birth certificate to end the wonder and skepticism? Why is it a problem?

Why is it “pernicious” to state the obvious that “the New Deal [was] a failure?” It was. If “rooting against the president, [is] rooting against our collective interests as Americans,” why was the vile and venomous rhetoric against George Bush not condemned?

Where is the evidence that “vaguely imagined fears [. . .] are going to be mitigated, time and again, by factual evidence to the contrary;” and that “hard-core racists will keep on hating.” Then Obama will not be able to reconcile the country as he promised.

Where was all of this concern for rational discourse toward the President during the past 8 years?

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/75183-Toxic-talk-Hating-Obama/

Toxic talk: Hating Obama
Repugnant anti-Obama hate speech has dissipated for the moment. How likely is it to raise its ugly head again?
By ADAM REILLY
Boston Phoenix
January 15, 2009

1 comment:

Ted said...

The current SCOTUS threshold for a MUST STAY of BHO’s inauguration is not whether he is ultimately determined constitutionally ineligible to be POTUS, merely whether there now is SERIOUS QUESTION on his constitutional eligibility, since any determination of inelligibility AFTER inauguration would pose unnecessary civil and military difficulties.