Triumph Of The Will They Ever Say It To His Face

Stennie and I occasionally have small discussions on the Hucklebug podcast concerning hate. We do our weekly "fuck off" section, which of course always begins with George Bush, and has now become quickly followed by John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Stennie is careful to say that her mother told her she should never hate anyone, so she doesn't, but she intensely dislikes those three people.

My mom probably told me the same thing at some point, and I wish I could be so lofty.

I have, in fact, been guilty of hating someone from time to time, but it's generally fleeting. But I'm finding it hard to compare at this moment the hate I have for the McCain-Palin ticket.

It used to just be their side. I hated their side. It's not really like that anymore, though, and I may as well go ahead and admit it. I hate John McCain and I hate Sarah Palin. I'm not sure which I hate more. In the beginning it was her, but now he's just as bad.

Anyone who reads a paper or watches TV or checks the internet knows what's going on right now. The McCain ticket is losing its collective ass in the polls, and so anything having to do with the issues of the election have gone straight into the shitcan. Well, the issues have gone into the dumpster. The candidates themselves have gone straight into the shitcan.

Sure, at their rallies - which, if you've seen "Triumph of the Will" should start looking vaguely familiar to you - they might touch on "this horrible economy" or "my son's in the war," but those are now the condiments. The main dish is that Barack Obama is a bad man, a foreigner, a Muslim radical, and a terrorist sympathizer.

The Republicans are getting local citizens to introduce them, citizens who seem to love throwing "Hussein" into the mix when speaking of Obama. Then the candidates themselves come out and start raising the questions. "Who is Barack Obama?" Who is this man who pals around with William Ayers, former Chicago radical?

If you've seen clips of these hoedowns, you may have seen the results when the question is asked. From the partisan crowd you hear shouts. They have included, but are not necessarily limited to, "Terrorist!" "Kill Him!" "Treason!" and the ever-popular "Off With His Head!"

Now, let's take the soft side of this. Let's pretend that McCain-Palin didn't incite this crap and have no control of what some follower at their rally says. They did, of course, but let's pretend for a second.

If they were even acting as if they cared, wouldn't one of them say, "Now, wait a minute," or "Let's not go that far," or "Please, Secret Service, there's a man there yelling, 'Kill him?'" But they don't. They just stand there and smile and let the hate reach fever pitch before they go on with their spiels.

And I can't believe that as much as that's happened someone hasn't found that famous clip of Mussolini on the balcony mugging, arms folded, and split-screened it with either Palin or McCain, just for shits and giggles.

But it's not really about shits and giggles. It's about hate, plain and simple, and I'm a little past getting tired of it and on my way to getting scared.

When Obama was on his way to winning the nomination I mentioned my biggest fear. That no matter what someone said, to friends, to pollsters, when that golden moment came when alone in the booth, he or she couldn't bring themselves to vote for a black man. That's starting to be discussed a little in the new outlets now; I've been thinking it for some three months.

Now that's only one of my fears. The other has to do with these fired-up yahoos at McCain rallies, and what other fired-up yahoo might hear their shouts of "Kill Him!" on TV, and what could happen next. My friend Brenda, who is black and in her 50s, who was around long enough to have this be an epic election in her life, confided this recently. "I'm afraid the better he does in the polls, the less likely he'll be here on election day." She was around in 1968. She remembers.

I kind of started this blog for a completely different reason. it just turned into to what's above because I spent an afternoon off watching a lot of this awful footage (Cindy McCain now practically in tears because Obama voted against a bill funding her son in the war, although Cindy didn't mention her very husband did the same thing). What I started the blog for was to bring your attention to a news story I caught last night on television, and did some investigation on.

Here is the story.

For those who don't want to take the link, I'll give a Reader's Digest version of the story.

Apparently some toothless gee-gaw named Bobby May wrote a long editorial about what would happen if Obama became president. The list included:

* Hiring rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black, then providing extra paint for graffiti.
* Replacing the stars on the American flag with one star and cresent.
* Mandatory Black Liberation Theology courses taught in all churches.
* Changing the National Anthem to "The Black National Anthem."
* Putting pictures of Oprah Winfrey, Ludacris (again with the Ludacris), and Shelia Jackson-Lee on US currency. Naming 50-Cent Secretary of Treasury.

It goes on much more, and gets just as hateful, and I would say this man is going to burn in hell, except for one fact. He's already there.

Turns out, and the reason this story really caught my attention, Mr Bobby May lives in Buchanan County, VA. In fact, and you'll love this, he is the treasurer of the Buchanan County Republican Party. Or was, until someone finally went national with this little tome (thanks, LA Times), and the party was forced to can him. The party claimed they had no knowledge of this until it was brought to their attention, which either makes them tremdous liars or tremendously stupid about what goes on in their own party.

Buchanan County is frighteningly close to me, so I can tell you a little about the place. I've been there many times. It's coal-mine country. It's an armpit of a place. It's comprised of the sickeningly rich and the unbelievably poor. Mansions sit beside shacks, and who has the biggest Cadillac means nothing. It's all about who has a helicopter and a helicopter pad near their home, and how many tarpaper roofs they can blow off a shack as their helicopter whizzes to the Country Club.

There's one thing Buchanan County is not comprised of, though. Black people. There are none. In fact, when I was in high school, it was one of those things that was a joke, but not really a joke. We'd play high school football there, and as the band bus or the football bus would wind around the two-lane roads, we'd joke with our black band- and team-mates about how we'd make sure there were two white people around every black person, just so we'd have the same amount of people on the bus going home as we did heading out to the game. Then we'd laugh, but it was a pretty sickly laugh.

So I guess it should be no surprise to me that this hateful load of horseshit should come out of Buchanan County. Where the racism is not hidden, not unspoken, it's right out there in the open. Still, I was surprised, maybe because someone discovered it and brought it to the country's attention.

Which brings me back to why, besides their shitty policies (I get $2500 a year for health care? Healthcare for me would be approximately $7000), I hate John McCain and Sarah Palin so much. They don't give a shit how they win the election. They're courting the votes of racists, neo-Nazis, toothless hillbillies, hate-mongers, and ignoramuses. Ignorami? Whatever.

And has no one even taken the time to realize that a ticket that's so damn sneaky that they're playing on ingorance to cheat their way to an election is not going to get any better once they're in office? Haven't we already seen eight years of lying and cheating?

As of today, McCain told a supporter that he will bring all these "character questions" to light at the next debate. I'll be interested to see. For a man who, as yet, has not been able to look his opponent in the eye, I want to see what it looks like when he turns his back and starts bringing up this shit. Or will he just do what he's done thus far. Point and say "that one."

Please don't let these assholes into the White House. Please. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but please. I'm begging.

Betland's Olympic Upate:
* Please. I mean it.
* And by hating McCain and Palin so much, am I as bad? Hey, I said I wasn't so lofty.