Thursday, October 23, 2008

Barack Does Rhyme With Iraq, After All

The Republican campaign in the American presidential election may go down in history as the sleaziest one ever fought.

They have to take some, though not all, of the responsibility for the ridiculous idea that seems to be abroad aqbout Obama's true religion, since they made such an effort to conjoin their opponent's name with terrorism in the public imagination.

I saw one woman at a McCain rally the other day say that Obama was really a Muslim. That he was just pretending to be a Christian until he got into the White House. At which point, presumably, he plans for there to be a great Ta-Da! moment when he rips off his suit to reveal a chest strapped heavily with explosives (maybe when he does his first speech from the Oval Office, eh?)

Of course, to a sensible person being Muslim signifies no more of a connection with terrorism than being Christian, or Buddhist. But to the uneducated, prejudiced, angry white swine who vote Republican in America or Conservative in the UK it does.

By tying the name of an opponent with a Muslim heritage to the boogeyman of terrorism (albeit homeland terrorism), they--or whichever multinational business executive directs their policies--were trying to spook voters with the spectre of September the 11th. And with some of their supporters,who are dumber than ten mules in a pea soup fog anyway, it has worked.

It is a dangerous tactic, one guaranteed to unleash even more anti-Muslim feeling in America than there may already be, and poison impressionable minds on both sides for a generation.

Thankfully McCain and Palin have changed their tactic somewhat in recent days, realising that most people were onto them and looked on what they were doing with distaste. Now they are trying to conjoin Obama's name with Socialism, which is equally absurd given how conservative Obama is, but much less damaging. Socialists are used to being maligned and beaten over the head with sticks.

But at least these days most people wouldn't kill them.

4 comments:

All This Trouble... said...

Go to www.dodgeballopera.blogspot.com and look at the photo of Obama and McCain. You'll love it.

Holly said...

it's the final countdown everyone! 10:1 there is an assassination before inauguration, martial law declared and Cheney becomes president by default for quite some time.

Now wouldn't that just be dandy? Nobody would be happy!

Holly said...

oh and news just in that Obama's grandmother just died on the eve of the election. Fate is a funny thing. Make of it what you will.

Bruce Hodder said...

I listened to his acceptance speech on the radio the other day. I thought about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Hattie Carroll, and Emmett Till, and what a beautiful thing it would have been for them to see a black man walking into the White House to do something other than deliver furniture. And before I knew it there were tears rolling down my face. Is that taking politics too seriously? (Actually I know it's not. Politics is the story of all our lives and how they unfold. And black people have come an incredible distance in my lifetime.)