There's a petition running for congress to censure Bachmann:

http://www.censurebachmann.com/

PSSSSST...pass it on

I actually had trouble getting to sleep after listening to the nasty stuff in that pre-rally line of people. Not all of them will leave similarly ignorant and racist progeny, and their percentage of the population will decrease.

But for now, it is a significant pool of possible threats to the likely president. McCain and Palin absolutely have to disavow, repudiate, and excoriate this hateful trash talk, and let it be known that they do not consider Obama anything except the honorable opposition.

Damn, Ripper, that's writin'. You've perfectly expressed the outrage and revulsion many of us are feeling as we watch this country slide into ugliness. Somewhere along the line the Republicans determined that a vote is a vote, no matter what sort of a filthy miscreant cast it. It was a short step from that cynical realization to this point. The vile Republican strategy of playing to the lowest common denominator--of dumpster diving for votes--has finally borne its evil fruit, and it is foul beyond belief. These people have no shame, no morals and no excuse. If John McCain somehow manages to win this election, American Democracy will truly and finally be dead.

Thanks ripper, I feel a lot better now. I was thinking that it would be unfair to blame Obama for everything one of his wing nut supporters did. But you're convinced me that he, like McCain, is responsible for anything some crazy supporter says or does. Every crazy post written here against McCain, Hillary, Krugman, and many others are all Obama's fault. The t-shirts that say abort Palin, Obama's fault. The two Portland men who firebombed a McCain sign, Obama's responsible. Warnings to Sarah Palin not to come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some big black brothers, part of the Obama campaign.

I will consider anything the craziest left wing nut says to be Obama's fault, knowing I have your endorsement for that position. Thanks ripper.

Sometimes, when I see stuff like that coming out of my country, somewhere deep inside me, I wonder if Obama and/or Hillary decided to run 4 years too early.

Maybe we still need another 4 years of Republican reign to finally bring our great nation crumbling into civil and financial destruction before we are prepared to recognize the true nature of the modern GOP and make a change. Maybe if Obama wins the election by anything less than 60% percent of the popular vote, he should just concede to McCain...

But then I think about all the good, honest, hard-working people who would be most adversely affected by 4 more years of GOP rule and I snap out of it.

However, I think if I were China, Russia or Iran, I'd probably be rooting hard for McCain and holding out for some sort of disastrous event to take Obama out of the race.

Thanks, Ripper, you captured my feeling pretty well. I was seriously shocked by the video, and I don't think I shock too easily. I'm left with a sick feeling, and very glad to have a place to discuss it.

I lived through the Harold Washington election in Chicago in 1983 (Chicago's first black mayor), when the racism was so thick it felt like the city could explode at any minute. In Nov 2007, we marked the 20th anniversary of his death in office from a heart attack, and there was a lot of reflection on what has and hasn't changed. Of course race relations in Chicago are still not great (and we're certainly not going to solve the results of hundreds of years of American discrimination in one city), but I think we can say that attitudes have changed substantially. Perhaps the candidacy of Barack Obama, our beloved Senator, is one example of that. A younger generation of journalists asked some of the people involved in the Washington campaign some questions that people my age could never ask, because our feelings are still so high: if you had it to do over again, would you let things get so polarized, would you behave the way you did? (It took my breath away that the question could even be asked; this is a benefit of having new generations who weren't directly involved.) Most people said that having a black man as mayor had seemed horrific at first, but that in fact it had not been all that different, and that they had learned a lesson and were not the same people they had been 20 years ago. It was very clear that progress had been made on at least some levels.

I agree with Orlando-- the racist sentiments and fears are there, McCain is merely the willing instrument for bringing them out. It was similar in the Washington campaign, a previously-not-particularly-evil opponent, Bernie Epton, found himself willing to lead a racist campaign for mayor with the slogan "Before it's too late." (seriously. that was the slogan, on TV and everywhere.)

So some of it is racial. What I know from Chicago in those days is that it is not all hatred; a large part of it is fear, genuine fear. In Chicago, some white people seriously believed that Washington, once in power, would do to white people what white people had done to black people. The guy in the video who says Obama would have Sharpton and Wright in his cabinet probably really believes that, and is scared by it, how it will effect his life. The best we can hope for is that he keeps his mind open at least a crack, so that when that doesn't happen, he can gradually-- over the course of a few years-- let go of some of his fear. Obama is just the person to enable this; can we help in any way?

Another part of it is, sadly, the polarized state of our politics over the past few decades. I'm left with more questions than answers. Books have been written about this, and I need to read more of them. Can we disagree on serious matters, which have serious consequences, and still agree on where the limits of civilized discourse are? That is what I think we have lost-- any boundaries on reasonable behavior in a democracy. How do we get them back? Is there anything in our own behavior we need to examine? What role is the media playing?

When I think back over the decades to decide who started it, I just go back and back. The Right Wing attacks on Clinton were preposterously over the top. Were we on the progressive side hysterical over Reagan? I can't honestly recall-- I don't think we were anywhere near what the Repubs did in the 90s, but I could be wrong. In the 60s, everyone was hysterical, as I recall, and the Left certainly did its share, though we also did many important things that changed the country permanently for the better. The 50s, McCarthyism. I guess my reason for trying to sort through this is, I wonder if it was ever better? Is this really a new low? Or does it just feel like it because we are living through it? (Is it better if it isn't new?)

And then I go back to the Chicago experience, and I tell myself, we are living through interesting and eventful times. The probability is that this is a major breakthrough in race relations, it just isn't clean and pretty while we are going through it. We expected it would be ugly and hard in places, and so it is. The Harold Washington days were exhilerating and excruiating, and there's no reason to think the Obama days will be otherwise.

What remains amazing and encouraging is that enough has changed in America that we are on the verge of electing a black man, and not by a small margin either.

(Sorry to go on at such length. It was therapeutic.)

Meanwhile, as the cockroaches on the right try to tear this country apart, Obama brings us together:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hope%20And%20Change/408

Ripper, were you there?

Corporate mnedia , where are you?

Kudos to Chris for allowing Baughman to hang herself. Will this be mentioned on the sunday shows? Questions, as always begging for answers.

I have to say I wish I had never watched the video, I found it extremely upsetting. When I saw the man with the monkey, I almost cried. It has weighed on me since. I thought we were so far beyond all this. It isn't that I haven't seen hate like this before, it's just thought that we had become a better people than that.