I swear it's all racism.....

[mrsadm]

These white men at the health care rallies calling Obama a liar ..... I think it's all veiled racism. They've lost their power, over women, gays, blacks.... and they cannot take it anymore. That's the real problem. Not health care for all, but health care for blacks, poor people, people that "don't deserve it".

[rosesaylavee]

1. Yes.

I think so too. Been trying to think what to do about it. Other than calling them out, which doesn't seem to be having an effect.

[Deja Q]

2. If they voted for Bobby Jingo, would that alleviate any racism concerns?

I'd love to see that jerk run in 2012. Republicans' heads would pop faster than corn kernels in a microwave... and buttered...

[safeinOhio]

3. My prayer

Lord may all of their grandchildren be brown.

[titoresque]

15. LOL!

Yeah!!!!!!! :spray:

[brewens]

4. Veiled Racism?

Maybe it's veiled racism but I don't think they mean to do it. The typical racist is too stupid to know it's a racist.

[Fire1]

16. Wow! Just wow! n/t

[KittyWampus]

5. It's part of it. But not all.

[DeschutesRiver]

6. Another yes.

I think they are past their expiration date and know it. Control has shifted, & the biases they held dear, like absolute rules they could count on their entire lives, no longer rule the world in which they now find themselves. They have lost their bearings and are shouting like fearful small children do, when you rock their world.

They can just keep venting, but to me they sound like air hissing out of a punctured tire. Eventually it goes flat, completely out of air and no longer of use to anyone. The old men are spending too much of whatever time is left to them shouting about things that no longer matter.

[GoCubsGo]

9. Yes. Fear and...

...the mentality that they somehow "earned" everything they have, while everyone else is just "lazy", "stupid", and "uneducated." I recently saw a bumper sticker that sums it up perfectly: "Don't spread my wealth. Spread my work ethic." Never mind that they likely inherited their "wealth", or married into it than from working hard for it. Or, got it through unethical means. They don't care that someone else works a thousand times harder than they do for a pittance, because the low-paying job is all that's available. That's their fault. I can't tell you how many times over the past week I have heard/read someone saying, "You waste your money on lattes, new cars, big houses, expensive cell phone packages, Internet access..." Never mind that most places take only Internet job applications, or that I rarely coffee, don't even own a cell phone, and drive a 13-year-old car. Or, "You didn't bother to educate yourself." Never mind that I have a graduate degree, and am stuck trying to find a job in the worst recession since the Great Depression--after getting laid of from a job I worked at for 20 years.

Perhaps that all really boils down to fear. Maybe they're too afraid to recognize that they could just as easily wind up in the same boat as those of us who are not as fortunate as they are. Maybe it's easier to blame us for our situations than it is to comprehend that it's just out of dumb luck that they are not in the same boat. Whatever it is, I'm getting really, really, really sick of these sanctimonious assholes. They make me wish there really were going to be "death panels." If it were up to me, they'd be first in line.

[YOY]

7. "All"? No. 'Some'? Yes.

Any of them stupid enough to not know what Socialism is and when to label it so, let alone to pawn it off as inherently bad are not neccesarily racists.

That's pretty much all of them.

[sendero]

8. At the root..

.. yes it is. It takes a pretty powerful hatred to make a man operate against his own self interest.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Every picture tells a story...

[lunatica]

14. Where are the black, brown or new immigrants? The East Indians? Asians?

I see huge numbers of them where I live and work at every economic and professional level. But that's in latee sipping SF Bay Area where gays were and will again be allowed to marry and work and create and live and just be. Where the brightest and best minds in the world, of all sexual orientations are teaching and doing research in UC from every race and nationality and side by side.

I dare Dick Armey to bus the people in that photo to a town hall meeting here. SF is the one place were a bunch of pissed off gays rioted and overturned and burned police cars and stormed the doors at City Hall when Dan White was acquitted of the murders but merely found guilty of voluntary manslaughter of both victims. He was sentenced to serve seven years which would be reduced for time served and good behavior. His jury was all white and totally bought the twinkie defense.

[pipi_k]

11. Racism against whom, though?

Against Obama? I have a feeling these guys would still be foaming at the mouth even if we had a WASP-Democrat for president.

Racism against the people who would benefit from healthcare reform? Let's see...not all of those people are black or brown. I've seen just as many whites on TV saying they don't have adequate health care or insurance. Old people, young people, blacks, browns, whites, working people, non-employed people, Red State people, Blue State people, rural people, urban people...

People of all kinds.


I'm just wondering where the accusations of "racism" come in, and why so many people are so quick to point to it as The Reason when lots of stuff doesn't get done.

I guess what I'm saying is that nearly every day there's some OP or another screeching "Racism!!!!" and people pointing fingers and calling each other names while they sit around acting like they're better than the people they're calling out for being "racists".

If it were ONLY black or brown people who would benefit from health care reform, then yes...I would agree that racism is probably at the root of the protests.

If it were ONLY women...sexism

If it were ONLY the elderly....ageism

and so on...

[zinziber officinale]

12. Exactly. How short are our memories about Hillary's attempt at health reform?

They used it as a rallying cry to get Republicans in control the following year. Everyone looks for the issue to bring down the other side with.

[Fire1]

21. Hillary's attempts were decried from both the left and the

right. Her "reform" was not reform as far as much of the public could discern. It was complicated and cumbersome and neither she nor her husband bothered to explain it very well. Hillary portrayed it as the 'right' thing to do rather than the 'smart' thing to do, which, ultimately didn't go over very well.

[niceypoo]

13. It is a temper tantrum

Because they lost an election.

[Marr]

17. There's a reason these people are so quick to believe ridiculous charges-- like

the "death panels" nonsense. It's tied directly to their seemingly inexplicable support for the Bush/Cheney administration, which was every bit as lawless as they *claim* the Obama Administration is.

They don't look at things the way most people do, with multiple competing interests and arguments to be made from many sides. They don't see right and wrong. They see only *their team* vs. the other team. When their team had power, they wanted it to crush the other team, without regard for law or ethics or anything else. Seeing their team lose power (not just Republicans this time, but, symbolically, whites) has naturally sent them into a panic. They assume everyone thinks the same way they do.

[slampoet]

18. There is a LOT of white women there. Don't blame just one gender of bigot.

Own up.

[deaniac21]

19. And a handicapped women!

[kiva]

20. No.

Accusations of racism have become a convenient and lazy way to explain opposition to our president - it's easier to assume that all who criticize him are racists than to look at the reasons why people oppose some policies and what we can do to convince them that the information they are getting is coming from special interest groups who are afraid of losing some of their money and power.

[lunatica]

22. I think it goes deeper than mere racism

I think the changes that have taken hold in this country resulting in the fact thaqt we won against President Bush's attempted coup to create his unitary executive power grab. McCain, himself a thrashing dinosaur who just wanted to restore the 'glory' of white America unleashed Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber who stand for the lowest common denominator of the lower end of the IQ bell curve.

McCain knowingly, although probably without thinking the consequences through, unleashed something akin to the Pandora's box of the psyche of the shadow side of this country. Their raging racism is no longer based on feeling superior to others. It's based on feeling inferior. On their inability to understand what's going on. On the removal of their comfort zones. In other words, "their America". They aren't out there having a picnic. They're truly motivated by their terror, which people like Dick Armey know how to manipulate after Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly have so relentlessly cultivated for 8 years.

It's the same fear that they feel about the terrorists attacking us again. Podunk, Nowheresville is convinced Bin Laden will destroy their nothing town if we stop bombing a country that never did anything to us. Like children who have been severely abused in every way their psyches are twisted and so the only people they trust are the one's who molded them through abuse.

[rhett o rick]

23. I think it's about class. They emulate the rich and hate the poor. nm

[aikoaiko]

24. Maybe some racism, but its mosty about making a wellliked Democratic President fail.

The response was mostly the same when Bill and Hillary proposed it (a good ol' white Southern couple).

The response would have been the same if Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, or Dennis Kucinich were in charge.

Its merely the politics of tearing down good people making good suggestions.

[BooScout]

25. Oh BS....

Sorry....it's not racism.....it wasn't racism when the Clintons attempted to get Universal Health Care either. It's simply a case of "I've got mine and everyone else can fuck off".

[Fire1]

27. This is different. Nobody liked Hillary's plan (that of which

was understood, mind you), the right or the left.

[Tim01]

26. Everybody is a racist. nt