Did the Republican Party lose an Election or a Civil War

 

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. - Justice William O. Douglas  

Certainly, the patriotic upsurge following upon September 11, had an American character. But the key to the curtailment of fundamental law, which you’ve referred to, to the breach of the Geneva Convention in Guantanamo, to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, etc., I would locate elsewhere. The militarization of life domestically and abroad, the bellicose policies which open themselves up to infection by their opponent’s own methods, and which return the Hobbesian state to the world stage where the globalization of markets had seemed to have driven the political into the wings, all this the politically enlightened American populace would have overwhelmingly rejected, if the administration had not, with force, shameless propaganda, and manipulated insecurity, exploited the shock of September 11. For a European observer and a twice-shy child such as I, the systematic intimidation and indoctrination of the population and the restrictions on the scope of permitted opinion in the months of October and November of 2002, (when I was in Chicago), were unnerving. This was not “my” America. From my 16^th year onward, my political thinking, thanks to the sensible re-education policy of the Occupation, has been nourished by the American ideals of the late 18^th century.  - America and the World A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas

If you recall, then Senator Barack Obama won a huge mandate to become the president of the United States on November 4, 2008. His margin of victory was + 6.7% garnering 52.6% of the popular vote and in the Electoral College it was an equally stunning triumph of 365 to 162 electors.  Additionally with 65 days remaining before his Inauguration in January 2009, he is receiving praise and congratulations from governments and people all over the world. It seems that hope is indeed still alive. And apparently evil still enjoys good health as well.

You see in the United States, the picture was much different.  Numerous hate crimes and racial attacks were occurring all over the country apparently motivated by the results of the election.  The kind of campaign the John McCain and Sarah Palin ran certainly had a contributory role to the madness that was seen and documented. That's right, this came about over the results of an election where all the votes were counted.  I’ve said enough about what I think of John McCain.  I think it is time to look at someone else in this drama.

The frantic attempt to slur Senator Obama and his supporters that everyone saw before the November 4 election is exactly what one expected from secessionist Sarah Palin, the ”real” Sarah Palin, as she and John McCain blindly wound down their dysfunctional campaign to nowhere. 

Fast forward to August 2009:  Legitimate government in the United States is presently challenged by actions that are attacks against elected leadership, that leadership's political party, its legitimate opposition and the civilian population of the country.  It is making the prospect of a peaceful transition between administrations – a process still in a state of progress –  considerably more difficult that it should and is creating a environment of hate, rendering efforts for dealing with the real problems the country faces practically impossible. I'm sure it didn’t required much provocation to start this process.

The seditionist leanings now turned loose on the country are all putting great strain on the Constitutional processes that make the United States a democracy and a government founded on the principles of law as opposed to terror.  Yes I mean exactly what I say. I would add that when the information stream from campaigns refer to the opponent as "unamerican", "socialist", "Osama Obama", the obsession use of his middle name by those who seek to subvert democracy and other actions that engender fear building on existing American stereotypes, it isn't totally unexpected to find occurrences like this. In fact, someone with any facility of memory can think of things much worse.  Tea baggers, birthers, jello-man Limbaugh and Fox News bring everything into the present tense.

American political campaigns seem to fall into this modality far more often than what one finds in other industrialized democratic societies. It does harm not only to individual victims but to the world’s image of the United States. I have seen evidence of this myself from comments appearing on stories I have placed on NowPublic regarding subjects as innocent as Global Warming and thoughts on how the new president might choose members of his Cabinet.  Here is a comment from a NowPublic member that was placed on my story John McCain's Thinly Veiled Terrorism.  Very original thinking here.

The ignorant and gullible voted for Obama.  He will fail.  Mark my words everyone who voted for this man will regret it.  Go out and rent Omen III.  He is opening the way for the Antichrist.  I will never call him President.  This is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Such a strange set of beliefs are expressed. Obsessive paranoid delusions attributing importance to a really bad Hollywood movie?  Statements and beliefs about the Antichrist?   

And here is this gem of logic from a "not verified" NowPublic Member. 

forthebetta (not verified)

at 18:00 on November 15th, 2008

global warming is a hoax.
it was warmer a thousand years ago.
it was warmer most of the time since the last great ice age.
in fact, if it did warm 3 degrees, life on earth would flourish.  the last great ice age ended with a 20 degree warming in 50 years.  if people try to tell me that 1 degree warmth in 130 years is a problem or "man-made", or that it will warm another 3 degrees in the next 40 years and the earth couldn't handle it, they are f***ing brain-washed and need to do their own research instead of believing corrupt skull&bones members.

"f***ing brain-washed"?  "***"???  Well apparently this person is deficient in spelling skills or just can't think of another word to use that isn't an obscenity. 

And am I one of the NowPublic "skull&bones members" this person is referencing and just what does "not verified" mean?  Eventually I withdrew everything I had published on NowPublic. 

There is more.  In Idaho, a state that I am very familiar with, it is reported that second and third grade students were chanting "assassinate Obama" on a school bus.  Second and third grade students on a school bus are doing this?  Hmm...it might be informative if the names of the parents of these second and third grade students were revealed.  This could be investigated and discovered. I had an Obama08 sign on my car and I frequently find myself being closely followed by the local police force and other members of the Ontario, Oregon community my wife and I live in. In addition to police cars, large, old and mangled pickup trucks seem to be a vehicle of choice for these folks.  When the price of gasoline reaches $20 a gallon perhaps they will be walking.

In any case, we pay substantial property taxes here which supposedly supports police protection from criminal elements but as the saying goes, "sometimes one can’t tell the cops from the robbers."  FYI:  Ontario, Oregon is very close to the Idaho border – and Idaho is a very Red State. In preparing for "anticipated" events that some believed would occur on January 1, 2000, in Idaho people weren't buying extra food, water and batteries, they were buying all the extra ammunition they could find and afford.  Those with the most ammo they were certain would not find obtaining food and water to be a problem at all.  

After leaving college and before I took my first job with the State of Alaska I ran a business owned by my father for about 10 years.  One night someone fired rifle shots into the front window.  It's the second picture from the top.  These people do things like this when they are drunk.  This could be described as a "beer and whisky courage" kind of place. I don't know what the motives were, I don't think they were political.  It was many years ago.

The strange thing was that before this election there were a lot of Obama/Biden signs in people's yards.  I think they were mostly in the part of town that I live in but still I've never seen anything like that before. Oregon is a Blue State but that distinction comes from the voters in the Willamette Valley, Portland south to Eugene.  There are two mountain ranges between where I live and there.  It's 350 miles or so.

Here is a list of additional incidents that have been documented since the election:

University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur.

Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apalacan Township, PA.

At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

What is clear is that there are a lot of extreme right wing elements in this country historically and right now who are capable of anything. Putting bombs in churches, shooting real bullets into groups of unarmed people, things like that. It seems pretty obvious that the President of the United States, his government as well as his supporters are potential targets for actions spawned from this demented paranoia. 

That John McCain and Sarah Palin fanned the flames of this potential for reasons they thought might bring political fruit to their otherwise disastrous campaign is equally obvious.  If Obama thinks McCain can play a progressive role in the U.S. Senate during his presidency, he has certainly bought into something that I haven’t seen. Mr. President, look at what is happening to you and those who supported you.  Is more corroboration required?  This was written in the Baltimore Sun in October 2008:

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

As a country, the United States has come a long way since the  19th Century and even further since the middle of the 20th Century in dealing with its racist and violent past. The 2008 election was in many ways a test of the values of the nation and its citizens. While the vast majority of the country affirmed its ideals, there is ample evidence that violence and racism still have remnants. It may take another century before we really live up to what we say we are. As for the present, Good Night and Good Luck.