John McCain Must Reject GOP’s Racism NOW
John McCain, Iowans, and US Citizens: Renounce, Repudiate!. If you are reading this, please, please, please blog it, send it to others, and push back. I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican or Independent, this has to stop here. We are not cowards. We do not need to use race and fear as weapons against ourselves.
US Representative Steve King (R-IA) said this today on a local radio station (h/t Crooks & Liars):
“I’ll just say this that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States — and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?
“And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the, the radical Islamists, the, the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11….
“It does matter, his middle name does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world, it has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict.
This is the tack the Republicans will take after Obama wins the nomination. They have expanded the “surrender” theme to make it personal, to make it about who Barack Obama is as well as what he stands for. It is a time-worn tactic that’s been used to oppress people in this country for decades and it’s time for it to stop.
Here’s a fact: Guns aren’t the only way to win wars. Even Richard Nixon understood that, but today’s GOP is so bloodthirsty that they truly believe that diplomacy is surrender.
Think about what the GOP’s message means to our society. It means that street gangs should never, ever stand down, and should just keep shooting each other and innocents on the streets of our cities because there’s no other way for them to win. It means that we should tolerate school shootings because those shooters shouldn’t have to surrender to bullies by talking it out, negotiating a peace, by dealing with each other. It means that it’s okay to lie and shoot first and defend it later, because admitting a wrong would somehow be surrender.
Most insidiously, it means that we are willing to tolerate ignorance and race-baiting as an acceptable means to win an election.
Don’t let this go unanswered. Answer it, loudly. I am calling for John McCain and the good voters of Iowa to take a firm stand against King’s AmericaFascism and send a message to the GOP that this will not stand, that it will not win, and it is time to confront ISSUES head-on rather than use race and names as a way to denigrate the opposition. Join me, please.
Technorati Tags: Steve King, racism, fear, prejudice, slimy tactics, Iowa, Americafascism