I just...I don't know, it feels as if good sane folks here are questioning whether or not the rancid right leadership knows that there are clear calls to murder our President... or not.
Am I misreading here? Are we really questioning whether or not right wing conservative leadership understands what they're condoning, either by silence or by encouragement?
My god, of course they know! It's what they want. The 'they' I am talking about are 'people' like Mr. 'You Lah' and his ilk.
Have y'all ever been on the receiving end of racial bigotry? It's not...it doesn't leave room for rational thought. It doesn't leave room for reasonable people to disagree. It's not like I, with my dark chocolate face, can talk someone out of hating me for that face.
Is there even a question that these people are praying for, hoping for, wishing for the president to be killed, in large part because he is Black?
'Stopped' politically won't be enough for them. Annihilated is what they long for. His existence threatens their view of themselves, and they will find any justification to avoid that: anything goes for people like this.
I think that, as a nation, we have come a long way. But racism is the deep American wound, the one that heals in spots but continues to fester. As long as there are folks of good will insisting that the opposition to President Obama is not mainly rooted in racism, the killing kind, then I think we are looking the wrong way, out of our own discomfort with acknowledging this truth. We don't have time for that discomfort. Imagine our First Family bereft. Imagine our American family, yearning towards better, with our renewed heart, fragile as it is, destroyed.
It is beyond imagining.
My anger about this situation and fear for his life don't mean that I agree with his every policy and all of his cabinet choices, etc. I have my disagreements. But, as I watched him on Saturday morning in his policy speech here in Tokyo, it suddenly struck me - the weight of what he has to deal with, the depth and complexity, and risk. If we were talking about disagreement on the issues with good will, as people of good will, then we wouldn't need to be concerned: the basic situation, the risk that any President takes, would be...imaginable.
But, the people that Frank Schaeffer is talking about are not people of good will. We are not just dealing with the idea of lone nuts - there is no real comfort there. We are dealing with a right wing wave of corruption and racism that will carry us all out of the beloved community and into chaos.
This is a thing of the spirit, y'all. We must prevail, with everyday courage.
I believe that the Secret Service funding needs to be bulked up, as part of our national defense. Let them focus on protection, instead of dealing with financial corruption - surely there is another agency that can handle that (see below). And, as some Kossacks have said before, when we are in an event with him and the family, we need to be attentive. And, there are no such things as idle threats. The right wingers may be part of your family. They may be next door neighbors. Whatever. They are not to be given a pass, of any kind, because that may be the fatal pass, and it's hard to know where it will come from, and from whom.
I'm not scared. I am angry and determined that the people who ruined life for so many (stupidly, including their own lives) will not ruin this.
Secret Service under srain as leaders face more threats
The new demands are leading some officials, both inside and outside the agency, to raise the possibility of the service curtailing or dropping its role in fighting financial crime to focus more on protecting leaders and their families from assassination attempts and thwarting terrorist plots aimed at high-profile events.