Awwww, isn’t that sweet? Not content to express his hate for America’s First Black President™ in prose, skinhead Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. wrote Barack Obama a hate poem called “The Sniper.” According to the First Amendment Center, the poem included these lovely, lyrical lines:
The bullet that he has chambered is one of the purest pride,
And the inspiration on the casing reads DIE negro DIE
If you can stomach it, you can search for “pain1488″ (Spencer’s online handle) and these lines, and find a full copy of the poem. I won’t link directly, as the only copies I could find are on white supremacist sites, and, well, fuck them. But you’ve got the gist. Spencer isn’t making a direct threat against the President, but describing a fictional assassin. Whether Spencer is the kind of white racist asshole who would turn verse into reality ought to be a separate question. But federal prosecutors believe the poem is a “true threat” exception to the First Amendment, and are arguing that Spencer should stand trial for violating 18 USC Sect. 871, which prohibits direct threats against the President and Vice President.
But this isn’t a direct threat. It’s obscene and vile, but so are many things covered by the First Amendment (*cough*MichaelAndDebiPearl*cough*). What’s the difference between this poem and Death of a President, a fictional movie about the assassination of George W. Bush? I’m with Jonathan Turley: absent additional evidence of malice or planning, Spencer should walk.
Uncharitable, sure. It’s as charitable as Palin’s statement was realistic. This woman lives in a country that has seen peaceful transitions of power for 150 years, yet she talks like she’s about to face down Deng Xiaoping’s tanks in Tiananmen Square. Indeed, her lecture in front of an adoring crowd was chock full of frightening, over-the-top statements, only a few of which she had to write on her palm. Take this gem:
We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law standing at the lectern.
Right! Who needs that pesky Constitution anyway? Not Palin, who declared to the crowd that it is time for “another revolution,” and that America’s future lies in “seeking divine intervention again.” Did she mean “divine intervention” in the same way that Pastor Wiley Drake called for “divine intervention”? Or “divine intervention” in the sense of “It’ll take an act of God to get Sarah Plain in the White House?” Either way, it was an odious declaration in the midst of a terrifying evening. Sarah Palin declared jihad on Barack Obama last night, with all the fervor (and logic) of a holy warrior.
What a contrast to the man who currently occupies the White House. In a Washington Post article on Thursday that I didn’t stumble across until last night, Anne Kornblut documents how President Obama likes to keep his strong faith in God private, even though there are days when it’s the only thing that sees him through:
When Obama appears at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday morning — a regular presidential ritual — it will mark the rare occasion when he puts religion in the foreground. In that appearance, he will discuss “the need for civility in the public square, and how Americans can work together in a spirit of goodwill,” a senior administration official said.
Now that’s leadership. Obama, in private, has a very strong, personal Christian faith. In public, however, his message is ecumenical and inclusive.
Paid pundits like Roland S. Martin are in a tizzy about Tim Tebow, and how courageous it is for a superstar pulling down millions of dollars to express his faith in Christ and his belief that women are chattel. Sorry, not impressed. What’s impressive is someone like Obama, who weds a strong personal belief to a public secularism that stands on its own foundation of logic and empathy. The atheist creed that religion is a cancer that must be excised from the human politic is a load of bunk. We need to recognize that religion’s place is our souls and our homes, not our civics. (And yes, “religion” includes the religions of “no religion” and “none of the above.”) Good ideas can come from religion, but their appeal has to be broad; they have to translate into the language of reason and humanism, and not be grounded solely in personal religious fervor or – worse – blind faith.
Obama gets that in a way that Sarah The Divine Interventionist never will. As Andrew Sullivan notes, she’s making a play for the Presidency because she believes God is in her corner.
And just for the record, God? If you make a play in 2012 on her behalf, your ass is sleeping on the couch.
Kottke highlights a screed by Mark Morford at the San Francisco Chronicle called “Why Are You So Terribly Disappointing?” which takes us to task for being a republic of whiny bitches. Morford’s target is not our culture per se, but our politics. Because we’re babies who expect to be astounded at every turn by spectacle, we poo-poo everything that doesn’t meet our crazy-ass expectations. And that includes a certain first black President in the White House:
He’s only accomplished what, about 100 of the things I expected him to accomplish by now? Big deal. I have, like, 5,000 more. Health care reform has failed. Guantanamo is still open. Wars are still warring. Jobs are still sucking. Gays are still unhappy because the entire human understanding of love and gender in this nation has not completely transformed within a year. Infuriating!
This bitterness, continues Morford, infects our online conversations (gasp! No! Not the Internet!!), where we hurl invective and spit hate like machine-guns with stuck triggers:
It does not matter what the piece might be about. Obama’s speech. High speed rail. Popular dog breeds. Your grandmother’s cookies. The anonymous comments section of any major media site or popular blog will be so crammed with bile and bickering, accusation and pule, hatred and sneer you can’t help but feel violently disappointed by the shocking lack of basic human kindness and respect, much less a sense of positivism or perspective.
Kottke insightfully ties this into Louis CK’s rant on Conan O’Brien about how we love to bitch at technology when it goes wrong, ignoring how amazing it is that this shit works at all:
These two links left me ruminating on how much I take this “shocking lack of basic human kindness and respect” for granted. Maybe it’s a survival mechanism. I spend 139% of my life online. You can’t hang out on the Interwebs as long as I do without donning some heavy-duty sarcasm armor.
Okay, yeah- I’ve read my own blog’s archives. I’ve invected with the best of ‘em. Some of my old content is great, and I’ve reprinted it here; some of it is nothing but a string of assholes and mother-fuck-yous, and I’m leaving all that right where it sits and pretending it never fled my raging id. And if you could assist me with my amnesia, I’d appreciate it. (Kisses!)
I could blame drinking, but that’s an easy out. I’m sober now, and I still love to bitch. Who doesn’t? When it feels like people in positions of authority are acting with all the insight and restraint of lobotomized babies, popping off is a healthy alternative to beating up people in the street. And it can be productive. Look at how many people John Stewart and Stephen Colbert have engaged in the political process through the judicious use of outrage.
The problem with outrage is that it’s too much fun. It’s also easy. That’s a dangerous combination. Passion overrides sense, and anger vetoes reason. We end up conforming to type, popping off on “the other side” without any consistency. We work ourselves into a lather about stupid shit, not the things that matter. And we get so outraged that we burn out. We throw up our hands, and threaten to take our ball and go home if we don’t get our little way. Look at where we are now. According to multiple polls, Democrats are poised to stay home from the 2010 election, and give significant power back to the bozos (OUTRAGE!!) who mired us in conflict and debt for eight years. This is akin to being so disappointed in the Renaissance that you’re longing for a relapse to the Dark Ages. What happened to “progress, not perfection”?
Sure, we can press Obama and the Senate to do more. But if Democrats suffer huge losses in 2010 and 2012, “more” won’t be an option. There’s no third party poised to claim control of Congress, people. Wanna get pissed? Get pissed over the issues. Health care. Marriage equality and DADT. Equal pay for women. Let’s quit wasting that energy on Obama, or the iPad, or Jon and Kate Gosselin, or the blogger who insists that Superman could beat Spider-Man.
Outrage is too fun and too useful. The Internet won’t turn into a staid consideration of abstract ideas because some dude wrote a column. And it shouldn’t. Politics impacts our lives – it ought to be fiery and intense. But our outrage ought to be selective, engaging, and constructive. When I let fly these days, I try and ask myself: what difference do I think I’m making? I don’t always succeed; sometimes, I’m typing just to watch myself type. But I try. And, at the height of my pique, I try and remember that everything is amazing, even if it could be more amazing still.
Besides, Spidey could totally kick Superman’s ass.
Holy. Farking. Shite. This is impressive, in its own disgusting way. You don’t see much explicit racism in mainstream politics these days. Most politicians are smart enough to keep their dumb well-hidden. It’s all codewords and dog-whistles and “that boy Obama.” But not for Santa Clarita, CA Councilman Bob Kellar! The rep, who has backed eBay CEO Meg Whitman for California Governor, attended an anti-immigration rally earlier this month and let loose with a volley of rancor against all furriners. The whole clip’s awful, but the damning self-indictment occurs around the 2-minute mark:
Where did THAT come from, right?! It’s as if he kept all of this in for decades, and couldn’t hold it back any longer. Poor, racist bastard.
Whitman’s campaign, to its credit, had the common fucking sense to put an ocean between itself and Kellar. Kellar, meanwhile, says his opponents have taken him “out of context,” without explaining in which context declaring “I’m a proud racist” makes one a model citizen.
At the start of the video, the man who introduces Kellar laments that no one from elected office shows up at these rallies, and that “it’s a disgusting, disappointing thing.” If I were a gamblin’ man, I’d say no one from elected office will be showing up at these rallies in the future, either. Which is indeed a disgusting, disappointing thing: judging from the first scene of this video, these anti-immigrant folks know how to par-TAY:
Is the US turning into a nanny state? That’s the fear raised in an article by Michael Hill of the Associated Press, who tracks what he sees as a trend toward laws that micromanage people’s behavior – from eating trans fat to spanking your kids to driving and talking on your cell phone simultaneously.
I’ve blogged about a few of the issues that Hill touches upon, particularly the use of trans fats by restaurants. The simple fact is that most of the issues that Hill cites aren’t cut-and-dried examples of nannyism; all of them, to some degree or another, involve the effect of our actions upon others. Restaurants that serve trans fatty food without warning are (as many of my readers at the time pointed out) not giving their customers the ability to make a reasoned choice; parents who smoke in confined spaces are greatly increasing their childrens’ cancer risks; people yapping on cell phones may be increasing their risks of careening into the next lane and taking out a family of four.
All of these things are debatable; we can bicker about the safety of cell phones in cars, for example, and fling competing studies at one another’s heads until the cows come home. But to declare flat-out that this issue is an example of “the creeping nanny state,” and consists of some sort of trend to rob Americans of their precious freedoms, seems absurd. If we want to talk about abrogation of freedoms in America, let’s talk about the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, detention without trial, and our prisons full of nonviolent drug offenders.
Or let’s not talk about America at all. Let’s talk about Britain, where they’re also concerned with what seem like trivial crimes. In Britain’s case, however, it’s the way they’re going about enforcement that’s eerie and sinister. I mentioned yesterday how the country is stocked to the gills with 4.2 million CCTV cameras that monitor the citizenry’s every move. The constant surveillance helped earn Britain a “black” rating from Privacy International (a distinction it shares with Russia and Singapore).
Well, it just got worse: now, the cameras are being outfitted with speakers, so that monitors at a control center can reprimand people who engage in unlawful or even just plain rude behavior. And that’s not even the most frightening part:
Competitions would also be held at schools in many of the areas for children to become the voice of the cameras, Mr Reid said.
Yep, that’s right: if you do anything untoward – like, let’s say, itch your balls when you think no one’s looking – and someone catches you on camera, it may be the voice of your own child that gives you a public bollocking.
The politicians of 1984 would be proud; Britain’s getting ‘em when they’re young. The Blair government is doing its damnedest to raise an entire generation for whom endemic surveillance is a way of life. Frankly, I’m more concerned about this kind of crap being exported to the states than I am about laws regulating trans fat.
Here at The Zero Boss, we love to document the less-than-proud behavior of people who engage in homophobia, and of people who use children as political tools. Rarely, however, do we have the honor of dissecting a political campaign that’s committed both crimes in a single breath. That honor goes to Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, the GOP opponent of Democrat Ted Strickland. Strickland is handing Blackwell his fanny in the polls, showing the Republican just who’s the butch and who’s the bitch in this election. The campaign, needless to say, is not going according to plan, forcing Ken to watch all that optimistic talk about “Blackwell in ‘08″ go swirling down the tubes.
Blackwell’s desperation move: Have his cronies point out that Strickland and his wife are childless and live apart, and that, ergo, his opponent is a poof. Blackwell is aided in this contortion by supporters such as Scott Pullins (who, judging by his site photo, is one sexy piece of ass). Pullins, in a contortion of passive-voice construction worthy of a party that prides itself on personal responsibility, claims that “these rumors…continue to stir the pot on the bizarre personal relationship of Ted and Frances Strickland.” Never mind, Mr. Pullins, that we just caught you standing over the cauldron holding the stick.
I know childless couples who live apart. They keep separate spaces as a way to maintain their independence, while also coming together in union. It’s a creative re-interpretation of traditional marriage. I know “creativity” is an odd concept for social conservatives to grok. (Have you seen the video??) But good Jesus God, people, can we possibly refrain from busting into gay-bashing the instant someone steps outside the little circle of “normality” you’ve scrawled in the sand?
Pullins and others emphasize that “there’s nothing wrong” with not having children. Riiiight. Then why bring it up in the first place? Because you’re using kids to attack your opponent’s virility, that’s why. More to the point, you’re using Blackwell’s three adult children as symbols of his maniless in the face of the Homosexual Agenda(TM).
I’d be quick to excoriate you folks for such behavior, except that I’m too busy laughing milk out my nose. Because in using kids as pawns and resorting to schoolyard insults, you’re showing that you are nothing more than children yourselves.
Okay, controversy time. There’s something I have to say.
I feel for the parents of Terri Schiavo. I really do.
But their insistence that their daughter could have been rehabilitated, despite autopsy reports that her brain had shrunk to half of human size and her visual centers were destroyed, places them past the point of reason and into the realm of delusional fantasy.
Look, human beings are incredibly resilient. We’ve been known to survive some horrific tragedies. There was the kid who had both arms pulled off by the thresher, but had the gumption to crawl back to his house and dial 911 using his mouth. There have been young kids who’ve been half-lobotomized and were able to re-learn how to eat, walk, and speak. So it’s understandable that her parents would want to hold on to hope in the face of disaster.
But come on. There was nothing left to work with. Even “pro-life” partisan Bill Frist admitted as much. She was in a persistent vegetative state. She would have died had anyone attempted to feed her solids. She was gone.
The only thing we as a society should regret is that our bass-ackwards attitude toward the quality of life and our religious hang-ups about “not playing God” forced us to dehydrate her to death, rather than end her life mercifully. We treated Terri worse than we treat dogs. I can only hope that American voters don’t experience short-term memory syndrome again, and that they remember who’s responsible for this travesty come election time.
Awwww, isn’t that sweet? Not content to express his hate for America’s First Black President™ in prose, skinhead Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. wrote Barack Obama a hate poem called “The Sniper.” According to the First Amendment Center, the poem included these lovely, lyrical lines:
Writer and father of four in Seattle, WA. It is my dream to be a professional smartass. Until then, I'm working pro bono.
Recent Comments