Dangerous Words

Campaign rhetoric, especially from Republicans, has become, not only vicious, but dangerous. The most violent words are being fomented by the self-described ‘pitbull with lipstick", Republican candidate for vice president, Sarah Palin. Her words, and to a lesser degree, those of John McCain, are becoming inflammatory, and some hotheads in their audiences are becoming inflamed. Cries of "treason", and "kill him", have been heard shouted from the crowd. Isn't rabble-rousing illegal? Isn't it like crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater?

When the target of their ire happens to be the first viable African-American candidate for president in America's history, reactions like that are seriously dangerous. Although it's been over 140 years since slavery was outlawed in this country, it has been only a little over 40 years that African-Americans really began to have equal opportunities, and even then at some personal peril. There is still a lot of racial discrimination and hatred out there being handed down from one generation to another.

I don't know why it is necessary to identify Barack Obama as a Black man, because by blood heritage he is just as a much a White man, and intelligent people come in all colors.  He was raised by an unusually compassionate white mother and by white grandparents in Hawaii, the most unbigoted state in the union. He really didn't experience Black culture until he was in high school, and later at college in Los Angeles. His personal history does not contain the 400 years of injustice suffered by the average African-American. Bias against white people was never  instilled in his psyche, giving him the ability to have clearer insight into the problems of this country and the world.

After graduating with honors from Columbia University in New York City, and Harvard Law School in Boston, he chose a bottom-rung job of organizing people in the churches of South Chicago to find ways to better themselves. He could have accepted a much more lucrative job offered to him by a prominent law firm in New York City. That demonstrates to me that Barack Obama is a good man, motivated by a sincere wish to help people.

Barack's Kenyan father abandoned him and his mother when his mother still in college and Barack was only two years old. He never really knew his father until he visited them in Honolulu for a month when Barack was 10 years old. That is the only contact he ever had with his Muslim father who died in a car crash in Africa. Barack Obama has only his middle name, Hussein, to remind him that his father's Muslim heritage was far different from his own Christian upbringing.

I didn't intend to go into Obama's biography, but maybe it's necessary to explain why I think it is not only slanderous but dangerous for the McCain campaign to suggest that Barack Obama is mysterious and subversive. It seems to me that because of his heritage, and the four years he lived as a little boy with his mother and an Indonesian step-father in Indonesia, Barack Obama is able to understand the problems of all kinds of people better than John McCain. The fact that he grew up in a modest middle-class home, and sometimes experienced deprivation when his mother had to resort to food stamps, makes him better able to understand the problems of people of all walks of life.

For the first time in our history a Black man has been able to rise above the fray to be a serious contender for the position of President of the United States. He is by far the best student and best educated candidate of all four candidates. He has demonstrated that he has the composure to withstand the assaults he knew would come at him when he offered himself as a presidential candidate, and that he has the intellect to counter-attack within the bounds of civilized debates.

After declaring at the beginning of this presidential campaign that this would be a civilized debate - no dirty politics - McCain failed to persuade the public he would be the better man for the job, and he abandoned his good intentions. Now, in the last few weeks before the election, he has sunk to the status of a bottom feeder. Nothing is too low and dirty to use against his opponent if he thinks it might stick and resonate with the still-undecided voters. These are acts of a desperate man.

To raise interest and commitment to his candidacy, McCain presented Sarah Palin as his choice for Republican candidate for the vice presidency. Although almost unknown in the lower 48 states, Palin has aroused passions both pro and con with her attractive appearance, everlasting smile, and vituperous speeches. She draws the crowds that John McCain failed to interest. All that is to her credit, but her words are becoming more and more vitriolic and of a nature to incite violence. As the governor of Alaska she seemed qualified, but by interviews and the nature of what she has to say in her speeches, she is losing the backing she had at first.

Sarah Palin, and other elements of the McCain campaign, are inspiring a violence we have experienced before. Violence is never far below the surface in some people. The political violence that has broken out before in our history has resulted in death and cruelty not appropriate in a democratic society that prides itself in peaceful settlement of the differing opinions. Violent words, especially when they are lies, are apt to turn passion for or against a political candidate into murder. Remember Jack and Bobby Kennedy? Their lives were cut off before they even had a chance to accomplish the good things they hoped for in this country. And there have been other successful and unsuccessful assassination attempts on our presidents, and presidential candidates.

There are evil people out there, as well as a lot of nut cases, just waiting for the right words to justify their impulses to kill. The words being expressed in the McCain campaign now are coming close to that point. How can our honorable old hero, John McCain, justify such low-down smear tactics in order for him to fulfill his desire to be President of the United States before he dies of old age?

We can only hope he and all others culpable on both sides will see what is liable to happen if we have three more weeks of lies and distortions, They should cease those tactics before they unleash violent forces that will harm our country. We are already experiencing severe problems in these perilous times of wars and financial collapse, and we don't need the additional disaster of civil strife.