"If I fight on in my campaign all the way to the convention, I want you to know I've given this a lot of thought, I'd forestall the launch of a national campaign and frankly I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. Frankly in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
Pardon our French, but a hearty "Fuck you" to Mitt Romney. Nice. Typical Republican talk, stirring up fear in order to win an election.
Democrats = surrender. Vote Democratic and you die. Shut the fuck up.
That is all. Carry on.
2 comments:
I have to put my comments ahead of my examples because I'm afraid my list of examples will be too long to wade through to get to my opinions.
Listen. Politicians use fear. It’s a fact. Right or Left. Elephant or Donkey. Republican or Democrat or, dare I say, Independent. Its what they do. Politicians say things about their opponents to scare the layperson into feeling safe with them. Republicans say you will die from terrorists at approximately 4:30 pm on January 20th, 2009 if there is a democrat elected because the troops will instantly vanish from Iraq and OBL will come knocking on our door. Democrats say you will die from starvation and poverty and sickness because the evil corporate cronies of a republican will take your job and healthcare and food from you.
IT'S WHAT POLITITIANS DO. THEY ALWAYS HAVE AND THEY ALWAYS WILL. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS GUILTY OF USING FEAR TO GAIN SUPPORT!
Now, in Romey's sound bite you put a glaring example of the kind of fear that polititcians use (along with a few choice words of commentary). Its wrong, yes. but how different is it than the examples I have copied and pasted from Sen. Obama website. Sen. Obama is using past examples of our current President, but that does not change the fact that he is using fear of "what could happen again" if another republican got into office.
I would be very afraid of a republican being elected to office if all I listened to were theses speeches…all I see is a party that just doesn’t care about people.
Regardless of who is voted into office, there will be some really crappy people doing crappy things on both sides of the fence. One party is not superior on the issue of having its fair share of jerks.
I believe we all (the American People) want the same basic things…we just have a different road of getting there. If we could get back to respecting one another, maybe something could get done to benefit all.
Now. I have posted pieces of Senator Obama's past speeches directly from his website. Not to prove he is an a-hole like the rest of them, but to prove that both sides use fear to gain support. The only difference is what kind of fear you are using. I'm not picking on Sen. Obama because, IMHO, he has been using the least amount of inflammatory speech…but the fear is still there.
(Note: this first example, I found personally offensive because I was involved directly with FEMA and the NDMS in relief of Katrina. People give FEMA and the President a bad rap don't know the half of what FEMA and relief efforts like that are like. I know of no official reason, but I believe NDMS's overview was changed from DHS to DHHS because of the unwarranted scar left on FEMAs name and NDMS needs some credibility to be effective)
A portion of a speech from Senator Obama on Feb. 7, 2008
"To many Americans, the words "New Orleans" call up images of broken levees; water rushing through the streets; mothers holding babies up to avoid the flood. And worse - the memory of a moment when America's government failed its citizens. Because when the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast extended their hand for help, help wasn't there. When people looked up from the rooftops, for too long they saw empty sky. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn't right with America.
We can talk about what happened for a few days in 2005. And we should. We can talk about levees that couldn't hold; about a FEMA that seemed not just incompetent, but paralyzed and powerless; about a President who only saw the people from the window of an airplane. We can talk about a trust that was broken - the promise that our government will be prepared, will protect us, and will respond in a catastrophe.
But we also know the broken promises did not start when a storm hit, and they did not end there."
Portion of Sen. Obama's speech Jan. 30, 2008
"Because we need to do more than turn the page on the failed Bush-Cheney policies; we have to turn the page on the politics that helped make those policies possible.
Lobbyists setting an agenda in Washington that feeds the inequality, insecurity, and instability in our economy.
Division and distraction that keeps us from coming together to deal with challenges like health care, and clean energy, and crumbling schools year after year after year.
Cronyism that gave us Katrina instead of competent government. And secrecy that made torture permissible and illegal wiretaps possible."
Portion of Sen. Obama's speech from Jan. 20, 2008
"We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged."
Strangely enough, (or maybe not so strange to some) I find less outright "fear mongering" in the Obama "if A then B" references than those found in the "typical Republican MO" on touting terrorist fear to push a particular agenda. With Obama there is a positive spin: "I can help stop genocide; I can help the least of our society; I can help bring troops home from an ill-mannered war; I can help stop this blatant disregard for our Constitutional rights; etc etc etc." I find this type of persuasion (and in politics it is all about persuasion) to be less an afront to the people than using the "terror card" to stir up thoughts that we can only be safe with a Republican in office.
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