From Denny: Apparently, my post yesterday analyzing why President Obama does deserve the Nobel Peace Prize over at Dennys Global Politics shook up the Republican war room guys.
Everyone is Wondering What the Nobel Peace Prize Committee Saw in President Obama
The amusing thing about it is that all they did was prove my point: "the Republicans just had to be nasty" about Obama receiving this honor for America.
Of course, I didn't bother to publish the idiot comments. Why? Because it was nasty? Partly. And these blogs are my world and they just happened to stumble into it. No one held a gun to their heads and forced them to read the post.
The other reason not to publish it? They were trying to define me with their usual lies, leaving comments trying to confuse anyone who came along later to read my article by claiming what I wrote was satire, which, of course, it wasn't satire or anything remotely near it. What the problem was for them is there really was no where for them to go with their anger but to attack me personally since I had covered all the arguments they could have employed as a counter.
So, the typical last resort of bullies is to do character assassination. Come on, folks, I grew up in the intelligence community; I know the drill. Interestingly enough, had they left me alone I wouldn't bother with this post to denounce them further.
But, bullies bring out the fight in me and always have. Even as a little kid when I was the size of a gnat I used to take on the school bullies every year when school started and wore them out or wore them down until I won - even if it took all year; sometimes it did.
There was just something about watching a kid twice the size of a sick kid who just returned from open heart surgery get beaten down close to death that irked me so badly it brought out the need for justice. Those same vicious sick bullies used to beat down other kids while they were in the throes of an asthma attack. The teachers used to grin slyly and turn their backs during recess while I pummelled the jerks whether with fists, well-placed kicks or words. The teachers were my biggest fans.
Fast forward to the present and not much has changed in regard to vicious people. During the Kerry presidential campaign I was captain of several precincts to protect the African-American vote here in the Deep South, mainly because many people were too afraid to do it. I knew how high the stakes were that day and spent all day driving from precinct to precinct in the pouring rain to make sure no one was challenged and not allowed to vote.
There were Republican challengers showing up but as soon as they saw me drive into the parking lot they left. They left - not because they were afraid of me - but because they thought I was one of them since I fit the white girl profile of what they thought a Republican looked like and the kind of car they drove. They would leave grinning, assuming I was there to do the same dirty work they were. They failed to check the Democrat bumper sticker in my rear window. Growing up in the intelligence community was good for something: I learned how to fly under radar and be low profile.
For my efforts, I received death threats and a slew of hate mail from the local Republican Party. Remember the Rove strategy back then? The marching orders were sent out from the national Republican Party level to harass and threaten all opposition, including those of us who sent letters to the editor either against them or in favor of the opposition. All that did was start a chain reaction which only propelled me to start these blogs. No one said these bullying Republicans are terribly smart - just ruthless.
I can't be bullied but it sure does go a long way to igniting me and a crowd of other people to push back against this evil. I don't care how much politics and power mean to anyone; you don't go around issuing death threats and sending hate mail. Stupid is as stupid does and there will always be a reckoning that Karma requires.
What is alarming today in this political season is how the Republican Party and their foolish loyalists are working overtime to get some unhinged mentally disturbed person to carry out an assassination against President Obama. From the talk show guys to the newspaper articles to websites advocating the death of Obama and even Speaker Pelosi, this kind of garbage has to be met with greater force. Republican strategists are operating on the principle: "All Evil needs to succeed is for Good men and women to do nothing."
If only to prove my points above are some haunting quotes from the Obama presidential campaign as well as comments from the sage philosophers throughout the ages, eerie predictions all:
Quotes
* I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called "the fierce urgency of now." Because I believe that there's such a thing as being too late. And that hour is almost upon us. - Barack Obama, Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, 10 Nov 2007
* In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? - Barack Obama, Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, 27 July 2004
* What Washington needs is adult supervision. - Barack Obama
* But another thing I know is this - we can't steer ourselves out of this crisis by heading in the same, disastrous direction. We can't change direction with a new driver who wants to follow the same old map. And that's what this election is all about. - Barack Obama, 18 Sept 2008, Espanola, New Mexico
* We can't afford to be so worried about losing the next election that we lose the battles we owe to the next generation. The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. And that's a risk we can't take. - Barack Obama, 27 Dec 2007, Des Moines, Iowa
* Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. - Barack Obama, 05 Feb 2008, Chicago, Illinois
* A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values. - Barack Obama, American Legion Legislative Rally, 01 Mar 2005
* It's not enough just to change parties in this election. If we hope to truly transform this country, we have to change our politics too. It's time to turn the page. - Barack Obama, 19 June 2007, Washington, D.C. (And for this the Republicans are advocating killing him? This says a lot more about them and their sick lack of good values than it does the President.)
* So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. That change will take time. There will be setbacks, and false starts, and sometimes we will make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope. Because there are people all across this country who are counting on us.... - Barack Obama, 26 Jan 2008, Columbia, South Carolina
* Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own, not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt. You need to take on the challenge because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential. And if we're willing to share the risks and the rewards this new century offers, it will be a victory for each of you, and for every American. - Barack Obama, Knox College Commencement, 04 June 2005, Galesburg, Illinois
* Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more - and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. - Barack Obama, Announcement for President, 10 Feb 2007, Springfield, Illinois
* America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. - Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949
* Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. - Richard Armour
* Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
* With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. - Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 20 Jan 2009, Washington, D.C.
* * Mankind will never see an end of trouble until... lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power... become lovers of wisdom. - Plato, The Republic
