Goodbye

You are writing your own, revised version of recent history, one where there is no meeting ground.
I really hoped that people with different politics could at least share the same facts – recent facts, at that..
Since that's not possible, there is nothing more to say.
I can't live in your revised world.

Bye.

You are absolutely right, BBQ.
Despite your repeat strawmen, no one is blaming all of GOP, all whites, all anything.
This is simply an acknowledgement that what has ben hapening here and there is likely to continue and that Obama will challenge those occurrences.
You have noticed how ugly things can get I presume. Remember the' terrorist fist jab' on a very partisan TV channel?

That's just the point. A lot of the worst is done by supporters, not the two parties directly. It's not a question of blaming the GOP for the worst cases, It's an acknowledgement that the worst is likely to come from sonwhere in that direction..
.
In a way, the GOP. the Left, the Right are vague terms used symbolically to indicate a direction, not as specific descriptives.

If you've been following the primary news, you know that Democrats, unlike the GOP, do challenge each other and criticize each other constantly. In fact, there was quite a flap about race in the primaries.

In the primaries, Dems were challenging other Dems. Now, in the generall election, it will be Dems against the GOP. In the primaries Hillary attacked Obama, now it will be the GOP attacking Obama was speaking to NOW , not THEN..

You are also quite right that there are racist Democrats, but they are not nearly as likely to use it in a gemeral election, because the cross fire will be between Dems and the GOP. If there is something strange about preparing for the fight to come, instead of the fight that's over, I wish you would explain to me what it is.

I haven't heard the governor but if he is a GOP than he probably meant because Obama goes against his state's conservative values. If he is a Dem than I would think he would handle it in private first and if that didn't work than I would think it would be fair for Obama to criticism him.

Although I never heard him say much to Rendell when he said White Dems wouldn't vote for Obama. Seems he would rather disparage all Republicans than deal with his own parties racism.

You are right, in that these accusations get painted with too broad a brush at times. You're jumping the gun about Obama, however. He didn't accuse all Rep.'s or all whites of racism or of using racism. He was simply acknowledging what already has been demonstrated, that racism is going to have a role in this election processs.

If there is any 'chiding' to vote for him, it didn't happen in his statement. He was addressing his own camp!

What , in your opinion, is the signal that it's appropriate to challenge racism.
Racist buttons (local GOP) and T-shirts (rural whites) have gone unchallenged.
A southern governor said his constituency wouldn't allow him to support Obama.

What is the signal that would make it okay with you?

And yes I grew up in a liberal area (Madison) I have heard plenty of far left nuts in my time. But I would never think the whole party thinks that America is the devil and so is Israel.

I wonder what needs to happen before it's permissible to state the obvious. a burning cross at polling booths?

It started early in the primaries, when Bill Clinton was villified for stating the obvious, that racism would become part of the election process. Whether or not he had ulterior motives, is up to interpretation, and few are willing to rethink an earlier interpretation, but what he said is now shown to be absolutely true.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that if you don't talk about it, it'll go away, but talking about it creates it. That's beyoind illogical; it's crazy.
The silence of protests against this craziness is deafening.

In the meantime hate groups such as white supremacists and the KKK are reporting boom times in interest generated by Obama's candidacy.

The delicate part is linking racism to the GOP, as Obaama did. . They will, for the most part, be much too clever to use it directly, but I'm sure they won't be shy about benefitting from it. In local elections, it's already been overt as the Obama vs 'White' House buttons showed.

What I find equally disturbing is how reluctant bloggers have been to tackle the subject., other than to disparage it and spin it. Sexism (also very real) has received far more sympathetic coverage and attention. What are we to do make of that: that gender bias is more important than race bias, or that we are willing to sacrifice one problem entirely for the benefit of another? I find it hard to believe that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I've even wondered if some feminists aren't also racial bigots, and then I wondered if I'm becoming paranoid.
It's so strange to watch, I can't understand it.

Now that Obama brought it into the open, we should talk about it openly.
It's true that overstating the case is very counterproductive, but sweeping it under the rug of oblivion can be outright dangerous.

Divide and conquer at it's finest.