February 23, 2015

The Jackson/Giuliani Axis

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity

toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”

― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

Watch this guano to the end, if you can.

Full of lies, of course, but the lies are kind of interesting in that they all tend in a single direction. They lean toward making it clear that brown non-Christians are the Other, and stimulating fear in order to produce ferocity toward them. And the "brownest" Other of all is, of course, Barack Obama.

Even before he was inaugurated in 2009, the AstroTurf groups were popping up with "Take our country back!" Back? From what? Well, the dog whistles were clear: ...back from the black man who could never be in charge because obviously whites are supposed to have the dominant position over blacks always and forever. The Muslim angle is just a slightly more acceptable way of laying on what they really want to say, "n*r"!

Now Rudy Giuliani lays another plank of this platform. He's found yet another way to yell "n*r!" without using the word. (Isn't this like the world's longest game of Taboo! for the right wing?)

"I do not believe the President loves America. He doesn’t love you and he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and the way I was brought up through love of this country." [emphasis mine]

The White House has responded to this in the classiest way possible, with pity.

So Obama's not like you and me, he was "brought up" the way he was born, as the ultimate Other. Which really means absolutely nothing more or less here than Black. Not a member of the herd, and so to be feared. The same kind of fear that has led to lynchings when they could be managed, and that leads to TEA Party rallies when they cannot.