How many times do we have to say it?

Here at SWGAPolitics.com, we can see who links to us.  I have checked out the vast majority of those links, and have seen some interesting posts and discovered some interesting blogs that way.  Yesterday afternoon, a new one popped up.  At first, I read a fellow blogger’s take on the Obama effigy.  No surprise, he saw it as a symptom of racism, rather than an extremely tacky display of displeasure at Obama’s policies.  Now, until or unless we find out who actually put up the effigy and ask them, we will probably never find out exactly why.

But then this guy goes on to talk about the July 4th Tea Party in Plains.  The writer, Bruce Gourley who has a Phd. in history, makes all kind of links to racism at the Tea Party.  Here’s a quote.

Speakers at the Tea Party rally in Plains included an attorney speaking against separation of church and state, and Baptist pastor James Brown from Barnesville who spoke on behalf of states-right, Baptist, candidate-for-governor Ray McBerry. McBerry is the Georgia Chapter Chairman of the League of the South, a racist, southern nationalist organization. Brown (who in October started a small, strict Calvinist church comprised of two families with lots of kids) is also a member of the League of the South, as well as the racist-affiliated neo-confederate organization Sons of Confederate Veterans, and is the author of the Southern Resurgence blog and the Baptist Vision Web site.

In other words, back in July, the good – probably mostly church-going – white folks who turned out for the Plains Tea Party (note that while Plains is 60% African-American, the Plains Tea Party photos above are only of whites) got a good dose of southern racism (inferred or spoken, or perhaps both) from preacher and politician alike. In addition, here’s the kind of anti-Obama posters that have appeared at Georgia Tea Parties such as the one in Plains.

Of course, Gourley didn’t mention the third speaker at the Tea Party…me.

You see, unlike Gourley, I was actually there.  I listened to both speaches he makes reference too.  I was around the Tea Party the whole time, being one of the last to leave.  I happen to call a couple of the organizers for that Tea Party friends.  And, in my whole involvement with this situation, I haven’t heard the first racist comment either at the Tea Party or among the organizers I know.

Gourley, and his Phd., apparently haven’t grasped the concept that it is fully possible for a significant group of people to passionately dislike President Obama without being racist…yes, even here in the Deep South. 

Are there racists who hate Obama?  Absolutely.  You’d have to be an idiot to say otherwise.  But Gourley and his ilk seem content to paint with a very broad brush.  But that’s their tactic it seems.  The whole “let’s paint those who oppose Obama as racists, then they’ll either shut up or be ignored!”

Screw that noise.

Obama has been, and will continue to be, a disaster for the American way of life.  It has nothing to do with his skin color, but with his policies.  He’s leading us down a path that will eventually destroy the freedoms we enjoy and turn us into the kind of nation that I damn sure don’t want to live in.  It’s not a black/white thing and isn’t for a huge chunk of the population. 

Hell, I’ll be the first to tell you that Obama didn’t start us down this path, and it wasn’t just Democrats who have lead us down it.  Both parties work pretty damn hard to destroy our nation while pretending that they’re the only ones who understand our Founding Fathers’ intent. 

Yeah, right.  And I’m half artichoke.

However, people like Gourley who scream racism at criticism of Obama of most any kind, are more of a problem than those who hang effigies.  While the effigy is pointless and tasteless (and they were when they were effigies of Bush, Clinton, the first Bush, Reagan, Carter, ad nausem), they are what they are and are easily ignored.  However, people like Gourley can keep on and on with their accusations and completely sidetrack the discussions of…oh, I don’t know…issues?

Good job guy.

I guess it never dawned on you, with your Phd. in history, that effigies are an age old tool of political criticism.  They were hung for many American Presidents.  Not just the black ones.  No, they were hung and often burned for all kinds of reasons.  So why is it now that it’s suddenly racist?

Simple.  It’s not.

Someone with a Phd. in history should understand that we have become more and more divided and passionate about our divisions over the past 30 years, if not longer.  To many on the right, Clinton was dubbed “Clintler” and was believed to be the Anti-Christ.  Many on the left felt the same way about Bush (they called him “Shrub”).  This is just a continuation, and escalation, of the way things have been.  It was escalated against Bush too.

It’s far from racism to critisize President Obama, but an American tradition.  Perhaps it’s time for some to realize that.