Political Equality
By Jillian BandesFrom Amy Watson at Inkwell:
Last week, I posted a disturbing video of a public school teacher in North Carolina berating an elementary school child for indicating that she would vote for Senator McCain were she old enough to vote. While that was an example of blatant political indoctrination, there are many examples of subtle indoctrination that children experience everyday in the classroom. A few states away, a brave child in Oak Park, Illinois decided she would perform a clever little experiment on her teachers and fellow students and wear a “McCain Girl” t-shirt one day and record reactions to it and then an “Obama Girl” t-shirt the next and record the reactions from the same group of people. Click here to read about her not-so-surprising results.
Tags: Barack Obama, Inkwell, John McCain, t-shirt
November 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Looks like no one does ‘first’ here. Well, let me be the first ‘first!’!
But you’re right–bigotry is bigotry, and while being called ’stupid’ is harmful, to be threated with being ‘crucifixed’ is pretty low.
I’m honestly not sure how this works–while Obama did win the election ‘handily’ as people like to say, obviously there were 58 million votes cast for McCain-Palin. I’m very much a liberal (as my column would obviously indicate), but I see this election as having been rather close, especially in states such as North Carolina.
So what’s the reason for recourse to violence and threats thereof? Would you say ‘Liberal Media Bias’? I’m just wondering.
Again violence completely undermines the idea of peaceful democratic transitions, acceptance of the results, etc. The recent white powder attacks in response to California’s Proposition 8 show that there are desperately violent and sociopathic people in ‘my’ ideological camp as well.
….Maybe the Democratic Party needs to take some time in its own wilderness and think about what it ‘did right’ to win this election, and try to cull its mistakes, instead of lapsing into a Pollyanna-ish jubilation. I firmly believe the mid-term election and certainly 2012 Republican Party will be a much leaner and coherent force. Democrats beware.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I linked to the article on a different forum.
For Obama supporters there was love for him and hatred of the Republican Party. I think for at least some Obama supporters supporting McCain was seen as a clear sign a person is racist, backward, or both. Now on the other hand there were McCain supporters who hated Obama because they deemed him a pro-infanticide socialist. The difference is hostility to McCain supporters was largely ignored probably because
A: McCain voters were less common among urbanites who went to elite colleges ie with the demographic that largely makes up journalists. I occasionally felt a little strange being a McCain voter here.
B: There’s a great deal of anger at the Republican Party due to the economy and the wars.
C: Obama inspires a devotion unlike any Democrat this decade or maybe of the last 30 years.
D: McCain is old and young people are increasingly discouraged from relating to old people. (When I was a kid most sitcoms had a “loveable old guy”, nowadays such characters are virtually non-existent and old people are ridiculed almost mercilessly in youth entertainment)
E: McCain’s campaign really was kind of mean so there might have been a sense McCain voters “deserved it.”
November 19th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
“So what’s the reason for recourse to violence and threats thereof? Would you say ‘Liberal Media Bias’? I’m just wondering.”
Liberal stupidity.