Obama and the Old Confederacy

[ShaE]

wow, w/ some of the shit these people said. And I agree, and I've said it before, they distrust him as a "muslim" and make that their problem b/c they won't admit it's really b/c he's black.


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Southern Discomfort
A journey through a troubled region.


Christopher Dickey
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:38 PM ET Aug 2, 2008

For as long as I've been alive the old Confederacy has been a land without closure, where history keeps coming at you day after day, year after year, decade after decade, as if the past were the present, too, and the future forever. Cities grew and populations changed in the South, but the Civil War lurked somehow in the shadow of mirror-sided skyscrapers; the holocaust of slavery and the sweet-bitter victories of the civil-rights movement lingered deep in the minds of people on both sides of the color line. Yes there was change, progress, prosperity, and a lot of it. Southerners put their faith in money and jobs and God Almighty to get them to a better place and better times—and for a lot of them, white and black, those times came. The South got to be a more complicated place, where rich and poor—which is pretty much all there was before World War II—gave way to a broad-spectrum bourgeoisie with big-time aspirations. But as air conditioning conquered the lethargy-inducing climate and Northerners by the millions abandoned the rust belt for the sun belt, the past wasn't forgotten or forgiven so much as put aside while people got on with their lives and their business.

Now this part of the country, where I have my deepest roots, feels raw again, its political emotions more exposed than they've been in decades. George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama have unsettled the South: the first with a reckless war and a weakened economy, the second with the color of his skin, the foreignness of his name, the lofty liberalism of his language. Suddenly the palliative prosperity that salved old, deep wounds no longer seems adequate to the task.

Last month I set out driving through Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, roughly retracing the deepest scar in the country—the blazing track of total war left by Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 and 1865. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150552) After many years away I was exploring my own blood ties (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403073) (which include an ancestor named after Sherman by his slave-owning-yet-Unionist parents), but also gauging the tenor of a region that has been critical to every U.S. presidential election since 1932, and may be again. "If you don't win anything in the South, you need 70 percent of the rest of the country," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "If you can win some of the South, that gives you breathing space." Polls suggest Virginia is in play. And the Obama campaign is approaching North Carolina and Georgia as if they might be, although like most people, Black (who is white, and from east Texas, which is deep in Dixie) thinks John McCain will win in both those states if only as the default candidate, the un-Obama.

The South I saw was troubled by changes that go well beyond this "change" election. A generation is growing up with traumas more immediate than those of the 1860s—or the 1960s. Shana Sprouse, 21 and white, and born and raised in Spartanburg, S.C., says she's going to vote for Obama because her 26-year-old boyfriend is racked with cancer and she and he have spent the last two years trying to find ways to pay for his treatment or, now, his hospice. Jobs are disappearing to places that are truly foreign, not mock-strange states like California. New immigrants are introducing brown (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) into a color map that has long been dominated by black and white. There is a sense that a world is ending, maybe not this year but inevitably.

The election, and Obama's candidacy, have focused these anxieties like a lens. I found whites frustrated and indecisive about the campaign, families at odds, generations divided. Many who thought themselves beyond prejudice were surprised by their suspicions of the young black man from up north. Meanwhile, many slave-descended blacks, hugely supportive of the half-Kenyan, half-Kansan, Hawaii-reared Obama, seemed afraid to hope too much, inoculating themselves with pessimism about the chances that any man of color could win the presidency, even this man, even today, or that, if he does, he will survive. As I say, emotions are raw.

People remember what they want to the way they want to, and call it history. That much is true almost any place in the world. But in the South, if people aren't careful, history can start to run their lives, even put them at risk. My father's brother, Tom, was a case in point: in the basement of his split-level home in suburban Atlanta he stored tons of artillery projectiles he'd dug up on Civil War battlefields. Many of them were still live ammunition. "I do worry," he told me in the 1970s. "If this house ever caught on fire, it could do a lot of damage around the neighborhood. You'd hear the last shots fired in the Civil War." (After Tom's death from natural causes in 1987, the core of the collection, duly defused, went to the Atlanta History Center.)

I set off on this trip wondering if Obama's candidacy was helping to pull people in the South together, freeing them of their histories, or pushing them apart. The "postracial" Obama obviously hopes to alter the traditional narrative of race in this campaign and may in fact be doing so, in certain counties of certain states. But in the South, broadly speaking, the past is still too powerful a frame for him to escape fully. This isn't only about black and white, just as the Civil War was about more than slavery. Back then powerful political players in the South saw Obama's fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln as a threat, and a reason for rebellion. All Lincoln's unifying message brought together was the white poor and the white rich, in opposition to him and the blacks whose freedom he sought.

Today the troubling inheritance of the Civil War has been turned into family entertainment. At The Point on Lookout Mountain above Chattanooga, I came across a small group of men who spend much of their spare time and disposable income re-enacting battles and reproducing camp life as it was in the 1860s. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372085) ("Civil Wargasms," one of the weekend Confederates at Lookout Point called them.) For many of the hobbyists the delight is in the details, right down to the paper cartridges in their muzzle-loading rifles and handmade buttons on their hot woolen uniforms. "We all know slavery was wrong," says Donald Davidson, whose day job is with the water department in Nashville. "War is not a nice thing. Hopefully we can show we can live together by reliving history like this."

But the subtext of old prejudices keeps creeping in even among the very young. Walking down to The Point one morning, a 12-year-old "private" in this particular Confederate unit told me what he'd heard tell in school about the elections. Next to nothing about McCain. But Obama? "There are too many chances we would take if he became president, you know what I mean?" I said I wasn't sure I did. "I don't know if it's a myth or it's true," said the boy, "but they say that they caught him trying to sneak Iraqi soldiers into the United States." (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372085)


I remember all the things I heard tell in elementary school in Atlanta during the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, when the schoolyard talk was about a Roman Catholic running for president, and the threat that he'd be putting nigras (which is what you said if you were halfway polite) in Atlanta schools. Certainly much of the similar talk you hear now comes from the obvious suspects, people like Dent Myers, a relic collector and self-caricaturing bigot in Kennesaw, Ga., north of Atlanta (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703414049). (His shop, Wildman's, is full of the crazy literature of the unreconstructed South, as well as guns, swords, Ku Klux Klan hoods and scurrilous bumper stickers. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703414049)) Dent argues that when Southerners criticize Obama, "They say, 'He's a Muslim, he's a mulatto Muslim, or quadroon Muslim … [only because] they don't want to use the old N word."


Yet even a third cousin of mine in the mountains of North Carolina, an independent-minded Democrat who voted for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004, said he can't bring himself to vote for Obama, either. Why? "Because I believe he is a Muslim," said my cousin. Not so, I said. He was raised a Christian and is a practicing Christian. My cousin shook his head. "I just don't believe him," he said.

I couldn't take my eyes off the plastic baby. On a back road outside Monroe, Ga., a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered to commemorate the last mass lynching in the United States, which happened at a place called Moore's Ford, on July 25, 1946 (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182). Slowly an old Lincoln Continental rolled into view, only to be confronted by a pair of armed men ordering it to stop. Then out of the woods on both sides of the road, more gun-toting whites emerged. They pulled two black men out of the back of the car. The two black women inside screamed. One of the women told the attackers she knew who they were. Now she was pulled from the car, too, and the other woman with her. Struggling, screaming, crying, the four were wrestled down to a small clearing below the road and shot dead, and shot again, and again. Then, as another actor poured stage blood, a plastic doll was pulled from beneath the shirt of one of the women to represent the fetus said to have died on that killing ground with its mother. The tableau was repulsive, and riveting. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182)

Blacks are no less susceptible to their history than whites in the South, only theirs is the memory of the civil-rights era—whereas Confederates say, "Forget, hell" their mantra is, "Never forget." Obama's candidacy is, wittingly or not, resurrecting the hope and fear and suspicions of those bloody years. The campaign's Southern strategy depends crucially on registering and getting to the polls hundreds of thousands of black voters. Enthusiasm is not a problem among African-Americans, whether in cosmopolitan Atlanta, the fields of Oglethorpe County or a raucous Baptist church in Savannah (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183). The sense of opportunity, of dreams tantalizingly close to fulfillment, is overwhelming. But so is the skepticism, the knowledge deep within one's bones of the likelihood, if not the inevitability, of disappointment. Obama couldn't win, not in the South—or, if he could, they wouldn't let him. And that's the dark side of the hope: it's reminding people of their doubts about a white power structure that some think has never really atoned for its sins.

Bobby Howard, who was standing on the sidelines of the Moore's Ford re-enactment (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182), has spent more than 40 years looking into the unsolved lynchings, "hoping that we can bring some kind of finality," as he put it. Many people in the area thought they knew the names of the culprits, at least four of whom are still alive, according to Howard. But "turning them in would be like turning in the fathers of the county," said Brian Arrington, managing editor of the local Walton Tribune. "If you walk around, the names of the streets are the names of some of the suspects."

The July re-enactment (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182), sponsored by the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, was part carnival, part church service, part rally. Politicians invoked Obama's name again and again, always to applause. But he is a background to their cause, incidental to their narrative of pain, and they sometimes describe him in terms almost as condescending as affectionate. One called him "the little black boy who is going to be president of the United States [because] God has fixed it that way."
This narrative, too, resists change. Richard Rusk, son of former secretary of State Dean Rusk, is part of a committee that had a plaque erected at the corner of the road where the Moore's Ford murders occurred. He did not go to the re-enactment and was not happy with what he heard about it. The baby ripped from the womb is not a known fact, just a widespread, highly potent political rumor. "We want to stay with truth we can prove," he said. But Moore's Ford has created its own storyline now, its own truth.

Of course, it's easy to forget how much of what makes up the Southern mind, especially now, has nothing to do with race. At a Starbucks on Providence Road, in one of the richest neighborhoods in Charlotte, N.C., financial consultant James Ruane, 58, talked about the gleaming city he moved to from Pennsylvania 30 years ago. Charlotte is built on banking and financial service industries that started and grew as something self-consciously regional, he said. "After the Civil War, during the Reconstruction," said Ruane, "the North neutered this place." All the money was in New York. That's where Southern businesses had to go to get it, and often they weren't welcome, even a hundred years later. So the bankers of Charlotte—the founders of Wachovia and what's now called the Bank of America—set out to change that. And as they built their businesses they built their city, almost from the ground up.

Most Southern cities are, to all intents and purposes, new metropolises created by and helped to create the new white middle class in the region after World War II. For the first time, college educations started to be commonplace in the states of the old Confederacy. As incomes grew, suburbs sprawled. At the beginning of this trip, in fact, I almost got lost several times looking for the Dickey family homestead in north Georgia. Driving on roads that might once have led to the dangerous backwoods my father, James Dickey, wrote about in his 1970 novel "Deliverance," I came across vacation cabins and swimming pools instead; no outhouses, certainly, only a growing number of hot tubs and Jacuzzis (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372086). The river my father used to canoe in search of the wild in the early 1960s, the Coosawattee, is now mostly submerged beneath a lake, while its upper reaches and its main tributary, the Cartecay, are lined with housing developments. PADDLE FASTER, I HEAR BANJO MUSIC, say the T shirts that ominously reference the movie version of "Deliverance." Now, every summer weekend, kayakers and rafters clot around the rapids like rush-hour traffic on the once wild streams in these mountains (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372086).
Merle Black at Emory and his twin brother, Earl Black, at Rice University in Houston have argued in the several books they've published together that a rising business class was key to the South's transformation into a Republican bastion in the last half of the 20th century. The split-levels and ranch houses were filled with people who shared the attitudes and values of small towns and family farms. They mistrusted government, especially the federal government, and they resented any politician who might tax away their newfound prosperity. What the Black brothers call "the most spectacular example of partisan realignment in modern American history" came about because of the GOP's "Southern strategy," which dates back to Dwight D. Eisenhower and culminated in the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984. The idea was to appeal to the South's newly prosperous suburb-dwellers while using unsubtle talk about "states' rights" and "quotas" to touch nerves earlier galvanized by unreconstructed racists like Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

These white, Christian, middle-class Southerners, the core of Republican strength in the region, are as disconcerted as anyone by the country's current economic turmoil. But that doesn't make them any more amenable to change. While they may be unenthusiastic about McCain (in 10 days' traveling I did not see a single bumper sticker with his name on it), they are leery of Obama's liberalism if not his skin color. "They just don't believe him when he says he'll only tax the richest 1 percent," said Merle Black. Perhaps even more important, they belong to an aspiring class whose members imagine, or dream, they might yet make it into that stratospheric bracket. "Southerners," said Black, "don't identify with where they are but where they want to end up."

Too often for these voters' conservative tastes, the Democratic Party comes across as "preachy," according to Black. He cited a recent appearance by Obama in Powder Springs, Ga. A woman in the audience complained about having to deal with immigrants who spoke Spanish but no English. Obama said they'd learn eventually, but she ought to want an educational system that would teach her kids Spanish. Southerners, said Black, really do not like being told what they ought to want.

Even though the downturn is hitting the South hard—Wachovia Bank in Charlotte announced it will lay off more than 10,000 employees, while Volkswagen's recent decision to open a plant in Chattanooga was greeted with almost as much enthusiasm as the Second Coming—the allegiance of the white business and professional class to the Republican Party seems unshakable. "I think if there were a better economy more people would take a risk on Obama," said Patricia Murtaugh Wise, a lawyer from Nashville sightseeing with her kids at Atlanta's landmark Varsity Drive-In restaurant. Her friends are blaming Bush more than his party, she said. "I'm not sure people are saying, 'Because Bush got us into this, let's vote for a Democrat.' I think people are saying, 'Let's get a new person in there'."

If democrats have hopes for making serious inroads into this Republican bloc, they are probably long term. "As the society becomes more diversified, there's a huge opportunity for the Democratic Party," said Merle Black. Native-born Southerners are a shrinking part of the population, while the numbers of people who are foreign-born like those Spanish speakers, or foreign-born like Yankees, are growing.
" La migra! La migra! " shouted 6-year-old Brenda as I approached the dilapidated trailer where she lives with her mother and siblings and at least one cousin in upstate South Carolina. She thought I might be from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But nobody ran or hid, at least that I could see. Uber, a 22-year-old cousin, said the family had come up from Guadalajara, Mexico, over the last few years. They are among millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, who have moved to the South since the 1990s, heading to Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee for jobs in poultry processing, light manufacturing and construction. Brenda's family does yard work, cuts flowers. "The labor here pays more and it's not so heavy as in Mexico," her mother, Magdalena, explained in Spanish.

The seams in their mobile home were rusted. The driveway in front was covered with aluminum beer cans that one of the older sons flattened by rolling over them with a car, which makes them easier to store and sell as scrap. Brenda's family were among the poorest residents in the poorest section of a poor town. But Brenda and her 3-year-old brother, Kevin, were born in the United States and are American citizens. Brenda speaks English and is starting school. "First grade," she said from behind her mother's skirt. When the elections of 2020 roll around, she'll be able to vote.

Never in the last century and a half has the South been home to so many people who were born and who continue to live outside its history. A Census report estimated that the South's Hispanic population nearly tripled between 2000 and 2006, more than in any other U.S. region; nearly 60 percent of this population was foreign-born. These newcomers have little interest in re-enacting the Civil War, no reason to revive the emotions of the civil-rights movement. They did not move here for iced tea or a more leisurely pace of life. The South to them is future, not past.

In Savannah, Ga., I stopped a pair of women in saris and a young teenage boy pushing a stroller, who were reluctant to talk. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) Their English was not good and my Hindi nonexistent. They glanced over their shoulders at a young man on a bench who wore casual clothes and a neatly trimmed beard, their in-law. His name was Zuber Malik, from a small city north of Mumbai, he said. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) He was 29 years old and already had lived and worked in Rhode Island and Wisconsin "in the convenience-store business," when he saw a Dairy Queen franchise up for sale in Glennville, Ga. (population: 3,700). He'd read that Warren Buffett had bought the parent company "and I thought, 'Oh, yes!' " That would mean capital and advertising. His notional idea of the South appealed to him, too. In his hometown in India they still grew cotton. So he came, and then, he said, he prospered (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184). His first child, less than a year old, was born an American. And Zuber, whose wife wears a hijab, or head covering, said he has no problems as a Muslim in the South. "We all believe in God," he tells people. "It says on our dollar bill we believe in God."

Piyush (Bobby) Jindal, the young governor of Louisiana whose parents were Hindu immigrants from India, is an obvious example of how fast assimilation can take place and success can follow for those with educational and economic advantages. At the same time xenophobia, fear of job competition and suspicions of "illegal aliens"—which translates as "criminals" pure and simple in many minds—all work against Hispanic peasants struggling to join the ranks of other upwardly mobile North Americans. Gladys, a 42-year-old maid from El Salvador who fled the war in her country in 1983 (and preferred that her last name not be published) spent most of the last two decades in the Los Angeles area before moving to North Carolina with her two teenage children in 2006. "There is a lot of prejudice," she says. "You hear it when you go to the market, you hear it in the post office. People say they don't want us."
It's not hard to find old-time tensions running very close to the surface. One Saturday last month, in the little town of Crawford, Ga., next to the old train station where the tracks have long since disappeared, cheerleading squads, tae kwon do teams and a troupe of aspiring 3- and 4-year-old ballerinas entertained local crowds at a rally. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188) Whites, blacks and a handful of Mexicans strolled among stands selling barbecue and funnel cakes. Supporters of local political candidates handed out fans bearing their names. A black church group signed up prospective voters. A local schoolteacher and a retired college professor, both of them white, staffed a booth for Obama well supplied with posters and propaganda. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188) (McCain's partisans as such, and as usual, were nowhere to be seen.)

Bill Fincher was working the crowd (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188), as the Republican candidate for county sheriff. He described himself as "very much a conservative" and George W. Bush as his "idol." He'd also, Fincher said, been described as a racist. He was in drug enforcement for a while, and rounded up a crack-dealing network. Everybody in it was black. That was part of the problem. Then, a few weeks ago, a white supporter of his had hung up a noose near a road that leads into a neighborhood that's mostly black (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188). "He had had a lot of property thefts, and he wanted to say any thief is going to be hung," Fincher said. About 175 people came out to protest, and the press got hold of the story.

Fincher, though, seemed genuinely affronted by the charge. "All it is is a ploy to try to get the African-Americans to turn on you," he said. He claimed he didn't really believe in partisan politics when it came to local offices. His mother was an elected county tax commissioner for 27 years, and she was a Democrat. He always voted for her, he said. "I wanted to eat at home!"

He also said that his parents worked hard and he was raised by a black woman, and now that she's old and ailing, he cooks Thanksgiving dinner for her. When an African-American woman who knew him walked by and said hello, Fincher threw his arms around her and gave her a big hug. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188)

Those who have lived long enough to experience the Old South, the New South and the deeply uncertain present-day South know just how long it takes to move the society here. But they know, too, that it does move. William Carter Jr., was born in 1927 in North Charleston, S.C. He lived through the worst days of Jim Crow in the South, and he served in the segregated U.S. armed forces in World War II, which was a moment of awakening for so many black men. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183) You learned not to be afraid, he said. "When you come back home you have the same feeling: 'I'm a man. I'm not a boy no more'." Carter worked as a TV technician for Sears and devoted himself to his duties as a deacon of the church (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183). Now 80, he is president of the National Baptist Deacons Convention. Perhaps because he had seen so much of the past, had seen so much that had changed, and so much that had not, he was sanguine about the future of a black presidential candidate. "Obama is going to win," he said. And if he does not? "Then he is preparing the way for the next."


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URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/150576

[ShaE]

Let me ask, when would a white man ever have to prove being a christian beyond affirming he is, attending church, and speaking with knowledge about scripture? Who would be skeptical of a white man, who attends church, and claims to be religious? nobody. nobody would even think "i don't believe him".

yet b/c obama's black, and has hussein in his name, his faith is called into question as a hoax? unreal.
when people are afraid and uncomfortable they become so fkin paraoid. yes, he's a closet muslim extremist who put on an elaborate 20 year sham of pretending to be a christian in order to destroy us all .

jesus.

[jameznyhc]

wow, w/ some of the shit these people said. And I agree, and I've said it before, they distrust him as a "muslim" and make that their problem b/c they won't admit it's really b/c he's black.


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Southern Discomfort
A journey through a troubled region.


Christopher Dickey
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:38 PM ET Aug 2, 2008

For as long as I've been alive the old Confederacy has been a land without closure, where history keeps coming at you day after day, year after year, decade after decade, as if the past were the present, too, and the future forever. Cities grew and populations changed in the South, but the Civil War lurked somehow in the shadow of mirror-sided skyscrapers; the holocaust of slavery and the sweet-bitter victories of the civil-rights movement lingered deep in the minds of people on both sides of the color line. Yes there was change, progress, prosperity, and a lot of it. Southerners put their faith in money and jobs and God Almighty to get them to a better place and better times—and for a lot of them, white and black, those times came. The South got to be a more complicated place, where rich and poor—which is pretty much all there was before World War II—gave way to a broad-spectrum bourgeoisie with big-time aspirations. But as air conditioning conquered the lethargy-inducing climate and Northerners by the millions abandoned the rust belt for the sun belt, the past wasn't forgotten or forgiven so much as put aside while people got on with their lives and their business.

Now this part of the country, where I have my deepest roots, feels raw again, its political emotions more exposed than they've been in decades. George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama have unsettled the South: the first with a reckless war and a weakened economy, the second with the color of his skin, the foreignness of his name, the lofty liberalism of his language. Suddenly the palliative prosperity that salved old, deep wounds no longer seems adequate to the task.

Last month I set out driving through Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, roughly retracing the deepest scar in the country—the blazing track of total war left by Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 and 1865. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150552) After many years away I was exploring my own blood ties (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403073) (which include an ancestor named after Sherman by his slave-owning-yet-Unionist parents), but also gauging the tenor of a region that has been critical to every U.S. presidential election since 1932, and may be again. "If you don't win anything in the South, you need 70 percent of the rest of the country," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "If you can win some of the South, that gives you breathing space." Polls suggest Virginia is in play. And the Obama campaign is approaching North Carolina and Georgia as if they might be, although like most people, Black (who is white, and from east Texas, which is deep in Dixie) thinks John McCain will win in both those states if only as the default candidate, the un-Obama.

The South I saw was troubled by changes that go well beyond this "change" election. A generation is growing up with traumas more immediate than those of the 1860s—or the 1960s. Shana Sprouse, 21 and white, and born and raised in Spartanburg, S.C., says she's going to vote for Obama because her 26-year-old boyfriend is racked with cancer and she and he have spent the last two years trying to find ways to pay for his treatment or, now, his hospice. Jobs are disappearing to places that are truly foreign, not mock-strange states like California. New immigrants are introducing brown (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) into a color map that has long been dominated by black and white. There is a sense that a world is ending, maybe not this year but inevitably.

The election, and Obama's candidacy, have focused these anxieties like a lens. I found whites frustrated and indecisive about the campaign, families at odds, generations divided. Many who thought themselves beyond prejudice were surprised by their suspicions of the young black man from up north. Meanwhile, many slave-descended blacks, hugely supportive of the half-Kenyan, half-Kansan, Hawaii-reared Obama, seemed afraid to hope too much, inoculating themselves with pessimism about the chances that any man of color could win the presidency, even this man, even today, or that, if he does, he will survive. As I say, emotions are raw.

People remember what they want to the way they want to, and call it history. That much is true almost any place in the world. But in the South, if people aren't careful, history can start to run their lives, even put them at risk. My father's brother, Tom, was a case in point: in the basement of his split-level home in suburban Atlanta he stored tons of artillery projectiles he'd dug up on Civil War battlefields. Many of them were still live ammunition. "I do worry," he told me in the 1970s. "If this house ever caught on fire, it could do a lot of damage around the neighborhood. You'd hear the last shots fired in the Civil War." (After Tom's death from natural causes in 1987, the core of the collection, duly defused, went to the Atlanta History Center.)

I set off on this trip wondering if Obama's candidacy was helping to pull people in the South together, freeing them of their histories, or pushing them apart. The "postracial" Obama obviously hopes to alter the traditional narrative of race in this campaign and may in fact be doing so, in certain counties of certain states. But in the South, broadly speaking, the past is still too powerful a frame for him to escape fully. This isn't only about black and white, just as the Civil War was about more than slavery. Back then powerful political players in the South saw Obama's fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln as a threat, and a reason for rebellion. All Lincoln's unifying message brought together was the white poor and the white rich, in opposition to him and the blacks whose freedom he sought.

Today the troubling inheritance of the Civil War has been turned into family entertainment. At The Point on Lookout Mountain above Chattanooga, I came across a small group of men who spend much of their spare time and disposable income re-enacting battles and reproducing camp life as it was in the 1860s. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372085) ("Civil Wargasms," one of the weekend Confederates at Lookout Point called them.) For many of the hobbyists the delight is in the details, right down to the paper cartridges in their muzzle-loading rifles and handmade buttons on their hot woolen uniforms. "We all know slavery was wrong," says Donald Davidson, whose day job is with the water department in Nashville. "War is not a nice thing. Hopefully we can show we can live together by reliving history like this."

But the subtext of old prejudices keeps creeping in even among the very young. Walking down to The Point one morning, a 12-year-old "private" in this particular Confederate unit told me what he'd heard tell in school about the elections. Next to nothing about McCain. But Obama? "There are too many chances we would take if he became president, you know what I mean?" I said I wasn't sure I did. "I don't know if it's a myth or it's true," said the boy, "but they say that they caught him trying to sneak Iraqi soldiers into the United States." (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372085)


I remember all the things I heard tell in elementary school in Atlanta during the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, when the schoolyard talk was about a Roman Catholic running for president, and the threat that he'd be putting nigras (which is what you said if you were halfway polite) in Atlanta schools. Certainly much of the similar talk you hear now comes from the obvious suspects, people like Dent Myers, a relic collector and self-caricaturing bigot in Kennesaw, Ga., north of Atlanta (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703414049). (His shop, Wildman's, is full of the crazy literature of the unreconstructed South, as well as guns, swords, Ku Klux Klan hoods and scurrilous bumper stickers. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703414049)) Dent argues that when Southerners criticize Obama, "They say, 'He's a Muslim, he's a mulatto Muslim, or quadroon Muslim … [only because] they don't want to use the old N word."


Yet even a third cousin of mine in the mountains of North Carolina, an independent-minded Democrat who voted for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004, said he can't bring himself to vote for Obama, either. Why? "Because I believe he is a Muslim," said my cousin. Not so, I said. He was raised a Christian and is a practicing Christian. My cousin shook his head. "I just don't believe him," he said.

I couldn't take my eyes off the plastic baby. On a back road outside Monroe, Ga., a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered to commemorate the last mass lynching in the United States, which happened at a place called Moore's Ford, on July 25, 1946 (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182). Slowly an old Lincoln Continental rolled into view, only to be confronted by a pair of armed men ordering it to stop. Then out of the woods on both sides of the road, more gun-toting whites emerged. They pulled two black men out of the back of the car. The two black women inside screamed. One of the women told the attackers she knew who they were. Now she was pulled from the car, too, and the other woman with her. Struggling, screaming, crying, the four were wrestled down to a small clearing below the road and shot dead, and shot again, and again. Then, as another actor poured stage blood, a plastic doll was pulled from beneath the shirt of one of the women to represent the fetus said to have died on that killing ground with its mother. The tableau was repulsive, and riveting. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182)

Blacks are no less susceptible to their history than whites in the South, only theirs is the memory of the civil-rights era—whereas Confederates say, "Forget, hell" their mantra is, "Never forget." Obama's candidacy is, wittingly or not, resurrecting the hope and fear and suspicions of those bloody years. The campaign's Southern strategy depends crucially on registering and getting to the polls hundreds of thousands of black voters. Enthusiasm is not a problem among African-Americans, whether in cosmopolitan Atlanta, the fields of Oglethorpe County or a raucous Baptist church in Savannah (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183). The sense of opportunity, of dreams tantalizingly close to fulfillment, is overwhelming. But so is the skepticism, the knowledge deep within one's bones of the likelihood, if not the inevitability, of disappointment. Obama couldn't win, not in the South—or, if he could, they wouldn't let him. And that's the dark side of the hope: it's reminding people of their doubts about a white power structure that some think has never really atoned for its sins.

Bobby Howard, who was standing on the sidelines of the Moore's Ford re-enactment (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182), has spent more than 40 years looking into the unsolved lynchings, "hoping that we can bring some kind of finality," as he put it. Many people in the area thought they knew the names of the culprits, at least four of whom are still alive, according to Howard. But "turning them in would be like turning in the fathers of the county," said Brian Arrington, managing editor of the local Walton Tribune. "If you walk around, the names of the streets are the names of some of the suspects."

The July re-enactment (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403182), sponsored by the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, was part carnival, part church service, part rally. Politicians invoked Obama's name again and again, always to applause. But he is a background to their cause, incidental to their narrative of pain, and they sometimes describe him in terms almost as condescending as affectionate. One called him "the little black boy who is going to be president of the United States [because] God has fixed it that way."
This narrative, too, resists change. Richard Rusk, son of former secretary of State Dean Rusk, is part of a committee that had a plaque erected at the corner of the road where the Moore's Ford murders occurred. He did not go to the re-enactment and was not happy with what he heard about it. The baby ripped from the womb is not a known fact, just a widespread, highly potent political rumor. "We want to stay with truth we can prove," he said. But Moore's Ford has created its own storyline now, its own truth.

Of course, it's easy to forget how much of what makes up the Southern mind, especially now, has nothing to do with race. At a Starbucks on Providence Road, in one of the richest neighborhoods in Charlotte, N.C., financial consultant James Ruane, 58, talked about the gleaming city he moved to from Pennsylvania 30 years ago. Charlotte is built on banking and financial service industries that started and grew as something self-consciously regional, he said. "After the Civil War, during the Reconstruction," said Ruane, "the North neutered this place." All the money was in New York. That's where Southern businesses had to go to get it, and often they weren't welcome, even a hundred years later. So the bankers of Charlotte—the founders of Wachovia and what's now called the Bank of America—set out to change that. And as they built their businesses they built their city, almost from the ground up.

Most Southern cities are, to all intents and purposes, new metropolises created by and helped to create the new white middle class in the region after World War II. For the first time, college educations started to be commonplace in the states of the old Confederacy. As incomes grew, suburbs sprawled. At the beginning of this trip, in fact, I almost got lost several times looking for the Dickey family homestead in north Georgia. Driving on roads that might once have led to the dangerous backwoods my father, James Dickey, wrote about in his 1970 novel "Deliverance," I came across vacation cabins and swimming pools instead; no outhouses, certainly, only a growing number of hot tubs and Jacuzzis (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372086). The river my father used to canoe in search of the wild in the early 1960s, the Coosawattee, is now mostly submerged beneath a lake, while its upper reaches and its main tributary, the Cartecay, are lined with housing developments. PADDLE FASTER, I HEAR BANJO MUSIC, say the T shirts that ominously reference the movie version of "Deliverance." Now, every summer weekend, kayakers and rafters clot around the rapids like rush-hour traffic on the once wild streams in these mountains (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372086).
Merle Black at Emory and his twin brother, Earl Black, at Rice University in Houston have argued in the several books they've published together that a rising business class was key to the South's transformation into a Republican bastion in the last half of the 20th century. The split-levels and ranch houses were filled with people who shared the attitudes and values of small towns and family farms. They mistrusted government, especially the federal government, and they resented any politician who might tax away their newfound prosperity. What the Black brothers call "the most spectacular example of partisan realignment in modern American history" came about because of the GOP's "Southern strategy," which dates back to Dwight D. Eisenhower and culminated in the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984. The idea was to appeal to the South's newly prosperous suburb-dwellers while using unsubtle talk about "states' rights" and "quotas" to touch nerves earlier galvanized by unreconstructed racists like Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

These white, Christian, middle-class Southerners, the core of Republican strength in the region, are as disconcerted as anyone by the country's current economic turmoil. But that doesn't make them any more amenable to change. While they may be unenthusiastic about McCain (in 10 days' traveling I did not see a single bumper sticker with his name on it), they are leery of Obama's liberalism if not his skin color. "They just don't believe him when he says he'll only tax the richest 1 percent," said Merle Black. Perhaps even more important, they belong to an aspiring class whose members imagine, or dream, they might yet make it into that stratospheric bracket. "Southerners," said Black, "don't identify with where they are but where they want to end up."

Too often for these voters' conservative tastes, the Democratic Party comes across as "preachy," according to Black. He cited a recent appearance by Obama in Powder Springs, Ga. A woman in the audience complained about having to deal with immigrants who spoke Spanish but no English. Obama said they'd learn eventually, but she ought to want an educational system that would teach her kids Spanish. Southerners, said Black, really do not like being told what they ought to want.

Even though the downturn is hitting the South hard—Wachovia Bank in Charlotte announced it will lay off more than 10,000 employees, while Volkswagen's recent decision to open a plant in Chattanooga was greeted with almost as much enthusiasm as the Second Coming—the allegiance of the white business and professional class to the Republican Party seems unshakable. "I think if there were a better economy more people would take a risk on Obama," said Patricia Murtaugh Wise, a lawyer from Nashville sightseeing with her kids at Atlanta's landmark Varsity Drive-In restaurant. Her friends are blaming Bush more than his party, she said. "I'm not sure people are saying, 'Because Bush got us into this, let's vote for a Democrat.' I think people are saying, 'Let's get a new person in there'."

If democrats have hopes for making serious inroads into this Republican bloc, they are probably long term. "As the society becomes more diversified, there's a huge opportunity for the Democratic Party," said Merle Black. Native-born Southerners are a shrinking part of the population, while the numbers of people who are foreign-born like those Spanish speakers, or foreign-born like Yankees, are growing.
" La migra! La migra! " shouted 6-year-old Brenda as I approached the dilapidated trailer where she lives with her mother and siblings and at least one cousin in upstate South Carolina. She thought I might be from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But nobody ran or hid, at least that I could see. Uber, a 22-year-old cousin, said the family had come up from Guadalajara, Mexico, over the last few years. They are among millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, who have moved to the South since the 1990s, heading to Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee for jobs in poultry processing, light manufacturing and construction. Brenda's family does yard work, cuts flowers. "The labor here pays more and it's not so heavy as in Mexico," her mother, Magdalena, explained in Spanish.

The seams in their mobile home were rusted. The driveway in front was covered with aluminum beer cans that one of the older sons flattened by rolling over them with a car, which makes them easier to store and sell as scrap. Brenda's family were among the poorest residents in the poorest section of a poor town. But Brenda and her 3-year-old brother, Kevin, were born in the United States and are American citizens. Brenda speaks English and is starting school. "First grade," she said from behind her mother's skirt. When the elections of 2020 roll around, she'll be able to vote.

Never in the last century and a half has the South been home to so many people who were born and who continue to live outside its history. A Census report estimated that the South's Hispanic population nearly tripled between 2000 and 2006, more than in any other U.S. region; nearly 60 percent of this population was foreign-born. These newcomers have little interest in re-enacting the Civil War, no reason to revive the emotions of the civil-rights movement. They did not move here for iced tea or a more leisurely pace of life. The South to them is future, not past.

In Savannah, Ga., I stopped a pair of women in saris and a young teenage boy pushing a stroller, who were reluctant to talk. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) Their English was not good and my Hindi nonexistent. They glanced over their shoulders at a young man on a bench who wore casual clothes and a neatly trimmed beard, their in-law. His name was Zuber Malik, from a small city north of Mumbai, he said. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184) He was 29 years old and already had lived and worked in Rhode Island and Wisconsin "in the convenience-store business," when he saw a Dairy Queen franchise up for sale in Glennville, Ga. (population: 3,700). He'd read that Warren Buffett had bought the parent company "and I thought, 'Oh, yes!' " That would mean capital and advertising. His notional idea of the South appealed to him, too. In his hometown in India they still grew cotton. So he came, and then, he said, he prospered (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403184). His first child, less than a year old, was born an American. And Zuber, whose wife wears a hijab, or head covering, said he has no problems as a Muslim in the South. "We all believe in God," he tells people. "It says on our dollar bill we believe in God."

Piyush (Bobby) Jindal, the young governor of Louisiana whose parents were Hindu immigrants from India, is an obvious example of how fast assimilation can take place and success can follow for those with educational and economic advantages. At the same time xenophobia, fear of job competition and suspicions of "illegal aliens"—which translates as "criminals" pure and simple in many minds—all work against Hispanic peasants struggling to join the ranks of other upwardly mobile North Americans. Gladys, a 42-year-old maid from El Salvador who fled the war in her country in 1983 (and preferred that her last name not be published) spent most of the last two decades in the Los Angeles area before moving to North Carolina with her two teenage children in 2006. "There is a lot of prejudice," she says. "You hear it when you go to the market, you hear it in the post office. People say they don't want us."
It's not hard to find old-time tensions running very close to the surface. One Saturday last month, in the little town of Crawford, Ga., next to the old train station where the tracks have long since disappeared, cheerleading squads, tae kwon do teams and a troupe of aspiring 3- and 4-year-old ballerinas entertained local crowds at a rally. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188) Whites, blacks and a handful of Mexicans strolled among stands selling barbecue and funnel cakes. Supporters of local political candidates handed out fans bearing their names. A black church group signed up prospective voters. A local schoolteacher and a retired college professor, both of them white, staffed a booth for Obama well supplied with posters and propaganda. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188) (McCain's partisans as such, and as usual, were nowhere to be seen.)

Bill Fincher was working the crowd (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188), as the Republican candidate for county sheriff. He described himself as "very much a conservative" and George W. Bush as his "idol." He'd also, Fincher said, been described as a racist. He was in drug enforcement for a while, and rounded up a crack-dealing network. Everybody in it was black. That was part of the problem. Then, a few weeks ago, a white supporter of his had hung up a noose near a road that leads into a neighborhood that's mostly black (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188). "He had had a lot of property thefts, and he wanted to say any thief is going to be hung," Fincher said. About 175 people came out to protest, and the press got hold of the story.

Fincher, though, seemed genuinely affronted by the charge. "All it is is a ploy to try to get the African-Americans to turn on you," he said. He claimed he didn't really believe in partisan politics when it came to local offices. His mother was an elected county tax commissioner for 27 years, and she was a Democrat. He always voted for her, he said. "I wanted to eat at home!"

He also said that his parents worked hard and he was raised by a black woman, and now that she's old and ailing, he cooks Thanksgiving dinner for her. When an African-American woman who knew him walked by and said hello, Fincher threw his arms around her and gave her a big hug. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703372188)

Those who have lived long enough to experience the Old South, the New South and the deeply uncertain present-day South know just how long it takes to move the society here. But they know, too, that it does move. William Carter Jr., was born in 1927 in North Charleston, S.C. He lived through the worst days of Jim Crow in the South, and he served in the segregated U.S. armed forces in World War II, which was a moment of awakening for so many black men. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183) You learned not to be afraid, he said. "When you come back home you have the same feeling: 'I'm a man. I'm not a boy no more'." Carter worked as a TV technician for Sears and devoted himself to his duties as a deacon of the church (http://www.newsweek.com/id/150158?bcpid=1691028268&bclid=1699210808&bctid=1703403183). Now 80, he is president of the National Baptist Deacons Convention. Perhaps because he had seen so much of the past, had seen so much that had changed, and so much that had not, he was sanguine about the future of a black presidential candidate. "Obama is going to win," he said. And if he does not? "Then he is preparing the way for the next."


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URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/150576


thats good news for McCain!! lol

[jameznyhc]

Let me ask, when would a white man ever have to prove being a christian beyond affirming he is, attending church, and speaking with knowledge about scripture? Who would be skeptical of a white man, who attends church, and claims to be religious? nobody. nobody would even think "i don't believe him".

yet b/c obama's black, and has hussein in his name, his faith is called into question as a hoax? unreal.
when people are afraid and uncomfortable they become so fkin paraoid. yes, he's a closet muslim extremist who put on an elaborate 20 year sham of pretending to be a christian in order to destroy us all .

jesus.


Mitt Romney lol ..

[ShaE]

Mitt Romney lol ..
what are you talking about, romney is a mormon and everyone believes he is lol
I don't recall mass disbelief about his faith by the public.

[ShaE]

thats good news for McCain!! lol

since when does good news for mccain excite you? and it really isn't entirely good news for him, they mentioned republicans leaning toward obama b/c of healthcare, and disapproval of the war/bad economy.

those truckers were mighty pissed at bush & co, might not be so friendly to mccain lol
at least obama is there, has his supporters organized on a level mccain can't even touch. if he doesn't succeed in the south it won't be for lack of effort or work.

[JustLikeHeaven]

Wow, deeply disturbing.

Not only the ignorance of these people, but the fact that they harbor such racist feelings..

he can't bring himself to vote for Obama, either. Why? "Because I believe he is a Muslim":disappoin

[jameznyhc]

since when does good news for mccain excite you? and it really isn't entirely good news for him, they mentioned republicans leaning toward obama b/c of healthcare, and disapproval of the war/bad economy.

those truckers were mighty pissed at bush & co, might not be so friendly to mccain lol
at least obama is there, has his supporters organized on a level mccain can't even touch. if he doesn't succeed in the south it won't be for lack of effort or work.

it will be total lack of effort like i said after the primaries when hillary murdered him ..and after his stupid clinging to guns and religion remark ..he would need to live in the south and work his ass off so the people know him alot better ...thats how JFK won ..and people were very anti-catholic during that time .. you have to sell yourself ..politics is sales ..Barry running away from the south .. If you loose the south you cant win the general

[jameznyhc]

Wow, deeply disturbing.

Not only the ignorance of these people, but the fact that they harbor such racist feelings..

he can't bring himself to vote for Obama, either. Why? "Because I believe he is a Muslim":disappoin

well considering how the muslim women were asked to get out of his rally lol ..it goes both ways..

Yopu also got alot of racism on the other side and ignorance as well ...check mos def's appearance on bill maher lol you'll see what im talkin about

[jameznyhc]

and shae you will never find a real republican for socialized healthcare...if you do they dont belong in our party lol ..we are a big tent but not that big to embrace socialism

[jameznyhc]

what are you talking about, romney is a mormon and everyone believes he is lol
I don't recall mass disbelief about his faith by the public.

right but it still hurt him with the evangelicals ..its life you gotta deal with it ..

[JustLikeHeaven]

right but it still hurt him with the evangelicals ..its life you gotta deal with it ..

I think her point was that no one is questioning Romney's faith the way they are Obama's...why are u comparing him to Romney?

[jameznyhc]

I think her point was that no one is questioning Romney's faith the way they are Obama's...why are u comparing him to Romney?


Well romney wasnt registered as a muslim in a madrassa lol .Romney did not have a muslim father.. Obama did

My comparison is because romney mormons are christians.. yet mainstream evangelicals were sio suspicous prolly cost him SC primary .. im pointing out thats its not only muslims who have issues in the south ..even a mormon christian is looked at suspicously

[ShaE]

it will be total lack of effort like i said after the primaries when hillary murdered him ..and after his stupid clinging to guns and religion remark ..he would need to live in the south and work his ass off so the people know him alot better ...thats how JFK won ..and people were very anti-catholic during that time .. you have to sell yourself ..politics is sales ..Barry running away from the south .. If you loose the south you cant win the general
lol if a lack of effort is campaigning as he's doing there, everybody should do it. yea, hillary really murdered him , you must have everything completely wrong if you've secured your party's nomination lol

[JustLikeHeaven]

Well romney wasnt registered as a muslim in a madrassa lol .Romney did not have a muslim father.. Obama did

My comparison is because romney mormons are christians.. yet mainstream evangelicals were sio suspicous prolly cost him SC primary .. im pointing out thats its not only muslims who have issues in the south ..even a mormon christian is looked at suspicously

BUT HE ISN'T A MUSLIM! That's the real issue obviously. Of course it's frustrating that ppl are still so racist and would not vote for him if he truly was one, but he isn't - and is getting labeled as one anyhow. Makes the whole situation even more troubling. Romney is nothing compared to this, at all.

[ShaE]

Well romney wasnt registered as a muslim in a madrassa lol .Romney did not have a muslim father.. Obama did

My comparison is because romney mormons are christians.. yet mainstream evangelicals were sio suspicous prolly cost him SC primary .. im pointing out thats its not only muslims who have issues in the south ..even a mormon christian is looked at suspicously
neither was obama, get a hold of yourself.

so i can't claim to be an athiest now b/c I was baptized, received holy communion, and was sent by m y parents to a CATHOLIC school? i'm catholic by default now b/c my parents put me in a school and thru sacraments? his parents put muslim on his school papers so that means he MUST be one despite his entire life demonstrating otherwise? please.

bullshit, give it up. he is a practicing christian, has been his adult life, belonged to a christian church, and leads a visibly christian life, or at least sensible, and you think these ridiculous idiots' claims he's really a secret muslim are worth anything? cmon.

I'm not discussing if people were suspicious of romney or obama as people, I'm saying when romney said he was MORMON nobody said "no you're not" and disbelieved. They might not have liked the fact he was a mormon, but they didn't question it. Nobody asked him to prove he's mormon, or george bush to prove his faith, or kennedy to prove he was catholic, they took them at their word.

obama has said it, lived it, and shown it by being an active church member, yet they don't believe him.

so I don't really see how romney is relevant to my point that people do not trust that obama is the faith he says he is. nobody thought romney was lying.

[jameznyhc]

lol if a lack of effort is campaigning as he's doing there, everybody should do it. yea, hillary really murdered him , you must have everything completely wrong if you've secured your party's nomination lol

shae he lost the popular vote lol ..but im specifically talking about the south and puerto rico and texas .. places like that she killed him 65-35 70-30 ...huge margins ..after his dumb guns comment buried him ..

[jameznyhc]

neither was obama, get a hold of yourself.

so i can't claim to be an athiest now b/c I was baptized, received holy communion, and was sent by m y parents to a CATHOLIC school? i'm catholic by default now b/c my parents put me in a school and thru sacraments? his parents put muslim on his school papers so that means he MUST be one despite his entire life demonstrating otherwise? please.

bullshit, give it up. he is a practicing christian, has been his adult life, belonged to a christian church, and leads a visibly christian life, or at least sensible, and you think these ridiculous idiots' claims he's really a secret muslim are worth anything? cmon.

I'm not discussing if people were suspicious of romney or obama as people, I'm saying when romney said he was MORMON nobody said "no you're not" and disbelieved. They might not have liked the fact he was a mormon, but they didn't question it. Nobody asked him to prove he's mormon, or george bush to prove his faith, or kennedy to prove he was catholic, they took them at their word.

obama has said it, lived it, and shown it by being an active church member, yet they don't believe him.

so I don't really see how romney is relevant to my point that people do not trust that obama is the faith he says he is. nobody thought romney was lying.


your wrong Obama was registered as a muslim at both his madrassas ...his dad was a muslim .. thats why people are suspicious

Romney was a mormon for day one just like his dad ... so of course nobody questioned it..

Its like madonna saying shes jewish now cause of kabbalah ...yet im sure orthodox jews do not believe her to be sincere..

Now for obama he embraced the most radical hateful form of christianity ...which was holy trinity ..and the educated voters like myself are most suspicious of that ... i know he not muslim ..

[ShaE]

BUT HE ISN'T A MUSLIM! That's the real issue obviously. Of course it's frustrating that ppl are still so racist and would not vote for him if he truly was one, but he isn't - and is getting labeled as one anyhow. Makes the whole situation even more troubling. Romney is nothing compared to this, at all.
Let's entertain jamez' nonsense for one moment, even if obama HAD been put in a muslim school (which it wasn't, itw as public) and was enrolled as "muslim", by his unreligious mother and NON PRACTICING muslim father later to be athiest lol, that is something that stays w/ him for life? are you serious?

i attended catholic school my entire life from first grade through COLLEGE. I received baptism, holy communion, reconciliation and confirmation, i was a lector in my church for 3 years, and there isn't one ounce of catholicism in me, or my beliefs.

according to jamez here, I'm ready for the nunnery b/c my papers said i was a catholic and my parents did it, so I must stick w/ that label forever despite having no belief in it whatsoever. i didn't ask or choose to be baptized, same as he had zero say in which school they put him in and what box they checked off on his enrollment papers.

obama is a grown adult who chose the christian faith and has VISIBLY practiced it for his adult life- I think it's ridiculous to call that into question b/c of papers his parents who couldn't care less about faith submitted to some school in indonesia when he was a child.:rolleyes:

[ShaE]

your wrong Obama was registered as a muslim at both his madrassas ...his dad was a muslim .. thats why people are suspicious

Romney was a mormon for day one just like his dad ... so of course nobody questioned it..

Its like madonna saying shes jewish now cause of kabbalah ...yet im sure orthodox jews do not believe her to be sincere..

Now for obama he embraced the most radical hateful form of christianity ...which was holy trinity ..and the educated voters like myself are most suspicious of that ... i know he not muslim ..
NOW HE WENT TO TWO MADRASSAS? LMAO

thank you for confirming my point though. i asked when has a white man had to prove he is the faith he professes to be, and you cited romney. now you admit romney never had to "prove" he was mormon b/c everyone already believed him to be.

exactly.

[jameznyhc]

Let's entertain jamez' nonsense for one moment, even if obama HAD been put in a muslim school (which it wasn't, itw as public) and was enrolled as "muslim", by his unreligious mother and NON PRACTICING muslim father later to be athiest lol, that is something that stays w/ him for life? are you serious?

i attended catholic school my entire life from first grade through COLLEGE. I received baptism, holy communion, reconciliation and confirmation, i was a lector in my church for 3 years, and there isn't one ounce of catholicism in me, or my beliefs.

according to jamez here, I'm ready for the nunnery b/c my papers said i was a catholic and my parents did it, so I must stick w/ that label forever despite having no belief in it whatsoever.

obama is a grown adult who chose the christian faith and has VISIBLY practiced it for his adult life- I think it's ridiculous to call that into question b/c of papers his parents who couldn't care less about faith submitted to some school in indonesia when he was a child.:rolleyes:

Well it doesnt mean your a practicing catholic... but nobody could ever confuse you with being muslim ..

If you had a jmuslim dad ..and went to madrassa registered as a muslim in a predominant muslim country ..theyd be just as suspicious lol

[JustLikeHeaven]

Let's entertain jamez' nonsense for one moment, even if obama HAD been put in a muslim school (which it wasn't, itw as public) and was enrolled as "muslim", by his unreligious mother and NON PRACTICING muslim father later to be athiest lol, that is something that stays w/ him for life? are you serious?

i attended catholic school my entire life from first grade through COLLEGE. I received baptism, holy communion, reconciliation and confirmation, i was a lector in my church for 3 years, and there isn't one ounce of catholicism in me, or my beliefs.

according to jamez here, I'm ready for the nunnery b/c my papers said i was a catholic and my parents did it, so I must stick w/ that label forever despite having no belief in it whatsoever. i didn't ask or choose to be baptized, same as he had zero say in which school they put him in and what box they checked off on his enrollment papers.

obama is a grown adult who chose the christian faith and has VISIBLY practiced it for his adult life- I think it's ridiculous to call that into question b/c of papers his parents who couldn't care less about faith submitted to some school in indonesia when he was a child.:rolleyes:

Exactly, makes absolutely no sense.

Instead of recognizing and being dissapointed in the ignorance of some Americans Jamez, u are trying to justify it...pretty sad.

[jameznyhc]

some people would not consider what was being preached at holy trinity as real christian values.. sounded like alot of hatred and prejusdice ... look at black kkk type church

[ShaE]

shae he lost the popular vote lol ..but im specifically talking about the south and puerto rico and texas .. places like that she killed him 65-35 70-30 ...huge margins ..after his dumb guns comment buried him ..
so? you don't win w/ the popular vote, I think we all understood that point w/ gore no?

she lost, he won. that's like a team losing the world series but saying "oh well, at least we got there", yea, but you didn't win lol he and she knew how these things are won, and they are not won by the sheer % of popular vote so that's irrelevant. if it wasn't, we wouldn't have had dubya, al would be there. you know the rules of the game, how primaries work, you can't go play the game, lose, and THEN bitch about the structure like you weren't aware.

actually jamez, i read many articles where people in appalachia claimed to understand what he was saying, and they didn't take offense. of course some did, but not as many as you'd think. they were actually saying they were insulted that people would think they wouldn't understand his larger point.
often times the truth makes people uncomfortable, but it doesn't make it any less true.

[ShaE]

some people would not consider what was being preached at holy trinity as real christian values.. sounded like alot of hatred and prejusdice ... look at black kkk type church
doesn't matter how christian their values are, or the type of church, it's a christian church, it's not a mosque. he worships there, says he's christian, celebrate his marriage and sacraments w/ his children as a christian, yet people think it's a sham.

doesn't happen to any other candidate. interesting.

[jameznyhc]

NOW HE WENT TO TWO MADRASSAS? LMAO
thank you for confirming my point though. i asked when has a white man had to prove he is the faith he professes to be, and you cited romney. now you admit romney never had to "prove" he was mormon b/c everyone already believed him to be.

exactly.

absolutly are you that ignorant lol .. we discussed this 3 weeks ago ..why do i know more about obama than his own supporters lol !!!

[jameznyhc]

so? you don't win w/ the popular vote, I think we all understood that point w/ gore no?
she lost, he won. that's like a team losing the world series but saying "oh well, at least we got there", yea, but you didn't win lol he and she knew how these things are won, and they are not won by the sheer % of popular vote so that's irrelevant. if it wasn't, we wouldn't have had dubya, al would be there. you know the rules of the game, how primaries work, you can't go play the game, lose, and THEN bitch about the structure like you weren't aware.

actually jamez, i read many articles where people in appalachia claimed to understand what he was saying, and they didn't take offense. of course some did, but not as many as you'd think. they were actually saying they were insulted that people would think they wouldn't understand his larger point.
often times the truth makes people uncomfortable, but it doesn't make it any less true.



only in the dem primarys lol ..in republican its winner take all ...again no excuse for him not too be living down south ,... If jindal can overcome his hindu past its very possible for obama to sell himself as a christian as jindal did

[JustLikeHeaven]

only in the dem primarys lol ..in republican its winner take all ...again no excuse for him not too be living down south ,... If jindal can overcome his hindu past its very possible for obama to sell himself as a christian as jindal did

LOL why does he have to "sell himself as a Christian" is the whole point..why does he have to go OUT OF HIS WAY to prove that he is one?? OMG...can't even believe we are discussing this jeezzz...

[jameznyhc]

LOL why does he have to "sell himself as a Christian" is the whole point..why does he have to go OUT OF HIS WAY to prove that he is one?? OMG...can't even believe we are discussing this jeezzz...

Because people are suspicious of him being muslim duh ... and ignorance is bliss :heythere

[ShaE]

absolutly are you that ignorant lol .. we discussed this 3 weeks ago ..why do i know more about obama than his own supporters lol !!!
you don't, in your entire posting history you've yet to believe you're wrong about anything lol

you're judging his faith on a blurry definition of a school he briefly attended at his parents' choosing, and not by what religion he as chosen and accepted as a consenting adult, and practiced for over 20 years?

in that case I must be a card carrying catholic then. if you're going to judge me based on the school my parents put me in, and not how i've chosen to lead my adult life- without religion.

reach reach reach

[metfan85]

well considering how the muslim women were asked to get out of his rally lol ..it goes both ways..

Yopu also got alot of racism on the other side and ignorance as well ...check mos def's appearance on bill maher lol you'll see what im talkin about

Seriously man its ok for any northern liberal to be ignorant of the heritage down South.
Ill tell you what I've seen less racism here than anywhere back home, by whites and blacks. This county had its last lynching in 1934, to me it seems like there's been many more racial incidents up here by all races... Que everyone.blindly calling me a racist in 3... 2... 1...

[ShaE]

Because people are suspicious of him being muslim duh ... and ignorance is bliss :heythere
right, b/c many muslims masquerade as christians, attend christian churches, get married in christian ceremonies, baptize their kids in christian churches, and claim openly to be christian.:rolleyes:


that would be blasphemous on so many levels for a muslim it's ridiculous. "yes, i'm a muslim living as a christian, I'm gonna fool them all and be president!" he must've hatched this elaborate plot early on.

sick irrational fear= stupid.

and it's really not b/c they think he's muslim, it's b/c he's black and they can't say that.

[ShaE]

I was particularly nauseated w/ the dimwit kid who said it might be a rumor, but he's heard obama was trying to bring iraqi soldiers into america!


might be a rumor, yea, he's sharp.

[ShaE]

Seriously man its ok for any northern liberal to be ignorant of the heritage down South.
Ill tell you what I've seen less racism here than anywhere back home, by whites and blacks. This county had its last lynching in 1934, to me it seems like there's been many more racial incidents up here by all races... Que everyone.blindly calling me a racist in 3... 2... 1...
no one's saying there aren't racists elsewhere, or stupid people, or anything. but this article is about the south. that's why we're talking about the south.

and yes, racism and religious issues run pretty severely there. you can say there are racists up north all you want, but the north and south are not equal on the issue. very distinct attitudes.

[metfan85]

Newsweek tell u that too?

[ShaE]

Newsweek tell u that too?
excuse me?

no, I'm fairly certain I recall most of american history and am a relatively aware and well informed person. not to mention, I spent every summer of my childlood staying with relatives in the south.

but what do i know. it's a crazy idea the north and south having different attitudes, where would I get such a notion.:rolleyes:

not like they wanted to secede or anything lol

[ShaE]

really, don't blame me b/c a bunch of yokels thought it would be bright to telling people their baseless fears about obama exposing, clearly to everyone, their prejudice and/or ignorance.

the people in the article spoke the words themselves, I'm not assuming, I'm judging THEIR beliefs as they expressed them, and it's downright disturbing. do i know not everyone in the south thinks this way, of course, but the ones that do- wow.

the muslim worry is just a cover for the black worry. none of them will say " i dont trust him b/c he's black", but they will say " i dont trust him , I think he's a muslim" b/c that's a socially acceptable prejudice today.

[jameznyhc]

Seriously man its ok for any northern liberal to be ignorant of the heritage down South.
Ill tell you what I've seen less racism here than anywhere back home, by whites and blacks. This county had its last lynching in 1934, to me it seems like there's been many more racial incidents up here by all races... Que everyone.blindly calling me a racist in 3... 2... 1...

lol!!! .. but for real how many times in this forum do we see anti southern bigotry by the libs??? all the time .. rednecks, hicks, bible thumpers, ad nauseam

[jameznyhc]

really, don't blame me b/c a bunch of yokels thought it would be bright to telling people their baseless fears about obama exposing, clearly to everyone, their prejudice and/or ignorance.

the people in the article spoke the words themselves, I'm not assuming, I'm judging THEIR beliefs as they expressed them, and it's downright disturbing. do i know not everyone in the south thinks this way, of course, but the ones that do- wow.

the muslim worry is just a cover for the black worry. none of them will say " i dont trust him b/c he's black", but they will say " i dont trust him , I think he's a muslim" b/c that's a socially acceptable prejudice today.

correction anti white anti southern bigotry is acceptable ..to hate whites is acceptable ..like i said if mccain belonged to a church like obamas he'd be toast lmao .. yokels hmmm

[jameznyhc]

wasnt it studz saying anyone who votes for mccain is doing so because of RACE.... how ignorant and backwqards thinking is that statement???

[jameznyhc]

really, don't blame me b/c a bunch of yokels thought it would be bright to telling people their baseless fears about obama exposing, clearly to everyone, their prejudice and/or ignorance.

the people in the article spoke the words themselves, I'm not assuming, I'm judging THEIR beliefs as they expressed them, and it's downright disturbing. do i know not everyone in the south thinks this way, of course, but the ones that do- wow.

the muslim worry is just a cover for the black worry. none of them will say " i dont trust him b/c he's black", but they will say " i dont trust him , I think he's a muslim" b/c that's a socially acceptable prejudice today.

shae same priciple can be applied to mos def and all the dumb ass rappers who think every republican are racist good ole boys ... its goes both ways

[ShaE]

shae same priciple can be applied to mos def and all the dumb ass rappers who think every republican are racist good ole boys ... its goes both ways
but they're not hiding their views, what you see is what you get. they're suspicious of republican, white, southern men (let's say) b/c it's those people that lynched their fkin grandfathers, great grandfathers, etc. that's a legit fear and a legit stigma. they're not passing off their distrust of white southern society, or white society, as something else. and no it doesn't make it ok, but they're not masking their prejudice as another kind of prejudice. they're open about it.

the southerners I'm referring to, are passing off their racial fears, as religious ones. they're not really afraid b/c they think obama is a muslim (though i believe some of them do think he is), what they're really scared about is he's black. but they won't say that, so they'll say it's the muslim thing that's the problem.

it's hiding the real fear they have. i don't think any black man is masking his distrust for a white man as anything else.

[ShaE]

lol!!! .. but for real how many times in this forum do we see anti southern bigotry by the libs??? all the time .. rednecks, hicks, bible thumpers, ad nauseam
i'm not a bigot b/c as evidenced by my article, the people I refer to, do exist, and these are the people I mean when i say rednecks jamez.

I didn't write the article on the south, i didn't make it how it is, and i didn't put these words in their mouths. I'm sure you could find some equally stupid people in the north too, w/ ass backwards views, of course, but this related to the south's attitude and approach to a black candidate running, that's why it's discussed.

you don't get to call somebody a bigot b/c they know racism and ignorance when they see it. I just know it doesn't apply to all, but those it does apply to, should alarm us.

[Benny B]

wait a second... did someone say 'republicans are leaning towards obama for his healthcare"


:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL

someone ... PLEASE PUT DOWN THE PIPE!!!!!!

[ShaE]

wait a second... did someone say 'republicans are leaning towards obama for his healthcare"


:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL

someone ... PLEASE PUT DOWN THE PIPE!!!!!!


Someone didn't, i did. You'd be surprised how fast people will come around on their views when a loved one is sick and you can't afford to care for them, or when an issue hits home for them.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/07/16/2008-07-16_im_a_lifelong_conservative_activist_and_.html

Shana Sprouse, 21 and white, and born and raised in Spartanburg, S.C., says she's going to vote for Obama because her 26-year-old boyfriend is racked with cancer and she and he have spent the last two years trying to find ways to pay for his treatment or, now, his hospice.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/hunter/433292,CST-NWS-hunter19.article (http://www.suntimes.com/news/hunter/433292,CST-NWS-hunter19.article)
Some of these right-wing Obama supporters are putative country club Republicans, hailing from areas similar to the North Shore of Chicago. Others are professionals who are disillusioned by the Bush administration's failure to develop a sound domestic policy to redress issues of health care and Social Security or to end the relentless war in Iraq.

[ShaE]

you have a spouse dying and you can't afford their healthcare, you mean to tell me you won't vote for a candidate proposing universal healthcare b/c of your republican allegiance? not en masse, no, but something like that will definitely drive some people to the other side. when the need becomes personal, and it's not some abstract issue that affects "other" people, old ideas go down the tubes and you do what's best for your situation.

i dont think traditional party affiliations trump loved ones and personal need.

[JustLikeHeaven]

Someone didn't, i did. You'd be surprised how fast people will come around on their views when a loved one is sick and you can't afford to care for them, or when an issue hits home for them.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/07/16/2008-07-16_im_a_lifelong_conservative_activist_and_.html

Shana Sprouse, 21 and white, and born and raised in Spartanburg, S.C., says she's going to vote for Obama because her 26-year-old boyfriend is racked with cancer and she and he have spent the last two years trying to find ways to pay for his treatment or, now, his hospice.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/hunter/433292,CST-NWS-hunter19.article (http://www.suntimes.com/news/hunter/433292,CST-NWS-hunter19.article)
Some of these right-wing Obama supporters are putative country club Republicans, hailing from areas similar to the North Shore of Chicago. Others are professionals who are disillusioned by the Bush administration's failure to develop a sound domestic policy to redress issues of health care and Social Security or to end the relentless war in Iraq.




That's just lovely :)
LOL

[ShaE]

That's just lovely :)
LOL
bottom line, you have 40 million uninsured people, and millions of insured who can't get appropriate necessary care. if you give these people viable options to care for themselves and their sick family members, and it comes from the other side of the aisle, I have a hard time believing they'll opt out on party principle. principles seem to matter less when you're desperate, and many people are. democrat/republican doesn't matter when you can't feed your kids, or see the doctor, etc.

obviously this doesn't apply to affluent republicans, b/c they wouldn't be in a bind like that. but the south has many NON affluent republicans, and those people are more susceptible to being swayed b/c they are in need. they're not loaded, and they need options.

[JustLikeHeaven]

bottom line, you have 40 million uninsured people, and millions of insured who can't get appropriate necessary care. if you give these people viable options to care for themselves and their sick family members, and it comes from the other side of the aisle, I have a hard time believing they'll opt out on party principle. principles seem to matter less when you're desperate, and many people are. democrat/republican doesn't matter when you can't feed your kids, or see the doctor, etc.

obviously this doesn't apply to affluent republicans, b/c they wouldn't be in a bind like that. but the south has many NON affluent republicans, and those people are more susceptible to being swayed b/c they are in need. they're not loaded, and they need options.

Def, refreshing to see that at least some ppl are familiar w/the candidates' policies on this. Now if only more ppl educated themselves about other things...i.e. knowing what faith the candidates belong to!:rolleyes:

[Benny B]

lol please.. have you are have you not said in the past its rediculous to vote over one issue??? So because it benefits your candidate to get everyone else to pay his / her way because THEY cant afford the treatment its OK to pass the buck onto everyone else??? So you're saying if he wasnt sick he'd be voting for McCain??? trust me.. THATS NOT A REPUBLICAN

[ShaE]

lol please.. have you are have you not said in the past its rediculous to vote over one issue??? So because it benefits your candidate to get everyone else to pay his / her way because THEY cant afford the treatment its OK to pass the buck onto everyone else??? So you're saying if he wasnt sick he'd be voting for McCain??? trust me.. THATS NOT A REPUBLICAN
I personally would not vote over one issue, but that doesn't mean I don't think others do, and I don't understand why.

I didn't say anything was ok, or not ok, I'm just acknowledging the reality that oftentimes all that doesn't matter when you're in a desperate situation. A parent will do almost anything to help or for the benefit of their child, for example. A spouse for their loved one. if they see the opportunity to better their situation, and the situation's critical, they're not going to deny it b/c their political inclinations are otherwise.

[JustLikeHeaven]

lol please.. have you are have you not said in the past its rediculous to vote over one issue??? So because it benefits your candidate to get everyone else to pay his / her way because THEY cant afford the treatment its OK to pass the buck onto everyone else??? So you're saying if he wasnt sick he'd be voting for McCain??? trust me.. THATS NOT A REPUBLICAN

Over an issue that could be the difference btwn life and death hell yea why not?? I don't see anything wrong w/that at all.

[ShaE]

You take a republican, who has kids in service in iraq, and no longer supports the war, and give him two candidates, one who supports the continuation of the war, another who wants to end it (hypothetically), you think they're gonna stick w/ the party in spite of their views and concerns for their kids' safety? doubtful.

[jameznyhc]

wait a second... did someone say 'republicans are leaning towards obama for his healthcare"


:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL:LOL

someone ... PLEASE PUT DOWN THE PIPE!!!!!!

:floor:floor:abuse

[jameznyhc]

You take a republican, who has kids in service in iraq, and no longer supports the war, and give him two candidates, one who supports the continuation of the war, another who wants to end it (hypothetically), you think they're gonna stick w/ the party in spite of their views and concerns for their kids' safety? doubtful.

John McCain a perefect example.. besides obama now flipflopped he gonna listenn to the generals on the ground..he backed away from his 16 months plan ..lets not forget he going to send more troops to afghanistan ..so we'll have more deployed than ever before.. Instead of pressuring NATO countries to commit more ...

[jameznyhc]

but they're not hiding their views, what you see is what you get. they're suspicious of republican, white, southern men (let's say) b/c it's those people that lynched their fkin grandfathers, great grandfathers, etc. that's a legit fear and a legit stigma. they're not passing off their distrust of white southern society, or white society, as something else. and no it doesn't make it ok, but they're not masking their prejudice as another kind of prejudice. they're open about it.

the southerners I'm referring to, are passing off their racial fears, as religious ones. they're not really afraid b/c they think obama is a muslim (though i believe some of them do think he is), what they're really scared about is he's black. but they won't say that, so they'll say it's the muslim thing that's the problem.

it's hiding the real fear they have. i don't think any black man is masking his distrust for a white man as anything else.

right but it was republicans who liberated them and ended slavery ..the lynchings?? ask your boy robert kkk byrd or gores father about that

lol secondly what if mos def familys roots are north lol

[ShaE]

John McCain a perefect example.. besides obama now flipflopped he gonna listenn to the generals on the ground..he backed away from his 16 months plan ..lets not forget he going to send more troops to afghanistan ..so we'll have more deployed than ever before.. Instead of pressuring NATO countries to commit more ...
backed away? you know what, nobody can ever win w/ you, b/c you of all people know a military conflict is a constantly evolving situation. what is a good plan at one time, could not be a good plan 3 days later. if you're running a war, you have objectives but you have to remain open about strategy and planning b/c you're not dealing w/ a completely predictable situation.

if obama amends any portion of his plans, in any way, large or small, you say "oh he's flip flipping, he backed away, he's inconsistent"

if he doesn't, and he sticks w/ the same approach he started the primaries with, he'd be accused of being out of touch, not listening to developments on the ground, and inflexible.

it's not a bad thing to alter course or approach as a conflict develops, it's a bad thing when your main objectives keep changing b/c you're full of shit, that's not teh case. how are you gonna shit on somebody for changing their approach to the same goal? getting our troops out, withdrawing effectively. that's still the idea, how we go about that idea is not something I want somebody deciding now and not looking again at the facts or situation afterward.

i hope he sends more troops to afghanistan
i hope he changes his approach a few times before taking action b/c I think it's detrimental to hold somebody to speculation on a situation made months before taking action might come to pass. nobody would criticize a general for altering his initial plan, he'd be smart for adapting. why can't the candidates do that? as long as you're trying to achieve the same goal you said you had, i don't care if your plan for getting there is altered. that's to be expected. information changes, developments are made, events happen, you're an idiot if you don't let developing intel and situations affect your plan.

stubborn to a fault. that's one of my biggest problems w/ dubya, he makes up his mind and no amt of information, change, or anything is going to stop him from "staying the course". that's not smart.

[Benny B]

james let me give you a little help i know us republicans are a little slow...

IF ANYONE PERSON VOTES FOR SOCIALIZED ANYTHING...

THEY ARE NOT A REPUBLICAN!!!!!!


THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME FOR THIS SPECIAL SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

[ShaE]

right but it was republicans who liberated them and ended slavery ..the lynchings?? ask your boy robert kkk byrd or gores father about that

lol secondly what if mos def familys roots are north lol
I don't see what relevance mos def's family has to anything i said. I wasn't even talking about him.

you aren't seriously comparing the republican party of the 1850's to the republicans we know today? the way you make it sound is like the plantation owners had a change of heart, set the slaves free, and fought the north for the slaves' rights lmao

if it wasn't for lincoln, the very southerners we're speaking about right now wouldn't be a part of the united states. forget which party they belonged to then vs. now.

[ShaE]

james let me give you a little help i know us republicans are a little slow...

IF ANYONE PERSON VOTES FOR SOCIALIZED ANYTHING...

THEY ARE NOT A REPUBLICAN!!!!!!


THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME FOR THIS SPECIAL SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
I'm sure any and all persons involved really care if you think they're a true republican lol

[jameznyhc]

backed away? you know what, nobody can ever win w/ you, b/c you of all people know a military conflict is a constantly evolving situation. what is a good plan at one time, could not be a good plan 3 days later. if you're running a war, you have objectives but you have to remain open about strategy and planning b/c you're not dealing w/ a completely predictable situation.

if obama amends any portion of his plans, in any way, large or small, you say "oh he's flip flipping, he backed away, he's inconsistent"

if he doesn't, and he sticks w/ the same approach he started the primaries with, he'd be accused of being out of touch, not listening to developments on the ground, and inflexible.

it's not a bad thing to alter course or approach as a conflict develops, it's a bad thing when your main objectives keep changing b/c you're full of shit, that's not teh case. how are you gonna shit on somebody for changing their approach to the same goal? getting our troops out, withdrawing effectively. that's still the idea, how we go about that idea is not something I want somebody deciding now and not looking again at the facts or situation afterward.

i hope he sends more troops to afghanistan
i hope he changes his approach a few times before taking action b/c I think it's detrimental to hold somebody to speculation on a situation made months before taking action might come to pass. nobody would criticize a general for altering his initial plan, he'd be smart for adapting. why can't the candidates do that? as long as you're trying to achieve the same goal you said you had, i don't care if your plan for getting there is altered. that's to be expected. information changes, developments are made, events happen, you're an idiot if you don't let developing intel and situations affect your plan.

stubborn to a fault. that's one of my biggest problems w/ dubya, he makes up his mind and no amt of information, change, or anything is going to stop him from "staying the course". that's not smart.



Really if NATO is running the show in afghanistan why not work with NATO leaders to send more troops like McCain gonna do ..doesnt that make alot more sense?? afghanistan is multilaterial ..everyone agreed to go in .. so why should we carry the burden after we carried the burden in Iraq..the brits proved very capable of holding shit down .. send other troops from other countries ..

As for him flipflopping on iraq.. well he should have never boxed himself in with that 16 month commitment as a campaign promise... another horrible judgement call and mjor rookie move

[jameznyhc]

james let me give you a little help i know us republicans are a little slow...

IF ANYONE PERSON VOTES FOR SOCIALIZED ANYTHING...

THEY ARE NOT A REPUBLICAN!!!!!!


THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME FOR THIS SPECIAL SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT


wisest words ... man was no joke..

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[metfan85]

Oh my Goodness you guys are so naïve.. Even if this story is true, and he is in a hospice the poor guy will be with his maker long before the legislation can even get voted on... How gullible some people are never ceases to amaze me.

Btw... many millions of illegals that are here, should they be covered by this universal health care? I have a feeling no one is going to give a yes or no answer

[JustLikeHeaven]

Oh my Goodness you guys are so naïve.. Even if this story is true, and he is in a hospice the poor guy will be with his maker long before the legislation can even get voted on... How gullible some people are never ceases to amaze me.

Btw... many millions of illegals that are here, should they be covered by this universal health care? I have a feeling no one is going to give a yes or no answer

Why does that make us naive? Maybe it won't be voted on in his lifetime, but I am sure that any person in that given situation would support it because they can empathize with others who will be in the same situation somewhere down the line.

And for the ones who are already here and staying here, yes I feel they should be.

[jameznyhc]

Why does that make us naive? Maybe it won't be voted on in his lifetime, but I am sure that any person in that given situation would support it because they can empathize with others who will be in the same situation somewhere down the line.

And for the ones who are already here and staying here, yes I feel they should be.

sorry between the 2 of them they could come up with 250 per month??? if he unemployed why isnt he on medicare??? BULLSHIT... fuckin time is a joke ..do you know hopw many cancer charities exist .. do you realize companies like blue cross blue shield will NOT turn down an existing cancer diagnosis if he prove to have a low income?? sounds to me like theyre not trying hard.. whose paying for the hospice?? WTF im confused considering my condition ..

[ShaE]

.. so why should we carry the burden after we carried the burden in Iraq..the brits proved very capable of holding shit down .. send other troops from other countries ..


why are we sending other troops, when it was our first priority, and we didn't finish the job b/c we had a hot date in iraq dubya wanted to get to? now our work there's been undone b/c we hastily pushed it aside, and it should be somebody else's problem to fix? we started it, we left it, dug a hole somewhere else, and now shit's hit the fan again there. we let others go after osama in afghanistan and look how that turned out? want the job done right, do it yourself, or don't bother.

I don't know about you, but I'm not wary of al qaeda in iraq or the insurgents, but I am wary of the taliban flourishing in afghanistan again.

we should carry the burden b/c we shouldn't have put it on the back burner in the first place, and it actually does pose a huge risk to us. not to mention, the taliban resurgence is NOT good news for our battle against terrorists. if there's anywhere that needs our attention right now it's afghanistan and pakistan. it's our fault we bungled afghanistan, so yes, it's important we get a hold there b/c unlike iraq, they do have direct terrorist ties and an extremely radicalized population growing.

I find it funny how you call a senator, a rookie lol a rookie to what? neither he or mccain has been president before, you can't be that much of a rookie to politics and earn a senate seat, so what exactly is he lacking? he's very young for a candidate, but then again, mccain is very old for a candidate, but b/c he's significantly younger by comparison makes him a rookie? i don't see in what sense.

every presidential candidate is a rookie unless it's the existing president running for re-election lol
it implies he's inexperienced in politics and that's bull, I don't see the basis for it.

[ShaE]

Oh my Goodness you guys are so naïve.. Even if this story is true, and he is in a hospice the poor guy will be with his maker long before the legislation can even get voted on... How gullible some people are never ceases to amaze me.

Btw... many millions of illegals that are here, should they be covered by this universal health care? I have a feeling no one is going to give a yes or no answer
huh??

even if it's true???
you think it's unlikely somebody has a sick spouse and is going to vote for a candidate that has improving healthcare on his agenda somehow, unbelieveable? lol

nobody said this guy's life was going to be saved, it was just to point out that personal circumstances can avert people's long held principles.

gullible my ass lol

and no. illegals are not citizens and they should not be covered under universal healthcare. if they show up at a hospital w/ their arm sawed off, they should be treated, and billed. but they should not be given the benefits citizens would enjoy, when they are not citizens themselves. ideally, imo, taxpaying, american citizens should have healthcare, and them alone.

[jameznyhc]

why are we sending other troops, when it was our first priority, and we didn't finish the job b/c we had a hot date in iraq dubya wanted to get to? now our work there's been undone b/c we hastily pushed it aside, and it should be somebody else's problem to fix? we started it, we left it, dug a hole somewhere else, and now shit's hit the fan again there. we let others go after osama in afghanistan and look how that turned out? want the job done right, do it yourself, or don't bother.

I don't know about you, but I'm not wary of al qaeda in iraq or the insurgents, but I am wary of the taliban flourishing in afghanistan again.

we should carry the burden b/c we shouldn't have put it on the back burner in the first place, and it actually does pose a huge risk to us. not to mention, the taliban resurgence is NOT good news for our battle against terrorists. if there's anywhere that needs our attention right now it's afghanistan and pakistan. it's our fault we bungled afghanistan, so yes, it's important we get a hold there b/c unlike iraq, they do have direct terrorist ties and an extremely radicalized population growing.

I find it funny how you call a senator, a rookie lol a rookie to what? neither he or mccain has been president before, you can't be that much of a rookie to politics and earn a senate seat, so what exactly is he lacking? he's very young for a candidate, but then again, mccain is very old for a candidate, but b/c he's significantly younger by comparison makes him a rookie? i don't see in what sense.

every presidential candidate is a rookie unless it's the existing president running for re-election lol
it implies he's inexperienced in politics and that's bull, I don't see the basis for it.

Sure we finished the job in no time .. thats why zarqawi FLED afghanistan with all his other insurgents into iraq.. Lol thats where al qaeda ended up once we drove them out of there ...now there streaming back in after being driven from Iraq.. but we completed our mission to throw out the taliban ..elections were successful ..karzai won .. so nato agreed to do counter insurgency ..but there making the same mistakes as we did back in iraq..

Now again why do you want to sacrifice more american troops if we can get NATO to commit more.. All the dems screamed how afghanistan should be NATO controlled correct?? ...this is not "Americas" war like iraq was ..we have a coalition lets use it .. while at the same time employing a counter insurgency plan like we did in iraq.. Karzai is still in powerr ..we defeated the taliban in 2 weeks ..so again we are protecting karzai from the taliban and al qaeda ... we finished our job .. id rather have forces deployed in pakistan where there no violence to search for Obama ..

This is why McCain gonna win on national security hands down ..he got a much better plan to save american lives

[jameznyhc]

huh??

even if it's true???
you think it's unlikely somebody has a sick spouse and is going to vote for a candidate that has improving healthcare on his agenda somehow, unbelieveable? lol

nobody said this guy's life was going to be saved, it was just to point out that personal circumstances can avert people's long held principles.

gullible my ass lol

and no. illegals are not citizens and they should not be covered under universal healthcare. if they show up at a hospital w/ their arm sawed off, they should be treated, and billed. but they should not be given the benefits citizens would enjoy, when they are not citizens themselves. ideally, imo, taxpaying, american citizens should have healthcare, and them alone.

yes but barry is going to cover them all ...

[ShaE]

yes but barry is going to cover them all ...
I wouldn't agree w/ that, but if I had to have that plan as opposed to none, I'd take it.
better to have all americans covered , and deal w/ the illegals, than have no coverage for all americans and continue as we are w/ such a shitty system.

[metfan85]

and no. illegals are not citizens and they should not be covered under universal healthcare. if they show up at a hospital w/ their arm sawed off, they should be treated, and billed. but they should not be given the benefits citizens would enjoy, when they are not citizens themselves. ideally, imo, taxpaying, american citizens should have healthcare, and them alone.

This is why I love Shannon..

We can totally disagree on how to save America domestically but I know your an America First patriot

[woo]

so? you don't win w/ the popular vote, I think we all understood that point w/ gore no?

she lost, he won. that's like a team losing the world series but saying "oh well, at least we got there", yea, but you didn't win lol he and she knew how these things are won, and they are not won by the sheer % of popular vote so that's irrelevant. if it wasn't, we wouldn't have had dubya, al would be there. you know the rules of the game, how primaries work, you can't go play the game, lose, and THEN bitch about the structure like you weren't aware.

actually jamez, i read many articles where people in appalachia claimed to understand what he was saying, and they didn't take offense. of course some did, but not as many as you'd think. they were actually saying they were insulted that people would think they wouldn't understand his larger point.
often times the truth makes people uncomfortable, but it doesn't make it any less true.

srsly!!

[ShaE]

This is why I love Shannon..

We can totally disagree on how to save America domestically but I know your an America First patriot
:gimme

now i've got one who calls me a patriot to counter those that call me traitor. my it's been a hell of a week lol

[metfan85]

lol i always love this.... redneck riviera.... :LOL....
"i think of people who harken back to the 5th grade as the best 6 years of their life"

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[Benny B]

:gimme

now i've got one who calls me a patriot to counter those that call me traitor. my it's been a hell of a week lol

its ok i think you're a bi-polar patriot traitor

[ShaE]

its ok i think you're a bi-polar patriot traitor
Must entertain you since ignore didn't keep you away :heythere
wtf is a patriot traitor?

[Benny B]

bi-polar - patriot / traitor part of the time you are traitor part of the time you're patriot..

as for the ignore... actualy i now find reading your posts alot like watching the special olympics.. you watch trying not to laugh but end up laughing anyways..

plus without defected around here got kinda boring..

[ShaE]

bi-polar - patriot / traitor part of the time you are traitor part of the time you're patriot..

as for the ignore... actualy i now find reading your posts alot like watching the special olympics.. you watch trying not to laugh but end up laughing anyways..

plus without defected around here got kinda boring..
:disgusted you're losing your edge in your old age benny.
you probably don't laugh as hard as i did when your boy thompson bowed out before the game even got started lol

[Benny B]

:disgusted you're losing your edge in your old age benny.
you probably don't laugh as hard as i did when your boy thompson bowed out before the game even got started lol

why laugh??? how is it funny??? ive sat and talked with him regarding it and looking back i completely understand alot of things that happened that havent been talked bout to the public.

losing my edge??? i never had an edge.. i am who i am.. i say whats on my mind.. you dont like it.. well take a long walk off a short pier.. you laugh because a candidate knew when to say when instead of prolonging the inevitable?? There was no shot in hell of a conservative winning this election.. republicans voted for who they felt would beat a far leaning liberal "at the time hillary" with the best chance.. plain and simple..

[jameznyhc]

bi-polar - patriot / traitor part of the time you are traitor part of the time you're patriot..

as for the ignore... actualy i now find reading your posts alot like watching the special olympics.. you watch trying not to laugh but end up laughing anyways..

plus without defected around here got kinda boring..

:chuckle:chuckle

[jameznyhc]

yeah but with rudy and thompson you didnt have flipfloppers trying to be something there not.. Id rather support a candidate i trust whose values i believe in they go with the most popular.. no excuses for either one of them they blew it.. just like your boy is blowing it now ..his cure for high gas?? a tire gage ... how weak is that lol