Two more bulletins from the Dark Side.

[catsidhe]

Remember how when people first started saying “liberal black presidential candidate... hmm. Given the examples of JFK (president + liberal), and MLK (liberal + black), I hope Obama isn't assassinated, because that would suck,” and how the wingnuts broke out in hysterical laughter and said “Oh, you pathetic paranoid delusional fools!, no-one's going to try and kill That One!”? Remember?
Funny. It turns out that people have had a hard-on for killing Obama, after all. Again. This is the second plan that I know of.

You know how there's this really big threat to democracy in a group which is trying to enrol poor people democrats untold hordes of filthy frauds who will ruin the election?
Yeah, can we call bullshit on that one yet?


Which is not to say that there aren't Democrat arseholes as well. FFS.



And now, back to my usual, everyday, flatspin panic at work.

Comments

[celsa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the nice, clear article about the ACORN thing. It's shameful, but not surprising, that Republicans would deliberately misrepresent the facts. And it's a shame that the media can be relied on not to check the facts, lest the facts get in the way of a sensational headline.

I don't think that those two would-be assassins were a major threat, but that the cops nabbed those dullards does again provide proof of concept: there are individuals who would prefer to see Obama assassinated than become President of the US. No "fantasy" required.

I do fear that if there are remotely competent people planning an assassination attempt, we will be likely to hear about it after the fact. Maybe I'm just feeling very down on humans today, but as I sit here now, I cannot envisage that, should he win, a President Obama will get to the end of a presidential term without some assassination attempt on him getting to the "shots fired" stage or equivalent.

Seriously. I'm prepared to bet on it.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

I found the assassination attempt via The Weasel King. He counts, without citation, that this is the fifth attempt he knows of.

One of the comments, though, contains an excellent point:

An Obama bullet is going to cost you the world as we know it. Black folks you didn’t think were dangerous will suddenly become rabid. It’ll be the old days again but this time you won’t be able to keep us out of anywhere because it’s all desegregated anyway.And if we organize the gangs? Forget about it. Hell, I think Sharpton might even throat punch somebody on his way to the gun shop.

Understand that this is not the Great Race War you’ve been dreaming about; this is the complete and utter disintegration of society not on a physical level, but a philosophical level.Your plan will completely backfire.

________

regular cats will go from "mild" to militant in 2.1 seconds...
and the militants ones will go bugfuck nuts...

[celsa.livejournal.com]

Yep. It makes me uneasy from waaaaaay over here. I notice that the responses to that statement include a couple of whiter people saying that they would be sorely tempted to join the riots, but to me that indicates that they fail to grasp that they, by virtue of the colour of their skin, would be natural targets for enraged "black folks". I mean, yes, I'd be outraged, but I'd want a triple dose of spray-tan before taking to the streets in solidarity.

Now to go over to the paranoid side for a moment: I read this: "The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows," the court documents show.

"Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt," the court complaint states. "Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt.""

...and it's so absurd that I think; Decoy? No, that's the wrong term... what I am thinking of is more like repeatedly crying wolf to diminish the seriousness/urgency/effectiveness of the response.

Of course, that presumes some kind of coordination between the people concerned and the people who might have the where-with-all to have a genuine crack at Obassassination. Too long a bow to draw, methinks, but the impact of a number of ridiculous attempts may have a dampening effect regardless.

I think the word you're looking for is...

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Desensitisation.

Only that doesn't work either. What it's doing is teaching the people guarding Obama that there are plans out there, of varying degrees of subtlety and care, and that the more bugnuts idiots there are buying snipers rifles, the more likely it is that someone is preparing and not talking about it on the internet...

That sort of thing only makes them even more paranoid than they were already. It doesn't desensitise them, it hypersensitises them.

Re: I think the word you're looking for is...

[omnot.livejournal.com]

No... if you want to see hypersensitivity, wait for the reaction if the cops catch two young, black men amidst a plot to shoot and behead a couple of hundred white people and then assassinate McCain.

Also, you can be sure that if that happened, the word "terrorists" would be all over the headlines.

(edited for tautology)

Re: I think the word you're looking for is...

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

You have a point.

It is often instructive to take the contrapositive of an argument and see what the implications are... as you just did.

I am remiss in having not done so myself.