Sunday, December 30, 2018

Think About It: Recommendations for a slipping grasp on reality



                     Again, the blog for today writes itself:

This is a verbatim post from a former shipmate:

“I offer no apology for what I am posting for this is truly how I feel. Please know this is my opinion and not open for debate. If you don't agree that's your prerogative but I will not be responding to any or all comments. I have lived through six United States Presidents prior to our current President Trump. In my lifetime, I have never seen or heard of a President being scrutinized over every word he speaks, demeaned by the public to the point of disgrace, slandered, ridiculed, insulted, lied to, threatened with death, threatened by some to rape our First Lady, and have his children also insulted and humiliated.
I am truly ashamed of the people of MY country. I am ashamed of the ruthless, insufferable, cruel, Trump haters who have no morals, ethics or values and the irresponsibility of the reporters who feel they have the right to deliver personal opinions just to sway their audiences in a negative direction even if there is no truth in their message. After every other President was elected and took the oath of office, they were allowed to try to serve this country without constant negative scrutiny from our news sources. ALWAYS BEING PRESSURED while news sources search only for negative results from our President will not serve the people of our country. Nor will it create informed Americans. ENOUGH is ENOUGH is ENOUGH.”
“If you disagree, ignore this message. If you agree, copy and paste this to your timeline and put your name under the last name:” (my note: As if that will somehow shift the great sidereal drift of the Universe!”)

(What followed was a list of persons who agreed with the screed)

I was going to ignore this, but you all know me better than that. What stood out to me was the apparent amnesia exhibited by apparently forgetting the massive anti-Nixon anti-war fervor of the early 70s, the earlier anti LBJ demonstrations which resulted in his 1968 decision not to run. Even more perplexing is the assertion that Trump alone has been subjected to personal slanders involving his children, all adult, save one who has never been slandered, since most of us simply feel sorry for him. 

        Barack Obama’s vicious treatment by Republicans, primarily heaped upon him with zero provocation other than his racial background, however, gives the lie to that allegation as well: He was been accused of being a "secret Muslim" and born in Kenya, of being complicit with the Muslim Brotherhood, of wearing a ring bearing a secret verse from the Quran, of having once been a Black Panther, of refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, of taking the oath of office on the Quran, of seeking to confiscate all guns, of lying about just about everything he has ever said, ranging from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act to immigration, of faking Osama bin Laden's death and of funding his campaigns with drug money. 

       More recently, even though Obama was out of office, a supporter of Florida Governor elect DeSantis, Steven M. Alembik, a Republican activist and donor who has contributed more than $20,000 to DeSantis’ campaigns, recently referred to former President Obama as a “FUCKING MUSLIM NIGGER” on Twitter!

There is a long list of Republicans and conservative figures who get caught out for staggeringly crass racial comments around Obama. To name a few:

The head of the college Republicans at University of Texas who tweeted: "My president is black, he snorts a lot of crack. Holla."

Or the blogger for the conservative John Locke Foundation who posted a picture of Obama in drag with a bucket of fried chicken on the group's website.

Or the Orange County Republican official who circulated an email that featured Obama as the child of chimpanzees.

Or the Republican city mayor in California who circulated an email with a picture of the White House lawn turned into a watermelon patch.

And since we’re in the holidays, Obama’s White House never stopped referring to the “White House Christmas Tree” as just that. The zombie claims about the White House “holiday tree” was first proved wrong in 2009 but has circulated online annually during the holiday season.

       This is just a sampling, really, of the bogus claims that have been made up about Obama over eight years. He also didn’t create the “Obamaphone,” call for a “new world order,” criminalize free speech, create a “private army,” or attempt to declare martial law.

       But what about Melania Trump’s whining that she’s been “bullied?”  The fact that she has knowingly stayed with a man who schtupped a porn star and paid her to be quiet, speaks volumes in itself, but much of what has been leveled at her, some admittedly unfairly, is a result of things her husband has said and done, excepting the red White House Christmas trees. Imagine if Michelle Obama had made that choice! Anyway, when it comes to personal slurs, it isn’t even close. Here are but a few of verbatim slurs levelled at Michelle Obama as First Lady:

She’s “strikingly ungracious.” (Jim Geraghty, writing for National Review)

 She doesn’t look like a first lady (and she did push-ups). (Virginia voter Bobbie Lussier)

 “She weighs too much to care about health: “The problem is — and dare I say this — it doesn’t look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritional, dietary advice. And then we hear that she’s out eating ribs at 1,500 calories a serving with 141 grams of fat per serving, yeah it does — what do you mean, what do I mean?” (Rush Limbaugh) As an example of how incredibly f***ed up this one is, at 5’11” and top weight of 169, Michelle Obama has always been well within the “normal” body mass index range, while the 222 lb. 5’9” Limbaugh is “clinically obese.”

She “needs to drop a few” pounds before she can be taken seriously on the issue of nutrition. (Keith Ablow, prominent member of the Fox News “Medical A-Team”)

She eats too much, as demonstrated by a cartoon of a chubby Michelle chowing down on a burger and fries, telling a skinny Barack to “shut up and pass the bacon!” (Big Government)

She “didn’t support dessert enough”, and she “cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children.” (Sarah Palin, wow, just wow.)

She “forced children in day care to be weighed”. (Urban legend, debunked by Snopes)

She has “no business being involved” in what people eat. (New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who knows some shit about eating)

She’s a “feminist nightmare” for focusing on her family. (Michelle Cottle, writing in Politico)

She is “actually a man, and she murdered Joan Rivers to cover it up.”  (Alex Jones)

She’s not classy enough and is an “atrocity” as first lady: “She makes a fool of herself — every time she comes on TV, I have to turn it off. Laura Bush was so classy, and that’s what we really need again.” (Laurie Boilard, quoted by Bloomberg Politics at a party for a Republican candidate’s wife)

She dared to talk about the enslaved people who built the White House.

She is an “ape in heels.” (Pamela Ramsey Taylor, director of Clay County Development Corp. who later swore she was “not racist.”)

She has a “gorilla face.” (Patrick Rushing, mayor of Airway Heights, Wash.)

She is a “poor gorilla” who “needs to focus on getting a total makeover (especially the hair), instead of planning vacations.”

“She put her left elbow on a table once.” (Salon)

 She ‘voluntarily surrendered’ her law license in 1993. after a Federal Judge gave her the choice between surrendering her license or standing trial for Insurance fraud!” (fraudulent chain email)

“She’s President Obama’s “baby mama.” (Fox News)

She wore shorts. (oh my Gawd!)

Wow, and this guy thinks Melania has it bad?

But, what of the Obama daughters, surely, they can’t have been criticized, right? Well, no, not right. Here are some samples from various sources, some of them call ins to Fox News:

"I wonder if she applied as a muDslime..or a foreign student..or just a Ni@@er." (on Malia’s Harvard acceptance)

"Hopefully she gets cancer/aids or one of those colored diseases."

"Another academically challenged affirmative-action parasite steals a place from a qualified White or Asian student."

"I'm sure she's (Sasha) being fed a stem of celery with two grain muffins for lunch as accorded by her man-thing mother, Sasquatch."

"Probably staying out for a year so she can help her parents carry out the furniture and dinnerware when they leave the White House," 

A satirical op-ed that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, "Malia Obama's suspicious gap year," poked fun at the conservatives who are slamming the young woman for taking a year off between high school and college and are saying she didn't earn her spot at the prestigious university: In fact, if family data has any meaning, her father’s  ACT score is higher than the published results for George Bush, Bill Clinton and LBJ, so take your best guess.

"It's a well-established fact that Malia is the first child of a president to ever get into Harvard, a clear-cut sign that the fix is in." (NO, actually, it isn’t either established or a fact) Factually, (remember facts?) 22 presidential children have attended Harvard, but c'mon, are you going to trust facts or disaffected bloggers?)"

"Malia will have her Harvard transcripts buried, just like Chewbacca and the WH Muslim. As for the gap year, my guess is she will get some heavy tutoring to try to match up at Harvard. If she looks like she won't cut it, Malia goes somewhere outside the US to hide her further. Gap year, sure. 

By the way, ever hear either daughter ever talk? Can they?" one user wrote.

"Doesn't have the grades, can't do the work, needs extensive tutoring to have a chance at ANY college, unless Affirmative Action and sealing her transcripts can be arranged (very likely!) Phony Birth Certificate, sealed transcripts from Harvard AND Columbia, 'gap year', see a pattern?" questioned another.

This is not the first time the conservative media has attacked Malia Obama. Three years ago, when she was just 14, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros called into question her sex life after Obama stated he supported providing Plan B to girls as young as 15. "Are they gonna put her on birth control?" Tantaros questioned. "Because he's very concerned with contraceptives and pharmaceuticals that are going in the mouths of everybody else's 15-year-old daughter."

"I don't think you would have ever seen the Bush daughters in dresses that short," one article wrote. (these are the same “Bush girls” who slipped their security detail and were nabbed drinking in DC with fake ID, but darn those short dresses!)

"Class is completely absent from this White House." 

Malia Obama has faced backlash from the media since her father first took office. 

At just 11 years old, she was called "a typical street whore" and "ghetto street trash" after wearing a shirt with a peace sign on it. Note this is worse than anything levelled at Mrs. Trump, and this was an 11-year-old.

Malia and Sasha Obama have both been the subject of multiple fake news stories, including that Malia was "among 10 arrested in racist Antifa attack" and that she was expelled from Harvard, and that Sasha drove an expensive car into a lake.

In all fairness the Obama family is not the first Democratic family in the White House to face harsh words from the (RE)public(ans).  Rush Limbaugh previously called Chelsea Clinton "a dog" when she was just 12 years old and described Amy Carter as "the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of this country". However, the Obamas have faced an unprecedented slew of racism thrown their way in addition to simply a mean-spirited media.

Hopefully this will put to bed the bullshit about all the undeserved criticism of Trump and his trophy family. Can you even imagine if Obama had put any family member, no matter how competent or remote on the Payroll, never mind two?

Mindful of space and time requirements as well as the demonstrably limited attention span of the original poster, here is what I wrote in FB

“And, XXXX, I have lived through 12 Presidents and counting. Barack Obama was slandered for simply being President. His wife was caricatured as evilly as anyone ever, his birth questioned and yet...he never hit back, never slandered others, just did his job. See any difference? The issue here is that what Trump gets he deserves because he sets himself up for it. The mystery is why those who seem to adore him will never call him on it. The recent lies re: military pay increases are classic examples. His supporters will just overlook the lies. 

       Had Obama said exactly the same things word for word, the Right would have been all over him. Anyone who's not blind, deaf and dumb in their heart of hearts knows that's true. I understand why some folks. primarily those with too little knowledge of US history and geopolitics, might have voted for Trump based on the things he cleverly used as campaign issues, such as implicit support of white supremacists (Steve Bannon?), fear mongering about a "Threat " from immigrants (unfounded in every real study ever done), claiming to be a business genius (obviously untrue, based on his multiple bankruptcies (His father had none!),  Denying a pro-choice stance but having urged his first trophy wife to abort the child who was Tiffany, Shamelessly sucking up to Evangelicals while rarely having been in a church other than his three marriages, the last of which he "fouled" by cheating with a porn star while wife #3 was pregnant, and the list goes on.

       Any or all of these “transgressions” would have had the Right in arms had Barack Obama done them, but instead he raised his kids, loved and respected his wife and did his job. So, XXXX if you are capable of any degree whatsoever of objectivity, ask yourself why you still support Trump. Your side slandered Obama with absolutely zero factual support. Hell, people spent millions doing it and failed. Trump on the other hand is being held accountable for things he has actually done, is doing and lying about it, and will do. 

       What would your side have done if Obama had sucked up to Putin or the Saudis? Don't bother to answer, I don't want or need any more lies. Nixon was a flawed man, so was Kennedy, but Trump has taken it to a new level - lying and daring his base to hold him accountable. Any ex-military person should hang their head if they support him, and to answer the first implication of your post, yeah, FDR and his wife took every bit as much flack during the early days of the New Deal, and all he was doing was trying to dig the US out of a crippling depression. This is why we teach American History in high school. 

       Unfortunately, as George Santayana famously said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Finally, Santayana also said something which is absolutely and precisely applicable to Trump worshippers: "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." Think about it!  

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