posted
Right-wing Media Stokes Violence Against Liberals
by EG Afolabi, Jul 31, 2008
Tags: Church conservative gop liberal propaganda Right Wing shooting
The recent shooting at a Tennessee Unitarian church is not surprising. Right-wing propaganda has been encouraging violence against the left for years. Sometimes it really sucks to be proved right. Several months ago I predicted that what with rising gas prices, growing layoffs and record foreclosures, we soon start to see a lot more violent incidents as Americans unraveled under stress.
America has a dangerous combination of poor mental health services, a disintegrating family structure and a high-stress work environment. Combine that with easy access to firearms and you have a recipe for spectacular disaster.
So I was shocked, but not surprised at the recent church shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. On Sunday, Jim Adkisson, an unemployed truck driver, walked into a Unitarian church, and opened fire on parishioners leaving two dead and seven people injured. Even more disturbing was his rationale. Usually killers turn against their families and co-workers, but Adkisson lashed out against a group who he thought was responsible for his problems - liberals.
There is something sadly ironic about this whole situation. The gunman was upset by his lack of employment and the fact that his unemployment benefits were soon going to run out. But he vented his rage on a group of people who probably would have been the most sympathetic to his cause.
Adkisson was mad at liberals because he felt that their causes, gay rights and civil rights for ethnic groups, were tearing America apart. However I am pretty sure that gays and people of color were not responsible for Adkisson's predicatment.
The people who laid him off and cut off his benefits were most likely white conservative men, people who Adkisson identified with. Even though he was a blue-collar worker, with little education or wealth, Adkisson probably thought he was just like his conservative icons. That's pretty twisted logic, but it explains one of the mysteries of the American political system.
The genius of the American right-wing is that it has always exploited the fears of blue-collar and middle class Americans to keep them voting against their own interests. In the 1960s, the GOP won the South by exploiting white Southerners fears of racial integration. However more than 40 years later poor white Southerners still don't have health care or decent employment opportunities.
However as blacks became more integrated into society, conservatives had to add to their list of enemies. Latinos, brown-skinned, non-English speaking, and threatening to out breed white people, became the new public enemy. This fear is still alive in the minds of many conservatives. Pat Buchanan recently penned an article on MSNBC decrying how the days of the white majority are numbered. Commentator John Gibson said on FOX News that “white people need to start having more babies.”
Conservatives also attacked gay people, branding them as a threat to the American family and the institution of marriage, even though conservative Southerners often have more divorces and less stable relationships than long-lasting gay couples. (Case in point Oklahoma, the buckle of the Bible Belt, has the second highest divorce rate next to Nevada and a major problem with teen pregnancy.)
Unfortunately gullible Middle Americans swallowed this propaganda and voted Republicans into power. And what did they get in return? Poorer working conditions, no healthcare and vanishing benefits. No wonder their frustration turns into anger, as it did with Adkisson. They feel they have done the right thing, but still end up getting screwed over.
It seems many Middle Americans do not understand how the political game is played. They are looking at the game of political chess in two dimensions, when it really played in three, if not, four dimensions. Red staters see gays and brown people as the enemy, but what about the right-wing politicians who have voted down their interests, shipped their jobs abroad, and whittled away their benefits?
Incidentally, the brown people and the gays are not doing much better, so who is really benefiting from the game? Doesn't the old adage say, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
There are many reasons why the rage of Middle Americans is kept directed in the wrong place. Religion, always a powerful tool of mental oppression, has been used to keep minds chained. The GOP has portrayed itself as the party of God, even though its policies, which ignore the poor and deny basic healthcare are very unchristian. In the minds of church-going Southerners, God's word is not to be questioned. By using Evangelical buzz words and manipulating End Time theories, President George W. Bush came to be seen as ordained by God, and so Evangelicals supported him en masse, without taking a closer look at his policies. Eight years later, the scales are beginning to fall from their eyes.
But apart from politicizing Christianity, the Conservative movement has also created a powerful propaganda machine which pumps out lies and misinformation disguised as patriotism and right-wing opinion. However it was not enough to keep the unwashed masses stupid, and voting against their interests, conservative propagandists also had to target new enemies to serve as a scape goat for all of America's political and economic problems.
The last 10 years has seen a wave of vicious hate speech disguised as right-wing opinion. It would be bad enough if the right-wing media just criticized left-wing policies, but they have also succeeded in demonizing liberals and calling for their extermination. Liberals have been branded as effeminate, perverted, godless America haters who are worthy of death. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has regularly called for violence against liberals and other undesirables such as Middle Easterners and Jews. (She once said that The New York Times building needed to be blown up). On the home of the right-wing news media, FOX News, pundits regular joke about the execution of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Other commentators such as Bill O'Reilly compare liberals to Nazis and the KKK.
I suspect that Adkisson regularly filled his brain with the kind of poisonous bile spewed by FOX News and its ilk. It's no wonder that after years of having violent ideas pumped into his brain, he decided to point his gun at subhuman liberals.
Ironically conservative icons Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have both recently signed multi-million deals which keep them insulated against the economic unrest face by most Americans. They laugh in the face of the struggles of blue-collar and middle-class Americans. To them, anyone having financial woes is either stupid or lazy.
To Americans who still buy what the right-wing propaganda machine is selling, I quote them Denzel Washington from the movie “X,”: “We been bamboozled! Hoodwinked! Run amok!”
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Weird though...the guy shot up a church which is associated with religion (go figure), which is associated with the Right, which was the side they are blaming this shooting on...hmmm...
Posts: 681 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: ROFLMAO
Completely unbiased, Bond. I'm enlightened.
Weird though...the guy shot up a church which is associated with religion (go figure), which is associated with the Right, which was the side they are blaming this shooting on...hmmm...
what are you laughing about? you obviously don't comprehend the story behind this case...
there was nothing funny about the shooting during a childrens recital, and this story is right on target...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27933 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Why don't the right winger explain to us why almost every time we have some wild home grown fool doing some horrible thing, like shooting up a school or church or sniping innocent citizens in D.C. or bombing a black church or a federal building or such, it is either some professed hate monger, with long established ties to the right wing or someone that has a library of right wing hate books with marginal notes by the fool on how to kill the most of whomever it is he particularly hates?
Maybe they are so much in sympathy with the fools that do these thing they haven't even noticed?
Posts: 10357 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Ironically conservative icons Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have both recently signed multi-million deals which keep them insulated against the economic unrest face by most Americans. They laugh in the face of the struggles of blue-collar and middle-class Americans. To them, anyone having financial woes is either stupid or lazy.
..............
The last two sentences sound exactly like PMS
-------------------- jordan Posts: 4450 | From: st paul,mn | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: ROFLMAO
Completely unbiased, Bond. I'm enlightened.
Weird though...the guy shot up a church which is associated with religion (go figure), which is associated with the Right, which was the side they are blaming this shooting on...hmmm...
It was a Unitarian church he attacked. Probably one of the most liberal churches in the country.
Posts: 130 | From: PA | Registered: Mar 2006
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I think SF missed reading (or for whatever reason filed to grasp) that part of th shooters statements where he said he was attacking the church and it people because they were "liberals. SF has a habit of ignoring facts or construing them as only true bias can.
Posts: 10357 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:The last 10 years has seen a wave of vicious hate speech disguised as right-wing opinion. It would be bad enough if the right-wing media just criticized left-wing policies, but they have also succeeded in demonizing liberals and calling for their extermination.
This is a BLATANT LIE. There has certainly not been a wave of people calling for the "extermination" of liberals.
quote:Liberals have been branded as effeminate, perverted, godless America haters who are worthy of death.
I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush, and watch Fox News and I have NEVER (not even once) heard anyone say that effeminate, perverted, godless lefties are worthy of death! Ridiculous!
Posts: 1187 | From: Ohio | Registered: Oct 2007
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The last 10 years has seen a wave of vicious hate speech disguised as right-wing opinion. It would be bad enough if the right-wing media just criticized left-wing policies, but they have also succeeded in demonizing liberals and calling for their extermination.
This is a BLATANT LIE. There has certainly not been a wave of people calling for the "extermination" of liberals."
No, that is not a blatant lie, it is a blatant reality.
" quote:
Liberals have been branded as effeminate, perverted, godless America haters who are worthy of death.
I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush, and watch Fox News and I have NEVER (not even once) heard anyone say that effeminate, perverted, godless lefties are worthy of death! Ridiculous!"
Clearly you don't listen very attentively, then. Even so, you have managed to addopt the techniques and they are habit.Posts: 10357 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush, and watch Fox News and I have NEVER (not even once) heard anyone say that effeminate, perverted, godless lefties are worthy of death! Ridiculous!
Worthy? Nice choice for a word in this issue... Like people have to be judged in the eyes of the Right Wing before they are "worthy" to be killed... how about murdering innocent people because of their views is wrong regardless if they are left or right wing? ... has this country gone to so much sh*t that we are now killing each other because of our views? ...
-------------------- Money Never Sleeps Pal.
Greed, for the lack of a better word is GOOD. Posts: 3884 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
One thing the right hates is a liberal that is not afraid to give them a good punch back.
The right makes there point by making up or bending historical fact.Or another way they love is to take apart an article piece by piece and using the parts that suit them. and forget about the content and point of the article.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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I think SF missed reading (or for whatever reason filed to grasp) that part of th shooters statements where he said he was attacking the church and it people because they were "liberals. SF has a habit of ignoring facts or construing them as only true bias can.
Are you quoting that from this commentary on the story, Bdgee? Because having read and reread it, I can find no actual citation of the shooter having stated what his intent was in shooting up the church. While I freely admit I may have missed it, please do be kind enough to quote it for me where it cites his intent. Not makes presumptions about his intent, cites it.
Now, as I'll save you the trouble, I Googled it and found that he had left a note in his truck decrying liberals, blacks, gays, etc. Apparently he didn't expect to survive the attack. But none of that can be understood from the above post as it doesn't mention either of those facts. So, please do me the favor of not assuming I 'missed' something that wasn't even in the post.
As for the motive of his crime, here's another part of the story I found:
(sorry about the break in the link, the b l o g would get starred out)
Apparently some people have become so misguided that they take their rage out on their fellow congregants and even people whose church they do not attend. Jim D. Adkisson, a suspect in the Tennessee Unitarian Universalist shooting that left two people dead and injuring seven others, over the weekend apparently resented Christianity, disliked the Bible and even got angry over the fact a neighbor's daughter graduated from a Bible college, according to a new report.
...
."Massey told the News-Sentinel Adkisson also talked frequently about his parents and blamed them for making "him go to church all his life."
Last time I checked, anti-religious feelings weren't the bread and butter of the right. Quite the contrary, it's one of the faces they use to get votes (yes, I'm cynical enough to know that it's mostly feigned by the right leaning politicians).
He's just another wacko who wanted assissted suicide while trying to hurt as many people as he could on the way out.
Posts: 681 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
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PM, like the far right wingers he so dearly loves to emulate, has no use for "nice" terms. (An god forbid there should be any honest information in his hateful uttering.) His is an intent to inflame and anger and bring about hate, just like his darlings Ann and Rush and Glen.
Posts: 10357 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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You are correct that the words "worthy of death" were intended to inflame. Those were the words of EG Afolabi, the author of the article that Bond posted and undoubtedly a left wing talking head. Better stick to the gibberish, your facts were off in this case.
Posts: 1187 | From: Ohio | Registered: Oct 2007
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Notice how not ONE person critized Bond for simply reposting old 'Bush sucks' stuff. Not one. Why is that? Then we get this post, which yet again offers nothing new on the story, just that "hey, I told you those damned righties are out to kill us intelligent, saintly, left leaning Democrats!"
And yet once again, noone calls BS on the story. Everyone flocks to heap praises on the writer because this is validation for those same feelings in the readers. You can assume all you want from the news stories...which is all this guy did.
Points:
The genius of the American right-wing is that it has always exploited the fears of blue-collar and middle class Americans to keep them voting against their own interests.
Completely unlike their Democratic Counterparts, right? Can we say Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson's "whitey is holding you down" garbage?
Unfortunately gullible Middle Americans swallowed this propaganda ..
Yeah, those dumb middle classers!
They are looking at the game of political chess in two dimensions, when it really played in three, if not, four dimensions.
Four Dimensions? Is he talking about tesseracts?
Red staters see gays and brown people as the enemy,
Yep, ALL Republicans are racist bigots!
Incidentally, the brown people and the gays are not doing much better,
Wow, now blacks and gays are dumb too.
Religion, always a powerful tool of mental oppression, has been used to keep minds chained. The GOP has portrayed itself as the party of God, even though its policies, which ignore the poor and deny basic healthcare are very unchristian.
As I mentioned in my above link, the shooter was anti-religion. The writer is apparently anit-religion and anti-right. So, how is the shooter to be construed as different in opinion than the writer?
Ironically conservative icons Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have both recently signed multi-million deals which keep them insulated against the economic unrest face by most Americans. They laugh in the face of the struggles of blue-collar and middle-class Americans. To them, anyone having financial woes is either stupid or lazy.
And just to top it off...let's add some more class envy to the fire. Marx would be proud.
Now that I've listed some of the things I thought would flag this as opinion and not anything resembling journalism; this is what I find funny.
quote:Originally posted by glassman: and this story is right on target...
If his target was to use a tragedy to support his own political views, then yes, it was right on target. Propoganda doesn't have to be false to still be propoganda.
Posts: 681 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Apparently he didn't expect to survive the attack. But none of that can be understood from the above post as it doesn't mention either of those facts. So, please do me the favor of not assuming I 'missed' something that wasn't even in the post.
it was posted here...
furthermore? it appears to me that you are deliberately overlooking facts in this case to make some sort of excuse, this from wikipedai (yes, i've seen this elsewhere already, so i'm only saving time it would take to search it all up)
Adkisson, a former private in the United States Army from 1974 to 1977, says that he was motivated by hatred of liberalism and by extension homosexuality.[7][8][9] According to a sworn affidavit by one of the officers who interviewed Adkisson on July 27, 2008:[10] “ During the interview Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets. Adkisson made statements that because he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them into office. Adkisson stated that he had held these beliefs for about the last ten years. ”
Additionally, one of Adkisson's former wives had been a member (in the 1990s) of the church where the attack occurred.[11]
Adkisson's letter also cited the inability to find a job, and that his food stamps were being cut. His letter stated that he intended to keep shooting until police arrived and expected to be killed by police. Adkisson had a waist satchel with more ammunition, totaling 76 shells of #4 shot.
The following books were found in Adkisson's home during a police search:[9]
* Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage * Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by talk show host Sean Hannity * The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly
as for you claim that religion is a right left wing determinant? i believe that you are very deeply mistaken...
that's a myth of the ultra-right-wingers who like to claim they are the representatives of God and the values of God... in fact it's propaganda...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27933 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
posted August 09, 2008 20:02 Profile for glassman Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote
false prophets? yep, we have alot of 'em, and you can know them from the fruit of their works:
hatred
Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity on accused shooter's reading list 4-page letter outlines frustration, hatred of 'liberal movement'
By Hayes Hickman (Contact), Don Jacobs (Contact) Originally published 07:44 a.m., July 28, 2008 Updated 05:43 p.m., July 28, 2008
Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.
Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical.
Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."
Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."
Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."
Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.
Adkisson does not appear to be a member of any church himself, Owen said.
More than 200 people were packed into the church's sanctuary watching the children's musical, "Annie Jr." when a gunman opened fire.
posted
Notice how not ONE person critized Bond for simply reposting old 'Bush sucks' stuff. Not one. Why is that? Then we get this post, which yet again offers nothing new on the story, just that "hey, I told you those damned righties are out to kill us intelligent, saintly, left leaning Democrats!"
what i notice by looking up there is that you were the first person to respond, and you did it by laughing...
the guy is sick, and will probably get an insanity defense, like the girl who shot and killed her preacher husband (also in Tenn) recently...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27933 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
here's some statistics on the religious presidential voting in the last two elections, i beleive you will find that CHURCH is not "right" or "left",
looking thru the stats? you'll find that peopl who go to Church MORE OFTEN tend to be more likely to vote for Bush, but that also indicates that they are more likely to be "joiners' and not more religous
it's just that the biggest loudmouths are right wingers and make the most outragous claims...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27933 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:it's just that the biggest loudmouths are right wingers and make the most outragous claims...
That's not right. Everyone knows that he socialist environmental wackos are the biggest loudmouths on the planet!
Posts: 1187 | From: Ohio | Registered: Oct 2007
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: i think it's odd that you find an OP-ED article about mass murdere and insane people funny. that's what it clearly is, an op-ed...
It's not the subject matter that amused me, Glass, it's the use of the subject matter to justify a point of view that is in and of itself as bad as the one it decries.
Add to that, the reception that it received here and I'm in stitches.
Here is a piece that for all it's verbage says only one thing:
All right leaning republicans are dumb, hate filled bigots.
And to that assertion, the 'intellectuals' of the board nod sagely and mutter amongst themselves about how right it is and how intelligent the author must be to hold such a view.
Bah. I'm just talking to the wall I guess. Must be the dumb, hate-filled, foolishly religious racist that I am.
Posts: 681 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: i think it's odd that you find an OP-ED article about mass murdere and insane people funny. that's what it clearly is, an op-ed...
It's not the subject matter that amused me, Glass, it's the use of the subject matter to justify a point of view that is in and of itself as bad as the one it decries.
Add to that, the reception that it received here and I'm in stitches.
Here is a piece that for all it's verbage says only one thing:
All right leaning republicans are dumb, hate filled bigots.
And to that assertion, the 'intellectuals' of the board nod sagely and mutter amongst themselves about how right it is and how intelligent the author must be to hold such a view.
Bah. I'm just talking to the wall I guess. Must be the dumb, hate-filled, foolishly religious racist that I am.
you respond immediately with a roflmao and you have the nerve to then claim some moral high ground? i relise you didn't comprehend what you read, but the fact is the guy told the cops he hated liberals, and the op-ed was a response to that and the fact that he had Mike Savage and other right wing hate materials on hand..
Savage has never made any attempt to hide his hate for liberals; as a matter off fact? he just got removed from the Mississippi Radio network that carried his show for offensive statements...
you were the first to respond to it with any opinion at all.. so i think your imagination is running away with you again....
All right leaning republicans are dumb, hate filled bigots.
actually you have poor reading comprehension if you read that in there...
this is more what i was agreeing with in his article:
The GOP has portrayed itself as the party of God, even though its policies, which ignore the poor and deny basic healthcare are very unchristian. In the minds of church-going Southerners, God's word is not to be questioned. By using Evangelical buzz words and manipulating End Time theories, President George W. Bush came to be seen as ordained by God, and so Evangelicals supported him en masse, without taking a closer look at his policies. Eight years later, the scales are beginning to fall from their eyes.
Bush has lost much of the "religious" support he had... as i have shown you in other topics...
and since i actaully live "dayown hyar" i know this to be true by personal observation...
our local papers are a bit "edgy" about Bush in the last two years; it began since Katrina hit and the response has been poor to say the least...
i find it odd that you expect something unbiased from an op-ed
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27933 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: All right leaning republicans are dumb, hate filled bigots.
actually you have poor reading comprehension if you read that in there...
Unfortunately gullible Middle Americans swallowed this propaganda and voted Republicans into power
...
It seems many Middle Americans do not understand how the political game is played.
...
Religion, always a powerful tool of mental oppression, has been used to keep minds chained
Why would I possibly think he believes we're dumb?
In the 1960s, the GOP won the South by exploiting white Southerners fears of racial integration.
...
However as blacks became more integrated into society, conservatives had to add to their list of enemies. Latinos, brown-skinned, non-English speaking, and threatening to out breed white people, became the new public enemy.
...
Conservatives also attacked gay people, branding them as a threat to the American family and the institution of marriage,
Sounds to me like he doesn't believe we think too highly of them (long drawl)'colored folk' or homosexuals.
So, how does your highly developed reading comprehension understand these lines to indicate that he thinks conservatives are well rounded, intellegent, friendly folk who love all mankind?
Posts: 681 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
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