This diary is a call to arms for every single democratic and liberal pundit who appears on TV or writes columns in traditional media outlets.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
The insults being thrown around at this Tea Bagging disgrace should not and CANNOT be considered acceptable discourse in our national debate.
To all of our John Stewart/Steven Colbert "everything's a joke" ironic response to right wing insanity, I understand that sometimes the only response to ridiculousness is to want to laugh.
But the time to laugh at this is over.
Every time we make wisecracks, or joke about it, or argue with this sort of character assassination on the merits of the facts ("but Obama was born in Hawaii!" "But you don't accurately define Socialism!") we are legitimizing the fraud by virtue of acknowledging a primal scream of rage as a legitimate argument, worthy of legitimate response.
Humor? There's only so far it can take us.
Where is the outrage?
Where are the pundits, the elected officials and the media voices to say one simple thing: the republican party has gone too far. That the primal scream of angry, hate filled, incoherent savagery on display is destroying the fabric of this country.
We cannot expect Barack Obama to be the only one to speak up. He has said what he can, but he cannot muster the outrage that must be summoned to respond to this insanity.
At long last, have they no decency? Who will ask this question to the Teabaggers slandering our President today and every day? Who will ask Sarah Palin why so many millions who dare to live in urban cities are "not real Americans"?
These people want our President, the legitimately elected President of the United States, the man who leads our armed forces and heads up our executive branch of government, dead.
They do not want to argue with Barack Obama on the merits of health care. They do not want to debate the finer points of strategy over a jobs bill. They are not interested in discussing issues like immigration or tax structures for estates and incomes over 250,000.
They are the bloodthursty mob who have turned on the very concept of a pluralistic society. They are the pitchfork wielding ignorant witch-hunting crazies who would tear this country apart if they could to seek vengeance for their bloodlust.
They are the betrayers of the very thing they claim to love, the United States of America, precisely because they have given in to the dark forces of rage, of racism, and of incoherent fear and paranoia.
These are not people to be argued with. Debated. Reasoned with.
John Stewart wasted his time trying to talk to Bill O'Reilly about anything legitimate. It is pissing in the wind of the worst sort.
These people are the crazed stalkers who would rather kill someone they claim to "love" then to see them not act exactly the way they want them to. They are unhinged.
What we see at this tea-party, these accusations against our president that he's an "international socialist" are beyond the pale. This is the an event of ugliness and racism that instead of being shunned by the republican party, has their Vice Presidential nominee as the keynote speaker.
The republican party has embraced treason, racism and anti-American violence directed at the President of the United States.
I do not type these words lightly. But there is no other way to describe it when one of America's major political parties fully and completely goes over to the dark side of facism, racist and reactionary calls to violence and revolution.
This is no longer a political debate. Only those foolish democrats in Washington think that this is a "disagreement" over issues or policy. As the republicans in the Senate make clearer every day, this is a CIVIL WAR taking place, with one side prepared to go to war, and the other side sitting around hoping to have a "discussion."
You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, democrats.
Either you call this language out for the destructive force that it's become in this country, or you risk this country's fortunes, your party's fortunes, and your children's future.
Treating an opponent who wants to kill you with polite and civil discourse will not win the argument. It'll just get you killed.
We need to wake up and realize the fight we are in. This IS a fight for the future of the United States of America. On that one point, the craze loons on the republican side are correct. We didn't chose to fight this civil war. They did.
By calling our elected president a socialist. By calling our elected president a fascist. By claiming our elected president wants the terrorists to win because he tries them in a civil court exactly as George W. Bush did. Exactly as Reagan argued in 1988.
This is a pathology of irrational rage, of xenophobia, of fear mongering. A primal instinctual violence spilling out in screaming town hall sessions and shouting "You lie!" at the President, and irrational fears of conspiracy in places like ACORN and the Census that defy any logical explanation.
We didn't wake up when republicans impeached Clinton in a coup d'etat in 1998. We didn't wake up when they stole the election in 2000. And we didn't wake up when they invaded Iraq using right wing media to subdue the population with lies, propaganda and fear mongering.
Will we wake up now?
Will we wake up in time?
What awaits Barack Obama from this bloodthursty mob who continues to get stoked into a state of perpetual rage/fear by Fox News, by Clear Channel's radio empire, by the Scaife and Murdoch publishing empires?
This American disgrace of a "tea party" movement that so many Democrats now bend over backward to acknowledge as "legitimate debate" is anything but.
These are the crazed mob members who threaten every society, only this time they are supported by economic forces on the Supreme Court and in the halls of Washington. Their vile racism is encouraged as "populism."
My question is this: Where is the outrage in Washington?
Where are the democratic voices to condemn this vile and hateful speech for what it is?
We condemned Klansman David Duke in the 1990s for getting elected to state office. Everyone, left and right, agreed that David Duke had no legitimate role in American political debate.
Where are we now, when David Dukes now freely and openly vote in the Senate?
Where are we now, when David Dukes appear nightly on a national cable news network to proclaim our first elected black President to be an evil covert force sent to destroy us from within?
Where are we now, when David Dukes shut down the Senate because we dare to try to help Americans get jobs and pay their health care bills?
Is this really just a "political debate"?
How can democrats continue to pretend that it is?
We didn't choose this fight. But it is taking place as we speak. If we do not rise to the challenge, we will be destroyed, along with whatever is left of America as a pluralist and multicultural society.
When do we wake up? When shots are fired at Barack Obama?
That will be too late.
You ask me what we can do to respond? We condemn them. In no uncertain terms. We condemn them as racists, as anti-American reactionaries, and as anti-democratic crazies. We don't make jokes, or ironic cracks.
We get fucking angry.
Until the democrats find this passion, they're using logic to fight primal rage. And that battle will be lost every single time.