Today was the anniversary of Oklahoma City, and right wing gun toting militias and Tea Party activists were demonstrating in Arlington, Virginia, fully armed, and in the District of Columbia without arms because of DC restrictions. There were also demonstrations all over the country by people seeing conspiracy, and concerned about “internment camps”, and spouting racism in many cases, unwilling to accept the Obama Presidency as legitimate.
All kinds of wacky statements were made by so called “preachers” and right wing radicals across the country, including former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo stating that we needed to send Barack Obama back to his “homeland”, Kenya; and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann referring to the Obama Administration as the “gangster” government in a weekend speech. Recently, Sarah Palin spoke about “reloading” to promote and protect basic constitutional rights.
The failure of these politicians to realize that they are helping to create and light the fuse of potential violence, and to create a toxic political atmosphere is extremely disturbing. Talk radio and Fox News Channel also continue to encourage propaganda and lies to further their agenda of making it impossible to unify the nation around anything the Obama Administration proposes, or attempts to accomplish.
And when Rush Limbaugh asserts that the Iceland volcanic ash is God’s way of punishing America and the world for the passage of the Health Care Reform legislation, what can one say except that rhetoric is becoming more ridiculous and loony! There is absolutely no sense of responsibility or culpability in Limbaugh or other talk show hosts realizing the deleterious effect they have on millions of easily manipulated listeners and watchers who could be provoked to disastrous actions that we would all mourn, if god forbid they were to happen! 🙁