HELTER-SKELTER, JOHN AND SARAH
Charles Manson was crazy, so he believed that the Beatles song "Helter Skelter" was about an upcoming race war. Crazy ideas are one thing… occasionally even normal people have them… but when a crazy person acts on a crazy idea, tragedy can ensue.
How should we rate the sanity of the man who yelled, “Kill him” during the fanatic-fanning speech Palin gave yesterday?
Because he was crazy and riddled with racist fears, Charles Manson thought Helter Skelter was an invitation to black people to start an insurrection. So he sent off his drugged teenage acolytes on a preemptive slaughter of the enemy. (Guess you’ll have to ask Charlie why most of the victims were white.) If we assume a nutcase frame of mind, we can understand why Manson thought the White Album advocated violence: It sang of "piggies" in the tune of the same name, saying they needed a "damn good whacking;" and the sounds of gunfire reverberated in "Revolution 9." But only a disturbed and fearful mind like Manson’s could have assumed these lyrics were speaking directly to him, entitling him to express his reactionary, murderous impulses.
Is there a Charles Manson mind in the partisan crowds at Sarah Palin’s fear-mongering rallies? Maybe the guy who shouted, “terrorist?”
Recent history illustrates the willingness of the fanatic right to make their points with violence: bombing family planning clinics, murdering the doctors who provide abortions as a legal choice, or publishing their names and home addresses in an implied call to violence among fellow fanatics.
So, how ill advised is the GOP strategy to stop the hemorrhaging in its campaign by claiming “Hussein” Obama pals around with terrorists? Never mind that when terrorist Ayers (the white son of American wealth and privilege) committed his anti-war crimes Obama was only eight years old. Never mind that when a rehabilitated Ayers later devoted his life to building better schools he served on a committee with Obama, whose intentions were as ideologically remote from terrorism as George Bush’s are from utopianism.
The GOP’s Ayers diversion is racist at its core. It may pretend not to know that a majority of its rally-goers think a terrorist is, by definition a Muslim… and that anyone whose middle name is Hussein must be a Muslim… and that ergo, Barack Hussein Obama is a terrorist. But the GOP knowingly manufactured this leap in logic to the conclusion that Obama is a terrorist who wants to harm America. They have armed the fearful Right with justification for its prejudice, in the hope of winning a few more votes
Let us all hope, and pray if so inclined, that there is no mind squirming like a toad in Palin’s crowds, fired up by the realization that Sarah is speaking to him (or her) directly, exhorting him to defend his honor and country and claim to racial superiority by means of violence.
It only takes one lunatic to commit a crazy crime. Helter-skelter, John and Sarah.
posted by Yakpate at 7:58 AM
6 Comments:
Unfortunately, there are people who will not vote for a man because of the color of his skin. Unfortunately, there are people who will not vote for a man because his father was Muslim...the father that he barely knew and who didnt raise him by the way... Unfortunately, there are people who will not vote for a man because of his middle name..
Most unfortunate of all is McCain playing on these fears and prejudices to try to drum up some votes...Yeah, that's really gonna bring our country together.
8:58 AM
Mrs. Palin totally disgusts me that she will go out there and do the "Dirty Work" for the party with a wink and a smile. If I were ever granted the opportunity to run for VP and my party tried to get me to be the one to go out and try and encite hate for my opponent, I would say NO. Like McCain said NO last night...he wouldn't do it and didn't go there....maybe it was fear of his own connections to shady people that could have been brought up or maybe it was because if he doesn't win this election he still wants some political clout.
Will her party be there for her when well more than half the world will have lost all respect for her??? I don't think so. That shows me she is not smart, politically or otherwise. Show why you think your politcal view are better, yes. Show why you think you can run the country better, sure. Try to pull the race card against your opponent because he happens to be black and has a middle name that we don't like...DISGUSTING!!!!!
I hope she knows that any political aspirations she holds are Bye-Bye now. I mean I know if I were in Alaska I certainly would not vote for her again after this clear, disgusting, last ditch attempt to save her ticket's ass. Plus, she appears dumb..to just go out and do what they tell her instead of having a brain of her own???!!!! I think its political suicide....
8:59 AM
THis is beautifully, brilliantly written as always, Yak. You have such a gift. But I take exception with a description of a "rehabilitated" Ayers. He still feels he didn't do enough -- and he and Bernadine have been on the record talking about how "wild" Manson was to "be so bold" in his vision. There is one particularly vile recording of her discussing how cool it was that the Mansonites stuck a fork in Sharon Tate when they were eating beside her dead body. Sorry, but these people are not to be taken up for, I don't care how many alternative schools they might have helped fund.
Yeah, Ayers might have worked for education. But he killed people and never went to jail becasue of a screwup in the prosecution. Even CNN and Anderson COoper ran the truth about Obama and Ayers long term working relationship and the fact that this guy mentored him. It's not a trumped up story and Ayers is not getting a bad wrap from the right wing. I can't take up for it. Sorry. Just can't. A lot of people protested Vietnam. NOt everyone said it was cool to blow up buildings and kill people to make a point. And to say as early as last year that it wasnt' enough -- well, remind me to just steer clear of that wack-job.
I agree with the fact that there are racist pricks on the right. I honestly don't understand how mentioning Obama's relationship with Ayers is racially driven but I'll give you that because people look for any reason to fan the fires of their prejudices. But prejudice is not specific to the GOP and I have a problem with getting too sanctimonious as a Democrat. Especially after the misogyny on the left that has become so acceptible we don't even mention it any more.
This is a rat race. They're all rats. We just have to pick the rat that will do the best job. In this choice, it's Obama.
BTW, Obama WAS Muslim. It's all over his school records from Indonesia but the MSM has kept it quiet. That doesn't matter that he's Muslim but lying about it does matter, in my opinion. ANd using the press as a propaganda wing to suppress the truth scares me more than anything else about this.
10:22 AM
Laurie... Manson's crew did not stick a fork into Sharon Tate. It was during the second murder, a few days later, that they left a fork in Leo LaBianca. Who conducted this Ayers interview, and when? I'd love to have a link to your source that I could share with other readers.
12:18 PM
Yak, I heard it on either KPFK or KCRW late night a while back. Maybe they have it on a podcast --I'll see what I can dig up.
8:38 PM
Hey, it's WAY cool that you're a featured blogger on SFGate! WOO HOO, you radical hot goddess writer chick you!
8:41 PM
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