The Policeman is Your Friend

Look, folks, if you've been paying close attenion, you would be well aware of the violent, racist, almost apocalyptic underbelly of American culture. This extremism has been nurtured and expoloited by the Republican right for some time, usually in the service of whipping up fear and loathing in time for the latest election. We expect the McCain campaign to employ more and more overtly racist tones, spitting out more of those precious "dog whistle" phrases. "Barack Hussein Obama" is one such tag line, and it's standard issue with far right propaganda radio stars like Limbaugh, et al.

Still, it's somewhat disturbing to see this rhetoric - Obama is a Mooozlim Terr'st - spoken by your local sherrif; worse still, the sherrif in uniform. That uniform implies the power of the state and it's meant to intimidate. If you doubt me, then simply revisit the history of the civil rights era in the deep south. Heck, you can go all the way back to Griffith's abominable Birth of a Nation, in which KKK squads suppress the black vote (all to the cheers of the whites, who literally welcome in Christ and paradise).

The Republicans are getting very ugly, and it's only going to get worse from now on. And America's problems with racism, paranoia and violence will only get worse after Obama is elected President. I think we're also seeing a window into where America would head in a McCain/Palin administration. The right's lust for authoritarian power will continue to grow and grow, and you will see more open intimidation by the State against those who don't toe the line.

The police state witnessed in St. Paul last month was only a demonstration. Left unchecked, Americans of all stripes will face the brutality of the armed gestapo for themselves, and far sooner than they realize. It is absolutely imperative that this authoritarianism is stopped and stopped now. The Republican Party must be banished; not merely rejected or voted out of office, but banished from Washington. The Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower is dead.