A President was killed the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this

That being John F. Kennedy, who was gunned down in Dallas, of course.

I've been thinking a lot of Kennedy and Dallas as I've watched the increasingly violent rhetorical attacks on Obama be unfurled. As Americans yank their kids of class in order to save them from being exposed to the President of the United States who only wanted to urge them to excel in the classroom. And as unvarnished hate and name-calling passed for health care 'debate' this summer.

The radical right, aided by a GOP Noise Machine that positively dwarfs what existed in 1963, has turned demonizing Obama--making him into a vile object of disgust--into a crusade. It's a demented national jihad, the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times.

But I've been thinking about Dallas in 1963 because I've been recalling the history and how that city stood as an outpost for the radical right, which never tried to hide its contempt for the New England Democrat.

Now, in this this month's Vanity Fair, Sam Kashner offers up in rich detail the hatred that ran wild in Dallas in 1963. To me, the similarity between Dallas in 1963 and today's unhinged Obama hate is downright chilling.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909180004

Manchester also discovered that Dallas “had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists … the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of H. L. Hunt and his activities.”

“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.” A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”

Manchester discovered that in a wealthy Dallas suburb, when told that President Kennedy had been murdered in their city, the students in a fourth-grade class burst into applause. For Manchester, who revered Kennedy, such responses, encountered throughout Dallas, were deeply offensive and would influence the book he was about to write.

Manchester also learned that in 1963 there had been 110 murders in Dallas—“Big D”—in what he described as the city’s “dark streak of violence.” “Texas led the United States in homicide, and Big D led Texas,” he wrote. He would come to believe that Dallas’s charged political climate had been a factor in the assassination, helping to further unhinge the already unstable Lee Harvey Oswald.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/death-of-a-president200910?currentPage=1

but we didn't have the Internet back then.

There were some very scary people in the South, and the hatred of Kennedy was epic. He didn't win by a landslide, don't forget, and as much as WE loved him, he was not very popular....................

and some of us were in college and 'out of touch.' I just remember the Catholic thing.

I was there at the time and you could feel it.

shielding Sasha and Malia from this insanity.

:(

A right-wing national jihad, because if you listen to Frank Schaffer, its that crazy religiosity that underpins all of what's happening. They DON'T CARE about facts, they just simply dont. Reality is as they see it, and nothing else.

the most likely culprits are factions within our own government who were threatened by his policies. Look up Kennedy's "secret society" speech, that is what many believe led to his death.

Progressive members of Congress and the media is another story, however.

and I've come to the tentative conclusion that if right wing crazies start assassinating people, they're going to go after the money men first. I'd give much better odds on Geithner eating a bullet than Obama.

By next week, someone will have published the home addresses of anyone in the administration that Beck, et al have designated as a czar.

The democratically-elected Mossadeq in Iran in 1953.

I have seen footage of the people who were encouraged (by our CIA) to go out in the streets. Their behavior was very brutal -- they would pull people out of their cars - just for having a sticker that supported Mossadeq. Then the driver and pasengers would be smacked around, sometimes with clubs.

I find the acceptance of this behavior by our Mainstream Media very scary.

enough said.

:P