Frank Schaeffer: Obama supporters have to speak up

[question everything]

not to snipe at him. This is not funny anymore. At the 7:45 minutes.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x403386#403430

The Republicans, who always ask why main stream Muslims do not condemn acts of jihad, are mum about the "Psalm 109:8" At the 7:00 Minutes.

[democracy1st]

1. Yes that was great and he made a good point about why we need to support the pres as well

[Number23]

2. I just highlighted that exact point in Hissyspit's excellent post.

[question everything]

3. Thank you. I was just so impressed, and this is relatively long video

that I rushed to point this here.

Many on DU look down on us who defend Obama refusing to realize that the alternative would have been worse.

It does not mean that we "drank the Kool-Aid;" it means that we realize that politics is the art of compromise. And keeping quiet while the other side carries the name of god to justify its hatred and threats cannot go unchallenged.

[impik]

4. I'm so glad he's got the Left behind him!

Or maybe not.

[Shanti Mama]

5. I, too, really liked this final point he made. This is critical.

Should we start some kind of campaign to call on religious leaders to denounce this rhetoric?

[Tansy_Gold]

6. A personal experience, not yet acted upon

On Sunday morning, 8 November 2009, I went into a local grocery store to buy a few items. It was about 7:10 a.m., Sunday morning, not very busy.

I selected my items and went to the single open cash register.

Ahead of me were two men checking out. The first had maybe a dozen items, the second only one or two. They were chatting with the cashier, who was obviously familiar with them, about politics, in particular the House vote on the health care bill.

As they finished checking out, paid for their purchases, and then stood there talking while I waited, the conversation wound down like this:

Man #1: Well, what you gotta remember is that every member of the House is up for re-election next year, and one-third of the Senate. We gotta vote 'em all out. Every one of 'em. Get rid of her for sure.

Man #2: And then we can impeach him!

Cashier: He just oughta be shot.

They all laughed, then, as the two men finally left,

Man #1: I just hope everyone votes right this time.

By now the cashier was finally ringing up my items and I lost control.

TG: Well, I for one hope everyone votes LEFT next time. I happen to be a socialist and I really dislike being made to wait in line while you discuss politics.

Cashier: Oh, I'm so sorry if you were offended. I always talk politics with them.

She finished ringing up my items and I paid, and my parting comment was, "And advocating that someone ought to be shot just because you disagree with them is WAY over the line."

I left.

It was 7:15 on a Sunday morning. I was late for an appointment. I did not have time to stop and complain to a manager about a cashier, if I could even have found a manager at 7:15 on a Sunday.

I let it go.

In light of this Psalm 109 bullshit, maybe I ought to go back to the store and tell someone???


I don't really like to make waves, but. . . .



Tansy Gold, who probably still has her receipt from the grocery store. . . . .

[question everything]

10. Can you send a letter to your local paper?

Assuming there are still local papers in your community?

Wonder about people on Sunday advocating the killing of public officials? Ask for comments from religious leaders in your community?

And it is not as if Michele Bachmann apologized for the images of the Nazi Concentration Camps at her rally.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. Actually, I thought about telling

1. the store manager, since the conversation was holding up the line of the only open cashier in teh store.

2. The police/FBI/secret service.


TG

[depakid]

7. I ridicule them on almost a daily basis on some of their favorite newspaper comment sections!

In addition to making salient points on the articles (which most of the time, they haven't bother to read).

[Hekate]

8. Schaeffer is extremely worried. His message to us on the left is very cogent...

When these nutballs are calling for Obama's assassination, why are we expending so much energy on tearing him down ourselves?

Schaeffer is not calling for Obama-worship, and you know it. He IS calling for us to spend more time speaking in defense of Obama AND speaking out against the nutballs.

Speaking out against the haters who want Obama dead would take paying attention to what they do and when, and it would take persistent effort to write LTTEs, phone TV stations every time they glorify the haters, and generally not let any of this crap go unchallenged.

WHERE ARE OUR TALKING POINTS? We need to get back into the mode of rapid response, the way we did in the campaign.

"Campaign" is a military term. Coincidentally, these people are at war with us. We need to wake up and act like it.

Hekate

[JoeyT]

9. Of course it's quite possible to do both.

My attitude when speaking politics with Republicans is vastly different from when I speak politics with other Democrats.
It's possible to close ranks against the other side and still criticize when it's warranted.

[question everything]

11. And V.P. Biden expressed it quite well on the Daily Show

They, the Republicans, vote as one block, so they did not need 60 votes in the Senate to pass whatever Bush told them. But we, even with 60 votes - including Sanders and Lieberman - still don't have it. (I am paraphrasing, but many of us have expressed similar comments here).

We can all joke about "I am a Democrat, I don't believe in an organized party" - or so - but we have to realize that this President, this Congress is what we have right now and any other alternative, including staying at home on election night will just be worse.

[chill_wind]

12. What sorts of "sniping" should be permitted or not permitted?

And since when do we take our marching orders from a legacy washing fanatic who has seemingly unavoidably exchanged certain of his old penchants for absolutism for new ones with a new audience? What has Frank Schaeffer told us about the murderous minded Phelps-loving Randall Terry-loving lunatic monster right that we don't already know?

Let the secret service do their jobs. Let Schaeffer do his penance and flog his mea culpa books. Let us continue OF COURSE to condemn with him, as we have always have condemned without him, the hate-filled movements of the RRR and be more vigilent than ever. We need Frank Schaeffer to tell us these things?

And to most of us watching what he and his father helped shape and wrought for decades now already, it was NEVER funny.