Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

ALABAMA TEACHER GIVES GEOMETRY LESSON USING ASSASSINATING PRESIDENT OBAMA AS AN EXAMPLE

The GOP has encouraged extremists in its party by promoting and tolerating hate mongers and near-seditionists like Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, Ann CoulterRush LimbaughSarah Palin and and any other jackboot who will join them in stirring up the mobs in order to nullify the election of 2008.

How many times have we heard not just nutjobs like those mentioned above but even GOP Congressmen and women refer to the government, which they are part of, as a criminal organization--a "gangster government?"

And that is why a weak-minded moron, like this teacher in Alabama, felt comfortable in casually talkiing about murdering President Barack Obama as a way of explaining cosines. When stupid people like this teacher constantly hear his cynical leaders call the leaders of the opposition party, leaders of our government criminals, it follows that they deservc to be murdered, doesn't it?  And if you're a teacher, what better way to introduce this idea than in math class?

Sara Robinson at Orcinus has written an excellent piece on where this tolerance for radical insurrectionist talk can lead.  She discusses the Hutaree conspirators and the group, Guardians of the Free Republic:

"These two events are a wake-up call for progressives. They're telling us that it's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.


This long assault has gone into overdrive since Obama's inauguration, as the rhetoric has ratcheted up from overheated to perfervid. We've reached the point where you can't go a week without hearing some prominent right wing leader calling for outright sedition -- an immediate and defiant populist uprising against some legitimate form of government authority.

Moderates and liberals are responding to this rising threat with feckless calls for "a return to civility," as if all that's needed to put things right again is a stern talking-to from Miss Manners. Though that couldn't hurt, the sad fact is that we're well past the point where it's just a matter of conservatives behaving like tantrum-throwing spoiled brats (which they are). When a mob is surrounding your house with torches and telling you they intend to burn it down, "civility" really isn't the issue any more.

At that point -- and we're there -- criminal intent and action become the real issues. Progressives need to realize that the right began defiantly dancing back and forth over the legal line, daring us to do something about it, quite some time ago. And it's high time we called it out -- and, where appropriate, start prosecuting it -- for exactly what it is."

Southern Beale posted on the Alabama teacher as well.

Other links to this story:
Salon
OpEdNews
USAToday
Outside the Beltway

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let me get this straight: teachers in Arizona can't teach their students about THEIR cultural history and they can't have accents, but in Alabama teachers can use presidential assassination as a teaching device?

WTF?

I have an idea. Give the crazy-ass conservatives all of Jesusland, let them secede and leave the rest of us sane people alone and in peace.

Anonymous said...

Here here!!

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

About that bipartisanshit and civility? Off the table, as far as I am concerned. If the Tea Party, the GOP, and the rightwingers can't conduct themselves in a civil and honest manner (and hellbent on bringing our government to a virtual standstill), then screw them. If war is what they want, then war is what they'll get.

Sue said...

I was just reading this hideous story on the web. Sara has done some great writing, I'll get permission from her to put some of it in my header.

dmarks said...

This teacher should serve 20 years of hard time, and come back and do a math lesson on how to add up days in prison using tally-scratches on the wall.