Obama effigy hanged in Jimmy Carter's home town

[tabasco]

Source: BBC

The US Secret Service says it is investigating after an effigy of Barack Obama was found hanging in the home town of former President Jimmy Carter.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8438852.stm

[Melinda]

1. And I was told my lynching response to the shoeshine photo was extreme... More from article:

TV footage showed the doll hanging by a noose in front of a red, white and blue sign that reads "Plains, Georgia. Home of Jimmy Carter, our 39th President".

Witnesses said the effigy had President Obama's name on it.

Plains Mayor L.E. Godwin III said the fire department had been called to take it down.

-snip-

One Plains resident said the Secret Service had already interviewed local people.

"We wish it hadn't happened. It's not the kind of publicity the town of Plains likes," Jan Williams, who runs a hotel, was quoted as saying by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

:eyes: I knew this was coming.

[Bucky]

18. When you have part of the media openly inciting hatred of the president ...

You give the nutcases permission to start acting out more boldly. When they focus on the alienness and foreignness of hte president, or just "raise legitimate questions that we'd like to have answered" over and over again and accuse him of tyranny and secret reeducation camp plots and charge him with trying to implement a totalitarian socialism... then yes, you're pretty much guaranteeing that the fringe groups will start to get bolder in ginning up their hatreds.

I blame the immature rednecks who did this, but everything that Fox and Beck and Limbaugh and Palin did along the way to encourage these hateful delusions fed into this and have pointed a sad minority of this country on an ever more dangerous and violent path. How many cops got killed by deranged paranoids fed on by the wingnuts before they got tired and dropped the "Obama's going to confiscate your guns" bullshit?

This is going to get worse.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[swampcat]

72. Yee Hah

I'm with you, Bucky! What else can we do to boost our foreign president's regime?

[geckosfeet]

50. Sounds like someone wanted to smear Plains. Bet the perps are not from Plains.

[jaxx]

2. The dirty bastards.

I can't even express myself, I am furious.

[rwheeler31]

5. Are we Americans?

[jaxx]

12. I am. I don't know you.

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[husky92]

3. Dumb Rednecks

Boy, what a shocker. The more I see stuff like this and all the other shit that has gone on about Obama it just tells me one thing...a much greater segment of this country are a bunch of racists. Where the hell is the outcry from our politicians as well as residents of these cities where this crap goes on. Nary a peep from anyone. Where are Georgia's senators and the congressman from this district!!! A bunch of dumb ass rednecks. We've seen it at these Tea Parties, Town Hall Meetings and various other places. This has gone on far too long and it surfaced right after Obama won the election. I'm embarrassed to be an American when I see and hear this shit.

[CLANG]

19. I was really naive about the level of racism in this country

At one time I thought that the vast majority of Americans were rational, intelligent, and fair-minded. Now I am facing the prospect of being in the minority...:cry:

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CLANG]

23. I didn't say this convinced me of anything

I am referring to the reaction to our first "black" president. My conclusion has been developed since Barack Obama won the nomination, and has only been exacerbated by his election.

I have no opinion of Muslims. Just as I have no opinion of other races or nationalities. You seem to paint with a very broad brush - I don't.

[Rebubula]

52. No Opinion?

You have no opinion of Muslims or anyone else??

Doubtful. We all have opinions and biases. It is what it is. To pretend otherwise is silly.

[CLANG]

73. Please don't project your insecurities onto me.

I say I have no opinion of Muslims because I don't judge groups of people on attributes like race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I would estimate at least 99.999% of Muslims are of the non-terrorist variety, so why should I draw an opinion on that attribute alone?

[twitomy]

51. Wow Good point NT

You'll always have a few assclown racists. Truth be known our country has made a helluva lot
more progress on race relations than most. Travel outside the borders and experience that fact for oneself.

[Odin2005]

62. Ditto.

When I was a kid in the 90s I grew up with the delusion that we had for the most part freed ourselves from racism. Now I know better.

[Odin2005]

61. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Kurska]

4. Disgusting, home grown fascism.

Same shit different century.

[Lars77]

8. What logo is the lower one? nt

[Kurska]

10. America first committee

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAfirstC.htm

Group that tried to keep America from entering world war 2, perfectly fine with nazis stomping all over Europe and the whole sale slaughter of jews, spearheaded by Nazi sympathizers like Charles Lindbergh. Naturally conservatives like Pat Buchanan were intensely inspired by it, birds of a fascist feather flock together I suppose. I was shocked when I saw the Mccain slogan that seemed to evoke it, not that shocked I suppose in retrospect.

[Lars77]

13. Interesting..

You know, whenever i look at American industrialists and the "old upper class", sometimes facist symphathies and certainly anti-jewish ideas tend to pop up.

I was shocked to find out that for a period, Ford distributed the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to every car buyer, for example.

[Kurska]

15. "Old school conversativism" is what I would call it.

The good ole days of ruling through racisms to get your "pro-business" ideas through.

[No Elephants]

37. Why do you characterize it as old school and "good ole days?" We ended up with

putz Clarence Thomas only because Poppy Bush felt that he had to find an African American to fill the vacancy left on the court by the great Justice Blackmun and they Michael Steele in a very transparent attempt to try to get the African American vote that had obviously served Obama well. Oh, yeah, and there was Condi.

With a very few exceptions, the Republicans have been the party of white men, though they do try to play catch up now and again as far as women and minorities, especially since Rove, who wrote about his Party's having to appeal to minorities if it intended to win elections. However, you need to think back only as far as Justice Sotomayor's confirmation hearings to know who the Republicans true constituency is.

[jmowreader]

55. Justice Blackmun was indeed great, but...

we got Clarence Thomas as a replacement for the great Thurgood Marshall.

Harry Blackmun was the author of Roe v. Wade.

[boppers]

31. Keep Ford in context.

It's interesting to also read the virulently racist comments of Lincoln, and Margaret Sanger.

There was a different kind of social environment in (varying) different times.

[Hekate]

36. Both Lincoln and Sanger are persistently quoted out of context to score points at odds......

... with their life's work.

Ford may have had a historical context too, but he was also a genuine anti-Semite.

Hekate

[boppers]

74. Sanger was a eugenicist, Lincoln was a racist, but they did great things in their lives.

Ford was an anti-Semite, but also did great things.

My point was not to excuse them or revere them, but to point out the importance of understanding greater context about historical figures.

[No Elephants]

48. What Hekate said. Besides,

even if Lincoln were truly a racist, rather than trying to be a politician of his times, he did some very good things for slaves, including Emancipation. What good did Henry Ford even try to do for Jews?

Sorry, but there were people who treated all people the same, and/or just did the right thing, even if they harbored wrong thoughs, even when racism or anti-Semitism was at its most widespread and blatant. For just one example, see my post down thread about Jimmy Carter's behavior while Jim Crow laws were alive and well in Georgie.

You end up excusing or rationalizing much too much when you go excuse everyone based on time or environment.

[boppers]

75. All about history and context.

What did Ford try to do for Jews?

Learn about:
Rosika Schwimmer.
William Cameron.
The Sigmund Livingston letter.

Have a wikipedia gloss-over:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

[No Elephants]

39. Ford was infamous for his anti-Semitism. And he hung out with the likes of T.R. Roosevelt and

Thomas Edison. I don't know if they were anti-Semites as well, but I could never socialize with a hater like that. In any case, despite his blatant anti-Semitism, Ford had friends in very high places.

I am sure it is just coincidence, but the only descendants of his I've ever met were both racist and Republican. Given the time frame, however, Henry himself may well have been a Democrat. I don't know, but racial "purists" stayed mad at Republican Abraham Lincoln and his Party for a long, long time after the Civil War and Emancipation, much as African Americans stayed loyal to Republicans for a long, long time--some right up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And, as we all know, the Dixiecrat states turned red after that, too.

[Ken Burch]

47. Henry Ford was a major antisemite in the early 20th Century

He also subsidized a publication called "The International Jew", the texts of which were plagiarized by Adolf Hitler when he wrote "Mein Kampf".

[Odin2005]

63. Shit like that is why I get disgusted by isolationist attitudes today.

[No Elephants]

34. That you recall.

I think it possible that someone may have come a few thousand years ago.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[MadMaddie]

7. I honestly don't know why anyone is surprised by this

This is only the beginning

The previous administration encouraged this behavior. The same behavior that McCain/Palin inflamed.....and the right wing hate groups were also virtually ignored during the previous administration they feel that they can't be touched.

Nothing new to see here folks.....same U.S. hatred and bigotry that has plagued this country during all of our life times.

[bluestateguy]

9. I want this perpetrator caught and waterboarded

We need to know what this terrorist knows, who they work for, and what they have been planning. If he won't fess up with the info, then it should be obtained by torture.

[Pat Riot]

11. heinous. and part of the problem

Noticing the source is BBC. Because a few haters own like 4/5 of the world's media and fill airwaves and print with bigoted bile, which contributes to these situations, now few people in this country know what factual, investigative reporting is, and the difference between it and the bullshit spewed on FOX. Thanks BBC.

I hope they catch whoever did it.

OK, here's the local NBC affiliate's report. (Hope link works)

http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11759669

[winyanstaz]

14. That is totally unexceptable!!! Shame on whoever did it...

I hope they catch their mangy asses.

[Bucky]

16. Please don't un-recommend this story if you just don't like it.

Remember, recommending a story means that you want people to know about it, not that you like what's going on in the news story.

[musicblind]

57. Thank you! That can't be said enough n/t

[FarLeftFist]

17. Effigy's are so 2009

[hayu_lol]

20. Probably a bunch of bored teens...

doesn't excuse it, but that is what kids do.

I would think that hate groups(adults)would think twice today about doing this sort of thing.

[No Elephants]

40. Wishful thinking.

[Bucky]

58. You wish it was wishful thinking, I think...

therefor I am... going to say we don't know who did this and either forwarding or dismissing any given hypothesis is just a waste of electrons. But for the record, it's probably worth noting that this year's ornery inappropriate teenaged prankster is next year's survivalist gun collector. It needs investigation.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted sub-thread

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[OnlinePoker]

24. Were you all equally disgusted...

...in Oct 2008 when the same thing was done to Sarah Palin in West Hollywood? At no time should any public official be hung in effigy.

[alp227]

33. Maybe...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4329352

In fact, even left-wing hero Keith Olbermann was outraged at that

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/29/local/me-palineffigy29

And there was also an effigy burning like that in the UK

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x398117

[No Elephants]

42. There's no comparison. See, for just one example, Reply 29. But, why do you ask?

Are you RW or just holier than thou?

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

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[davidpdx]

25. Terrible, but it needs to be widely known that this shit is happening

A small number of vile people are threatening our President. I hope they are caught and put in Federal prison.

[Bitwit1234]

26. NOW can any body deny that the up and coming group of tea bags

are just another name for the KKK> The republicans show us over and over the type of people they are. The type of people they support. And Murdoch shows us he can spit in America's eye and get away with it. Ailes gathers all these hate and violence promoting dregs of society and puts them on Fox to incite to riot and violence.

Why in the hell is congress sitting on it's fat a** and not passing the Fairness Doctrine. It is a shame that the Democrats don't form a group and donate the money all the Democratic organizations are asking us for to our own group. Get a damn good lawyer, record each and every lie, slur and slander these pieces of crap spew and sue them along with Fox and the networks and media that gives them platform. Damn it it's time we put our foot down. Freedom of speech hell, this is filth and lies outright.

[Andronex]

27. GWB was hung in effigy a zillion times...

but I never heard the RW or members of DU go berserk over it.

[Demeter]

30. Maybe Because It Never Made the News?

If it did, I totally missed it. Or maybe all the perpetrators were renditioned?

[No Elephants]

41. You never heard the RW go beserk over it? I did. I wasn't reading at DU while he was President, so

I cannot speak to that, but apparently, many DUers disapproved. See also, Reply 29.


What's your point, though? That no one has the right to express outrage over this story unless there outrage over a Republican white person was just as great? Are you RW or merely holier than thou?

[tabasco]

54. Got a link?

I mean from the USA. Not Iraq.

Thanks.

[Doctor_J]

70. Where? Please provide a link to an article or picture

Since it happened a "zillion" times, this should be easy.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

77. there is a historical legacy to black hanging that doesnt apply to gw bush

i am sure you know that though

[mr1956]

29. Given the history of this country

There is a huge difference in the message behind Palin or Bush being hung in effigy.

[Andronex]

32. "Given the history of this country"

...some people might think that hanging a female or any president in effigy is not acceptable, but we seem to be very selective in our moral outrage. Racism is based on economic and social inequality, it is maintained and accentuated through Right Wing policy's that is being pursued by the present government, not by some papier maché figure.

[No Elephants]

44. Miss the point much? And no, racism is not based on economic and social inequality.

That would be classism, elitism, snobbery, etc. Those folks would be fine hanging with a wealthy, well educated minority.

Racism is based on--wait for it--race. Racism is a cause of economic and social inequality more than it is a result of it. But, a racist looking down on economically and socially disadvantaged folk might well get confused. Racists are pretty fucked up in general, so it's no surprise they might get confused. But, they are very likely to resent the wealthy, well educated minority even more than they resent a poor one.

[Xithras]

78. Not really.

Discussing the genocide against southern blacks is a lot like discussing the genocide against the European Jewish in WW2. One group was so heavily targeted that it's easy to forget that others were victimized as well.

According to the Tuskeegee Institute (about as impartial as you can get), mobs and the KKK lynched just over 3,400 blacks between the end of the Civil War and the end of the Civil Rights movement. During the same period, those same people ALSO hung 1,300 white people from those very same trees, for "crimes" including engaging in interracial marriage, supporting efforts to end discrimination, or even more fundamental racist issues...many were hung simply for being Catholic or Jewish. My Catholic grandfather, who was stationed in Georgia briefly after WW2, once told me that the Catholics were warned to identify themselves as Baptist if they were ever asked about their religion while off-base. They were told that identifying yourself as a Catholic in some parts of Georgia in the 1940's would get you "strung up by the Klan".

Depictions of lynchings should be an affront to everyone, no matter what the color of the "victim".

[alp227]

35. The perp's lucky he did it in the more rural part of Georgia, not Atlanta

Given the huge black population up in urban Atlanta, they would've found him out and whooped his ass within half an hour.

Either way, this is just disgusting.

[Ken Burch]

38. The fascist impulse lives.

I really hope the president doesn't feel he has to give a "moderate" response to this.

This act is an attack on all of us, and on all decent Americans.

[mstinamotorcity]

43. Ok what the Hell

I have read some of your post and you can get mad if you want.We are under trying times a lot of tension with the growing rate of homelessness and unemployment this is the perfect firestorm for stupidity.Because of the nature of any hanging effigy,it should be unacceptable from the left or the right no matter what anyone political views are.This is no reason to do such a thing.Not about our President,our former President and yes even ms.i can see russia.This is disrespectful,ignorant,racist,immature,against the law in some context,and down right dumb.Any time you can not get your point across without having to use props like glen beck you are way down on the food chain.

[No Elephants]

45. The likes of Glenn Beck have been protected on this thread, so which side of the argument are you

referring to?

Is your position that nothing people like Beck and Limbaugh say many times a day, every day, has no effect on anyone? Or is your position that they do have an effect, but mentioning that should be beneath us for some reason?

[mstinamotorcity]

67. my position is

That when anyone hangs an effigy of anyone it is wrong and there is no soft shoe dance around it,by making excuses for reasons why it is done.There are no excuses or reasons.Folks like Beck and Limpdick have their own agenda and we know it.And there is nothing wrong about mentioning when one of those say or do something incredibly stupid.And the effect that they have should probably go from anger to getting even with the truth.IMHO

[No Elephants]

46. What irony that these idiots bragged on being the home of Pres. Jimmy Carter while lynching any

black man in effigy.

"An organization called the White Citizens Council was formed to maintain the segregated status quo in the South, and its membership blossomed across the region-including Plains, Georgia. Carter was heavily pressured to join the organization in 1958, and was the only white male in Plains to refuse. The council's members boycotted Carter's business, but he stubbornly held out and over time, the boycott fizzled out.


<snip>


During his two terms in the state senate, Carter earned a reputation as a tough, independent operator. He attacked wasteful government practices and helped repeal laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting. Consistent with his past practice and his deeply held principles, when a vote was held in his church to decide on whether to admit blacks to worship there, the vote was nearly unanimous against integration. Of the three dissenting votes, two were cast by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

In 1966, Carter planned to run for United States Congress. However, a Republican rival announced his candidacy for governor of Georgia, and Carter decided to challenge him. This attempt was a mistake. The civil rights movement had created a conservative backlash in the South ending the solidly Democratic stranglehold on the South. Liberal Democrats like Carter were especially vulnerable. Although he campaigned hard, he finished a poor third in the 1966 Democratic primary. The eventual winner was Lester Maddox, an ultraconservative who proudly refused to allow blacks to enter a restaurant he owned, and who distributed ax handles to white patrons as a symbol of resistance to desegregation required under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Carter was bitterly disappointed by the defeat and was saddled with a substantial debt from it. He began to position himself for the 1970 gubernatorial election almost immediately. In the late 1960s Carter campaigned tirelessly up and down the state.

He campaigned on a platform calling for an end to busing as a means to overcome segregation in public schools. Carter thought that in order to win he would have to capture white voters who were uneasy about integration. Consequently, he minimized appearances before African American groups, and sought the endorsement of several avowed segregationists, including Lester Maddox. The leading newspaper in the state, the Atlanta Constitution, refused to endorse him, and described him as an "ignorant, racist, backward, ultra-conservative, red-necked South Georgia peanut farmer." The strategy worked, however, and with the support of rural farmers, born-again Christians, and segregationist voters, Carter forced a runoff election and won with 49 percent of the vote.


Delivering Change to Georgia

The new governor's inaugural address surprised many Georgians by calling for an end to segregation, and received national attention for it. By and large, Carter governed as a progressive and reformer. During Carter's term as governor of Georgia, he increased the number of African American staff members in Georgia's government by 25 percent. But his primary concern was the state's outdated, wasteful government bureaucracy. Three hundred state agencies were channeled into two dozen "superagencies." He promoted environmental protection and greater funding for the schools. However, he worked poorly with traditional Democratic politicians in the state legislature, and gained a deserved reputation as an arrogant governor, with a "holier than thou" attitude that isolated him from politicians who might otherwise have become his political allies."


http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/carter/essays/biography/2


Maybe Carter had to fight his own background. Maybe it came naturally to him. I have no idea. But, he seems to have done the right thing, even while in Plains. It's a shame these jerks regressed.

[d_r]

56. I don't think it was bragging about Plains being home to Carter

I think they chose that sign in Plains to make a point, but I don't think the point was bragging about being the home of Carter. I think it was being negative towards Carter and democrats in general.

[mdmc]

53. Surprising very suprising

was this in Plains or in Archery?

[Bragi]

59. Plains is in deepest darkest Georgia

I've been to Plains several times, and it's a tiny, backcountry, deep south town for sure. No surprise to find racists in the area. What is surprising for me is that Carter chose to go back there to live after he left the White House. I've never been able to quite figure that out.

[RubyDuby in GA]

64. It doesn't surprise me that he went home to live.

It's where his people are from and have been for generations.

I've been there many times and it saddens me to see this kind of behavior. I think it probably saddens him also. He was very much a product of his mother's upbringing and his father's practicality. She didn't tolerate this kind of behavior and his father respected the African Americans as people who worked right alongside him and his family. Then, there is also the relationship he had with the Clarks. His closest neighbors, Jack and Rachel Clark, helped bring him up.

President and Mrs. Carter are very much different from those who live in this area now. I guess you could say they always have been and always will be. I think whatever bunch of assholes that did this chose this site very carefully. Two Nobel Peace Prize winners. The Right has constantly tried to demonize Obama as the second Jimmy Carter.

This pathetic act sickens me to my very core.

[Bragi]

71. The act sickens me too, as for JC living in Plains...

My sense is that JC and the Missus have very few local friends or family, far as I can tell from attending a few events there where the Carters were in attendance.

The only attraction of living in a town like Plains I can see is that no-one is likely to drop by accidentally, and it's easy to decline invitations.

Makes me wonder if JC (who I really do admire) is one of those people who sincerely loves humanity, but who isn't all that keen on people. Plains is perfect for that kind of person.

- B

[Hekate]

76. Thanks Ruby, that's what I thought. I think the Carters are very saddened by this. nt

[Odin2005]

60. Racist fucks!

:puke:

[MineralMan]

65. Just peachy...

Dumb fucks.

[City Lights]

66. Makes me feel so proud to me a 'Murkian.

:sarcasm:

[marshall]

68. The area is not known to be open and friendly toward men like Obama

I recall Carter's memoir--the part about his father "letting" the local African Americans stand outside the window and listen to the radio. It was considered very progressive for the time.

My grandparents always talked proudly about how they "let" a black friend of my father's eat with them at the kitchen table and even let him spend the night a few times--very early fifties. They thought they were so open and generous, but my attitude was "so, why wouldn't you do that for his friend?"

It's all in perspective.