HAVE REPUBLICANS LOST THEIR MINDS?

BY TONEY ATKINS

Instead of acting like candidates for an insane asylum, why don't Republican conservatives just come out and tell the truth? They're angry because they lost their power in 2008. Barrack Obama was elected president of the United States and birthers, deathers and the rest of the oddballs are particularly mad because they cannot handle the reality of having a Black man in that position.

The latest silliness (at least, as of this writing) has to do with the president speaking via television to the nation's students this past Tuesday. Psycho-babble "news" outlets such as Fox News, essentially an arm of the Republican Party, were practically gushing with encouragements for parents to keep their children out of school to avoid Obama "propaganda." I do not recall such outrageousness happening when presidents such as George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan (both Republicans, mind you) made essentially the same kind of speeches to kids during their administrations.

This writer has literally lost friends of the Republican persuasion because he openly has called the whole right-wing stupidity, ignorance and arrogance exactly what it is -- stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and blatant racism.

The atmosphere of hate and irrational fear in this country is reaching levels that some folks don't even recall seeing and feeling during the Civil Rights Era, and they are probably right.

It is downright scary to know that many people actually believe all of the fear-mongering and misinformation that has spread since Obama became a candidate for the presidency and particularly after he won the office.

Taking notes on napkins and scraps of paper at diners and other establishments in northwest Georgia near Chattanooga, TN, I still shake my head in disbelief at what people say about the president of the United States. If I had implied such insanities during the Bush Administration, I would have been called unpatriotic and a son of Satan.

Personally, I see the right-wingers and Republicans as exemplifying the Anti-Christ with their perpetuation of sinful lies and attacks, verbal so far, yet bordering on frightening encouragements of intimidation and assassination. However, they claim to be so holy and say that they are the truth-mongers.

To these folks, I say: Grow up. Obama didn't steal your lunch money and he hasn't done a single thing to bully or hurt you. Accept it. He is Black and that shouldn't matter. Barring any catastrophe that might even be brought on by U.S. Republicans who seem to desire such, Obama will be president at least until 2012 (the year that the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end anyway).

Right-wingers: Please stop being hypocritical Christians who leave your religion inside the church walls and become anti-Christians in public. You are influencing people who might not be aware of your untruths, especially when you are spreading everything you hear on Fox News as gospel.

Interviewing about 20 people in various locations in northwest Georgia, including the mobile home park in which I live, I have been stunned to learn that most of them get all their national news from Fox News and from the relatively conservative local news media operatives who carefully choose their sound-bites so as not to offend the sensitive mind-sets of many in their mid-South audiences and who even to continue the stream of misinformation rather than attempting to stop and correct it.

As has been reported on a national level, many don't want the government involved in health care but, as one elderly woman told me, "don't screw with my damn Social Security and Medicare." She had no reply, just an angry expression of distaste, when it was pointed out to her that the latter programs are handled by the federal government. She believes the falsehood that the proposed health care legislation has a section that would control the deaths of old people. She was not the only one who was full of misinformation who, when asked where they got their information, almost to a person said they "heard it on TV."

Some of these "proud Americans" even went so far as to say they hoped Obama would be assassinated. One even said he prays daily that such will happen. One man said it made sense to him that Republicans were taking guns to Democratic Party lawmakers' health care town halls, even though the meetings had nothing to do with misconceptions about imagined gun control threats. Many still believe the long-disproved argument that Obama was not born in the U.S. (Hawaii was and still is a state.) These folks unashamedly want Obama to fail.

And like crazies on television, some of those with whom I've talked or that I've simply overheard have compared Obama to Hitler and have described his plans for the country as socialism and Nazi-ism. None of those who were interviewed or simply questioned about their beliefs could provide facts to support them.

One of my trailer park neighbors noted that he is a Democrat, but he couldn't bring himself to vote for Obama or even support him today because, and I quote, "I have to uphold my Southern heritage. It's not right for a n----- to be president of the United States."

See? It all boils down to Obama's Blackness.

While I know many Christians who are deeply sincere in their faith, I am quite disappointed in some fundamentalist churches in the South. Some don't even focus on the teachings of Christ any more but instead spread the propaganda of politics in the name of God. I often imagine that Jesus might get up and walk out of a service in disgust, although I realize He is above that.

"Family values" also seem to have changed in the right-wing community. It appears to be okay if they do something questionable, even "sinful," but not all right when persons who are Democrats or Independents commit essentially the same acts. They impeached President Clinton because he lied about sexual indiscretions, but the "family values" folks are more than willing to forgive a Republican governor cheated on his wife with someone he called his "true love" in South America, and no major fuss has ever been raised about a Republican lawmaker who allegedly tried to initiate homosexual bathroom sex at a major airport. He is still in office.

I've given up on trying to widen the narrow minds of my right-wing Republican friends. They are set in their ways. They believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They look down on those who do not agree with them. They are racist, although they deny it. They definitely want the Democratic president to fail, yet they call themselves patriots.

Obama is obviously Black -- an intelligent and qualified Black man who won the presidency legitimately. He has a wonderful family, and he appears to be a good husband and father. Leading a country filled with the craziness that is blocking the needed attention to the important issues must be difficult.

I would like to believe that all Americans have the capability to act as though we have entered the 21st century, especially since we're already nine years into it. Unfortunately, with the prevailing insanity and fear, I fear that our great nation is going backward instead of forward. We can only pray that more citizens will work to reverse the tide, spreading love and peace and overwhelming the cancer of hate, dishonesty and distrust.

-- Toney Atkins is a former assistant editor of the Daytona Times in Daytona Beach, FL, and a former contributor to the Florida Courier. His web site is www.toneyatkins.com. This commentary appeared in the Sept. 10, 2009, issue (www.flcourier.com/). The opinions stated here do not necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of those newspapers.