when the obama campaign ignites the passions of youth and liberal activism, it must be able to properly channel that and direct it in a positive way.
hillary supporters are intimidated and ridiculed for their support for obama. in the earlier primaries, obama's overwhelming visible support had turned many hillary supporters to the closet. this led to hillary's support being declared through secret ballot of the primary vote. time after time, even after massive amounts of money spent on propaganda and filling the liberal airwaves with anti-clinton pundits, the hillary supporters remain unwavering in their support. the hillary supporters dig deeper underground as the negativity from obama supporters grow unchecked. furthermore, those undecided were turned off by such negativity from obama supporters, and now support hillary because they are afraid of what obama's movement is creating.
in a pro-clinton forum, a thread's topic about how blogger was terrorised by obama's supporters. a few members start to share their own personal stories.
Hillary08 shares :
"I went to the grocery store yesterday wearing my Hillary t-shirt and buttons. Before leaving my 19 year old son (who was not going with me and strongly supports Hillary) asked me to change clothes. When I asked why he said he was worried of what might happen to me.
He's heard the stories of what BO"s followers are doing to Hillary supporters and was very worried about my safety.
He's made same mention of my van that is fully decorated with Hillary signs, bumper stickers and window stickers. He is worried our van will be damaged.
I told him NO ONE was going to shut me up nor shut me down.
Although he admires and respects my enthusiasm, he still worries about my safety.
I live in KY and the area I live in I feel very safe in. I do receive cheers and some jeers now and then but I will NOT let others who do not feel the same as I stop me from doing what I feel so passionately about."
then underpaidnurse from NC replies:
Good for you, and I understand where your son is coming from. My child was in a mock debate in social studies and took the pro hillary side (there were only two others that joined with her) and they were chanted right out of the class with the words "Racist...Racist.." over and over again until the teacher stopped it and called to apologize to me and my daughter. Needless to say she was in tears and couldn't understand why they would choose to attack her in such a way. The next day, she went back in with a Colber 08 shirt. She went to live with her dad in CA. while I await my nursing license transfer to join them. There she is able to wear her Got Experience shirt and is not attacked for it, and has even had some good conversations with young Obama supporters in her eight grade. So I wear my Team Hillary shirt as often as I can, and just steel myself for the comments. It is nice to hear more and more compliments on the shirt lately, tho.
the story recounted by underpaidnurse demonstrates how children take after adults so easily. these kids probably don't understand what calling someone a racist means. but this nonetheless shows the concerns that we should have when people accuse others of racism so readily. kids really don't know better most of the time, they are so busy trying to fit in and stay cool that they don't even think about the bigger consequences of their actions.
and if they learn how to hate, they must learn it from an adult. it would be irresponsible for obama to say that they cannot control what their supporters do. but they can certain control whether they choose to make race an issue or not.
to have the clintons become a vestibule for racist slander is the most negative thing that can be put onto these people who have been on the forefront in championing minority rights. such personal attack and character assasination is even lower than what the right-wing extremists have leveled on them.
if obama's campaign will to use this tactic against their own party for their short term aims of winning the primary, they better be ready to mop up after themselves when they lose. if he really is all hope and change, i hope that he is ushuring in hope for positive changes, and not for hope post negative changes.
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