Obama-Joker Poster goes Viral/Denounced as Racist

[iceaura]

"could very well be..." right. You'll have to support that a bit more. Surely the war on terror, health care, the national debt and the gulf between rich and poor outpace that issue by several orders of magnitude.

Not over the past thirty years - those other problems you list, for example, are largely side effects of that one.

I just don't think that the visage of The Joker being painted on Obama's face is necessary racist.

Putting Obama in whiteface is necessarily racially loaded, in the US in 2009. Whether it's deliberate or not, whether the deniers of the obvious are honest or not - - - once again, same old same old: are they lying or are they stupid?

If I were to guess, I'd say the poster had some racial overtones that can't be easily overlooked.

Then there is no problem with pointing them out, calling the poster racist, and having labeled it moving on. If you notice, this entire thread started with someone objecting to the obvious classification of the poster as racist. It's that objection that started this, not anyone's ordinary and simple observation that the poster is racially loaded (like a lot of the other attacks on Obama).

So, there's a racist plot to subvert "responsible governance" going on right now?

There's a plot to subvert responsible governance, and it uses racism among other features of the US body politic.

The character of the Joker is a lunatic - - - so it's not surprising that he isn't particularly thorough when applying his clown makeup.

The motive for the style of makeup used on the Joker is discussed explicitly in various background interviews with the director of the movie.

The postermaker made significant changes, when he put Obama in whiteface.

I'm sorry, but in his Town Hall meeting he rabidly attacked the people speaking out against this Healthcare bill

Nonsense. I doubt Obama has done anything "rabidly" in his whole life.

it would behoove him to understand that the majority of people would like a different plan, not no plan, but a different one.

That isn't true. Clearly very few of the people objecting to his proposal have the faintest idea what it is, let alone any idea of wanting something different. Maybe if they knew what it was, they would still want something different - but who can tell?

People have a right to freely speak their minds, and the rantings of irate, politically correct soothsayers won't do anything to change that.

People also have the right to call out the racist bullhshit for what it is. Nothing wrong with that.

The top 1% never pay taxes, they have too many loopholes to exploit

We hear that on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays and Fridays we hear about how bad it is to "punish the rich for their success", or how private individuals should be allowed to keep all their money because they know better how to spend it.

The rich used to pay a lot higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than they do now - just a generation ago, it was obviously possible to tax the upper 1%. They still can do that, in other countries. What happened, in the US?

 

[Tiassa]

Um ... well ... er ... hmph

Please, let's not indulge the bigot fantasy that one must be motivated "simply" by race to have a "specifically racist agenda." You could make the same point about the Slave Power, and all it would get you is the evisceration of the term "specifically racist agenda."

I wouldn't disagree. I think it's an excellent point, but the application in this case has me puzzled. Help me out, please?