Despite the “browning of America” and the election of the first African American man as President in 2008, this country has witnessed an increase in prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against Americans of a race other than white based on the belief that the white race is superior. There are many Americans who are deluded in thinking that racism targets just African Americans since Republicans cannot get over the people electing a Black President. However, it is clear to anyone with a brain that Republicans express their despicable racial animus towards African Americans, Latinos, and Asians, and now a white American soldier held as a prisoner of war by the Taliban as well as the soldier’s white parents.
It is true that Republicans, teabaggers, and various conservative pundits are not attacking ex-prisoner of war Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl because he is white, but it is true that every attack on Bergdahl is founded in the entire conservative movement’s racial animus aimed at President Obama; not the circumstances of Sergeant Bergdahl’s capture, or the conditions of the prisoner exchange that brought him home. The giveaway that all the animus toward Sergeant Bergdahl is based in conservative racism usually reserved for people of color, particular the person of color in the Oval Office, is the Republican hypocrisy they have demonstrated over the past five years holding President Obama to a different set of standards than his white Republican predecessors.
First, the Republicans are hypocrites for assailing President Obama for negotiating Bergdahl’s release through a prisoner exchange of 5 Guantanamo detainees. Lindsey Graham threatened to impeach the President because he allegedly did not go to Congress 30 days before the exchange, but it has been revealed that as early as 2011 the President informed Congress the United States was considering a swap for Bergdahl. In fact, there was an outcry from all manner of conservatives, including perennial loudmouth Sarah Palin who now regularly attacks Bergdahl as a deserter. For the record, at best Bergdahl was absent without leave (AWOL) when he was captured by the Taliban that negates the filthy lie conservatives are promoting to sully Sergeant Bergdahl’s reputation because the African American President negotiated his release.
Republicans, including former prisoner of war John McCain who was released from his North Vietnamese captors in a Nixon-brokered prisoner exchange, have lambasted the President for releasing Guantanamo detainees into the custody of Qatar officials. Many conservatives assert that Bergdahl’s life did not warrant saving if the cost was releasing 5 so-called Taliban fighters, but they certainly had no problems, or called for special investigations, when George W. Bush, a white guy, released over 500 Guantanamo detainees back to fight against American soldiers in exchange for nothing. Republicans also failed to attack hostages held by Iranian terrorists upon their release when conservative demigod Ronald Reagan ignored an American arms embargo and traded 1,500 missiles to Iran to secure the hostages’ release. If trading arms for hostages, or in John McCain’s case, enemy combatants for American prisoners of war, did not warrant conservative outrage and attacks on those released under white Republican presidents, then conservative attacks on Bergdahl are as a surrogate for the African American President who secured his release.
Now, the real giveaway that Republicans’ attacks on Bergdahl are based on their racial animus towards President Obama is their instantaneous one-hundred-and-eighty degree shift from “bring ‘our’ soldier home” to “Bergdahl is a deserter” when the African American President announced the prisoner of war was coming home. It is important to note that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was not, and has not been, charged with or formally accused of anything. In fact until his release by the Taliban, he was an active-duty U.S. Army sergeant being held as a prisoner of war worthy of the solemn commitment all men and women in uniform deserve; “We leave no soldier behind on the battlefield.” Unless of course an African American President orders the exchange and then Republicans transfer their racial hatred for President Obama onto Sergeant Bergdahl branding him a traitor and a deserter.
Regarding the claims by cretins such as Palin and Fox News talking heads that Bergdahl is a traitor, he escaped his captors twice, once for three days until they “found him in a hand-dug trench, nearly naked and exhausted.” It took 5 Taliban soldiers to finally subdue Sergeant Bergdahl who fought to avoid being recaptured; that does not sound like a deserter or a traitor. Also, there has been criticism against Bergdahl, and his parents, for their political views, particularly Sgt. Bergdahl’s disenchantment with the Afghan War and the mistreatment of innocent Afghani civilians that led him be be “ashamed of America.” It is safe to say there are many, many Americans ashamed of America based on the death and devastation this country wrought on both Afghanistan and Iraq for ideology, profit for Dick Cheney’s company, and enriching the military industrial complex.
Bowe Bergdahl has been condemned by the popular media, by social networks, by all manner of conservative pundits and Republican politicians not because they know any details, but because they hate the Black President that secured his release. The Republicans’ are still entrenched in their five year contention that Barack Obama is not American because he is Black, and if he is not American then the prisoner of war he brought home is not an American and must be a traitor. He was not a traitor for the five years he was held captive while conservatives pushed to “bring our soldier home at any cost.”
None of this sickening Republican outrage is about Sergeant Bergdahl, or his family, it is about an African American President Republicans claim is not American, not capable of being patriotic. And because he fulfilled America’s promise to its fighting men and women to “leave no soldier behind,” Sergeant Bergdahl is the recipient of conservatives’ racial hatred for this President that they would rather have left an American soldier to die at the hands of the enemy than bring him home; even after they condemned the President for abandoning an American soldier to his enemy captors.
Republicans are so consumed by racial animus and rage that they have finally sunk to a level of attacking a white American soldier, a prisoner of war, as surrogate for Barack Obama. The conservative movement appeared to have sunk to the depths of depravity when they shutdown the government and tried to destroy the good faith and credit of the United States that was borne of racial hatred for this President. However, all their anti-American actions over the past five years pale in comparison to attacking a young man who volunteered to fight and die for his country, was held in captivity as a prisoner of war for five years, and escaped his captors twice, only to be the recipient of Republicans’ racial hatred for the President that negotiated his return home. Racism is a vile cancer that has metastasized to such a level in the conservative movement that their racial animus is extending to a white American soldier as surrogate for the Black President who brought him home. Conservatives have indeed hit rock bottom.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
One can hope rill muricans know the difference between bringing a soldier home and the flip flop that the gop just performed. From demanding this man be brought home to labeling him a traitor, the gop will run any race to get at Obama
“Conservatives have indeed hit rock bottom.” I’m not counting on that. Every time they do or say something heinous, and it seems to be lower than the last time, they go lower. I am convinced that the heart and soul of today’s conservatives is actually a bottomless pit.
I wonder what gave the American Taliban game away? Was it the scrubbing of the websites, tweets and other media? Was it McCain saying don’t believe the lying tape? What was it? I wish they will tell us. Will they apologize to the family for unleashing their cowardly dogs on them? But we knew they would act like this. Stop thinking of the republican party as it was even in the 80’s. What we have now can honestly be classified as a domestic terror cell whose sole purpose is to, like a cancer destroy the healthy cells of the body. For sanity to come back we have to take them out at the ballot box. There should be no more talk of my vote don’t count because not voting you are only helping spread the cancer.
SMH…..do they realize the jeopardy that they unnecessarily put people in when they go on national television with nothing but pure SPECULATION??? Just like the Cliven Bundy BS, they jump in front of the FACTS and look like FOOLS when the TRUTH comes out and they have to walk back their mess but the damage has been done for the most part. Everyone has an opinion about this soldier and what he did and didn’t do but not ONE of them has even got HIS VERSION of what happened. What….he doesn’t deserve Due Process??? People should take a step back and stop all this Monday morning Q-backing all the time.
the republicans/tea party are burying themselves which hopefully will help democrats gain more seats in the house, congress, etc.
You all do realize, of course, that Mr. Bergdahl committed the unpardonable sin of ….. putting his arm around the President and laying his arm on the President’s back!
Bring out the smellin’ salts!
That’s all it took, folks. We could have written the script from there, with ease, and it goes to show you, if it means eating one of their own, so be it.
And I think the mind masters behind the “American Taliban” are the Koch Brothers. Evil cowards that they are.
A friend of men loved the Marine Corps..came from a family of them. Joined before we graduated high school. He went to Vietnam. Later we were notified of his death, it was awful. But 2 weeks later we got a letter from him ( no internet in those days)…it was really something to read. He called his beloved Marines ANIMALS , along with other descriptions that made us wonder at the horror he must have felt just before his death. The pigs at Fox and the GOP all sit comfortably at home to criticize Bergdahl’s experience. Ship them over to Afghanistan, to some small outpost with poor leadership…see how they do.
There comes a time when we all have to realize that the GOP that once embraced civil rights, human rights, and civil exchange of ides is no longer. In its place we have the insufferable poltroons the likes of Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al who represent an over amplified minority bent on reversing the advances American society has made in the last century yearning for a return to the days of the “Gilded Age” and “Jim Crow”…they do indeed hate America.
The Right Wing’s conservative hate aimed at Bowe Bergdahl as a surrogate for President Obama ought to give every military person, active or reserve or retired, great pause if they are registered and vote Republican.
The military men and women ought to be asking themselves questions similar to the oft-repeated (and sometimes bastardized) refrain from post-WWII:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
And to think about in 1980 I think it was David Koch who ran for President on the libertarian ticket lambasting republicans. The n they found out the American Taliban was for sell like the whores the GOP are, they said how much you got
Let them keep peeling back the onion of bigotry and racism. Sooner or later EVERYBODY shows their true colors. Perhaps it will open the eyes of some of those centered repubs and bring them on over. Hopefully it will show others it’s time to vote in November.
Just when I think right-wingers can’t stoop any lower in pandering to their insane, depraved, inhumane base, they manage to exceed my expectations.
I have to wonder what’s going through the minds of the folks living in Hailey, Idaho, after the mindless hate from e-mails to town leaders, and from conservative talk shows, Fox News, and bloggers?
I’m guessing they’re generally a conservative bunch themselves, since they’re represented by Raul Labrador (who’s practically standing alone in Idaho representation expressing horror at the RW backlash).
Is this the kind of reactionary idiocy that changes their minds about American conservative political policy, in the same way that politician fathers and mothers of gay sons/daughters and pregnant teenage girls sometimes change their minds about same-sex marriage and abortion rights?
I don’t know but if I supported anything all my life and start getting death threats from the people I once believe in well lets just the next time they sent me anything I would send a box of doo doo back to them and tell them to kiss where the sun don’t shine
That and the President had his arm around the white woman!! Lynch him!
I am so very sick of the GOP and their endless hate. We need them all out, and ASAP. They are tearing this nation apart, while the Kochs just get richer. I wonder how much money is enough for two 70 plus year olds to live on? Seriously…how much is enough when it is costing people’s lives, property and their own ability to support themselves?
The GOP is not “conservative” it is anti American, anti human, and based completely on lies and hate mongering. The GOP/Libertarian/T bag party has nothing to offer anyone who is not very very rich.
If the domestic terrorists in Las Vegas who killed the policemen were liberals it would be on TV 24 hours a day, because they are tea baggers it barely got a mention.
Anti liberals are fricking clueless because they aren’t even aware that plenty of liberals doesn’t shop at Walmart. I already offered my condolence toward victims’ families whose lives are destroyed forever because of wingnuts decide to kill because they wanted to. As a father of two young boys I can’t imagine the ordeal these children are going through right now.
The political battle has come down to this, It’s not Democrats versus Republican/Conservatives any more. It is America versus Republican/Conservative.
There are others: Rupert Murdoch is a major shadow figure.
Could not possibly be articulated any clearer Joseph. Sadly, we the people are being assailed and losing.
Maybe I’m more jaded then you Mr fireman, but I know in my heat there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that will surprise me about how low the rethugs will go. Now rethugs make a liar out of me!!
You have to remember you’re talking I-DA-HO! At one time it was the hot-bed of the neo-Nazi movement in America. There was a real movement to declare I-DA-HO as a separate state…home of WHITE ONLY America. Once you put this into the equation, it’s a wonder the Bergdahl family hasn’t had its house burned down…or a cross burned into the lawn at the very least.
The author could have saved a lot of time if he just wrote, “You are a racist if you don’t agree with Obama”.
What too many big words for you? Try this link it may help https://www.hookedonphonics.com/
After almost six years of downright hatred and obstruction, you would assume that the right would back off a little after the 2012 election defeat, but this is sickening. Has there ever been a time that we ever turned our backs on a soldier? Nope, a first under President Obama!!! Just like the President proving his birth certificate, a first, complete obstruction of Government, a first. “You lie” at the SOTU address, a first. There are certainly many other instances. Yet the President and for the most part, America has moved on. Folks, these people have literally lost there minds because of the election of Barack Obama.
Idiocracy + Crapitalism = hits fan = u
I’m not ashamed of America, I’m ashamed of you.
The GOP trotted this poor bastard out to the dog and pony show crying that the President was doing nothing about getting Bowe home in 2010, just like they trot out their token blacks like West, Carson,Payne,Cain and their token women like Palin, Black and Bachmann. Now that they don’t need Bob Bergdahl anymore, under the bus he goes. Because they hate Calvinists more than Mormons.
“Conservatives have hit rock bottom.”.
Wanna bet?
Holy cow this isn’t the 1950s any more! The image of Idaho as being lily-white is tired and old. There are 10,000 Muslims in Ada County (Boise) alone. There are some enclaves of white supremacists/neo-Nazis/whatever way up north, but all states have these types.
Hailey, where the Bergdahl’s live, is a stone’s throw from Sun Valley. There are no doubt some assholes living there but it is a pretty liberal area by Idaho standards. The Bergdahl’s are safe here, at least from their neighbors.
…..and to think, the Bergdahl family of Idaho, is one of the most righwing, republican family in their vicinity, in a extremely rightwing state.
Yes….republicans are a strange breed of mental midgets indeed….stranger than strange.
I for one am sorry about their son having to have gone through his situation and if any of it is true, combat eventually makes people do some very strange things. Those who say no, then they spent, way to much time in the rear with the gear.
Vietnam was my experience with that….stranger than strange.
I couldn’t agree more.
The actions of the republican party just keep on bringing shame to our country.