The Sparkman Murder: Riehl World Smearing

With the rise of DailyKos and contemporary progressivism, being tough-minded has become just as big among the left as the rest of American society. We might prefer Clint Eastwood or The Wire, but we like violent authority just as much as our friends on the right.

Of course, if anybody still had inclinations toward soft utopianism, they would be disabused by familiarity with the right-wing smear machine. Much as the left unselfconsciously embraces authoritarian violence, the right has shown itself to be fundamentally Godless. Nothing is sacred for the right-wing smear machine. Kids, war heroes, troops in Iraq, marriage, religious figures, mom--it's all been subject to vicious smears. If Michelle Malkin thought smearing apple pie would advance the conservative cause, she'd do it in a heartbeat. Rosy red carcinogens anyone? The "Obama Joker" poster was a big moment of conservative triumph because the right had finally broken the "racism taboo" and brought a racist image of Obama before the public. One of the right-wing commenters on this blog was so happy about this that he or she wanted "Obama/Joker" made into a postage stamp.

And now it's starting with Bill Sparkman, the part-time census worker who was murdered in Clay County, KY this week. Dan Riehl of the Riehl World View blog is floating the idea that Sparkman was a child sex predator and that he was somehow murdered in revenge for something linked to pedophilia. Riehl's evidence for that nasty little affront to the dead man's memory--exactly none. But who on the right really cares? Given that Sparkman's murder might become a cause celebre on the left, the right had to take him down one way or another. So Riehl puts out the idea that Sparkman could have been a "child sex predator" as a way to suggest that the lynching of Sparkman might somehow have been a "justified homicide."

I have to admit to being initially shocked by the nasty of Riehl's little smear campaign. Maybe I'm not as tough-minded as I think I am. In the final analysis, Riehl's trying to finish off the murder of Bill Sparkman by lynching his public reputation just as much as Sparkman's murderers lynched his living body.

Shouldn't be any surprise there. Lynching is as a conservative tradition as mom, apple pie, and church on Sunday.

Update: I see that responses to the Dan Riehl smear have appeared on Daily Kos. Good for them.

Dan Riehl: Racist Weenie Boy

I haven't done a weenie boy post on right-wing masculinity for awhile. But I couldn't resist posting this statement from Dan Riehl, a conservative blogger and teabagger who attended the Washington protest on Sept. 12.

Michelle has a disturbing video posted. It's of several black students beating a white student on a school bus in St. Louis. Here's the deal. I haven't mentioned it before.

Riding out of DC on the Metro, 9/12, there were some folks from South Dakota and also another Mid-West state I can't recall in the same Metro car. We were talking, nothing special, really - politics, of course.

In the back were maybe ten or so black kids taking up that section of the car. There was no confrontation, just one or two of them talking loudly enough to make sure they'd be heard.

Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ. That McCain he wasn't chit. Obama's going to be president as long as he wants, so these people better get used to it, etc. It went on but not really to a level that was so loud, or so confrontational that it needed to be addressed.

We just ignored them without much trouble at all.

Yeah, they were technically thugs. But the reality was they were still wannabes really, pretty young, not that big, or many. And if the several adults there for 9/12 actually needed to do something about it, the kids wouldn't have lasted very long. Maybe if they were bigger, or more numerous, it might have been worse. Or it may not have happened at all. Who knows?

But what's unfortunately becoming increasingly clear is that, for the people who thought Obama's election would make America post-racial? I'm afraid you're wrong. Some of the potential racial narratives that may still play out during his presidency
might not be that pretty at all.

I can't say as I'm not concerned that America might not end up more racially divided than we've been in 30 years. And that burden is as much, if not more Obama's to carry as it is anyone else's. Whether he's up to that along with everything else, we'll have to wait and see.

I can't think of any better way to exemplify weeniness than stereotyping some little African-American guys as "thugs" and then fantasizing about beating the snot out of them. A "small man" in every sense of the word, Riehl dreams the racist dream making himself into a big man by beating up some black kids.

We should probably thank Riehl for being so honest in his blog. Too bad it's likely that that kind of weenie racist dreaming is so prevalent among the tea-baggers.