Climate of Anger and Hatred

Have we reached a tipping point in the crescendo of accusations and outrageous labels flung at President Barack Obama? Were you shocked when you heard that someone had posted a survey on Facebook asking respondents, "Should Obama be killed?" The possible answers were: "No, Maybe, Yes and Yes if he cuts my health care."

We cherish freedom of speech in the United States, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. However, that protects us against the government not each other. There are few limits to what a citizen can hurl at another citizen or even the president in oral or written speech. And we have heard an increasing number of outrageous epithets yelled at Tea Parties and town meetings, accusing Obama of being: Fascist. Socialist. Nazi. Enemy of the people. On crude signs, we have seen Obama depicted as Hitler or called a "lyin Muslim from Kenya." Hundreds of printed "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" signs sent a twisted subliminal message during the Washington D.C. health care protest march.

The Secret Service had the Facebook survey pulled and are investigating the person who posted it because it is against the law to threaten the life of the president of the United States. The posting had crossed the line

The posting had crossed the line from free speech to threat of assassination and this country has a tragic history of presidential assassinations. The larger question remains -why has President Obama, elected by a sweeping 365 to l73 electoral votes on November 4, come under a relentless barrage of attacks?

Conspiracy theories have always been a favorite of extremists in America. The Birthers are people who question Obama's birth in Hawaii and claim that he is not a United States citizen. Three men known for their far-right beliefs launched this charge that Obama is not a legitimate president: the writer, Jerome Corsi, politician Alan Keyes and G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate felon and radio talk host. They have been enthusiastically joined by Cable radio and Fox News TV hosts: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michele Malkin. Even Lou Dobbs, considered more of a mainstream anchor on CNN, has questioned Obama's birth and called for him to display his official birth certificate. The White House has answered these charges by making the Hawaii birth certificate public on the Internet, but this does not satisfy the Birthers, some of whom have filed lawsuits against his legitimacy as a native born American.

Some members of the United States Congress have joined the chorus of Birthers. They include Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota ,who also stated on MSNBC that there should be an investigation of all members of Congress to determine their "patriotism." She is joined in this concern by Representative Spencer Bachus, Republican of Alabama, who believes that Congress contains "l7 socialists." Bachman has said that she fears that the president is planning "reeducation camps for young people." She told Sean Hannity on radio, "It's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean is an orderly revolution, where the people of this country wake up and get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch."

It is to the credit of Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, that on October 1, he spoke out strongly against the "Birthers" and members of the Republican Party who are at the forefront of the attacks on President Obama. He said, "Republicans have to call out the crazies! The GOP won't be taken down by 'sinners and nuts.' " He continued, "Obama is an American. He was not born in Kenya. He was born in Hawaii." And to counter Limbaugh and others who continually say they want Obama to fail, he added, "I want my commander-in-chief to succeed. He is a good man."

President Jimmy Carter made headlines in mid-September when he spoke out on the attacks against President Obama. He told students at Emory University, "When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs that we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds." He then moved directly to the cause, "I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American." The following day, he was interviewed on NBC Nightly News, and made the same succinct assessment, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American."

Reactions ranged from the White House downplaying President Carter's analysis to Bill Cosby, actor and educator, who strongly agreed with his conclusion. Cosby has partnered for years with the Harvard psychologist Alvin Poussaint in combating racism. Cosby also commented on President Obama's speech on Health Care Reform to the joint session of Congress. "Some members of Congress engaged in a public display of disrespect. While one representative hurled the now infamous "you lie' insult at the president, others made their lack of interest known by exhibiting rude behavior such as deliberately yawning and sending text messages."

Nationwide, there has been a resurgence of the militia movements that promote anti-government, anti-Semitic, racist and violent views. The Oath Keepers are the latest, a newly formed group launched on April l9 at Lexington, Massachusetts. The April l9 date commemorates the Revolutionary Battle of Lexington, the l993 conflagration at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian compound, and the bombing two years later at the Oklahoma City federal building. These are "sacred" dates to the militia movement. One federal agency estimates 50 new militia training groups drawing military men and veterans, have started in less than two years. Sales of guns and ammunition have soared amid fears of new gun control laws, and several men wore loaded guns outside President Obama's town meetings in New Hampshire. There have been a series of murders since April: Two 'skinheads' from Tennessee, angry about the election of Obama, killed two sheriff's deputies in Florida. A man in Pittsburgh who feared Jews and gun confiscation murdered three police officers. And an 88-year-old Neo- Nazi killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

Gordon Allport, the eminent psychologist who wrote "The Nature of Prejudice," detailed the significance of the climate of prejudice as fertile soil for festering anger and fears. When a society deems name-calling, defamation, and fear-mongering as acceptable - then accelerating levels of rage and hatred follow, leading to violence. We have to ask ourselves - based on the behavior we have witnessed these past months - what is the climate at present in the nation? Are people alarmed by the relentless attacks on Obama? How many leaders are speaking out? Finally, is it possible that we are reaching the danger level of unthinkable violence being aimed at our president, Barack Obama?

Editor's Note: On Friday, Oct. 9, it was announced that President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . . . "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

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Joyce S. Anderson is the author of "Courage in High Heels," "Flaw in the Tapestry," "If Winter Comes" and "The Mermaids Singing." She can be reached at JSAWrite@aol.com.