the name given people of Middle Eastern descent - which somehow became carried over from that of people from South Asia, the Sikhs - were labeled "diaper heads" or "towel heads" by the stupid and ill-informed. I suspect that this ad relates to such derogations of such persons.

It's not only racist, it's a lie. linkyloo

THE FACTS: The claims center on WebMethods Inc., a company wher e Halter once served on the board of directors. Halter left the WebMethods board in 2006.

Although the company said it saved costs by opening a Bangalore office, it's a stretch to say the firm shipped American jobs overseas. The company said in a 2006 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had cut costs by increasing the proportion of its product development staff based in Bangalore, India. The company filings cited by Lincoln's campaign, however, do not refer to the loss of any American jobs in connection with opening the Bangalore office.

Cheryl Hawkins, spokeswoman for Software AG, which owns WebMethods, declined to comment directly on Lincoln's claims. Hawkins said the vast majority of its jobs have stayed in the United States and said the Bangalore facility was opened before Software AG acquired WebMethods.

Oh totally understand the connection, just never thought I would see something so literaly racist.

Unbelievable!

The scary part is that people will vote for him.... :blink:

yes, it really is. looks like those white sheets are coming out of the closet and getting dusted off for reappearance. sigh. It is, and it has been building for some time, a very scary time in this country.

I went threw the 60's with all this crap of asshatism,I had hoped over the years we had evolved into a better world,for some of us .yes we did for others like theis racist pig..no.Far to many will pay the price for his ignorance and bigatry.I hope ppl will come to a right thinking mind when they are ready to vote.

Yeah, back on Jan 20, 2009 they put a black man in the White House - you must have been out of school that day *wink* No, seriously, I'm guessing that some of this comes up in every election cycle, but it's getting more widely noticed thanks to the internet.

The militias and anti-government conservatives crawl out of the dung heap every time there's a Democrat in the WH, but it hasn't been this bad since the 60's.

Oh THAT!

Wow.

So their hate/fear mongering is because THEY'RE afraid.......ok. I'm not so afraid now.....

Thanks Ms D....

Diva...Yes,we are going threw another round of the 60's hope its not like before.Onething I do know with evry big change in social inviroment come with things like this.Has no on ever herd of live long and prosper..they need to grow up and come into this century.

I better remember not to have tape over my mouth if my hair is wet in the future. Grin! and no bombs in the shower! Check!

I really am surprised its so blatant and literal.

It is the 60's again in so many ways.

A couple of things happened. For one, as MsD pointed out we elected a black man to the highest office in the land. For another, the Internet has allowed the proliferation of all kinds of speech with no kind of filtering. So now we have a culture where the following things are true:

1) People have a sincere belief that if you *believe* something is true, it is, in fact, *actually* true. Meaning that it doesn't really matter that Barack Obama was born in the United States, if you *believe* he was born in Kenya then he was born in Kenya and no one 'has the right to take away your free speech' and insist that you are wrong.

2) The Right has been so effective at crying 'political correctness' and the Left has been so effective at delivering themselves into the hands of the Right that now, they have completely inoculated themselves from any criticism of racism. (Thus this ad. The guy is going to be accused of racism in polite company and he's going to say that "if protecting America makes me a racist, I'm a proud racist") Can you imagine someone in 1980 saying that they were a proud racist? I can't.

3) Please forgive me for putting this quite so bluntly but there are a lot of white folks out there (not saying anyone here) who are doing the demographic math and not liking what they are seeing. Thus the 'take our country back' rhetoric. And from the point of view of lot of these older folks, they HAVE lost their country. I'm 43, I was born just as things were *really* starting to change. So imagine the perspective of someone who is 20 or 30 years older than me.

They were born in, say, 1947. When they were in their early twenties, you could still tell overtly racist jokes in polite company and everyone would laugh. If you were a man, it was exceedingly unlikely that you were going to have to compete with anyone except another white man for any given job. You could grope, grab and cat-whistle at women without anyone saying you were a cad (they might think it) and if they did, you and your buddies could all laugh at how ridiculous they were being. You could make fun of people of other religions, including Jews, with absolute impunity. You could do "Charlie Chan" impersonations of Asians and bad impersonations of the extras from Lawrence of Arabia with absolute and total impunity. Gays and lesbians, when you thought of them at all, were what you didn't want your children to be and would lock them up so that they could have an intimate understanding of the 'electro' part of the electromagnetic spectrum in the form of shock therapy.

Then it changed. First, my parents generation managed to convince the majority that they, too, were real and actual Americans and people and thus deserved to be treated as citizens and not children of some lesser god. Then women stood up and demanded that we, too, were citizens and not children of some lesser kind of goddess. At the same time, more and more non-white groups emigrated to America and because of the work of my parent's generation, they expected acceptance. Then queer people stood up and decided that, we too, should be included in that definition of 'citizen'. And all of this happened in a period, realistically, covering from 1950 to 2000. That's in the living memory of every generation born in the 20th century!

So here they are. No longer are they the undisputed masters and mistresses of the Universe. Hell, they are not even the undisputed masters and mistresses of America! Now, newly arrived immigrants expect to be treated like people and not just amusing local color. Now queer people are expecting to be treated like citizens and not some interesting curiosity nor are we willing to be silent while people hide behind their religion to justify their bigotry.

That's a lot to assimilate in a very short time. Now, I'm not saying that I feel particularly sorry for this lot--quite honestly, I don't. One thing I wish some thinker (and there are some very smart right-wing thinkers out there) on that side would realize is this: the demographic die that has them freaking out so much is already cast. If everyone keeps behaving just as they are right now, in between 35 and 45 years from now the United States will no longer be a majority white nation. How that goes for what will then be the white minority may be decided not then but now. Think about it, somewhere in a hospital in this country, a future President of the United States is being born as are future members of Congress and members of the Supreme court. Less loftily, future hiring managers and future voters are being born. Seems to me, if I were seeing that change coming down the track at me, I would want there to be something remotely resembling racial harmony in this country. This kind of thing seems really short-sighted and perhaps part of the issue is that this lot will, for the most part, not *be* here in 2050 but their children and grandchildren will be and they are making a very hard bed for their descendants to lie in.

I've been trying to compose a rational, intelligent post on this thread, but I just ... words just escape me. Political consulting and speechwriting is a lucrative freelance sideline for me...but I just shudder to think what Democrats and reasonable Republicans (i.e. my clients) will be facing this fall. Good thing I am limiting myself to 4 candidates and one ballot issue.

Jake

I think a lot about why this is happening, about why we think the way we do and people we grew up with may or may not agree and what moment made the difference.

Was it church, was it school? Was it that we read and they didn't?

I am 46 and I remember how things were when I was a small kid when we would visit the US. It makes me so incredibly sad to see so many of those same things happening all over again.

Things I thought were past.

Internet, 24hour news channels, pundits...

Sorry for the ramble. I really hate negative political campaigning, and this ad may be the worst I have seen.

some of "this lot", unfortunately, are among us ... and that is not only a shame, it is stupid.