It takes a nut to change the world

Paul Sagar's latest post disappoints me because it is narrow-minded and more dangerously, it is expressing the self-fulling prophesy that a nut guided by Sarah Palin can destroy Obama and his plans for America

Remember: One lone nut got to Abraham Lincoln. One lone nut got to JFK. One lone nut got to Reagan and was unlucky not to succeed.*
It only takes one lone nut. My guess is that, right now, there are a great many nuts – lone or otherwise – laying their plans.

I'm disappointed because it seems to me that Sagar and others would have never expressed the same views about virulent and fanatical opposition to George W. Bush and to Ronald Reagan who got shoot by a nut. My complaint isn't that Sagar isn't right that there was a lot of nuts willing to harm Obama, it is that he implies both implicitly and explicitly that the America and the Americans who oppose Obama are nuts and willing to kill him.  These views coming from a man as honorable as Paul Sagar who knows better is disappointing and willfully ignorant.

Comments

[Paul Sagar]

Oh come on, that's not what I'm saying at all. America has a long history of presidential assasinations. Let's cut the crap: Obama's being black makes him even more of a target.

I am not AT ALL saying that everyone who opposes Obama implicitly encourages an assasination attempt. But when Palin tells republicans to 'reload' and puts cross hairs on a map - well we're into unpleasant territory. I dont think I'm at fault forcquestioning Palin's actions given the context that a great many nuts WILL be gunning for Obama, literaly.

[Christelle]

Dear Mr. Sagar, you are making my point for me because you are saying that since Obama is 'black' (he is biracial), he is more likely to be killed than either American president ever was. Why? Because the America who elected him is really racist. Come on, can you ever let go of the race thing and focus on the real issue? Why are you caught up or rather so enamored with the idea that Obama's blackness is essential when he is a normal American president who must be judged like every American president based on what he does and no who he appears to be because he doesn't look like George Bush. I'm disappointed because I think that you are great and it disappoints me that you believe that Obama's "blackness" is essential or rather is life changing and when the essentials are elsewhere. Sorry to have to bust your bubble, but blackness in America and elsewhere is a bland and vacuous concept used as political and ideological instrument in a society who has stopped to think to accept the idea that race is an identity when it is trivial. Even when one doesn't look like you, existence precedes essence.