FR should put a bright red indicator into posts made by newbies for their first 3 to 6 months. There are a lot of fake FReepers posting inappropriate comments to stir up controversy.
Great idea!
Posted on 07/11/2009 12:01:08 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children
By Chris Parry, Vancouver SunJuly 11, 2009 11:01 AM
This photo of U.S. President Barrack Obama's daughter Malia, wearing a peace-symbol t-shirt touched off a storm of epithet-laced comments on the conservative 'Free Republic' blog
"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."
Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.
Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.
"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.
"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.
Such was the onslaught of derision on the site that the person who originally complained about the slurs, a Kristin N., claims only one comment in the first hundred posted actually criticized the remarks as inappropriate.
A note on the front of the blog reads, "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government," but one comment on the thread read, "This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution," while another read, "I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."
After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender's email address intact.
"The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Thompson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig."
"I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight. But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife."
"Poor kids. I hope they're not 'punished with a baby'," wrote another. "Hopefully they won't deal cocaine like the Kenyan."
"DIRTBAGS! All of them. Our [White House] is now a joke to the rest of the world. We have no respect and this is not going to turn out well, mark my words. We will be hit, and much worse than last time. We are now seen as weak and vulnerable. Ghetto and Chicago thugs have taken over."
Only after significant negative attention from a host of left wing political blogs did the maintainers of the Free Republic site place the thread under review for a second time, before finally pulling it.
In the wake of the controversy, some Free Republic posters complained about the vitriol.
One poster by the name of "fullchroma" wrote, "To Jim Thompson: The recent uptick here in racist vitriol, aimed at Barrack, Michelle and their children has made me wonder if I belong. My objection to Obama has nothing to do with skin tone. Is the ugly stereotype of Conservative racism true?"
Another, going by the name of TChris, wrote, "Free Republic is a political discussion forum. It SHOULD be beneath us as a group to stoop to such juvenile tactics as I see increasing here lately. Do we REALLY have to insult Mrs. Obama's appearance like a clique of nasty 14-year-old girls?"
But such opinions were not shared by all. Said Roses of Sharon, "Poor libs .... Too late, the battle has been joined." © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
HE is, and he is on the troll list.
Ping to post 365 — not a bad idea.
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday,...
How are these comments at all racist? Apparently the author believes that "whores", "ghetto thugs" and "street trash" are attributes unique to African Americans(?) Do only African American's avail themselves of abortions? (The author suggests as much.)
It sounds to me like it is the author of this article who has a problem with racism - and quite frankly, I find that most offensive of all!
Now to the person that wrote this article would you please tell the filthy liberals to lay off a poor defenseless baby,and two daughters of Sarah Palins..you liberal are getting scared since the Muslims rating have started gong down so you have to focus the attention on us..People are beginning to see what we here have warned them about Obama and his gang, and he had better watch out he will never see another term in the white house unless he steals it again.. I am sure Free republic will getting many more readers because of your article,and these readers will be able to read the truth about the criminals that are in the white house..
You said — It doesn’t matter if we play nice...Just opposing the Marxist agenda will label us racist..
—
Well, the difference is one set of comments are much easier to prove as racist — while another set of comments are very much more difficult to prove as racist.
In other words, you can easily defend against being labeled as racist simply for opposing a Marxist agenda, while you are going to have a hard time defending another set of comments which are more clearly racist comments.
So, while you may be technically correct in being *accused* in either case, they can’t make it stick very well with the legitimate complaints on the basis of Marxist politics, you see... :-)
Work for MSNBC do you?
You said — Wouldn’t be surprised if that was their intent.
—
Of course it was, which is a good reason for not giving them cause... :-)
FR should put a bright red indicator into posts made by newbies for their first 3 to 6 months. There are a lot of fake FReepers posting inappropriate comments to stir up controversy.
Great idea!
You said — Obama is fair game, so is Michelle, but she’s not the President. Wouldn’t it make more sense if we focus on generating opposition to Obama and the Democrat policies that are wrecking this country?
—
Exactly. Venting and/or emotional responses don’t help the rationality of our conservative politics. We’ve got to be the rational ones around here... :-)
A note on the front of the blog reads, "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government," but one comment on the thread read, "This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution," while another read, "I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."
What a misleading propaganda hit piece! For example, I think the "I never actually wanted to be a pistol before..." comment was a response to this picture:
And the picture of Kate (above) wearing the American chicken/peace sign t-shirt was in response to the peace sign t-shirt obama's daughter is wearing.
Chris Parry of the Vancouver Sun is such an idiot. A misleading hack pretending to be a journalist.
“No... we the bad guys.... the good guys are the ones who make rape jokes about Sarah Palins minor daughter. what a disgusting post.”
In this case it appears that both sides are the bad guys.
You said — If you’re the idiot who trolls the birth cert threads, you have no cred. i dont care if you were born with a camera shoved up your ass, your opinion of this photo or anything else has absolutely no significance to me.
—
I’m probably the one you remember on the birther threads, and a whole lot of other threads, too. Since being here for about ten years and racking up 20,000 posts, you can imagine that I’ve commented on just about every single topic you can imagine...
And it doesn’t matter whether you want to recognize what is going on in the picture or not, because if anyone sees the video, they’ll clearly see that it wasn’t what some people are trying to make it out to be.
You see.., I don’t figure wasting my time on something that is false and obviously untrue is helping anything. I prefer to go after Obama on policies, legislation, governing and his politics in general.
If someone brings up something that is obviously false about him, I’ll point that out, because it’s a waste of people’s efforts to promote something that is so obviously untrue. It also makes it very much easier for the other side to say, “See, they can’t even get the facts right...” That doesn’t help any conservatives...
You asked — Work for MSNBC do you?
—
Cute line, if it worked... :-)
Sorry, after being here for ten years and racking up 20,000 posts, nope — if I were working for the MSM, I would have committed suicide a long time ago. I can barely get through their press...
But, if there’s one thing that I think no one on Free Republic should do — it’s fight against a political opponent with clearly false stories. And this is one of them that is clearly false, if anyone takes the time to look at the video.
The thing that consistently bothers me is the huge entourage of relatives. Are the taxpayers paying for them? Where are the headlines demanding to know who is footing their bills?
Many of us did not vote for Obama in part due to his lack of foreign policy experience. These kinfolk tagging along gives the impression that none of this clan have ever been anywhere on their own. (The One's vaunted world travel was mostly custody issues, not real travel with the intent of learning comparatives to the U.S. system). If President Bush had taken his sisters-in-law and their children with him on foreign travel, all hell would have broken loose.
As I’ve stated, I’ve been on this site for something like 5 or 6 years and have never once seen any racial comments directed at anyone. Despite the fact that racists like Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright clearly dislike white people, I’ve always seen them countered on their idiotic policies, not because they’re black.
For all we know, the morons that posted that garbage could have been trolls from the Daily Kos. Hell, they could have been henchmen from the DNC headquarters.
See, the drive-by media is going to cover this for one reason. They’ve invested so heavily in an empty suit like Obama that they now need something to blame his disasterous presidency on. I’ve stated since last year that the minute Obama was deemed a failure, it would be blamed on racist Republicans who interfered and meddled making it impossible for Obama to succeed. This is their opportunity and they’re going to run with this as long as the clown continues to take apart our country.
They don’t care when California Democrat Karen Bass calls Republicans terrorists. Or when Dick Durbin compares our troops to Nazis. Or when a Huffington Post blogger writes about Palin’s retarded baby. Or what the loony left did to Tony Snow when he got cancer. It doesn’t fit their agenda, which is to be the verbal garbage for the communists in this country.
I for one, don’t mind the forthcoming attention from the MSM. I hope they come on here and read every post I type. I have as much disdain and vitriol towards that Anti-American turd in the White House as he has towards our Constitution, our liberties and our free market society. He’s a miserable failure
Oh and to the MSM like the hack David Shuster who may be reading this now: Can you ask Obama which hospital in Honolulu he was born in? There seems to be a little confusion on the issue and well I guess we can check his birth certificate...oh nope can’t do that. Maybe we can ask the delivery room doctor. Oh snap, that’s a dead end too. Well please find out for me. I’ll be waiting eagerly.
An Englishman is being shown around a Scottish hospital. At the end of the tour he is shown into a ward with a number of patients who show no signs of injury.
He goes to examine the first man he sees, and the man proclaims “Fair fa’ yer honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!”
The Englishman, somewhat taken aback, goes to the next patient, who immediately launches into:
“Some hae meat, and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat, and sae the Lord be thankit.”
The next patient sits up and declaims:
“Wee sleekit cow’rin tim’rous beastie,
O what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi’ bickering bl’attle.
I wad be laith to run and chase thee, wi’ murdering prattle.”
“Well,” says the Englishman to his Scottish colleague, “I see you saved the psychiatric ward for the last.”
“Nae, nae,” the Scottish doctor corrects him. “This is the Serious Burns Unit.”
I've been here over 8 years and I have. It's gotten worse with the election of Obama.
exactly - this is a diversion
That's simply untrue. We don't know whom he talks to in private re. Ayers; but he did not give him any public role. And Obama and Wright have been sniping at each other publicly. I'm sure they are both quite sore about the mutual embarrassment.
By ‘they’ I meant ‘some posters’ not the media.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
