A friend of mine has joined a Facebook group: DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.

Another friend of mine has joined an opposing group: Petition to remove facebook group praying for President Obama’s death

Spelling errors, all caps and typos aside, the former group deserves all the ridicule thinking people can muster; and the latter, well, they just don’t get it.

Facebook and the Internet are all about voices.  There will always be hatred and hate speech; but censorship is a knee-jerk response.

Thinking people need to combat hate and stupidity with their own voice — not through the suppression of speech.

I’m tempted to get on Facebook and create a group of my own, for all like-minded Americans who are tired of the racist propaganda that passes for Tea Party manifestos and Republican dialogues.

WHITE DUDES FOR OBAMA

Dude, dudette, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever — we’re here to stand up against the Republican and Tea Party bullies whose blind and ignorant hatred for President Obama threatens not only national security,  but our individual liberties as well.

We like the President.  He was elected on a promise of change for the better — and that change is happening.  We no longer have a would-be cowboy president whose policies help only his own party; we have a president who thinks, who uses diplomacy and tact, and who is willing to make decisions that are not dependent on party politics — not even those of his own party.

The Great Unspoken Truth  is that President Obama is hated because . . . he’s one of Them.

And you know who They are.

Conservatives, Republicans, Tea Partiers all scream, “We want our country back!”

The only correct answer is, “Your country hasn’t been taken away.  It’s right here.  Not much is different.  The fact is, you just don’t like a black guy in charge.”

And that is what it’s all about.

Our group name is only symbolic — a deliberate response to the irrational racial hatred of the Far, Far Right.  To us, “White Dudes” means “Normal Americans who don’t care about anybody else’s politics and just want to be left alone.”  And it’s a signal to the ultra-conservative haters in America: yes, there are a lot of white people — and many others — who support the President.

The Mad Doctor of conservative television, Glenn Beck, who just recently has begun hearing the voice of God tell him what to do (No, he ain’t crazy), has sold the far right on the idea that “We Surround Them” — that the conservatives, the Republicans, the flag-waving, the God-fearing, surround the rest of Americans — in effect, dominating middle America.  Ruling them by majority.

The Mad Doctor is wrong.  The Right does not own patriotism.  The Right does not own God.  The Right does not rule America.

We all, as Americans, claim these rights and privileges and beliefs.  The people.  The people who are left and right, conservative and progressive,  farmers and suburbanites, truck drivers, hybrid owners, blue- and white-collars, Christian and Atheist and Agnostic and Jewish and Muslim and…

…All-American.

WHITE DUDES FOR OBAMA are Americans who don’t give a damn about politics.  We are in the immense and overwhelming grey area on the line between all the Far-Idiots to whom Ideology is the End-All, Be-All.

We live and survive in the real America — an America where bills have to be paid, where our pay checks are never enough, where government isn’t great, but it isn’t the enemy, where our elected officials rarely represent us and where the game of party politics — and the politicians who play the game — makes losers of us all.

You’re blocking President Obama’s choices for administration positions that are invaluable to our country.  Your temper tantrum is hurting America.

You wear tea bags on your heads, get drunk, wave guns and brandish racist signs that are terribly misspelled.  Did you ever go to a school?

Your Republican-led states are threatening secession and anti-Government lawsuits.  I thought you were against the wasteful use of taxpayer dollars.

It’s the Far, Wingnut Right against, well, everyone else.  This isn’t a populist movement or a second American Revolution.  It’s the Civil War all over again — just because the President is black.

As the man once said, “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.”

WHITE DUDES FOR OBAMA are white and black and everyone in between — basically, everyone who disagrees with the far-right bullies, no matter our color, our religion — or lack thereof — or our political preferences.  We want to live without violence, without discord.

But we will fight your hatred and your political bullying. 

We want change for the better.

We’re behind the President.

And thinking people will prevail.

We are the majority.

And We Surround You.

My friend who joined the anti-Obama Facebook group is not a racist.   My friend simply does not like President Obama.  I’m not sure why; but that is my friend’s right.  I suspect that my friend joined because the group name is an old, old joke (add any politician’s name here).  My friend loves humor, sick jokes (as do I), dry wit and serious drinking.  I truly believe my friend wishes no ill will upon the President.

But there are those who do wish ill will, and worse, upon President Obama.

And it’s due to dirty political tactics, smears, and racism.

This is Washington evil at its most organized.  What’s next?  Herding Democrats and intellectuals into cattle cars and calling it a Freedom Train?

Seriously — isn’t it time for all the hate and hypocrisy and lies to stop?