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Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) Viciously Attacks Progressives

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 3:02 AM on October 21, 2008.


It's the same old song, and the beat isn't even different.

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hayescheney.jpg On Saturday, Republican North Carolina Reps. Patrick McHenry and Robin Hayes warmed up the crowd at a rally for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by throwing red meat to the right-wing audience. McHenry called the event the “biggest crowd John McCain has gotten in North Carolina” and said that voters had a critical choice between McCain and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) this election. Someone in the audience yelled out, “It’s like black and white” to loud laughter. McHenry let the remark pass.

When it was his turn to speak, Hayes accused liberals of hating “real Americans”:

He [McHenry] yielded the microphone to Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

This meme has been picking up steam amongst the right wing in recent weeks. Most prominently, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) exploded on Friday and said that liberals were “anti-American.” The McCain campaign and its conservative allies have also been blasting progressive ideas as “socialist” or “Marxist.”

Note that Hayes is the same congressman who, in 2006, said:

Stability in Iraq ultimately depends on spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior.

In 2005, he also insisted that “Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11.” When he was told that no investigation found any link between Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, “I’m sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places.”

Digg!

Tagged as: bigotry, republicans

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.


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Tell me
Posted by: walldodger1969 on Oct 21, 2008 5:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you vote a stupid A$$hole in office...does that also make you one too? not that this question has any bearing on the fine office holders in the article..just asking a question.

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Easy Now The US Was Founded By LIBERAL IDEAS
Posted by: Purple Girl on Oct 21, 2008 5:36 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Was it a conservative concept that 'all men are Created equal'
Was it a Conservative Idea that all should have the opportunity to Pursue Happiness
Was it a Conservative Idea that an economy should be FREE to all to participate in and possibly improve their socio economic standing for themselves and their descendants?
Was it a Conservative Idea that Religion should have no place in Governance, and that all should be free to practice their own faith?
Do Conservative forget our Country's History, or did they just cheat off the 'smart kid' in class during History?
Seems to me these Conservative are Dreaming of days gone by, say like in Merry Ol' England Under the Rule of it's King George
They can call me whatever they want (Free Speech- also a 'Liberal Idea'),but their own words and Action prove them Hypocrits and Deceivers.
Of Course 'Redistribution of Wealth' sounds like 'Socialism' to them, They expound the benefits of a cast system and Religious Persecution (Monarchy /dictatorship)- The Shit Our Ancestors Ran away From.
Seems to me they would find more Conscenus in Saudi Arabia, even their 'Women folk' accept their place as mere Receptacles of Semen, Well at least as far as they're allowed to speak.
So Easy Now, Your Words and Actions are proving to be motivated by a dream of the United States of Saudi Arabia.
And What was the Primordial Ooze most of the 9/11 highjackers slithered out from? Saudi Arabia (Afghanistan was just a 'college' campus).
And Now who is proving to 'Hate US for our Freedoms'? the same Good Ol' boys who have been 'Paling around with Oil'Royals' for Decades.
So throw what ever Religious Justification you want, It won't Fly in this country founded on economic and Religious FREEDOM!
Easy Now, Your totalitarian Slip is showing, beneath that flag you have wrapped yourself in and that Bible you wield as a shield. It's all been done Before and Our country was Founded as a reaction to it's Oppressive and dangerous Tennents.
My ancestors were not only Running away from such Rule they were Running TO FREEDOM!

Cave Adsum
I Confido

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Im From NC... And As Usual, I'm Embarassed
Posted by: loxias on Oct 21, 2008 6:18 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't know what it is about NC, but this state sometimes seems but a half-step from Kansas intellectually.
Jesse Helms, Robin Hayes, Elizabeth Dole, John Edwards, the list of embarrassments goes on.
Apparently, becoming a politician in NC consists of not only pretending to destroy your integrity, but also destroying your integrity.
I have a message for Robin Hayes.
I've paid over $15,000 dollars a year in taxes since February.
I'm an American citizen, paid in full, and I'd like him to call me anything but to my face.
I wish taxes and votes counted for something. Apparently, Joe McCarthy, not Joe the "Plummer," is the new template for a patriot. Who knew.
Anti-American is too kind a word for them, as it still includes some notion of being American.
Hayes is a conniving, well-paid royalist.

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Oh Noes!
Posted by: grumble-bum on Oct 21, 2008 7:11 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I guess the jig is up!

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"Real America"-A Message
Posted by: blackie4aces on Oct 21, 2008 9:03 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This motherfucker is calling some people "real Americans" (people more or less like him) and thereby implying that others are not "Real Americans," and is then going on to accuse liberals of fucking class warfare! Astonishing does not come close to describing this position. Is this guy an illiterate moron or is he simply irredeemably immoral? Is the citizenry of America stupid enough to buy this shit? Do I have any voluteers to jam a copy of the constitution up his ass? Maybe he could absorb it by osmosis as reading it, if he ever has, obviously hasn't done the job.

For a society which has landed on the moon, produced computers the size of cigar boxes and a memory capacity of the combined population of Europe, performs heart valve transplants as almost routine surgery it is mind boggling to me how it can simultaneously turn out knuckle dragging cretins in such staggering numbers.

I know it is beyond all hope that this fuckwad might read this rag, but if he did I have a message for him. This "unreal" American would like to point out to him that his unrepentant capitalist "real" Americans have just finished ripping off this country, both "real" and "unreal" Americans, for 700 billion dollars, that his party of "real" Americans have colluded in the ripping off of four thousand plus American lives in the war(s) these good Christians can't seem to find it in their black hearts to live without, that his party of "real" Americans have demonstrated to the rest of the world that America is an ignorant, murderous bully, that his party of "real" Americans cannot state three sentences without lying egregiously, and that, I am proud and happy to not move in the same orbit with his so-called "real" Americans who evidently define themselves by orgies of willful ignorance, intolerance, lies, racism, oppression, and violence. In other words, dear chap, go fuck yourself.

Satan's Neutral Corner
satansneutralcorner@yahoo.com

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Not All Forms of Socialism are Marxist
Posted by: pdxjoe on Oct 21, 2008 9:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
" The McCain campaign and its conservative allies have also been blasting progressive ideas as 'socialist' or 'Marxist.'"

There is a section in the Manifesto of the Communist Party on "Socialist and Communist Literature." There Marx describes and harshly critiques a number of 19th Century forms socialisms. A couple of them, one which Marx calls "petty bourgeois socialism" and another which he calls "Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism," very much apply to American progressivism and liberalism (in its "social" and "economic" forms). Much of what Barack Obama advocates has nothing to do with radical, proletarian socialism, which is what Marx argued for above all previous socialistic movements.

On its face, this hurts the Obama campaign insofar as it's believed that socialism = marxism = gulag. I think there's an opportunity here to introduce Marx and the historical complexity of his observations and suggestions. Every time someone spouts of "socialism" as a derogatory term, get them to explain themselves. You might just find that they hate some kinds of socialism as much a Marx did.

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