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Dirty politics, or just a poor joke?
By TAJUANA CHESHIER
tcheshier@jacksonsun.com
Oct 14 2004

A distasteful political flier has initiated a press conference between the Special Olympics, the Tennessee Disability Coalition and candidates
in the race for a seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

The flier, which is circulating on the Internet, makes fun of special-needs children and President Bush's intelligence while urging people not to vote for Bush.

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The flier shows a picture of a boy's body in a running posture with President Bush's head superimposed on it. At the top it says, (quote) "Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics."

At the bottom, it says: "Even if you win, you're still retarded."

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We at Special Olympics are astounded and appalled by a political flyer being distributed in Tennessee, showing the head of President
Bush superimposed on the body of a Special Olympics athlete, saying, "Even if you win, you're still retarded."

We see this communication as an egregious, gratuitous insult to our almost 2 million athletes in over 150 countries around the world and a stunning affront to the more than 200 million people in the world who have intellectual disabilities.

We cringe at the thought that any one of these capable and courageous athletes would ever have to endure the agony, embarrassment, pain
and suffering that this flyer would certainly cause.

We hope that the person or persons responsible for this outrageous political advertisement would come forward, identify themselves, and explain to the people of Tennessee and everywhere else why they would choose to denigrate the spirit, courage, and accomplishments of the Special Olympics athletes.

Sadly, this type of ignorance and bigotry is not uncommon. Comedians in the United States regularly mock people with intellectual disabilities; a common playground taunt even today is "retard"; people with intellectual disability remain the last to be respected or included in our schools, health care institutions, and society at large.

Our commitment in this political season and in every other is to reverse this ignorance and bigotry and to replace them with the stunning
realization that many people with intellectual disability are, in fact, among the most gifted within our communities. Their valuable skills
for promoting acceptance and understanding are most desperately needed in the political process and in the world today.

There is no reasonable and legitimate defense of this hateful material. We would expect those responsible to make an abject public apology
and a sincere, determined effort to clear the public domain of this offensive material.

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Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
 
*shake head* Oh dear. No, this is not funny.

What is funny is that I watched Pumpkin for the first time today while ironing clothes.
 

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Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
 
Oh dear... I'm speechless...

I'd tend to think it's some idiot's idea of a good joke rather than an actual effort by either party. But still...
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
Actually, it is very funny.

*choughs, shakes head*

*looks very serious*

But bad. Very bad.

*snickers uncontrollably*
 

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Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
 


There are other ways to make fun of the President.

Shame!
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Gee, Porter, maybe you ought to read the release from Special Olympics.

People used to chortle at racist jokes without feeling self-conscious not all that long ago.
 

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Posted by ludosti (Member # 1772) on :
 
I must be a horrible person - I giggled at the joke. What does it say about me that I would never repeat it, but giggled at it all the same?

I completely agree that this was a horribly distateful thing to actually print and distribute as fliers. I would hope that it was the effort of one individual and not the efforts of a particular campaign office.
 

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Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
 
Or better yet, watch Pumpkin.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
There's a similar graphic that flies around on forums about arguing on the internet. It took about 2 seconds to find on google, but I won't link it.

Given that, I'm betting it's some immature kid not more than superficially connected to either campaign. I'd guess it's slightly more likely to be a Bush hater than someone trying to frame the Dems, but only slightly.

Either way, utterly distasteful.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
 
I've seen that exact same joke several times, but with "arguing with strangers on the internet" in place of "voting for bush."
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
This thread contains a long discussion about the "joke" in question and related issues. It's a source for the title of this thread.

Reading it also gives an example of why I wouldn't place any money on which end of the political spectrum this originated with - there's plenty of willingness to ridicule and dehumanize people with mental retardation on both ends of the spectrum. Or to rationalize it away as something harmless and unrelated to racist or sexist jokes.

[ October 14, 2004, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
 
Hey sndrake, while I've got you here -- You might want to check out a comic strip called Prickly City. It doesn't have real wide distribution, but it is available on the internet. It's totally political. This week, the theme is euthanasia. One character keeps trying to "pull the plug" on another character. It keeps reminding me of some of the things you have talked about on hatrack.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
UofUlawguy:



Thanks!

It's available at uComics and the story arc begins here.

Priceless.

"Will you pipe down? I'm trying to get some closure here!!!"

It is good to laugh. I wish this strip had wider circulation.
 

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Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
 
I'm not sure wider circulation would be such a good thing. On normal days, this strip is ultra-Republican/Conservative, along the lines of Mallard Fillmore. Lots of anti-Kerry stuff. Although there was a funny one a few days ago complaining about Bush's pronunication of nuclear.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
That's too bad. I guess I was hoping it was more like Saturday Night Live, South Park, and The Onion. They've all done stuff that has lampooned the generally-approving press coverage of assisted suicide, euthanasia and "right to die" issues.

South Park has done some shows that are hits in the disability rights community, including lampoons of the telethon, assisted suicide, and the "sympathetic" motivation to segregate kids with disabilities.

And, of course, South Park has done some really offensive stuff about kids with disabilities as well. So a lot of us don't embrace the show, but really love certain episodes.
 

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Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
 
You've got served!
 

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 
It certainly isn't unheard of for one group to publish something like this in order to frame the other. In our own mayoral race in Baltimore a few years back a staff member of a minority candidate's campaign printed a flyer purporting to be an open letter from a white supremacy group urging support for the lone caucasian candidate. These flyers were distributed in several minority neighborhoods, ostensibly to make those residents believe the caucasian candidate had racist ties.

It was quickly proved that this did NOT come from the white candidate's campaign, principally because a Kinko's employee came forward and named the minority campaign person who had the flyer printed.

So, while I like to think the big boys are above this type of thing, I can't totally dismiss the idea that it's a frame-job.
 

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