Possibly Worst Campaign Ad Ever

Israel is a Racist Nation

An Arab man is facing eighteen months in prison after two years of house arrest for having consensual sex with a Jewish woman who thought he was also a Jew.  Someone explain to me why we continue to support this bigoted, racist, apartheid nation.

Lou Dobbs, Will He Rise Again?

I don't think very highly of Lou Dobbs. He's an angry, opinionated bigot with a cable television show. Since the 70's he has moved from a poverty advocate and young journalist to a xenophobic, creationist, birther

As of today he no longer has a job at CNN. I'm sure this is in large part due to his hateful attitude, big angry mouth, racist talk, and wingnut beliefs like supporting the "birther movement."

The problem is that this won't shut him up. He still has a radio show. It is vaguely reported that he may be moving to Fox Noise. I guess it will make it even easier for him to be ignored but in a way it will amplify his angry, hateful message to the True Believers out there. Are people like him still listened to just because they're listened to? Does being a celebrity make increasingly offensive and ignorant opinion still worth attention? More importantly, what value do people like him actually bring to our society that warrants the astonishing amount of money they are paid?

Odd that this video ties nicely into the preceding post about Glenn Beck as well as our boy Lou Dobbs:

The Born Identity

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The Race Card and Joe Wilson

Or "Of Course It's Racism You Idiot"

During President Obama’s speech before the Congress last week, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson (R), could no longer stand it as his and his associates’ lies were called lies by Mr. Obama. Mr. Wilson shouted out, “You lie!” when Mr. Obama repeated that healthcare reform did not include illegal aliens. I'm pretty sure he yelled it the first time the President made this statement but the second time he was shouting into a relatively quiet hall.

This is the most egregious break in decorum ever heard during a Presidential speech before both branches of Congress. There actually are rules of decorum and calling the President a liar on the floor of the House is definitely against those rules. In typical form the Republicans try to equivocate Wilson’s outburst with George W. Bush being booed (which also happened to Obama during this speech) but this is similar to them comparing La Raza to the KKK (more on that in a future post). It is false, like most of what comes from the right these days.

Now the accusation has been made that Wilson’s outburst was a sign of racism. Jimmy Carter is perhaps the highest profile individual to make this claim. Let me join him and others by saying, “Of Course it’s racism.” Joe Wilson is a wealthy, southern, Repbulican, white man and the chances of him not being a racist are so small an angel would have trouble dancing on them. If you haven’t lived in South Caronlina, Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi and you disagree with me I can tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about. The plantation mentality is alive and well in the Deep South. It is still common in Joe Wilson’s hometown for one white man to start a conversation with another by saying, “God I hate a nigger” just like a northeasterner might say, “Looks like it might rain.” Don’t believe me? Go live down there and spend some time with “regular folks” that are white. You tell me how long it is before you hear someone say about a recently deceased black person, “Just another dead nigger.” I can guarantee you that was said millions of times about Michael Jackson.

But Wilson’s crassness was not 100% racist, I’ll admit. A small amount of his anger was personal, a small amount was political, but the part that boiled him over was the fact that a black man was calling him out for his bullshit. His obsession with illegal immigration is inherently racist, his support for keeping the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina State House is inherently racist, but some of his opposition to Obama is simple partisanship. The thing is, his frothing fury is fueled by his racism. He hates the fact that a black man is his superior and his anger and loathing is race based much more than any concerns about socialism or border security.

The “tea party” protests are vitriolic racist hatred under a very thin veil of political protest. Much offense is taken by the right wing when this is suggested (they protest too much, perhaps?) and they immediately claim that the same kind of protests were made against Bush. This is false equivalency. Bush was an idiot, his policies were evil, and he fucked this country up worse than any President in history. Like all Republican Presidents (with the slight exception of Reagan) he left the country in worse shape than when he started (Reagan’s GDP was only slightly higher in the end than under Carter and it was worse than under any other Democratic President), he left us less safe as we are hated by more of the world than ever before and our infrastructure decayed horribly under his watch while we pissed away our wealth in stupid wars.

There were legitimate reasons to protest Bush, and people did protest and loudly. If you go back and look at the pictures of anti-Bush protests, there were a few mean posters with him and a chimp or him and with a Hitler mustache, but most were topical like “No More War” or whatever or “Torture is Wrong” or like that. With these “teabagger” protests, however, the signs are mostly offensive, and deeply so. There are many Confederate flags (an absolutely racist emblem), signs accusing him of not being a citizen (stupidity rooted in racist mistrust), etc. There were a few assholes mixed in with the liberal protestors against Bush. There are a few non-racist conservative protestors mixed in with the racist shitbags at these “tea party” protests. It really bothers me that anyone can stand alongside someone shouting that the President should go back to Kenya and not hang their head in shame… that is, anyone that’s not a racist.

The same arguments are being made against the Obama administration in general that were made against desegregation in the 60’s. “Communist” and “Socialist” are descriptives hurled at anything suggested by Obama and these same words were used to describe the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South. These “teabaggers” are the same people. They cannot see they are gaining more than they are losing. All they can see is they have lost power to people that would vote for a nigger* and that is more than they can stand.

I don’t know that Joe Wilson dresses up in white robes and burns crosses on the weekend. I’ll even go out on a limb and say he hasn’t done this in the last 30 years, and may never have. I’m not going to say that he regularly goes out with his Confederate friends and salutes a Confederate flag, the emblem of slavery and violence against blacks. He might even have some black acquaintances with whom he is civil. But I’ll betchya he’s been a member of an all white country club. I’ll bet he has no black neighbors. I’ll bet he uses the word “nigger” in private. I’ll make these bets because I’ve lived in the Deep South and from personal experience I know that most wealthy southerners are racist through and through. Racist in that casual way that is easy to hide until you are forced to sit there and be called a liar by a black man.

*their word, not mine.

The "Brain" of the GOP

Not in OUR Country Club...

For sale at the Republican State Convention in Texas.
See the full assortment.

via Trail Blazers blog @ The Dallas Morning News

I searched for it because my girl's daughters heard about it.

Tavis Smiley is a Racist

This has been bugging me for a while now so I thought I'd get it off my chest a little. For a while Tavis Smiley had an NPR show. I listened to it fairly regularly but kept finding myself repulsed by Tavis's separatist attitudes about race. He seemed to believe that the colors shouldn't mix, that blacks should only shop in black owned shops, live in black communities, and go to black only schools. I never heard a message of inclusiveness or sharing from him. Not that empowerment and pride are bad by themselves, but when racial purity and segregation are added to the mix, that is bad.

One day there was a piece on his show (by Tony Cox, if I remember correctly) interviewing a black woman who had written about the fact she wouldn't allow her sons to date white women. If she were a white woman using the language she used about blacks the piece never would have aired or she would have at least been challenged about the hatred and racism she espoused. But not on Tavis Smiley's show. No, she was treated like a thoughtful concerned woman trying to keep her boys unstained by those others. To me she sounded just like the worst KKK momma on earth talking about how her son better not be fucking no niggers. Exactly the same level of contempt, bigotry, and prejudice that can only come from a stupid, racist bitch. But you'd think Tony Cox (or whoever interviewed her) was licking her feet in adoration throughout the piece. It was really repulsive, and not a word was said against her. After that show I turned him off and never listened again.

Flash forward a few months to when Tavis either left the show or was fired. He made an appearance on the local show State of Affairs and began going on about how white NPR is and how he had brought about all these racial improvements. I think the man may be a bit full of himself. Anyway, he went on to say that Michele Norris had been hired because of him though, in his own words, she wasn't "the blackest voice." I'm guessing because she can actually speak clearly and doesn't use ridiculous mispronunciations like Tavis (he pronounces all words that in "-ar" as if he were a pirate) then she's "too white" or "not black enough." Can you say, "Racist?"

Tavis has a weekend show on PRI which I make a point of not listening to. I'm pretty sure he also has a regular show on television as well. Why such a bigot and racist is given two hours a week on public radio is beyond me. It would seem if you are going to give a black racist a regular show you should also give a regular show to a white separatist leader or latino gang leaders or maybe the Chinese mafia. Somehow I think the overly P.C. public broadcasting system puts up with Tavis Smiley because they feel he deserves the right to his opinion... and he does. But what he doesn't deserve is the right to espouse racial purity and economic isolationism.