Found on YouTube – absolutely fabulous, and I think it should be required viewing for some of our conservative friends, if not in most schools. Maybe we should re-do this with a modern twist, but I worry it might lose some of its effectiveness.

I’ve been pretty quiet about the matter of the community center near ground zero that everyone is calling a “mosque,” when in reality it’s nothing of the sort. I’ve also been quiet because logically it doesn’t make sense to care so much about a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, because if people cared so much about such things they would have shut down the other community centers nearby, the strip club nearby, and just about everything else the conservative right could work themselves into a lather over that’s just as close or closer than the community center that’s being planned for the region.

Sadly, it’s just another example of first – how there’s a small group of very vocal people who are still trying to use a tragic event in American history that occured almost 10 years ago to benefit themselves both monetarily and to their own political gain, with no respect for the events of the day or the people who died, and how there’s a small group of people who are still trying to use that same event to steer political policy in a way that retains their power and privilege, making sure that Americans live in the same state of fear we experienced that day – only now backed with a strong dose of hatred against a minority group that, the way the Germans did with the Jewish people after World War I, are easily blamed for all of society’s ills and dangers without demand of evidence.

Over at Tablet Magazine, Daniel Luban explains why this is exactly the issue at hand, and why this isn’t about one community center, this isn’t about a mosque, this is about the rampant Islamaphobia that’s spread out from the ignorance and bigotry of Americans far from New York City and is sweeping the nation thanks to the fervent push from the conservative right to actively deny and smother education to the contrary:

After Abraham Foxman waded into the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy,opposing plans to construct an Islamic community center a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, the Anti-Defamation League chief was assailed by critics who charged that the ADL was giving license to bigotry and betraying its historic mission “to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike.” A week after initially coming out against the mosque, Foxman announced that the ADL was bowing out of the controversy, but the damage to the group’s reputation had been done.

The problem for the ADL is that there simply isn’t much anti-Semitism of consequence in the United States these days. While anti-Semitism continues to thrive elsewhere in the world and to molder on the fringes of American society, Jews have by now been fully assimilated into the American ruling class and into the mainstream of American life.

…

At the same time, many of the tropes of classic anti-Semitism have been revived and given new force on the American right. Once again jingoistic politicians and commentators posit a religious conspiracy breeding within Western society, pledging allegiance to an alien power, conspiring with allies at the highest levels of government to overturn the existing order. Because the propagators of these conspiracy theories are not anti-Semitic but militantly pro-Israel, and because their targets are not Jews but Muslims, the ADL and other Jewish groups have had little to say about them. But since the election of President Barack Obama, this Islamophobic discourse has rapidly intensified.

While the political operatives behind the anti-mosque campaign speak the language of nativism and American exceptionalism, their ideology is itself something of a European import. Most of the tropes of the American “anti-jihadists,” as they call themselves, are taken from European models: a “creeping” imposition of sharia, Muslim allegiance to the ummah rather than to the nation-state, the coming demographic crisis as Muslims outbreed their Judeo-Christian counterparts.

Heard this story before? Of course you have – it’s what led to the Germans locking up Jewish families and barricading Jewish communities during the early years of World War II. Now I normally hate to Godwin’s Law up any discussion like this, but the parallels are too close to ignore – and the frothing hatred is starting to get to that eerie fever pitch where an entire group of people are to be subjugated to culling and retribution by the masses because of the actions of a few. The last time I saw behavior like this was in the 1970s and 1980s when the conservative right, largely White Americans, were outraged at the so-called epidemic of “Black on White crime,” while killings among and between other minority groups went largely ignored. I fear we’ll see the same apathy until the drug war simmering in Mexico spills over enough to take White American lives; then Latinos may find themselves bundled up with Muslims.

Here’s the clincher though – voters really don’t care. Over at The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel points out some interesting statistics about recent polls:

Pundits and politicians are working themselves into hysteria over a mosque near Ground Zero. But this election won’t be about mosques in Manhattan. It won’t even be about the deficit, really. It will be about manufacturing on Main Street, and which party can talk effectively about the progressive solutions Americans desire.

Not surprisingly, polls from Gallup to the Wall Street Journal show Americans are worried most about the economy and jobs. And a just-released poll—from progressive outfits Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps with sponsorship from MoveOn.org Political Action and two labor unions—gives a more detailed look at what voters are looking for. Respondents, in particular the “rising American electorate” —youth, single women and minorities that constitute a majority of voters and are President Obama’s most supportive base—support bold steps for renewing the economy.

The poll tested a range of messages, with the greatest support for one calling for “rebuilding infrastructure” and another calling for constructing “an economy on a new foundation”—that is, investing in education and a 21st century infrastructure, leading in the green industrial revolution and balancing our trade.

But what about that deficit? Americans worry about the deficit, but less for reasons usually given by deficit hawks than because they think it may get in the way of creating jobs and of protecting Social Security. The poll shows equal support for a five-year plan to revive America’s industry and a five-year plan to cut deficits—and in equal intensity. The two are linked. Put people to work and revive manufacturing, and you will bring the deficit down. Bring the deficit down, and you’ll help put people to work.

And by large margins, Americans don’t think deficit-cutting should include cuts in the federal benefits workers have already fought to get. It is widely rumored, for example, that President Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission is considering raising the retirement age on Social Security as part of a deficit-reduction plan. It better think again. Poll respondents want Social Security and Medicare protected. Over 60 percent of Republicans, of independents and of Democrats oppose raising the retirement age on Social Security—or Medicare, for that matter. Similarly, when AARP asked if Social Security should be cut as a “way to help reduce the federal deficit,” 72 percent of respondents were strongly opposed.

Proof of the matter is that right now, the American people care more about the economy and jobs, and care enough in an intelligent way, that it’s safer to say “It’s the economy, stupid,” and that the President is doing the right thing by dismissing the entire controversy about the community center in Lower Manhattan as exactly what it is – an arbitrary attempt by a few bigoted people who are more interested in carrying the American flag for their own benefit and trampling the graves of those who died on 9/11 in a rush for their own personal and political gain than it is any substantive controversy or matter of concern. He points instead at the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as a shining example of exactly why such a community center should be built, over all opposition.

He’s right – but the conservative right in America has never listened to reason over the voices of hatred in their own heads – it’s up to the rest of us to make sure they listen to us and our voices at the polls instead.

[ Rage Against Islam: The New Anti-Semitism ]
Source: Tablet Magazine (courtesy of AlterNet)

[ It's About Main Street, Not the Mosque ]
Source: The Nation

If you ever have questions about whether or not racism still exists in America, I think we’ve provided you dozens of examples here over the years – and while conservatives like the folks at rags like the National Review would claim that there’s no such thing as racism in America anymore (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary – but then again, the National Review was never in the business of printing facts) I think there’s more than enough evidence that in this so-called post-racial society, the loud and proud racist hordes, marching under their Tea Party banners and frothingly obeying their lord and master Glenn Beck, are not only racially motivated, they’re racially driven as well. It plays a role in everything they do, and ensuring that their hatred stays good, high, and at the fever point.

Because I simply can’t bear to dice the piece up, this is the entire op-ed by Joe Conason of the New York Observer, published over at TruthDig:

Among the most revealing aspects of life during the Obama presidency is the panoply of responses to a black family in the White House. What made so many of us proud of our country on Jan. 20, 2009, has increasingly provoked expressions of hatred from the far right. That is troubling, but not nearly as troubling as the behavior of conservatives who excuse, embolden or simply pretend to ignore the bigots surrounding them.

Last spring, after unruly tea party protesters on Capitol Hill were accused of spewing racial epithets at civil rights hero John Lewis, an African-American congressman from Georgia, conservatives rose up in furious denial. Where was the proof? How could anyone suggest that racial prejudice lurks behind the festering right-wing hatred of President Obama (and his family)? Anger over that episode still lingers in certain quarters, motivating the deceptively edited video attack on Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP by a website called Big Government, Inc.

Even if the alleged assault on Lewis and other black congressmen did occur, argued prominent commentators on the right, it somehow only proved that there is no racism in America worthy of concern. A writer for National Review (the conservative magazine that historically opposed civil rights legislation) confided that the whole subject made him yawn:

“That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow—and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase.”

But this summer has seen several loud and ugly outbursts of very real racism—including threats of violence against the president of the United States—that go well beyond the utterance of any single word. As if suffering from a facial tic, leading figures on the right cannot seem to suppress their inner Klansman these days.

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Is there any other way to explain Glenn Beck’s crazed rant comparing the Obama administration to an old movie about a society where apes and chimpanzees dominate humans? What did the Fox News host mean, exactly, when he shrieked: “It’s like the damned Planet of the Apes. Nothing makes sense!” Is there any other way to explain the grotesque new best-seller by radio host Laura Ingraham, “The Obama Diaries,” where, among other things, she depicts first lady Michelle Obama eating ribs at every meal? Why would she feel the need to describe the president as “uppity” by putting the word in the mouth of his mother-in-law? No wonder Stephen Colbert taunted Ms. Ingraham to her face for “hideous and hackneyed racial stereotyping.”
Of course, these are only two of the more egregious instances in recent weeks of social poisoning that dates back well over a year. Symptoms can be seen across the country now, even in amusement parks and church carnivals, where small children are exposed to this spiritual sickness.

At the Big Time fair held by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Roseto, Pa., last week, a game called “Alien Attack” featured “an image of a suited black man holding a health care bill and wearing a belt buckle with a presidential seal,” at which players were encouraged to aim their popguns. Anybody who hit the cardboard figure in the head or the heart could win a prize. Irvin L. Good Jr., owner of Goodtime Amusements, who is responsible for this disgusting garbage, denied that the figure represents Mr. Obama. “We’re not interpreting it as Obama,” the inaptly named huckster told a local newspaper. “The name of the game is Alien Leader. If you’re offended, that’s fine, we duly note that.”

Meanwhile on the New Jersey shore, patrons of the Seaside Heights boardwalk could hurl baseballs at a black, jug-eared Obama figurine, winning a prize if they managed to smash it. As seen in a video posted on the Gawker website, this object closely resembles the grinning “lawn jockey” statuettes that used to festoon suburban lawns in a less decent era.

Most conservatives were late in taking responsibility for their movement’s immoral opposition to civil rights. It is time for them to step up and denounce the racism that is again disfiguring our country in their name.

[ The Racists Return ]
Source: TruthDig

I’ve never been a fan of bumper sticker politics: I find it overall relatively crude and demeaning not only to everyone involved (both the person idiotic enough to put something like “Miss Him Yet?” on their car and the person who has to see it while they’re headed to work or home from it) but there’s been one little trend of short-memory and revisionist history among conservatives and Republicans that I feel compelled to note.

Admittedly, the Right’s attention span has always been short, and their capacity to revise history to make themselves look glowing (see Ronald Reagan) has always been remarkable, but President Obama has been in office for 18 months and not only are conservatives trying to pretend that he’s not still busy cleaning up the messes of the past 8 years (“hurr when will you stop blaming the last guy for what’s happening now, hrurr”) but also conveniently shaping today’s issues in short-term language (instead of properly pointing at the near 30-year history of American conservatism as responsible for the deregulation of our financial industries, energy industries, and transportation industries to the point where they’re only accountable to their shareholders and the desires of their executives to line their pockets – at the expense of the American people.)

Bumper stickers like “How’s that change working out for you” and “Miss him yet?” have been appearing on the cars of the angry, who want you and I to believe that the world may as well have ended 18 months ago and now we’re all picking through the smoldering ashes of our civilization. To those questions, I have two very simple answers:

* That change is working out great for me, thanks for asking!
* No, I don’t miss him at all – in fact, I’m happily on my way to forgetting he ever existed.

Starting at the very bottom, I’m particularly glad that I have a President who, while he isn’t perfect, is leaps and bounds more perfect than the last guy, and a President who I don’t have to worry will lock me up and waterboard me if I disagree with him and don’t march in lock step behind. Now I have a President who, as a matter of policy, doesn’t strip American citizens of their rights and due process just so they can be thrown in a dark cell until the powers that be can think of what do to with them. Again – our current Administration isn’t perfect on this point, but at least they’re willing to listen to suggestions and open to changing course – the last Administration would have simply called you “un-American,” “un-patriotic,” and thrown you in a cell just for speaking your mind.

The last Administration listened in on the phone calls of American citizens without a warrant, and the last Administration locked up American citizens for no reason. The last Administration was responsible for the Patriot Act, which while it hasn’t been repealed, has been used with significantly more caution and judgment than it had been in the past. The last Administration was obsessed with the State Secrets Act and shutting down human rights lawsuits just by invoking it.

So no, I don’t “miss him yet” at all, and that “change” has been a huge breath of fresh air.

Let’s move on to some more tangible examples though:

Would Mad King George have appointed two women to the Supreme Court? Likely not.

Would McCain have signed the Lucy Ledbetter Act, mandating equal pay for equal work? Never.

Would Bush Jr. have committed to drawing down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if those plans are slow to take shape? Never – they would have said even talking about leaving would have emboldened our “enemy.”

Would the Little Bush or McCain ever strive to provide health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, pass a Patient’s Bill of Rights, put Medicare on sound financial footing, and cut near a trillion dollars from the budget defecit over the next 10 years by reforming the way Americans get and spend on health care? It would have been a laughable proposition.

Would McCain or Palin have signed an executive order mandating that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” be repealed? Wouldn’t have even crossed their minds.

Would Bush Jr. ever thought to close Guantanamo, much less actually try? Never.

Would a Republican president ever have sought to re-vitalize the Civil Rights wing of the Department of Justice, ousting political appointments that sought only to minimize the amount of work the agency did by throwing out legitimate cases and complaints and marginalizing career lawyers who have fought for equal rights their entire lives? Nope.

Would McCain or Palin have fought to restore science and scientific analysis to its rightful place in American discourse, especially on such important topics as climate change, space science, and medicine? Never.

Would McCain or Bush Jr. be on nearly as solid terms with our allies as Obama is, and managed to completely turn around our antagonistic relationship with Russia the way he has? Never – we would have seen more bluster and saber rattling, and likely be in the middle of another war with another faceless enemy designed to make us afraid by now had we voted differently.

Would McCain ever have gleefully signed ethics reform into law that would ensure there were strong rules to make sure the the field day that Republicans had during their majority time in office prior to 2008 (remember the cascade of ethics and sex scandals coming out of Congress back then? Oh how soon the right wing forgets…) never happen again? Not a chance.

Would Bush Jr. ever have given woefully needed money to the American auto industry – even if it was unpopular – and then been able to stand behind them as, as happened last week, they all post revenue gains and profits as opposed to the record losses and debts they had over a year ago?

The economic downturn was in full swing when President Obama was elected, as were both wars and all of their issues – so blaming President Obama is only ad accurate as you can blame someone for not cleaning up someone else’s mess fast enough. Someone recently pointed to a story about the vast majority (something like 96%) of money slated for reconstruction in Iraq being unaccounted for, and snarkily commented about whether or not this was something that people would just blame President Bush for – to which I responded that yes, it is – it’s only the right that seeks to unload accountability for their own actions and leadership decisions onto the people that follow them. President Obama has accountability to cleaning up that mess, but he has no accountability for having made the mess in the first place.

To that end though, would Bush Jr. or McCain ever have pushed through legislation designed to stimulate the economy, fund thousands of new infrastructure projects, put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work, and, with time, eventually turn the job decline into a slow but steady job incline? Not at all – there would have been some tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans (like the Bush tax cuts being debated now in Congress – you remember, the ones that did nothing to stimulate the economy or create new jobs?) and the Republicans would have resorted to their old stand-by, that people who are unemployed somehow “want to be jobless” or “deserve it.”

Would Bush ever have had the gravitas or political will to push through a massive financial system reform bill into law that not only forces more accountability in the financial sector but also establishes a new government agency that the public can turn to for their own protection against those massive Wall Street entities? Never. Would McCain? Hardly – he may have handed over some more money to them, but never have fought on our behalf.

So when you ask me if that “change” is working out for me, I’m more than happy to say yes.

When you ask me if I “miss him yet,” I can answer with a smile and say “miss who?”

Because overall, there’s plenty of work left to be done, and we’re not out of the woods, and everything isn’t perfect, but I’m more hopeful now than I ever have been, and I’m confident that America is moving in the right direction under a leader who at least considers the best interests of the people and the nation over their own personal whim or delusional personal “calling.”

Yup, that change is working out for me just fine, thanks. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Oh the poor Tea Party – they keep wanting to not be called racists, but they keep acting like racists! That AND their leadership is so busy whining and complaining that they’re being called racist that they can’t take the time to actively denounce racism in their ranks – which would probably go along way to discounting attacks that they’re racist. But then again, they can’t possibly denounce racism, because after all, the truth is? They’re not only racist, but they say and do racist things.

Now I make that distinction on purpose, because it’s critical to be able to tell the difference between someone who just said or did something that’s racist and someone who IS racist. Not everyone who says something that’s racist is a racist person – and it’s those people who can be told “listen, that’s not cool,” and they’ll understand if they’re approached non-defensively. But some people – like the leadership of the Tea Party thuggery – are so busy saying and being racist and then complaining when they’re called out on it that they simply can’t be educated to their own white privilege.

This tidbit by digby at AlterNet had me laughing:

It’s interesting that after the ACORN business and the past year of obnoxious rhetoric on the far right the mainstream media is suddenly waking up to the fact that the Tea Party might just, in fact, have a teensy racist bent.

This is from a well done article on the topic in the Kansas City Star:

For many tea partiers, racism is in the eye of the beholder.

Take Ron Wight, who stood with dozens of tea party activists at the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain in April, complaining about the Obama administration, its socialist agenda and being called a racist.

Those like him who complain about President Barack Obama are accused of racism, lamented the semi-retired music teacher from Lee’s Summit.

Then he added: “If I was a black man, I’d get down on my knees and thank God for slavery. Otherwise, I could be dying of AIDS now in Africa.”

Wight doesn’t consider that comment to be racist.“I wish slavery had never happened,” he said. “But there are some black people alive today who have never suffered one day what the people who were black went through in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. Has somebody said something stupid or done something stupid? Yes, there have been incidents.

“But with everything that has been done in this country legally and socially for the black man, it’s almost like they’ve been given a great leg up.”

I think that exemplifies the most common modern form of racism — the white victim mentality, whether it means “they’ve been given a great leg up” or “they are all violent criminals and welfare queens,” the point is that racial minorities get all the breaks.

And no, these people don’t admit they are racists. Indeed, they deny it completely and claim that they are, in fact, victims of reverse racism. Just because they say it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

For an erudite discussion of this topic, I urge you to read this Ta-Nehisi Coates essay here.

That essay at the end goes into fabulous detail on why the NAACP is absolutely correct with regard to calling out the Tea Party for its racist motivations, members, and statements. Meanwhile, people in the Tea Party, like Wight above, claim they’re just exercising their “right to free speech” while spouting hate that’s been sugarcoated in their own white privilege.

On the bright side though, we get to all watch the Tea Partiers self-destruct by doing this.

[ Racists Never Seem to Get a Break ]
Source: AlterNet

This is why I’m absolutely thrilled that Eric Holder is ready to bring the legal smackdown to Arizona’s now-legalized racism and “papers, please” regime – and why I’m equally thrilled that he’s already said that additional legal challenges on additional grounds may be forthcoming against Arizona and its horrific so-called “immigration” law, which really amounts to an “anti-Latino” law.

The problem is that the political right, and people like Arizona governor Jan Brewer (and her patrons, people like John McCain, failed Presidential candidate) insist on believing a series of lies and half-truths about immigration and migration that have been disproven over and over again. Sadly, the right has never needed proof or evidence to back up their beliefs; they’re perfectly happy subsisting on privilege, lies, mistrust, and hatred.

So in an amazing piece at Alternet, Joshua Holland channels Dana Milbank, who both tear some of it apart in glorious fashion:

Dana Milbank can be annoying at times, but his column today is well worth a read.

A sample …

Jan Brewer has lost her head.

The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. “Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded,” she announced on local television.

Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they’re also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike.

But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There’s not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer’s claim.

The Arizona Guardian Web site checked with medical examiners in Arizona’s border counties and the coroners said they had never seen an immigration-related beheading. I called and e-mailed Brewer’s press office requesting documentation of decapitation; no reply.

Brewer’s mindlessness about headlessness is just one of the immigration falsehoods being spread by Arizona politicians. Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world’s No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong.

This matters, because it means the entire premise of the Arizona immigration law is a fallacy. Arizona officials say they’ve had to step in because federal officials aren’t doing enough to stem increasing border violence. The scary claims of violence, in turn, explain why the American public supports the Arizona crackdown.

Holland and Milbank also refute the so-called criminal concern around immigration – noting that immigration was much higher when the economy was doing better in the late 90s, and yet crime was at its lowest point in decades. Between this and the whining “they’re taking our jobs” privilege argument and the “they’re sucking up our school money/medical services/other social services” privilege argument, both of which have been proven hilariously false (especially considering this is a community that works and pays taxes on benefits they’re not eligable for in numbers that can’t be counter) it’s remarkable that these people are allowed to hold public office while lying through their teeth the way they do.

Still, what did I say about the political right? They’ve never really needed truth or facts in the past – there’s no reason to expect them to start now.

[ Jan Brewer’s (and John McCain’s) Immigration Lies Destroyed ]
Source: AlterNet

As I watch the people of Arizona become more and more terrified of the notion that the complexion of America is darkening – the same way they were terrified in the 50s and 60s of much the same thing – due to the influence of and mingling of people of different races and cultures in America, and as I watch the Aryan Nation gather on the hallowed ground of the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania to spout hatred and illogical conspiracies and be afraid of the same thing, (although I have to applaud the fine people of Gettysburg who turned out in droves to outnumber and out-protest them) this article is especially timely, I think.

These people are motivated at their core by fear, fear of a loss of power, fear of a loss of privilege, and fear of a changing world that may not have room for their hatred and bitterness in it. However, the more they crow, the less they actually have to worry about – so the next time someone comes along and asks you why there’s no “white history month,” here’s the answer (other than the obvious – that every month is white history month.) Joshua Holland, writing for AlterNet, explains:

Whites are projected to become a minority in the United States in the year 2050. It’s a terrifying prospect for Americans who fear the loss of their privileged status.

…
In 2050, white people will not only remain a majority, but they’ll also retain their disproportionate cultural, political and economic influence. In other words, people freaking out about the loss of white privilege have no cause for alarm — it is safe. As Chauncey DeVega put it, “whites are by definition the majority group in the United States,” and “while heavily policed,” the definition of “whiteness as a racial grouping is ever expanding.”

So when that date comes around, it’ll be Y2K for white people in America — expect plenty of teeth to be gnashed and then brace yourself for nothing to happen.

Sounds about right. If anything, it will at least illuminate exactly how pervasive privilege is in our society, who’s really afraid of losing it, and who’s willing to speak to the fact.

Holland goes back in time to dissect this difference in interesting terms, like the history of the Italian community in the United States, including the differences between so-called “Mediterranean” Italians and people from Northern Italy, and how their respective histories parallel a great deal the changes we may see in America as the Hispanic population in the United States continues to grow.

Holland rounds out the piece with an excellent criticism that’s just too good to be broken up, so I’ll excerpt it here:

In The History of White People, Nell Irvin Painter argued that many white Americans have come to believe in a mythic pale race whose ancestry can be traced back for centuries. She, too, went on to detail the many twists and turns that the majority’s views of who “white people” are have taken as new lighter-skinned immigrants came to our shores bearing the burden of “minority” status, and then pushed themselves into the mainstream and demanded — and eventually got — the privileges that accompany whiteness in American society. It’s long been argued that various groups of lighter skinned immigrants have only truly been assimilated into the fabric of the nation once they began to see themselves, as a group, as superior to African Americans.

2050 will only be a terrible year for those white folks who hold a rigid, 19th-century definition of whiteness — white supremacists, in other words. They will become a minority, but, fortunately for the country, they already are (at least the ones who are open about it).

Here’s how Pat Buchanan, one of the few white supremacists offered a big media forum, views this ticking demographic time-bomb:

By countries of origin, America will be a Third World nation. Our cities will look like Los Angeles today. Los Angeles and the cities of Texas, Arizona and California will look like Mexico City.

When we all belong to “minorities,” what will hold us together? With the rise of group rights and identity politics, we are already falling out and falling apart over racial preferences and ethnic entitlements.

Among white nationalists less polished than Buchanan, the coming non-white majority is nothing less than an act of deliberate “genocide” against the Caucasian “race.” As one of them explained it, “social engineers have in fact orchestrated the demise of white people.” And since “many of these ‘social engineers’ are actually white themselves,” the shift represents a betrayal of “their own people out of a sense of self hatred.”

Of course, white supremacists are still the best evidence there is against the superiority of white people. What they fail to grasp is that only whites who fit their uniquely narrow definition of the term — descendants of Northern and Western European nations (it varies depending on whom you ask) — are in decline.

That America’s white majority will endure will no doubt disappoint anyone hoping that a demographic shift might mark the end of racist “dog-whistle” politics in the United States, yet it is the reality. But perhaps we shouldn’t tell people like Pat Buchanan that they’ll remain comfortably in the majority. Watching them freak out for the next 40 years over nothing but a bit of short-lived demographic trivia might be entertaining.

[ Why Fearmongering About a White Minority in America Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong ]
Source: AlterNet

Over at AlterNet, Devona Walker has an excellent dissection of the Republican Party’s “opposition” to President Obama and the progressive movement in America today: it’s not so much about actually coming up with ideas of their own, it’s not about coming up with solutions to the problems that America is facing, it’s not about providing an actual alternative to the Democrats in power, it’s about stalling, obstructionism, and blockading.

The thing that the Republicans have forgotten is that this is the same mentality that lost them seats in 2006 and 2008, and lost them the Presidential election in 2008: they’re devoid of ideas, governance, and moral direction – all they know how to do when in power is give away money and power to their friends:

Ever since the 2008 presidential election, the GOP has positioned itself firmly as the opposition party. Opposed to everything and clearly unable to deliver any policies on their own. Republican legislators have had a laser focus on one thing; regaining control of Congress. They are unwilling to see past that and that has made them entirely useless as it relates to legislating.

In fact, Republican Whip Eric Cantor admitted as much to the Washington Post. He said the Republican Party’s approach to the Obama agenda is “just saying no.”

So what do they do now that they’re out of ideas? They wade back into their horrible attempts at crowd-sourcing ideas by building a website where people can suggest the things they want to be American policy direction. And again, as the Republicans always find out when they do things like this, that their “base” are really the dregs of American society and that they represent the fringe of American politics – not the mainstream. For example:

Well, now the Repbulicans have outdone themselves. Their new scheme to regaining the political majority in Congress and reclaiming the White House? A website. Americanspeakingout.com, they are hailing as “revolutionary” in its democratization of the political process.

Here’s the plan: We, citizens make policy suggestions, vote on them, then the most popular policy suggestions, Republicans claim, they will take to Congress and turn into law. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich framed the idea as the first step in the process of remaking a Contract with America — a set of policy proposals that Ginrich pulled together back in 1994 and led to the Republican takeover of Congress.

One suggestion, so far, has been to repeal section II of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Another suggestion: Keep closer tabs on Muslim-Americans than other citizens. And here’s this gem: “When my ansestors came to this country, they knew that GOD had given it to them and not the animals that was here before. It makes me sick to see this scum pullutin our godly values with there heathen ways. all forerners must leave or die!”

But here’s the real problem. Doesn’t this website illustrate the very thing that many Americans suspect is wrong with the GOP, that it is void of ideas and clueless when it comes to moving this country forward?

Here’s the other obvious problem with the site, it’s not revolutionary. What do they think the netroots have been doing on the left for the past several years. Well, the site is already being mocked for that: DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer said in statement that “only House Republicans would think that talking with the American people is an ‘unprecedented new initiative.’”

If that’s not proof that representative democracy is absolutely essential to keep the mindless hordes from trampling on the rights and liberties of minorities, I don’t know what is. But even that statement gives these people too much credit – it implies that there are lots of people who share this belief. I’m sure there are some, but they’re by no means a majority in any sense, even likely within the Republican party. But the problem is that the Republicans are listening to these folks, and these are the folks who are turning out to elect their Libertarian and Tea Party brethren – not only do the American people need to be kept safe from wingnuts like this, but you could argue that for the Republican party to really remian as a viable alternative party in any sense that they need to be stopped from cannibalizing themselves like this.

Regardless, the poor Republican party, completely out of ideas, turns to their base for feedback and what do they get in return? Racism, hatred, and intolerance. Fitting.

[ The Party of “No” is Officially Now the Party of “No Clue” ]
Source: AlterNet

A number of other blogs and sites have had a great time bashing poor Rand Paul these days, and while I’ve been sitting back and watching the whole thing happen, I can’t help but laugh and join in.

This is the same man who said – and was forced to significantly backtrack from – that not only would he have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act – which ensured Black Americans had the unfettered right to vote and ended segregation and the policies of the Jim Crow south – but that he also had reservations about the Americans with Disabilities Act. The way he characterized his remarks implied that he would also have issues with the Lucy Ledbetter “Equal Pay for Equal Work” Act, with the right of women to vote, and just about any other Federal law that protects basic human rights in America without exemptions for private industry.

I think J Smooth said it best in this video about Rand Paul and his beliefs:

He’s absolutely and utterly correct, of course – and while he’ll stop short of saying that Rand Paul is racist, I think it goes back to another one of his videos that describes the difference between being a racist and saying or doing something that is racist. One is calling someone out on their behavior, the other is a character judgement you simply can’t make – and I think that’s Rand’s issue – he’s doing things that pave the way and open the doors to institutional racism, but is he a racist? Can’t say – all I can say is that his ideals and policies support institutional racism and he clearly prefers those policies to actual people.

What’s that? You haven’t seen the interview to which J Smooth is referring? Rachel Maddow has the lowdown on her blog, where she corrects a New York Times story on Paul and links to her own interview where Paul does some artful dodging of pointed questions:

[ New York Times gets Rand Paul wrong ]
Source: The Maddow Blog

Still, over at TruthDig, the venerable Robert Scheer – writing before the explosion of idiocy that’s been spewing from Rand Paul’s mouth like so much BP oil into the Gulf of Mexico, asks the question, “Who’s Afraid of Rand Paul?” and pointing out both sides of why we should be concerned about him – not because of the so-called rise of the Tea Partiers, because they’re willing to elect anyone who embodies their rage without checking to see whether they actually share that person’s beliefs, clearly – but because they may prove a way for fringe and extreme right-wingers to get elected. But in the long run, at least he’s not a traditional Republican, right?

Tuesday’s election results were pretty good for progressives. The retirement of that windbag chameleon Sen. Arlen Specter is long overdue, and pro-labor forces were able to push Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a runoff in Arkansas. Even the big tea party win in Kentucky has its bright side.

Count me as one lefty liberal who is not the least bit unhappy with the victory by Rand Paul in Kentucky’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. Not because it might make it easier for some Democratic Party hack to win in the general, but rather because he seems to be a principled libertarian in the mold of his father, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and we need more of that impulse in the Congress. What’s wrong with cutting back big government that mostly exists to serve the interests of big corporations? Surely it would be better if that challenge came from populist progressives of the left, in the Bernie Sanders mold, but this is Kentucky we’re talking about.

[ Who's Afraid of Rand Paul? ]
Source: TruthDig

Scheer tries desperately to make the best out of the election of Paul, which could very easily have been spun positively, but since he’s outed himself as anything but libertarian and more of a fringe-right corporatist when the pressure is on and only libertarian when it comes to revoking human rights by law and instead preferring the law of the market to rule not just business life but all life, I doubt even Scheer could defend him now.

Joshua Holland, writing for AlterNet, completely dissects Rand Paul’s attempt to be libertarian and winding up father right than most Republicans, specifically with regards to his desire to let BP off the hook entirely for the oil still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico:

Rand Paul’s supporters argue that his greatest flaw is his relentless honesty. In the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto gushed that “Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault.”

But in an Appearance on Good Morning America, Paul proved that he is just another corporate-power-loving wing-nut who believes companies can do no harm, and there’s nothing principled or libertarian about that stance.

As Matt Corley reported earlier, Paul said Obama’s promise to put his “boot heel on the throat of BP” was “un-American.” He mused that it was an example of our “blame game society,” in which “it’s always got to be someone’s fault,” and added: “maybe sometimes accidents happen.”

The context here is important. Obama was talking about forcing BP to accept full liability for its actions. Libertarians believe that we are all autonomous agents who should be free to make our own rational choices, and then we must take responsibility for the results of the decisions we make. BP has caused billions and billions in damages to others, and its liability for the mess is capped at just $75 million plus the actual costs of the clean-up (but since BP will likely be found negligent in operating the rig, those caps are not necessarily going to apply).

Along the way, the company made choices. Its managers chose to drill in 5,000 feet of water, and then cut corners in terms of safety not only on the Horizon, but as a general operating principle. They made a rational decision to drill with a blow-out preventer that had a dead battery and was effectively “useless.” And they chose not to invest a half million dollars in a back-up system that might have prevented the worst damages.

That’s right – 11 people died on that rig from a completely preventable explosion and now near immeasurable damage is being done to the ecology and economy of the Gulf of Mexico – and as rare and unusual as it is for such a thing to happen, Rand Paul wants to chalk it up to an “accident” and move on without looking into it any further or holding anyone accountable for their actions. This is the kind of behavior I would expect from a Tea Partier or a webertarian (eg, the ignorant, mom’s-basement libertarians that troll YouTube and Reddit), but not someone who actually understands and wears the label of libertarian.

Holland continues:

The people of the Gulf whose livelihoods are being destroyed by the spill had no say in those decisions. It’s what economists call a “negative externality” — effects of a private transaction on a 3rd party. True libertarians believe that government’s only role should be to keep the peace and to correct market failures when they occur. Negative externalities represent the classic market failure.

Libertarians believe the government doesn’t need to regulate — to, for example, force oil-rig operators to have redundant systems and tightly monitor their safety routines — because the market will punish those actors who make the wrong choices. BP, according to the “logic” of the free market, should now bear the full burden for the results of the choices it made. Libertarians believe that when a free individual makes choices that harm others, litigation from other private actors will result. That’s known as “private enforcement,” and true libertarians argue that it is far preferable to “public enforcement,” AKA regulation.

I have a whole chapter in my book about how ours is a political culture that embraces the idea of free markets, but only in principle. BP made those choices I mentioned above because they were the economically rational things to do — they knew that if they destroyed a large swath of the Gulf Mexico in the process, they wouldn’t end up paying for it in its entirety, so management could rationally take more risk than they would have in a real free market system.

If Rand Paul were truly a principled libertarian, he’d be out in front of Obama, demanding that BP take full responsibility for its actions because it’s the free market thing to do. Instead, he dismisses the whole notion of taking responsibility for one’s decisions with an airy statement that “accidents happen.”

That makes Rand Paul just another Republican whose first instinct is to bow down in obeisance to the corporations that he apparently believes can do no harm — they only suffer “accidents” — even while thousands of barrels of oil continue to leak into the Gulf.

That about sums it up – Paul is completely willing to shield BP from the ramifications the market will take on their actions, when in reality what he would be doing if he were remotely libertarian. But then, this psuedo-libertarian scourge goes all the way back to his father – the man that Robert Scheer was trying in vain to defend in some regard, which I wrote about at length in my column The Ronulan Menace back when he was running for President.

Will this nonsense be the end of us all or the dooming of American politics? Not likely, especially as long as people like Paul pretend that he doesn’t have another election to win come November and keep his foot firmly planted in his mouth, but even if he does win that Kentucky senate seat, he’ll be so fringe he’ll likely find his time in Washington short either by will of the poeple or his own inevitable weakness.

In the interim though, it all makes for excellent, if not facepalm-worthy, political theatre.

[ That Was Fast — Rand Paul Throws Libertarian “Principles” Out the Window ]
Source: AlterNet

It’s actually glorious to watch, especially in southwestern states where we keep hearing that “a majority of people support tough immigration laws,” where polling samples are usually middle-class White Americans – naturally you’re going to get a majority when you talk about something like immigration. But what’s amazing is the fact that Republicans think they’re doing what’s in their best interest, and in reality they’re definitely pleasing their base, but in reality they’re shooting themselves in the foot, and without a doubt (or without a significant change in political opinion among the Latin-American community) they’re alienating themselves from a community they really could, if they had the will, reach out to and build bridges.

Let’s not kid ourselves though, the Republican party is not the big tent party they make themselves out to be, and they never have been – their tent is only as large as they can fit white, protestant, middle-to-upper-class, straight men into. Anyone else need not apply and never were welcome in the first place, unless they could be used as token personnel to attract votes.

But Republican support for Arizona-style “Papers, please” immigration law is literally the party shooting themsleves in the foot in a very tragic way that I think we’ll be talking about for years, especially if they continue on the path, and especially if Democrats succeed in reaching out to the Latino community the same way they did with the Black community during the Jim Crow south and all through the Civil Rights movement.

Here are the numbers, straight from the post:

By a two-to-one margin Hispanics are more strongly opposed than Americans overall to the recent immigration measure signed in to law in Arizona that would make it a state crime to reside there illegally.

Seven in 10, 70%, of Hispanic respondents said they are somewhat or strongly opposed to the law, compared with 34% of all respondents in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll set for release later today.

Among Hispanics, 27% are somewhat or strongly supportive of Arizona’s law; that compares with 64%of respondents overall.

Another tidbit from digby on this, a piece of important opinion that I’m inclined to agree with (and proves the point that polling is misleading):

The Republicans also have to be worrying just a little bit about the fact that this issue falls way down the list of the country’s biggest concerns. So, while 70% of my fellow freedom loving Americans may think it’s just ducky to racially profile and even treat legal immigrants (or people who just look like them) like second class citizens, most of them are unlikely to vote on that issue.

On the other hand, young Hispanic Americans are unlikely to ever forget it.

Absolutely agreed.

[ How the Republican Party Just Screwed Itself ]
Source: AlterNet