It’s Tuesday, a day ending in “y,” so there must be another isolated incident of Republican racism to report. In this case, it’s a newsletter from the Winnebago County Republican Central Committee in President Obama’s home state of Illinois, which concludes by comparing the President with “the offspring of a donkey and a zebra, black and white legs, rest all donkey.” Why do these isolated incidents of racism tragically keep happening to Republicans?
The newsletter, by WCRCC Chairman Jim Thompson, lauds the recent Supreme Court decision gutting affirmative action, then concludes with this “amusing” observation:
Media update for the week: saw on the news this week the offspring of a donkey and a zebra, black and white legs, rest all donkey. Not sure why this is news: now if we can teach him to read a teleprompter, we could have two living creatures the media will fawn over that is part white part black and all a**!
Every time some Republican says something racist, the conservative response is to either deny that it is racist, admit it’s racist but maybe the guy has a point, or to call it an isolated incident while reminding the world that Harry Reid said “negro.” Or they somehow do all of those at once. In Mr. Thompson’s case, there’s also the fact that he’s just a local official, and not, say, a Republican presidential frontrunner, or a Republican vice-presidential nominee (take your pick). Whatever the rationale, it is crucially important that it not involve Republicans doing anything.
I have outrage fatigue, and I'm also tired of explaining what free speech means to abysmally clueless wingnuts.
And really, "It's Just All A Big Coincidence."
9 comments:
You must have read my mind.
(O)CT(O)PUS, I really, really, really want to believe that most Republicans/conservatives reject this poisonous racism. Then I pick up the paper or read something on the internet that keeps reminding me that bigots find a very comfortable home in the GOP, and the GOP does nothing to make those bigots unwelcome.
Why do these isolated incidents of racism tragically keep happening to Republicans?
Same reason that isolated incidents of residential break-ins keep happening with burglars.
Here is a news report apropos of this discussion: Scott Walker Doesn’t Decide Who Deserves a Vote:
“Judge Lynn Adelson, who overturned the Wisconsin law, said that the law could block some 300,000 people, disproportionately black and Latino, from voting, and that the state’s claimed interest in the law didn’t come close to justifying that kind of burden: “the defendants,” Adelson wrote, “could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past” [my bold].
Any serious investigation shows that the kind of fraud intended to be prevented by voter ID is essentially a fantasy, orders of magnitude out of scale with the thousands of people for whom it would be a roadblock to voting ... (skip) ... Not that this evidence has any effect on voter ID proponents. That’s because “voter integrity,” the usual argument made for voter ID laws, is not about any real problem. It’s about who “should” be voting not from a legal standpoint but an ideological one” [my bold].
There is an agenda behind these voter suppression efforts - articulated not by a judge or a Democrat, but by a Republican of honesty and integrity who says in this essay, Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:
“Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black. Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.”
This and so much more. Your intrepid cephalopod takes this argument one step further. These voter suppression bills passed by GOP-dominated state legislatures have only one purpose: A direct assault upon the electoral assets of the loyal opposition, as I wrote in this post years ago:
“In theory, true democracy is predicated on choice, and choice connotes a policy debate between rivals. If one party, however, employs ruthless tactics to cripple the opposition beyond viability, what we have left is essentially a one party system with only token opposition. In other words: A democracy in name only. Wisconsin is where the GOP changed the dynamics of democratic engagement from contest to conquest. Wisconsin is where Chicken Little crossed the road to fascism.”
If any of our conservative readers think my last word choice is partisan hyperbole, I’ll scream it again at 1,000 decibels:
Fascism!
"A disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself” (Hannah Arendt).
[Sterling's latest bigotry] "is hardly the worst act of racism that has been attributed to [him] -- that title goes to his alleged acts of housing discrimination, for which he was sued twice, in 2003 and 2006, the second time by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The first suit, brought by 19 tenants with the help of the nonprofit Housing Rights Center, accused Sterling of forcing blacks and Latinos out of his rental properties, and ended in a confidential settlement in 2005. The second accused him of refusing to rent to African-Americans in Beverly Hills and to non-Koreans in LA's Koreatown. It ended in a record $2.725 million payout to the Justice Department. Sterling denied wrongdoing in both cases.
The charges made against Sterling were stomach-turning. In response to the 2003 suit, one of his property supervisors testified that Sterling said all blacks "smell" and are "not clean," that he wanted to "get them out" of his properties to preserve his image, and that he harassed tenants and refused to make repairs until they were forced to leave, according to depositions obtained by ESPN The Magazine."
The nuts out there are howling about the invasion of Sterling's privacy because someone took a private conversation and made it public. Those same nuts ignore Sterling's horrible record that those who really know him were aware of for years.
Meanwhile, from the Bundy command center
"And in once-peaceful Bunkerville, residents grow more and more restless and fearful of what could still happen. Rep. Steven Horsford, who has tried to bring all the parties together, has publicly urged the militia folks to leave and has said that the Bundy supporters have set up checkpoints in the 1,300-person town, with armed men forcing residents to explain their comings and goings.
One resident, Paula Wikan, told me that on Easter Sunday, armed militia members greeted her neighbors on their way to church. “I know of a few people that did not even enter for fear and disgust of having their church basically held captive,” she said. “All for one man that doesn’t want to pay his fees that are due to the government.”"
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
This is going to end badly if we don't come to our collective senses.
Shaw said, "really want to believe that most Republicans/conservatives reject this poisonous racism" I believe, what some of the recent overt racist statements have done, more moderate, nominally Republican voters, have begun to see their party as racist, as reactionary and are re-examining their own core beliefs. I hear this...acknowledgement of racism in their party. Sterling, Bundy, et al, have forced some decent honest conservatives to question themselves. NOT all. The same with the NRA gun issue. A change is takng place among traditional Republican voters.
Dear Squid-like personage...
a) Scott Walker is a piece of shit
b) My previous statement re racism. More moderates are beginning to see voter suppression for what it is. Not sure of end result, but it does show an eroding of blind allegience to a party. Good. There is a change taking place. Rational thinking is emerging.
it is always best to remember...as we look forward ...it is about the donut, not the hole.
okjimm,
Ahem, there's something you should know about that donut
preciousssssssssssssss
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