Just read Frank Rich's spot-on op-ed in yesterday's NY Times, "The Rage Is Not About Health Care",
From which:
"If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan 'Take our country back!,' these are the people they want to take the country back from."
I give you two more things:
It's well past time to call out these so-called Tea Party protests for what they have become. Ugly.
Until now, many people have wanted to believe that these often impromptu protests represent the very best of American politics: The town-hall image of a concerned public banding together to wrest power from oppressive government regulation, the kind of stuff that fuelled the Frank Capra movies of the 1930s and '40s, where the little man prevailed over the machine.
But, instead, these Tea Parties have become a welcoming refuge for racists, homophobes, and worse.
Indeed, in the days following Sunday's vote, police were investigating some kind of threat or harassment against at least 10 Democratic lawmakers. Some of these threats included posters with a legislator's image in the crosshairs.
Earlier, as black congressmen walked to Capitol Hill for Sunday's big health-care debate, some were spat upon and called the "N" word and other repulsive racist slurs.
Read more
and
RACISM explains a lot of white opposition to Barack Obama, say some Democrats. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument out of hand. Lexington walked into a shop in Millington, Tennessee last week and asked the white gentleman behind the counter what he thought of the 44th president. “He’s a fucking nigger,” came the reply. The shopkeeper then helpfully explained that he was “not bashful” about expressing his opinions.
This is from Lexington's column in The Economist. Lexington goes on to say that racism however cannot be fully to blame since Obama's approval rating among whites is decreasing, and yet clearly his race is not a sudden revelation. People thought better of him in the past, even though he was black then too.
But still. That first paragraph - it's shocking, isn't it?
And a third tidbit, (and in a neat circle we're back to the homeschooling boards because they are in & of themselves a fascinating window into the American psyche, no matter how non-representative it is), there was a recent discussion on the WTM boards about southern views of the Civil War, and about neo-confederacy (who knew? I didn't.) in which many people asserted that, just as the current debates have nothing to do with race and everything to do with money, so did the Civil War. Slavery wasn't the issue. It was about money. And slaves were well looked after anyway.
If they had smileys on blogger, I'd put in a whole line of the eye rolling ones here. Just use your imagination, ok?
Crap. Here we go again. All of us Southerners are racial, black hating @ss holes and the rest of you are self righteous freedom loving holier than thou-ers.
I was raised in the South. I had a mammy even. Our family owned a plantation with slaves. Some of you have probably visited it. Big tourist spot.
That recent unpleasantness was all about the money folks. Just like the healthcare fiasco today.
Wow.
3 comments:
The level of IGNORANCE that human beings are capable of expressing never surprises me anymore. And even less so when you are talking about people from the Southern US.
I am from Georgia and my relatives are some of the most racist, fearful people I've met. I often wonder, How on earth did I come out the way I am?
Thanks for that, Hornblower (and Becky.) I've been trying to follow how this is playing to the rest of the world. Very telling comments in response to the CBC article.
I am surrounded by family and a community mostly of the rabid, ignorant tea-bag type. I had planned to attend a local party in our town, purely for entertainment's sake, until I heard reports that supporters were being encouraged to openly carry their guns. The vitriol being spewed on a regular basis by acquaintances and strangers alike is shocking. Doesn't bode well, I'm afraid.
Where are the moderate Republicans in all this? Are we finally going to see the end of the two-party system?
I find it interesting that for both the Civil War and and health care, when average, middle class Caucasians who've been satisfied with the status quo start explaining that "it's about the money", it's almost always really about their fear of the status quo being up-ended.
It's astounding how many Confederate flags one finds flying around. I remember being startled to find one in a dorm room down the hall when I was at college in Vermont in the early eighties.
Henry Champ lives up to his name every time.
Am not looking forward to my upcoming two weeks in the land of the, um, free and the brave.
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