I wonder if Bill Cosby posting this on his facebook page will alienate him from all of those conservatives who claimed him as their own awhile back when he denounced President Obama over the Skip Gates incident. I am pretty sure it will.
I agree with President Carter that racism is playing a role in recent outbursts against President Obama. During President Obama’s speech on the status of health care reform, some members of congress engaged in a public display of disrespect. While one Representative hurled the now infamous “you lie” insult at the President, others made their lack of interest known by exhibiting rude behavior such as deliberately yawning and sending text messages.
Health care reform is the most important domestic issue facing America today. Disease does not discriminate. African American, White, Asian, Latino, Republican, Democrat, no one in America is immune. So it seems obvious that a debate on health care reform should not include views born solely of partisanship or bigotry.
Various polls prior to the election indicated that between five and ten percent of Americans would never vote for an African American president. That number, of course, only includes those who actually admitted to their prejudice. How many others harbored such feelings but did not respond honestly when asked the question? And how many people oppose Obama’s plan because the President is African American?
In "Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith used white actors in black face to portray black legislators as having low intelligence and acting like fools. Today, we have a band of real life congressional fools seemingly bent on blocking any meaningful reform of the health care system. But if we allow even one American to die simply because he or she cannot afford treatment, we are creating a shameful scenario that could aptly be called “Death of a Nation.”
As I alluded to in an earlier post, this morning Joe Scarborough had on Michael Eric Dyson to talk about former President Jimmy Carter's statement about racism playing a role in some of the opposition to President Obama. For once Dyson didn't totally irritate the hell out of me (even though he did have throw in his obligatory "I was the first one to endorse Barack" chit) and he made some salient points about why President Carter's words hold weight.
Now while I applaud Dyson's efforts this morning to push Joe, Mika and the rest of the lily white panel on the fact that racism has played a role in the opposition to President Obama, I feel like he missed a MAJOR opportunity here. While I agree with him that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are representative of the prominent conservatives and Republicans who have ginned up racist opposition against Obama, one of the most blatantly racist political commentators shares the set with Joe and Mika several times a week. I am speaking of course of Pat Buchanan.
The same Pat Buchanan that was one of the advisors who came up with the "Southern Strategy". The same Pat Buchanan that tried to portray Justice Sonia Sotomayor as a racist and unqualified because she was a Latina. The same Pat Buchanan who went on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and ridiculously asserted that America is and always will be a white nation, built by whites and fought for solely by whites.
The same Pat Buchanan who uses his column at human events to gin up racial tension with whites on a regular basis.
Yeah, that Pat Buchanan.
See white guys like Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews will say they believe that racism exists in America but then they will turn around and claim its only on the fringes. When you bring up guys like Rush they will quickly claim they have never heard him say anything racist. Its an easy dodge because you can't prove that they have listened to every show. But bringing up Pat Buchanan kills two birds with one stone. All at once you put them on the spot because they can't say they haven't heard the things Buchanan has said on their own network and at times on their own shows. And on the other hand you put MSNBC on the spot for continuing to employ an avowed racist. Something that thus far they have not confronted.
Now I am nobody's fool. I recognize that for Dyson to bring up Buchanan on Morning Joe would probably mean he would have to look elsewhere going forward for TV appearances. But at some point being real has got to mean more than getting paid or getting exposure. Im just sayin.
One last thing, Joe Scarborough obviously DOES listen to Limbaugh quite a bit because he gave the standard Limbaugh excuse for the "Barack the Magic Negro" song that Limbaugh made. In fact he actually called Dyson disengenous because an black LA Times columnist first coined the phrase. Well I have read the column several times and not once do I see in it where there is a parody of an illiterate black man speaking as is the voice on Limbaugh's song. In point of fact the eloquence of the column itself bears absolutely no resemblence to the crass and obviously racially stereotypical words and tone of the song. If anybody is being disengenuous its the person who excuses Limbaugh for that song by hiding behind the original column.
I have posted links to both though so you are free to come to your own conclusion.
What is not in dispute is that MSNBC has a regular commentator who appears on several of their shows who embodies exactly the kind of race baiting that President Carter was speaking of yesterday. So if they are going to ask whether Carter was right or not, that conversation almost has to include a discussion of the things Pat Buchanan has been doing since President Obama took office.
In the wingnut bizarro world the ONLY racists in the country right now are all minorities. Oh they will concede that racism exists in theory, but bring up specific racists like say Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and they will argue you down that they have "never heard them say anything racist". Hell even supposed centrist white people on the left will stick up for the Limbaughs of the world, probably because they spend part of their day listening to his invective as a guilty pleasure. But you let a strong person stand up and call out white racists and racism against our first black President and you just watch to see people step up to demean and bismirch them.
The culprit this time is former President Jimmy Carter.
Now if there was ever a white man qualifed to talk about racism its Jimmy Carter. I mean the guy was the governor of Georgia during the tail end of the Civil Rights era for goodness sake. And yet he has committed the crime of saying something so emmintently true and reasonable as to make other white folks uncomfortable. He had the temerity to say that a lot of the opposition and vitriol towards President Obama, including Joe Wilson's outburst, are rooted in racism. After we have seen pictures of the President photoshopped with a bone through his nose, emails circulated with all kind of racist invective like a watermelon patch outside of the WhiteHouse and the racist ignorance spewed about President Obama's daughters at freerepublic how can anyone possibly refute President Carter on this?
And yet they will. Oh mark my words they will. Hell Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe this morning pushed back hard on President Carter's words even though they work with an avowed racist, Pat Buchanan, several times a week. It is what it is.
So just know that President Carter is in for a rough couple of weeks. And when you boil it all down its all because he decided to tell the truth. Doing so is heresy now in this upside down culture of ours.
Here is a test you can give to anyone to determine if you can have an honest debate with them about racism. If they won't admit that Rush Limbaugh is a racist then you should probably just move alone. Seriously, just try it, it works every time.
You can expect that meme to be pushed on right wing radio and FoxNews I am sure in reaction to an op ed entitled "An Unnecessary War" Former President Jimmy Carter has written in today's Washington Post. Once again I wonder how long it will be before any of our current elected officials break from the herd and actually have the courage to speak out and tell the truth. I am really hoping at the latest it will be January 20th.
Some excerpts.
After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.
snip
We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.
Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.
snip
Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).
We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.
snip
After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.
Why oh why President Carter do you want to give aid and comfort to the terrorists?
I give President Carter major props for speaking truth to power about this conflict when it is definitely not the popular thing to do in this country.
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