Rush FAT Limbaugh Declares McChrystal Issue a “Circus” to Boost Obama: On Wednesday’s edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush spent most of his time criticizing the media. He began by claiming that President Obama has been using the controversy surrounding Gen. Stanley McChrystal to “distract from all the negative economic news.” He continued by deriding media figures who compared Obama to President Truman, claiming that they are doing everything they can to elevate Obama’s status. Limbaugh further blasted the media by suggesting that they don’t support “liberty,” “the Constitution,” or “American exceptionalism.” [ READ MORE ]
….and, Sean KLANnity deceptively edited comments President Obama made during a 2007 Senate hearing to falsely accuse Obama of “attacking General [David] Petraeus.” In fact, in comments cropped out of the video, Obama made clear his criticism was directed at President Bush and was “not a criticism” of Petraeus. [ READ MORE ]
Hannity and Coulter criticize “thin-skinned” Obama over McChrystal resignation
Osama Bin O’Reilly says Obama is in “Jimmy Carterville” and suggests president fired McChrystal to avoid “wimp factor“
Limbaugh falsely claims “Obama did not vote to condemn the Betrayus ad“
Limbaugh: McChrystal resignation is “a circus” to promote the leadership qualities “of our man-child president“
What is white privilege?: The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
By: Tim Wise Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple:we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin.
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters –the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.
Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough–”living fossils” as he called them–”so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.
Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.
Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.
Tim Wise on White Privilege
Tim Wise – The Pathology of White Privilege — Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color but to white people as well.
Tim Wise – Racism, White Denial & the Cost of Inequality – part 2 — Part 2 of speech “On White Privilege” by Tim Wise, author of “White Like Me”, at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Produced by Media Education Foundation.
Tim Wise:White Like Me — Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. Tim Wise, Director of the Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE), talks about the nature of racism in the U.S. with remarkable perception and humor. He provides keen insights on how our pervasive cultural racism skews our perceptions of reality. He uncovers the pathology of prejudice that underlies many of the attitudes and choices we make, both personally and politically. Even those who staunchly oppose racism will have their eyes opened to the ways that they too are subject to its subtle effects.
Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.
Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”
Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, “One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation,” by best-selling author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, of Georgetown University. Wise has spoken in 48 states, and on over 600 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford, and the Law Schools at Yale and Columbia, and has spoken to community groups around the nation.
Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has conducted trainings with physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. He has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.
In summer, 2005, Wise served as an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he co-taught a Master’s level class on Racism in the U.S. In 2001, Wise trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in reporting, as a visiting faculty-in-residence at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s was Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.
Wise has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, is a regular contributor to discussions about race on CNN, and was featured in a segment on ABC’s 20/20, in 2007.
MediaMatters: Glenn Beck – He’s just like us! (Except he’s not) — Christine Schwen writes: Glenn Beck has worked hard to portray himself as a regular guy — just an everyday Joe who fears for his country — despite the fact that Beck, as my colleague Brian Frederick rightly pointed out, is hardly the everyman he likes to say he is.
The latest incarnation came during his keynote address at the CPAC conference (which itself is such an everyman thing to do), where Beck told the audience about how he grew up working in his father’s bakery and became the first person in his family to go to college, and how he only went for one semester because he couldn’t afford it. [ READ MORE ]
Beck Lying About His BackGround
The Wikipedia entry on Glenn Beck states: In 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. Beck took one theology class, “Early Christology,” and then dropped out.
MediaMatters: Beck repeatedly gets basic facts wrong despite boasting that “some of the biggest minds in America” do his research Fox News’ Glenn Beck has bragged that “[m]y credibility means everything to me,” and that he has “some of the biggest minds in America” on his research team “working harder than … any staff ever on television” to get the truth out, but Beck frequently gets his facts wrong. For instance, in recent weeks Beck has falsely claimed Van Jones was a “convicted felon“; repeated Andrew Breitbart’s false claim that an online video showed community organizers from the Gamaliel Foundation “pray[ing]” to President Obama; claimed an obsolete constitutional provision protecting the slave trade applies to “immigrants”; and, most recently, claimed a “Class of 2007” mosaic painted on tiles outside a California school was carried by G-20 protesters in Pittsburgh this week. [ READ MORE ]
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….and the ladies of the view told him in his face that he is A LYING SACK OF DOG SHIT!
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Beck “The IDIOT” Defends His “University Research” Prowess
MediaMatters: Fox News Launches Another Smear Campaign Against an Obama Official — Washington, D.C. – Today, Media Matters for America condemned the latest Fox News-driven smear campaign, in which right-wing media figures have called for Department of Education official Kevin Jennings to be fired. Conservative media have promoted the made-up charge that Jennings “cover[ed] up statutory rape.” They have painted him as a “radical” “gay activist” and have misrepresented and distorted Jennings’ previous comments. [ READ MORE ]
CNN’s Yellin debunks right-wing smears of Jennings
Coulter says Jennings is “another William Ayers“
Hannity obsessions collide: Breathlessly reports Jennings “wrote the forward” for a book that Ayers “wrote a blurb for the back” of
Coulter compares Jennings writing the forward of a book to Polanski “anally raping a 13-year-old“
Olbermann gives Limbaugh “Worst Person” “bronze” for smear of Jennings
Dobbs lets Rollins claim – contradicting CNN’s reporting – student Jennings counseled was a “14-year-old“
Limbaugh continues smear of Jennings, says “priests get sued 20 years later for this stuff — liberals get promoted“
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
