Columnist – John Sammon The news that a conservative pundit had heart-attack-like chest pains while on vacation in Hawaii seems to pose an irony. Why would he, an avowed exclusionist, separatist, who wants an Andy Hardy America free of blacks and Mexicans (except as porters and melon pickers), choose to vacation in Hawaii, among the most racially mixed of all states?
The sight of so many people with un-pink skin must be unsettling to him.
Is it the great beaches? He doesn’t look good in a bathing suit. Too much time sitting and talking and not exercising.
I will not question his right to go where he pleases to relax or his need to because of his hectic schedule. But I’m still curious. Hawaii is also the home of his hated adversary Obama.
Does he like coconuts?
Hawaii stands for everything the pundit is not. It’s a place to be seen among people of color with your shirt off. Warm people. Friendly people. Aloha! Not for someone who mockingly says things like, “you’re a socialist terrorist traitor because you disagree with me.”
Not for someone who believes the state is filled with welfare-sucking leeches and people he considers to be niggers, gooks, pineapples (native Hawaiians), chinks, zips and more.
Whatever.
I’ve come up with a partial list of eight more appropriate vacation spots for ultra conservatives including the hate mongers at Fox News. This is so they can not only relax, but be more in their own element.
Cross of Iron, Wyoming. This tiny hamlet is home to the Thunderbolt Party, a group of neo-Nazi skinheads whose leader is a manure farmer named Earl and who are known to roll out the red carpet for any like-minded dignitary, welcoming the visitor with a ritualistic ceremony that includes pledges of white-only fealty, drawn sabers and lit candles amid swastika flags. Held in a secret cave in the side of a mountain above the town, everyone there has tattoos, wears leather jackets, Nazi medals and helmets, is crew-cut blonde, stocky and five-foot-seven, including the women.
Tierra Del Fuego Exclusiva Phase One. This gated, fenced, closed-off, high-society, camera-surveillance luxury two-story condominium development in Orange County California is renowned for its “white only” tenants and the exclusion of those considered the wrong people (except as gardeners), even those termed “million dollar niggers” (famous black athletes). Though segregation is officially unlawful, it is still largely successful here, evoking fond memories of the 1950s, a simpler time.
Children of any color are not allowed, making the grounds as quiet as a tomb.
Shoe shine boys of color are allowed occasional entrance if accompanied by an armed guard.
The Burning Sub-Human Festival. Held near the newly settled religious-political cult center of New Order, New Mexico, this celebration took its inspiration from a similarly-named event in Nevada, and is intended to gain sympathy for the idea that forestalling the possibility of mud races (people of color) achieving equal population with whites by mid-century is patriotic and will save democracy. A giant wooden figure with threatening colored racial features (big lips) is symbolically torched. Events include forming a ring of cheap mobile homes in a protective circle, massive beer drinking, and seminars such as how to keep non-whites doing menial jobs while denying them social services, restricting immigration to only beautiful blonde women from Sweden, and so on.
Ana Capa Island. Adolph Hitler and Abraham Lincoln favored deporting blacks to the African island of Madagascar. This is a flip of that idea. A for-whites-only formerly nature preserve island off California (no Jews allowed).
Segregated Space Shuttle. Tired of scenes of astronauts wasting your tax dollars floating around in a tin can doing the same things they always do accomplishing nothing new other than floating around. This is your chance to go for five months without seeing a person of color, as if they never existed.
The Michael Jackson Skin Graft Nose Job Clinic. Luxurious grounds only for the very rich Celtic-blooded celebrities and right wing pundits. All residents must be white or have at least a complete makeover to turn themselves into what looks like a white. White wife is also required. Those achieving white look who are not white may wait tables at the overpriced steak house.
SS Style Stud Farm. Combines conservative-based porn with “yaa-haa” breeding. Attempts to take selective stock of racially pure conservatives and mate them with perfect Aryan partners to out-populate undesirables, including Mexicans, to keep the land of the free from turning into Mexico by mid-century. Fun in the sun.
Celebrity Racist Bus Tour. This unique event combines reenactments of civil rights history with the view that it never took place. Famous right wing pundits sit in the front of an aged 1950s bus from Little Rock, Arkansas, while famous blacks (token Uncle Michael Steele) sit in the back. A celebration of knowing your proper place.
Tomatoes were thrown at Sarah Palin during a book signing event in Minnesota yesterday. A man, Jeremiah Wobbe was arrested for allegedly throwing two tomatoes at Sarah Palin from the second floor balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota, MyFoxTwinCities.com. reported. [ READ MORE ]
In the New Yorker, Sam Tanenhaus, in his review of Palin’s book — “Going Rogue,” writes: “….Palin, though notoriously ill-travelled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. “Hawaii was a little too perfect,” Palin writes. “Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls.” Perhaps not.
But Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to [Scott] Conroy and [Shushannah] Walshe [authors of 'Sarah From Alaska']. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: “They were a minority type thing and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.” In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, “because it was much like Alaska yet still ‘Outside.’” [ READ MORE ] [ REFERENCES: PALIN QUESTION OF THE DAY | HUFFINGTON POST ]
Why Idaho? — The retirement home of Mark Furman, the former LAPD detective whose racism literally unhooked O.J. Simpson from the jaws of justice, and of Bruce Willis — the macho Republican movie actor who harbors the delusion that the United States should invade Colombia to end drug trafficking. When 27 year old Ashton Kutcher stole Bruce’s wife, 40 year old Demi Moore, “tough guy” Willis bought a house next door to the couple. It is also rumored that Demi Moore’s daughter (with Willis), Rumer Willis had a crush on her Stepdad Ashton Kutcher. Talk about deviance in Idaho, John McClane!
Idaho is a tiny little (96 percent white) pacific north west state with a stinking racist culture. With Ruby Ridge to the north of Sandpoint (The birthplace of Sarah Palin) and the former Aryan Nations to the south, Idahoans are sandwiched in between the most filthy elements of racism in the United States — propped by gun-sucking Republican politicians — from top to bottom.
Idaho is state where bigots and “frightened” right-wingers go to retire — to keep safe from leprosy, pedophiles, Spanish and rampant godlessness; far away from blacks, liberals and “diseased” immigrants. It is a state where “white folks” home-school their children to avoid the “corrupting effects” of liberalism and homosexuality.
From the 1970s until 2001, the Aryan Nations had its headquarters in a 20 acre (81,000 square meters) compound at Hayden Lake, Idaho. In September 2000 the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million judgment against the Aryan Nations from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to Victoria Keenan and her son, Jason, who were attacked by Aryan Nations guards in 1999. Bullets struck the Keenan’s car several times then the car crashed and an Aryan member held the Keenans at gunpoint. As a result of the judgment, Richard Butler turned over the 20-acre compound to the Keenans, who then sold the property to a philanthropist, who subsequently donated it to North Idaho College, which designated the land as a “peace park.”
Apparently Sarah Palin couldn’t stand the “smell” of Hawaii and its racially diverse peoples, hence the move to Idaho, to mingle comfortably with REAL AMERICANS.
Forty eight years ago today President Barack Obama was born, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The president is scheduled to have lunch with Democratic Senators in the White House at noon today.
Obviously, the most hated man in Mexico, Lou Dobbs and the most hated in America, Rush Limbaugh won’t be celebrating the chess-master’s birthday — they believe he was born in the slum of ‘MAMBASA‘ in Kenya. Previously, ReTHUGliTOMAlan Keyes insinuated that Obama is a NAIROBIAN!
Screw the assholes and Happy Birthday Mr. President!
1.The Berserk ‘Birthers’ — About all that can be said is that a bunch of lost, confused and frightened people have decided to seek refuge in conspiratorial make-believe. They should seek help.
Racism Is the Prime Cause for Debunked Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory. The attacks on Sotomayor, the hysteria over Obama’s criticism of the Cambridge police, and the persistent rumors about Obama’s origins seem symptomatic of something larger, something that is "the culmination of centuries of ingrained privilege and hegemonic control." A person of color running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives have internalized notions of entitlement and superiority." Given how deep such notions of entitlement and superiority can run, it’s hard to know to what degree the birthers are fully conscious of the racist impulses behind their crazy allegations — or whether they are in such denial that they actually believe their own bullshit.
[ By: Liliana Segura ] By now, everyone has heard of the "birthers," that rabid crop of self-appointed patriots who insist that Barack Hussein Obama is not a legitimate president because he is not really an American citizen. What was once a nasty little rumor in the early days of the residential race has since evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory whose proponents, though "viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, "in the words ofPolitico’s Ben Smith, nonetheless enjoy increasingly high-profile political support, and media coverage 9/11 "truthers"could only dream of.
The birthers’ conspiracy theory — which holds that Obama was born in Kenya, despite all evidence to the contrary — has long been debunked. The Obama camp released a copy of his birth certificate as early as June of last year (although that only seemed to fan the flames). Yet, last week the "birthers" became big news again, after a video emerged showing Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) confronted at a town hall meeting by a woman who angrily accused him of being complicit in the cover-up of Obama’s true origins. Castle, who is commonly labeled a "moderate Republican" — and whose subsequent remark would earn him the label "RINO American Traitor" in some corners of the internet — seemed genuinely perplexed. "Well I don’t know what comment that invites," he said, to a chorus of boos. "If you’re referring to the president, then he is a citizen of the United States."
The video of Castle’s unfortunate run-in with the birthers hit YouTube and went viral. MSNBC put the clip on heavy rotation; "Hardball" host Chris Matthews devoted multiple segments to the topic; On CNN and on his radio show, sneering nativist Lou Dobbs fanned the flames with such remarks as, "What is the deal here? I’m starting to think we have … a document issue," and on Larry King, Dick Cheney’s increasingly vocal daughter, Liz, shared her highly unempirical view that "one of the reasons you see people so concerned about this" is that "people are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever … a president who seems so reluctant to defend the nation overseas." By midweek, Jon Stewart had lampooned the birthers and their media allies on Comedy Central, a move that, given his recent distinction as the new "most trusted man in news," might have spelled the death of the birthers.
Of course, it hasn’t.
This week alone, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) was quoted as saying they may "have a point," while the fourth-highest ranking member of the House, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) said she’d "like to see the documents." Meanwhile, an attempt by Hawaii Democrat Rep. Neil Abercrombie to pass a resolution to commemorate his state’s 50th anniversary (while also proclaiming the state as President Obama’s birthplace) was temporarily blocked by Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann on Monday, only to pass a few hours later.
By now it seems everyone has put in their two cents (and then some) about the birthers. But while most media coverage has treated them as incurable wackjobs pushing a conspiracy theory to be classified alongside the moon landing "hoax" (40 years old last week!) and the (considerably larger) group of Americans who believe 9/11 was an inside job, the "truth" of Obama’s birth seems to fall into a slightly different category. Like all conspiracy theories, it springs from the fertile soil of collective denial. Unlike all conspiracy theories, it thrives on a deep-rooted, racist belief: that a black man with a foreign name could never have won the presidency in the United States through anything other than trickery, deception, or fraud.
"If Barack Obama was an Irish American or a Polish American or a German American, there would be no discussion anywhere in this country about his citizenship," radio host E. Steven Collins told Chris Matthews on Thursday, in response to his fellow guest, deranged right-winger and Nixon Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy, whose own attempt to defend the birthers should mark a low point, even for his career. "This is because many people in this nation cannot still accept the fact that a brilliant African-American is the commander-in-chief."
The Sad Reality of The Tea-Parties and Janeane Garofalo
Tim Wise, author of Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, puts this in perspective: "When [Arnold] Schwarzenegger became governor, there were people who were saying,’hey we should amend the constitution to allow people who are naturalized citizens to maybe run for president."
"Although that didn’t go anywhere — and my guess is that the ‘birthers’ who are doing this crap with Obama probably wouldn’t have been real keen on that idea — notice that there was no groundswell of anger and opposition."
It’s the Racism, Stupid!
Perhaps it is too obvious to say that the birthers’ insistence on Obama’s illegitimacy is based on racism. Even so, why isn’t this collective racism at the heart of the "debate"?
"That’s one of the problems with this so-called post-racial era that we’re in," says Wise. "White folks in particular — and some folks of color — are very quick to avoid that angle at all costs, lest they be accused of somehow being the ones who are somehow racist in some way or who are thinking in racial terms."
After all, Americans have seen what happens when people of color dare to suggest that the country is anything but perfect: they are ruthlessly attacked. Take the rage over Michelle Obama’s remark during the presidential campaign that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country," which was treated as unpatriotic hate speech. Or the controversy prompted by Eric Holder’s remark that we are a "nation of cowards" when it comes to race.
Or, more recently, the ugly backlash against Obama’s (considerably mild) remark that a judge should have a capacity for "empathy" and an understanding of "people’s hopes and struggles." "Usually that’s a code word for an activist judge," Sen. Orrin Hatch told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, a line that became a rallying cry against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. ("I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of or against parties before the court," Alabama Senator Jeff Sessionsproclaimed at the confirmation hearing.) In the end, the obsessive harping over Sotomayor’s "wise Latina" remark and right-wing accusations that she is a "reverse racist" because of her ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano (otherwise known as the Connecticut firefighters case) hijacked her confirmation hearing.
In fact, no sooner was the latest "birther" story gaining ground last week than we saw this same phenomenon on full display with a new controversy: the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In an unguarded moment, Obama dared to say what might have seemed pretty obvious to even the most superficially race-conscious: the Cambridge police, "acted stupidly" by handcuffing Gates in his own home, particularly given the "long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." Obama’s comment became national news; the networks seized on it, the blogosphere went wild, and by Friday afternoon, Obama had backtracked, issued a qualified apology, and invited the arresting officer, Sgt. Jim Crowley, to the White House for a beer.
"There’s a bizarre tendency, every time a person of color criticizes white folks — or just white racism — to say ‘that’s racism,’" says Wise. "So, by that logic, Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a racist, Barack Obama is a racist, Sonia Sotomayor is a racist … Meanwhile, people like Pat Buchanan, who say Sonia Sotomayor is unqualified or that white people built the country and are basically entitled to 100 percent of everything — they’re not racist."
The attacks on Sotomayor, the hysteria over Obama’s criticism of the Cambridge police, and the persistent rumors about Obama’s origins seem symptomatic of something larger, something Wise believes is "the culmination of centuries of ingrained privilege and hegemonic control."
Even it you are not yourself in a position of power, "… if you’ve gotten used to seeing people who look like you in almost every position of authority," he says, "to then have to wake up every day and see a man of color basically running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives weren’t necessarily bigots or racists in any overt sense, but had simply gotten complacent with the way things were. They had internalized these notions of entitlement and superiority."
Given how deep such notions of entitlement and superiority can run, it’s hard to know to what degree the birthers are fully conscious of the racist impulses behind their crazy allegations — or whether they are in such denial that they actually believe their own bullshit.
White Hegemony Challenged
To explain the devastating effect of Obama’s presidency on those ordinary Americans who were quite happy with their white privilege, thank you, Wise quotes W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of "the psychological wage of whiteness."
"A lot of white folks don’t have much. They’re struggling, they’re hurting, but they’ve been able to content themselves with the idea that at least they’re not black," Wise says.
"So they get this psychological wage from their whiteness. The problem is, that’s a wage which is diminishing in value. If you say to yourself, ‘Well I may not have much, but at least I’m not black,’ and then you look around and say, ‘Shit, Black is the new president!’ — now the value of your psychological wage is reduced in real dollar terms. Now you’ve got nothing."
In Wise’s view, "The people who latch on to the birther stuff (working class and struggling middle class whites) aren’t any more racist than elite white folks, but their way of expressing it is so much more raw and visceral, because: a) they may not have the filter that you get when you’re elite (you sort of know when to check yourself), but also because they’re the ones who feel the most threat."
Of course, white elites have their own fears over the erosion of white hegemony — and not just televised bigots like Pat Buchanan. For a real measure of the panic over their own supremacy, a prime example is the growing number of elected officials who are pandering to — and emboldening — the birthers, not just by paying them lip service, but actually introducing legislation based on their outlandish claims.
This past February, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) introduced a bill that would require presidential candidates to provide a copy of his or her birth certificate. (Posey has been widely quoted as saying he "can’t swear on a stack of Bibles whether [Obama's] a citizen or not.") As David Weigel recently wrote in the Washington Independent, "While Posey initially said that he disbelieved conspiracy theories about the president’s birth, he told the host of an Internet radio show that he’d discussed the possibility of Obama being removed from office over ‘the eligibility issue’ with ‘high-ranking members of our Judiciary Committee.’"
According to Weigel, who has covered the birthers extensively, "as of July 15, nine fellow Republican members of Congress were backing the bill."
"While Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) has said that he supports the bill because he didn’t know whether Obama was a citizen, other sponsors say that they weighed in to pour cold water on the conspiracy theories."
One such sponsor is Rep. John Campbell, a California Republican, who parroted this dubious claim in an interview with Chris Matthews on July 21st.
"Wouldn’t you like to put all this to rest?" Campbell asked. "That’s what this proposal is about." ("Nice try," Matthews responded.)
MATTHEWS: No, no. You are feeding the wacko wing of your party. Do you believe that Barack Obama is a legitimate native-born American or not?
CAMPBELL: That is not what this bill is about, Chris.
MATTHEWS: No, what do you believe?
CAMPBELL: As far as I know, yes, OK?
MATTHEWS: As far as you know?
CAMPBELL: Yes.
Campbell and his ilk may be an embarrassment to more "respectable" and powerful members of the Republican party. But they have more in common than they would like to admit.
"It appears to me that the Republican party, because of the choices it has made — going back 40 years or more — on policy positions have guaranteed that they were destined to be, at the end of the day, the white nationalist party," says Wise.
When "your budget-cut philosophy is about cutting programs that are perceived as helping ‘those people’, your attacks on affirmative action are very clear, your attacks on busing are very clear, all your law and order stuff … when you sow those seeds for several decades, you ought not be surprised when a whole crop of people who have grown up with that — that’s what they’re about now."
Take the new chair of the Young Republicans — a 38-year-old woman named Audra Shay. She recently came under fire when she was caught cosigning a racist Facebook post that read "Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist … Muslim is on there side [sic] … need to take this country back from all of these mad coons … and illegals."
Shay’s reply: "You tell em Eric! lol."
From "Barack the Magic Negro"; to e-mails depicting watermelons in front of the White House, to, most recently, a conservative activist’s circulation of an image of Obama as a witch doctor, incidents like these are as ubiquitous now as they were during the presidential campaign. And the people yelling "terrorist" at Sarah Palin rallies or those informing John McCain that Obama is "an Arab" have not gone away. Mainstream Republicans who wish to look respectable may want to distance themselves from this "lunatic fringe," but as representatives of a party largely built on structural racism, this is a very real part of their base.
In order for the GOP to survive, says Wise, Republicans are going to have to somehow bring in more minorities — a task that would require a fundamental revamping of the Republican identity and agenda — or "they’re gonna have to start making a lot of babies."
"I don’t think the Republican party ever thought they could get a lot of black folks," Wise says. "But they thought they could get Latinos. And the reason they thought so was because of this ridiculous and fundamentally racist naivete that said, ‘Well, Latinos are family-oriented so they’ll be against abortion.’ If you don’t think white folks are that one dimensional how can you think Latinos are so one-dimensional? Well of course you can — if you’re a racist."
For a number of people, the Sotomayor confirmation hearings were a sign that the Republicans are no longer particularly set on attracting "the Latino vote," something that might make the Pat Buchanans in the party smile, but which will ultimately prove costly for the GOP as a whole. As the country’s demographics evolve, the party that brought us the Willie Horton ads in the ’80s will have to evolve too. And so will white Americans who continue to insist on blaming their problems on people of color.
"The birther stuff to me is part of the same narcissistic breakdown that is at the heart of every e-mail I get from a college kid or that college kid’s parents who say, ‘I couldn’t get enough financial aid because they’re giving all the scholarships to black people,’" says Wise. "This narcissism is especially evident when you watch such hateful right-wing media buffoons as Rush Limbaugh — who supports the birthers — and "who are just becoming totally unglued."
"On the one hand it’s funny," says Wise. "On the other hand it’s really frightening, because people when they’re in that sort of meltdown mode don’t make good decisions and do really crazy things." Take James W. Von Brunn, the white supremacist — and "birther" himself — who shot and killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in June.
It would be pushing it to see the birthers phenomenon is a sign that white hegemony is nearing its last throes. However, "one really positive thing about Obama’s presidency in regards to race" says Wise, is that "its created this nuttiness on the part of a lot white folks who have always been thinking this stuff but they just haven’t been as bold with it."
"At some point it will become increasingly difficult for those who like to deny racism as a problem to continue completely burying their heads."
"At some point, people will have to say, maybe black folks aren’t the crazy ones. Maybe it’s not the folks of color who have lost their minds. Maybe it’s you."
The news that a conservative pundit had heart-attack-like chest pains while on vacation in Hawaii seems to pose an irony. Why would he, an avowed exclusionist, separatist, who wants an Andy Hardy America free of blacks and Mexicans (except as porters and melon pickers), choose to vacation in Hawaii, among the most racially mixed of all states?
By now, everyone has heard of the "birthers," that rabid crop of self-appointed patriots who insist that Barack Hussein Obama is not a legitimate president because he is not really an American citizen. What was once a nasty little rumor in the early days of the residential race has since evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory whose proponents, though "viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, "
