The U.S. chamber of commerce has built an army of 6 million members and a war chest of 200 million dollars to target “vulnerable” Democrats and replacing them with Republicans.
The five Republican stooges in the U.S. Supreme Court, recently ensured that American democracy is for sale — to the highest bidding corporations, by taking away all restrictions on corporate ability to buy elections.
This was preemptive move for Republican dominance in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The same court stole the elections for Bush in 2000, and are now re-tooling to “take back the country” for the big-bad racist right. [ NOTES: ] Terror Alert! Yelled George; As ‘Stupid Americans’ Crawled Underneath Their Beds, Bush Stole 2004 [ READ MORE ]
Obama’s complaints at SOTU prompted an Alito a YOU LIE! moment.
[ NOTES ] – Eric Deggans: I’ve figured out what annoys me most about the media circus that has erupted in the wake of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. It’s not watching a long procession of white males — and a few females — dissect what Sotomayor meant when she said eight years ago that she hopes a Latina would make better legal decisions about discrimination cases than a white male.
What irks me most, is what happens whenever race surfaces as an issue in politics: white politicians and pundits pretend their race and culture have no impact on their sensibilities. Why does the term “identity politics” only surface when people of color voice their concerns about stereotyping and institutional bias? [ READ MORE ]
Americans can now clearly see that the politics of Gingrich and Tancredo are the same as that of Limbaugh, Liddy, Beck, Buchanan and Dobbs. These pundits who daily rant against “illegal aliens,” and who daily clamor on the need to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border, are quoted as credible sources by the mainstream press. They are generally the same ones who promote the politics of fear and hate, who believe in the use of torture, and who also believe that the United States is endowed with the God-given right to conduct permanent war against the rest of the world.
By: Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez The president’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court has come during a most awkward time in the history of U.S. journalism, which many analysts claim is in serious decline, if not on life support.
What her nomination clearly shows us is that what this nation needs is more incisive journalism, not less. Yet, to be sure, the rise of right-wing media, which include FOX News and virtually all the known right-wing radio talk show hosts, is the antithesis of journalism.
Their coverage of the Sotomayor nomination points to the need for honest debate, not simply on the issues of race, but on the right wing’s aversion to truth. It also points to the right wing’s pompous beliefs, on every topic, including affirmative action, that their positions are “American.”
Extremist politicos Newt Gingrich and Tom Tancredo, both of whom have zero credibility but are stars of right-wing media, have led the charge that Sotomayor is a racist. They have been joined by the usual wingnuts: Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, to name a few. Even Juan Williams of NPR, has parroted the claim that Sotomayor’s (out-of-context) statements are racist. The fact that the nation’s discussion centers on whether she is a racist or not — or that she is an “affirmative action” pick (Buchanan) — points to both the power of the wingnuts and also to the virtual impotence, or complicity, of mainstream media.
Historically, mainstream journalists have been taught that critical analysis constitutes injecting subjectivity into their reporting.
All this brouhaha is based on the Sotomayor statement that the experiences of a Latina might allow her to make better judgment in court than a white male. Her detractors say that if a white male had made similar statements he would have been automatically disqualified.
They conveniently ignore the fact that the Supreme Court has been virtually all-white for most of the nation’s history. It also ignores the fact that throughout U.S. history, white males have generally not been subjected to apartheid discrimination and segregation, let alone extermination, slavery, forced removals, extra-legal brutality and false imprisonment.
The charges against Sotomayor have a familiar ring. Staunch segregationists used to charge that Martin Luther King, Jr. was both un-American and a racist. President Ronald Reagan institutionalized that kind of thinking in defense of South Africa’s apartheid regime. For him, Nelson Mandela was a terrorist, while the outlaw South African regime constituted a “democratic ally.”
Such thinking was also “normalized” during the affirmative action debate; those who attempted to dismantle the vestiges of racial discrimination were deemed “racists” or “reverse racists,” or communists by those working to maintain it (A reverse racist is precisely what Limbaugh labeled both Sotomayor and President Obama).
Those doing this labeling have well understood the nation’s changing political climate; they could no longer campaign as the defenders of white racial supremacy. Instead, they generally cloaked their views under the conservative-Republican mantle and wrapped themselves in the American flag.
They also knew that to win a debate required further subverting the nation’s political language. These same “patriots” began to reinterpret MLK Jr.’s quote about the dream of a color-blind society.
In public, they gladly accepted the “dream” without accepting the societal responsibility of dismantling and remedying centuries of institutional racism and discrimination in this country.
While the majority of Americans can see through the false arguments and the “clever” subversion of the political language by these so-called patriots, this does not hold true for the mainstream media.
As we are seeing with Sotomayor, all it takes is a handful of “extremists” to control and shape the media debate.
Perhaps the only upside is that Americans can now clearly see that the politics of Gingrich and Tancredo are the same as that of Limbaugh, Liddy, Beck, Buchanan and Dobbs. These pundits who daily rant against “illegal aliens,” and who daily clamor on the need to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border, are quoted as credible sources by the mainstream press. They are generally the same ones who promote the politics of fear and hate, who believe in the use of torture, and who also believe that the United States is endowed with the God-given right to conduct permanent war against the rest of the world.
Truthfully, who can discern a difference between these right-wing fanatics and the positions of mainline conservatives within the Republican Party?
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• Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com or PO BOX 85476 – Tucson, AZ 85754
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause — Especially in Indiana and Pennsylvania, states which harbor numerous hate groups, and have beenKu Klux Klanstrongholds for many years.
For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season.
Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!“…..[more]
