MIchael Steele Tries too Hard

After seeing this, I had an aha moment about RNC's Michael Steele. He spends too much time trying to please people and pretending he's like them. He did that with the hip hoppers. Now, he's trying to align himself with the tea partiers. He should just be himself because he comes off as insecure and not authoritative.

Steele should be a little more thoughtful about who he aligns with, especially as a black man. The tea party movement is being infiltrated by white supremacists. I posted this video yesterday, but I'm going to keep posting it because it needs to be seen. Underlying the tea party movement is a group of people who are afraid that their white society is disappearing. I'm not sure why it's so important to them that people be white. What is white anyway?

But I think it's a fear of change and different-ness. These people probably come from places where there is a lot of sameness and they see Hispanics as people who take their jobs and black people as people who commit crimes. There is a lack of understanding by tea partiers and a lot of scapegoating and stereotyping. They feed off of one another's fears. Putting it nicely, they're just not as enlightened as others are.

White Supremacists Engaged in the Tea Party - Video

Al Jazeera has a story about the new Nazis. This video is HIGHLY disturbing. These people voice the same "concerns" as Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and the tea party but obviously they are more extreme in their tactics. White supremacist groups are targeting the U.S. government and immigration. To me the tea party has always been a soft core white supremacist group.

This video, alas, connects the tea party and Glenn Beck to the white supremacists. White supremacists are "pushing the envelope" in movements like the tea party. You'll notice the white supremacists use the same slogans as the tea party, such as "take it back."

How long until the tea party takes up white supremacist tactics?

South Carolinians Love Their Man Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson and South Carolinians might not know they're racist. That's because they grew up racist. It's as much a part of them as the hair on their head. Wilson doesn't see a black man as his equal because in South Carolina a black person is not equal to a white person, which is why it was easy for him to heckle the president.

Think about how you talk to a person that you consider your intellectual equal vs. how you might speak to someone you consider kind of dim, say a conversation with Paul Krugman vs. one with Glenn Beck. You'd be more apt to call Beck an idiot before you'd call Krugman an idiot.

For some people, instead of intelligence and character, it's the color of a person's skin that automatically triggers disrespect. A lot of people in the south actually believe that the size of a black person's brain is smaller.
But I think more people are realizing some serious racism has bubbled up to the surface and much of it is pouring out of the South and many of us are disgusted and disheartened. The question is, what do we do now that we know?

Why shouldn't South Carolinians love their man. He shouted "You Lie!" all for them, according to his wife Roxanne. Joe is a beautiful guy.

Holder Highly Annoyed the Racists

When Eric Holder called the U.S. a "nation of cowards" when it came to race, it really irked the racists.

Conservative Pat Buchanan suggests in an article for Human Events that if you are black or Hispanic, you are more likely to be a gang member, solely because you're black or Hispanic -- not because of a long history of racism, discrimination and poverty. Not because the education that the poor and people of color get is unequal to the education that white people get.

What about slavery? That's not something that easily leaves the psyche. The legacy is passed down from generation to generation and as a nation, we have never confronted what it means to all of us. People like Buchanan like to say that happened a long time ago, so why should it matter?

How do they equate skin color or ethnicity with crime? Do they really believe that black people and Hispanics actually have a different gene or something? That God (we know the Buchanan types are good Christians) gave them criminal tendencies. That they're wired to commit more crimes than white people? That they're inferior because of their ethnicity?

Then Buchanan veers off into another favorite conservative scapegoat, "illegals." Right wing extremist reasoning: If only we didn't have "illegals" America would be a crime free nation. They're taking all the jobs! They're causing all the crime!

For the Buchanan types, illegals equals Hispanics, much in the same way that they believe that Muslims are terrorists. It's so much easier for a small mind to paint a whole swath of people in a manner that fits their world view because to think any broader would mean they would have to change their whole way of life.

Why can't everyone see that this is moronic:

What further proof is needed that mass immigration from the Third World is taking jobs from Americans and driving down their wages when they do find work?

Here is a problem more serious than whether black and white elites are getting together on weekends to gabble about race.

How do these people have such teeny tiny minds? How do we protect our children from their hateful influence? It seems hate is passed down from generation to generation. Fortunately, it seems the younger generation is proving to be more evolved and wiser.

Buchanan didn't talk about gay people in this story, but he may as well have. Because for them, it's gay people who are corrupting the family. Right wing extremists like Buchanan have a scapegoat for everything. They are cowards.

Human Events:
"It is not safe for this nation to assume that the unaddressed social problems in the poorest parts of the country can be isolated and will not ultimately affect the larger society."

Fair point. And what are some of those social problems?

A 70 percent illegitimacy rate in black America, an incarceration and crime rate seven times that of white America, a 50 percent dropout rate in many urban high schools, African-American graduates reading and computing on average at eighth-grade levels.

And about these problems what is the black leadership doing?

Unlike Bill Cosby, the heroic Holder was virtually mute. Rather, he is upset that "on Saturdays and Sundays" we don't go to church or hang out together. But why are the free associations of Americans, of whatever creed or color, any of Eric Holder or Big Brother's business?

Having insulted us, perhaps Holder will start doing his own sworn duty.

Buchanan reasons blackness and Hispanicness causes gangness:

Last month, USA Today reported that the FBI estimates there are now 1 million gang members in the United States -- up 200,000 from 2005 -- and these gangs are responsible for 80 percent of all U.S. crimes. From other studies, young Hispanics are 19 times as likely as white youth to join gangs, while African-Americans are 15 times.

These millions of teenagers, and unskilled and less-educated young adults with no jobs and little prospect of finding them, are recruiting pools for criminal gangs.

Who is getting the jobs for which these native-born black and Hispanic young could quality? Illegal aliens hold literally millions of them.

Last week, the CIS reported, "An estimated 6 to 7 million illegal immigrants are currently holding jobs. Prior research indicates they are overwhelmingly employed in lower-skilled and lower-paid jobs."

Exactly what sort of jobs?

"Illegals are primarily employed in construction, building cleaning and maintenance, food preparation, service and processing, transportation and moving occupations and agriculture."

What causes gangness is Buchananness that still pervades this country. Buchanan proved Holder's point -- until racism is dealt with, these larger social issues can't be dealt with. We are a nation of cowards because those of us who know better haven't faced down Buchananness.

The Scary America

This is the scary America that some of us, depending on where we live, don't get to see often. But they're out there. I'm just hoping not in large numbers.

On 9-11 Many Chose to Smear Michelle Obama

Where was Michelle Obama today, they asked all over the Internet and in youtube videos? Why wasn't she at the 9-11 ceremony. 

She was home with her children.
The question is: Why are they questioning? Because these self-righteous folks think they're better than everyone else. They're once again looking for any excuse to slam Michelle, accuse her of not being patriotic, or of being a terrorist Muslim. It's thinly-veiled racism. It's utterly stupid and I hate the fact that these kind of people exist. Just say what you mean and stop with the pretend. Get a life. Or better yet, get an education. 

What Hillary Sold During the Primaries

For the past several months I've been trying to understand the Hillary diehard line of thinking, how they came to the conclusion that Obama was an empty suit and this morning it clicked.

After listening to Hillary supporters talk this morning about how race affected their vote, there it was: Hillary sold Obama to her supporters as an inexperienced and unqualified black man who was trying to use his race to get ahead.

That's the way they saw it. They didn't see Obama as a qualified candidate. Geraldine Ferraro was a good example.

In Hillary's effort to get to the White House, she didn't engage in overt racism but she used Obama's race against him, which when you think about it, is devious and ingenious and it's no wonder she wasn't thought of for the vice presidency.

The Fox is Wrong on Obama Game Show Video

A most excellent video


An inspiring video

Number of Bigots is Overestimated

we've seen them come out of the woodwork. they don't like obama's color. they won't shake his hand. they won't get to know him. they don't like his name. they think he's a secret terrorist. they think he hates jewish people. there are ignorant people all over and of every group -- jews, catholics, working class, white, black, poor, rich....-- but they seem to be clustered in the appalachian area. they're ugly and it's sad to know that they are there.
it's also sad that hillary exploited these people for her gain.
it's one of the reasons that an obama presidency will be a bonus. people have to be educated. hatred has to stop being perpetuated from generation to generation.
but keep in mind, for as much attention these people are getting, thanks largely to kentucky and west virginia, these folks are the minority. while it's good the media is finally paying attention, it is blowing it out of proportion and losing perspective, as it usually does when it gloms on to an issue.
they no longer represent the views of the whole of america. they aren't going to stand in the way of obama winning the election. as people get to know obama, people will sign on, just as they have this entire nomination process.

Hillary's Supporters Will Vote for the Other Man

they won't vote for the democratic man, but rather the republican man because they say they've been a victim of sexism.
that's logical.
i am so womaned out.
the hillarys have lost their way. they just so badly wanted to see a woman president and now that the dream is gone (for now), they can't let it go. now come all the claims of sexism and hillary is once again exploiting her base. hillary knows exactly what she's doing but her supporters can't see that though. they've lost perspective. if they would've taken off their woman glasses they would've seen obama as a fine candidate.
sure, there's been sexism. i believe that her male racist supporters, the so-called "hard working white americans" of appalachia, are really voting for the team of hill and bill. these men don't like black people and they don't like women in power positions. that didn't stop hillary from pandering to them though. didn't her supporters see that?
hillary's not losing because she's a woman. she's losing because obama's the better candidate.

wsj:
She was born in Russia, fled the pogroms with her family, was raised in Milwaukee, and worked the counter at her father's general store when she was 8. In early adulthood she made aliyah to Palestine, where she worked on a kibbutz, picking almonds and chasing chickens. She rose in politics, was the first woman in the first Israeli cabinet, soldiered on through war and rumors of war, became the first and so far only woman to be prime minister of Israel. And she knew what it is to be a woman in the world. "At work, you think of the children you've left at home. At home you think of the work you've left unfinished. . . . Your heart is rent." This of course was Golda Meir.

.....
You know where I'm going, for you know where she went. Hillary Clinton complained again this week that sexism has been a major dynamic in her unsuccessful bid for political dominance. She is quoted by the Washington Post's Lois Romano decrying the "sexist" treatment she received during the campaign, and the "incredible vitriol that has been engendered" by those who are "nothing but misogynists." The New York Times reported she told sympathetic bloggers in a conference call that she is saddened by the "mean-spiritedness and terrible insults" that have been thrown "at you, for supporting me, and at women in general."

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss.

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks.

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

270 To Win And Obama Parrot

all the general election polls that are out now are basically doo doo, so pay them no mind (there are some good ones though, ones that show obama beats mccain in ohio). the polls will change rapidly as the general election campaign ramps up (the woman in the pantsuit says she's done). but no matter what the hillarys are saying, obama can win. he can even win without ohio, pennsylvania, west virgina and florida!
check out the site 270 to win and you'll see that there are many different ways for obama to win.
now for the "yes we can" parrot.

and here is an outrageously funny video. not. funny in a way. these people should be hanging their heads in deep shame. what an embarrassment to society they are. keep in mind, these folks are the minority now. hillary can have them.

Many Florida Jews Don't Like Obama's Color

Wow. Jewish people, of all the people. They've faced the worst discrimination as a people and they won't vote for the black man? Wow. I am truly stunned. wasn't the holocaust our biggest lesson in bigotry? As humans, I suppose we just don't learn our lessons. Check out this story:

nytimes: Ms. Grossman, 80, agreed with her friend’s conclusion, but not her reasoning.

“They’ll pick on the minister thing, they’ll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color,” she said, quietly fingering a coffee cup. Ms. Grossman said she was thinking of voting for Mr. Obama, who is leading in the delegate count for the nomination, as was Ms. Weitz.

But Ms. Grossman does not tell the neighbors. “I keep my mouth shut,” she said.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama will court Jewish voters with an appearance at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. A longtime Democratic constituency with a consistently high turnout rate, Jews are important to his general election hopes, particularly in New York, which he expects to win; in California and New Jersey, which he must keep out of Republican hands; and, most crucially, here in Florida, where Jews make up around 5 percent of voters.

This is the most haunted state on the electoral college map for Democrats, the one they lost by hundreds of votes and a Supreme Court decision in 2000, and again in 2004.
......
Because of a dispute over moving the date of the state’s primary, Mr. Obama and the other Democratic candidates did not campaign in Florida. In his absence, novel and exotic rumors about Mr. Obama have flourished. Among many older Jews, and some younger ones, as well, he has become a conduit for Jewish anxiety about Israel, Iran, anti-Semitism and race.

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura. (He’s not.)

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he’s not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. (Mrs. Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan.)

Kentucky and Oregon Both Have "Hard Working White Americans"

dear hillary,
oregon also has "hard working white americans," but most of them aren't racist. your "hard working white american" supporters on the other hand, are. so why don't you call them out for what they are.
racism is more than a presidential campaign issue. it's a despicable mark on society and these people need to change their ways-- not for the general election because we don't need them-- but for the betterment of our society.
you could do so much to change their attitude when you decide the race is over. why don't you give your own race speech. tell your bigoted supporters that it's wrong. tell them that even if obama was muslim, there would be nothing wrong with that. tell them the advantages of not having a racist heart.

just wishful thinking on my part.
it's late but it's here, more good reading on this issue, finally, by the mainstream media:

nytimes: Consider the media shorthand for both Kentucky and West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by huge margins. These are hard-working, real Americans, the Clinton camp says, and a Democrat can’t win without them.
In fact, both West Virginia and Kentucky have gone against the national tide of the last 8 years and have been trending Republican. Also – and this needs to be said – a significant percentage of the voters in both those states have now indicated that they may not vote for a fellow Democrat simply because he’s black.
Pollsters know that people lie about race; voters rarely come out and say they will not vote for someone because he’s black. Instead, they say things like we’re hearing from West Virginia and Kentucky – that “race is a factor.”
In Kentucky, over 25 percent of Clinton supporters said race was a factor in their vote – about five times the national average for such a question. Clinton, if she really wanted to do something lasting, could ask her supporters why the color of a fellow Democrat’s skin is so important to their vote.
Now, consider the argument that a Democrat needs these states. In 2000, George Bush won West Virginia 52 to 46 percent. Four years later, he’d increased his margin to 56-43.
........
On to Oregon, where Obama won by double digits. A bunch of chai tea sipping elitists, with zero body fat, living in hip lofts while working at Nike, yes? No. Well, they do like running, and tea. Oregon is one of the nation’s whitest states – just under 2 percent of residents are black – but rich it is not. The state is below the national average in both per capita income and median household income.
This suggests that Obama doesn’t have a white working class problem so much as a regional problem, in a place where Democrats won’t win anyway.
In Oregon, voters’ surveys show Obama essentially tied Clinton for the blue collar vote while running up a big victory.
And Oregon, unlike West Virginia and Kentucky, may actually be in play for the general election. Al Gore won it by barely 7,000 votes in 2000, a margin that went up to 60,000 votes in 2004. McCain’s advisers say he’s a perfect fit for the state – independent, somewhat maverick.
So, from a purely strategic point of view, the ability to win white blue-collar voters in an open-minded swing state is certainly more important than a solid red state. I would include Pennsylvania in that equation. Just weeks after all the talk of Obama’s problems in the Keystone state, most polls now show him beating McCain in the general election. more