Why Obama Matters in History

They took your lives; they could not take your pride

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

- RFK
Day of Affirmation Address, 6/6/66,
University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa

City of Blinding Lights
(Paul Hewson; Dave Evans; Adam Clayton; Larry Mullen)


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The Last Acceptable Bigotries in America

Befitting our political culture, appeals to the contemporary American bigot are accomplished with sophisticated brands, images, impressions, and coded vocabulary, and not overt prejudices and stereotypes.

But there are two exceptions to this operative prohibition against overt bigotry: Arabs and gays. Two bigoted parties, long-time Editor-in-Chief and owner of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, and the Republican Party, reveal this dynamic.

As for gays [a broad term] the Republican Party and the religious right appear to owe their very reason for existence to the compulsion to marginalize and deny gays due process and equal protection under the law so often are gays the political scapegoat of GOP-religious right operatives. So, we're not surprised to find U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (R) dissenting in a landmark civil rights case, LAWRENCE V. TEXAS (02-102), writing:

Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.

This is retrograde and repulsive thinking to most Americans, but not most Republicans. Almost daily, we can find anti-gay appeal from Republicans.

Arabs and The New Republic's Martin Peretz

Arabs also enjoy a distinct status as the object of acceptable bigotry in this current milieu (environment) extending across partisan lines. An often bipartisan consensus keeps Ahmad in his place in America. Glenn Greenwald's The Right Kind of Bigotry is nothing short of spectacular in revealing this bigotry widely unchallenged. If you read nothing else, read this 300-word piece below, singling out The New Republic's Martin Peretz as a self-admitted bigot who is also a disingenuous slander artist.

From the long-time Editor-in-Chief and owner of The New Republic, [Martin Peretz] this morning [March 6]:

There were moments--long moments--during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

The point here is so obvious that it makes itself. In the bolded sentence, replace the word ‘Arabs’ with ‘Jews’ and ask yourself: how much time would lapse before the author of such a sentence would be vehemently scorned and shunned by all decent people, formally condemned by a litany of organizations, and have his livelihood placed in jeopardy? Or replace the word ‘Arabs’ in that sentence with ’Jews’ or ‘blacks’ or ’Latinos’ or even ‘whites’ or virtually any other identifiable demographic group and ask yourself this: how many people would treat a magazine edited and owned by such a person as a remotely respectable or mainstream publication (notwithstanding the several decent journalists employed there)? Yet Marty Peretz spits out the most bigoted sentiments of this type -- and he's been doing this for years, as is well known -- and very little happens, because, for multiple reasons, this specific type of hate-mongering remains basically permitted in American political discourse. The double standard at play here is as extreme and self-evident as it is pernicious, but it doesn't matter. And we'll all wait with bated breath for the next installment of The New Republic's righteous, accusatory attacks on the entirely fictitious manifestations of the one strain of bigotry that bothers them, because they're such credible arbiters and opponents of prejudice.

Hate in America

Update II: See the big hate.
- Paul Krugman

Update: Can right-wing hate talk lead to murder? Two terror events in two weeks makes me wonder if media extremists might turn down the ugly rhetoric for a bit. - Joan Walsh

Another hate crime. This act a white supremacist murdering a man at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This is why we need the Southern Poverty Law Center. Why we need to become vigilant against racial profiling and all acts of racism and hate.

Why we need to constantly confront the ignorant among us.

The appeal to racism, bigotry and hate is a staple of the Republican Party, and not just isolated American whacks. You can bet this murderer is not a big fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the civil rights movement, and likely not a voice against racial profiling.

Since the inception of Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968, continuing through Reagan’s 1980 campaign kick-off in Philadelphia, Mississippi [the site of the murder of civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, 16 years earlier], right on up to Bush and McCain, playing on the bigotries in America has been standard GOP fare.

Instead of the ignorant and hateful being politically marginalized, the GOP sees a political opportunity that they have never stopped using. The results are plain and ugly.

Here in Wisconsin, for most Wisconsin GOP writers, Milwaukee talk radio, and the Republican Party, the Civil Rights movement never happened.

So it's no stretch for them to obstruct black voters, disenfranchise gays, and play on the fears and prejudices of the ignorant who comprise the base of today's Republican Party.

As always the civil rights movement will stand tall against the ignorant masses of the GOP; it's just too bad that these haters find so much comfort in a major American political party.