Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Counterproductivity


When Is It Time? . . . The Bundy Ranch, or A Falling-out Among Thieves . . . Problems in the Front Office . . . Let's Play Screw the Poor! . . . What's the Opposite of Affirmative Action?

If you listen to the Chattering Classes in places like Fox, Drudge, Rush, etc., we live in a "post-racial" society.  After all, Americans elected and re-elected Barack Obama, America's first biracial President, right?

Right?

Well, it's not quite that simple.  During the 2008 election, people at a Sarah Palin-led rally shouted the N-word, and were not called out for it, or admonished that we don't use such language anymore.  It only got worse, with Obama's face grafted onto quite poorly-veiled racist and stereotyped posters and pictures.  I've seen them myself - as someone who voted for Obama, my coworkers enjoyed showing them to me.

One thing that the election of President Obama showed us is that racism is very close to the surface, no matter how much time has elapsed since the death of Jim Crow.  In fact, Jim Crow's alive and well, although the latest push to disenfranchise blacks, women, the young and minorities are carried our under the idea of combating "voter fraud."

So, when can we finally have an honest debate about race with the Right that doesn't involve them immediately saying that it doesn't exist, and even bringing up the question is racist?

***

The Bureau of Land Management has no trouble with allowing ranchers to let their cattle graze on federally-protected property, with the understanding that the ranchers pay a small fee for the privilege.  Cliven Bundy has taken advantage of this subsidy since his business was established in 1964.

I include the date so we can dispense with his ridiculous assertion that he had an "ancestral claim" on the land.  Like many of the Darlings of the Right (Sam "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, Dr. Ben Carson, etc. etc. etc.) that emerge, get a lot of air time, then fizzle out when the truth arises, a lot of Mr. Bundy's position is based on lies and half-truths, if not full-on, uncut bullshit.

That hasn't stopped militias (read: gangs of heavily-armed thugs and malcontents) from flocking to Bundy's side to defend his right to break the law, good law-abiding American that he is.  One group in particular, the "Oath Keepers," has decided to withdraw, probably because they got tired of sitting around in the sun. 

A mouthpiece for Bundy immediately branded them traitors and hinted that they might have ended up shot.  That would have made great footage on any of the networks - except for Fox, where Sean Hannity is still trying to wash Bundy's semen and his own drool from his manly chin.

Why?  Because someone did the one thing you NEVER do with a Darling of the Right:  Give him a microphone.  Bundy's rants revealed that he's a malignant little pustule of racism and bad impulses.

So it goes.

***

Speaking of Malignant Pustules, allow me to introduce to you one Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.  Sterling started his career as an ambulance-chasing lawyer, graduated to slumlord, and bought the Clippers mainly so he could call himself important, apparently. 

His little racist rant (oddly enough directed toward his half-Latina, half-black girlfriend) may get him the Marge Schott treatment by the NBA.

***

The Republican caucus in the US House of Representatives have voted over 50 times - OVER 50 TIMES! - to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and every time they've failed miserably.  A successful repeal would have taken affordable medical insurance away from millions of Americans.  The Democrats support the ACA, and many want to improve upon it.

They've also failed to extend unemployment insurance to millions of Americans who struggle to get by in a down economy.  The Democrats want to help.

The Republicans are now facing a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate on increasing the minimum wage, which would help millions of Americans.  The GOP caucus in the Senate and the House want to block it, the Democrats are all for it, because it would help Americans.

The Democrats want to raise taxes on the richest one percent, in order to reduce income inequality.  The Republicans want to cut or eliminate taxes on the one percent.

Tell me, who wants to help the country again?

***

Not the Supreme Court, apparently, because they decided that helping minorities get jobs or higher education isn't such a good thing after all.




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