Republican Hypocrisy category archive

Facing South analyzes several polls of teabaggers. It’s conclusions are no surprise. Put bluntly, it’s all about the Scary Black Man:

. . . it’s also their racial attitudes. While racist antics among tea party protesters have made this an article of faith for many on the left already, the racial character of the tea party got some scholarly backing from a multi-state survey released this week by Christopher Parker at the University of Washington.

(snip)

But this body of evidence suggests a few things: While the tea party may be able to make some media noise and influence a few Republican primaries in the short-term, the movement’s narrow and shrinking core base puts it on the wrong side of our country’s demographic trajectory.

What’s more, the tea party movement clearly draws strength from whites who fear and resent their loss of social position (both real and imagined). That’s given rise to a politics of racial resentment which will not only further drive them away from African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos and other people of color, but also whites (especially younger and urban) who don’t share such racial hostilities.

Billmon has more at the Great Orange Satan (Via John Cole). So does Jamelle.

Underlying it all is the idea that, by devaluing others, we somehow increase our own value (Richard Hofstadter and Daniel Bell showed that to be at the heart of prejudice, bigotry, and nativism when they studied the radical right in the 1950s–they called it “status anxiety.” See also Eric Berne.) As long as you have someone to look down on, it seems, you must be doing okay.

Over the years, the list of those looked down on has included variously Catholics, Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, and Poles, among other, but has always included blacks.

Nevertheless, by devaluing others, we do not increase our own value.

We devalue everyone, including ourselves.

Read more »

Back when I was a young ‘un, growing up in the Jim Crow South, some of the school administrators went to attend some kind of convention in New Orleans. One of them was a close friend of my father (in fact, the first baseball glove I had was contributed by this man).

Remember that this was in the most intense period of the Civil Rights struggle, shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and after this.

After they came back, my father’s friend told my father that the trip was okay, but, when they got to Mississippi, the atmosphere was so tense that they felt they had to put on fake Southern accents.

And these were white guys with Southern accents from a segregated state, from the state that came up with the idea of Massive Resistance.

They were afraid to be mistaken for Yankees, despite their Virginia accents.

They were also, quite frankly, amazed at what a different world Mississippi was from Virginia.

I did not, at that time, know that Mississippi still had not ratified the 13th amendment to the Constitution, the amendment that abolished slavery.

Mississippi still hasn’t given up.

Afterthought:

I mentioned earlier that one of my ancestors was a General in the CSA. He is also represented in the John Brown Wax Museum at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, in the act of signing John Brown’s death certificate.

My younger son, who was with us on that trip, was ashamed.

Do I disown him (my ancestor, that is; I’m still thinking about my son)? Heavens no. He is part of my history and he was a man of his time.

But that does not require me to honor his cause.

Anyone who cannot figure out why the Confederate Flag, Confederate symbols, Confederate History Month, and the whole Confederate ball of wax are deeply offensive to many persons is either too stupid for words or a racist ideologue.

There really is no middle ground.

Well, duh.

“The tea party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race,” says Christopher Parker, assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington.

The survey found that those who are racially resentful, who believe the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks, are 36 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who are not.

(snip)

“While it’s clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it’s also clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,” Parker says.

Via Balloon Juice.

Apparently, this is making the rounds in email forwarding land. It hasn’t landed here yet; I have it via DelawareLiberal:

We had eight yearsof Bush and Cheney, but now you get mad!

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative had her cover blown simply for contradicting Dick Cheney.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq .
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown.
You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when, using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans… oh hell no.

AND NOW YOU’RE MAD !

Heh.

Bret and Bart will be sad.

Blue Commonwealth on Republicans’ taking credit for jobs created by Democratic initiatives:

Now, (Virginia Lt. Governor–ed.) Bolling has gotten stimulus religion, Last week, according to the Washington Post, the lieutenant governor, speaking on behalf of his boss Bob McDonnell, praised almost 40 energy conservation projects proposed by local governments in Virginia. The cost – funds from the Recovery Act – totals $13.2 million.

(snip)

“Apparently, being chief job creation officer means taking credit for jobs that other people have created. Bill Bolling should drop the double-talk and admit that the Recovery Act is creating jobs in Virginia. Just one year ago, Bolling said the Recovery Act ‘was not a stimulus plan at all.’ Virginians have to wonder, has he changed his mind? Or did he just think he could get away with hypocrisy?” said DPV spokesman Jared Leopold.

Evidently, Republicans think that they can get away with voting against every proposal of the Obama administration, while simultaneously reaping benefits. After all, the Hypocrisy Hall of Shame now has over 100 GOP members.

When I first saw this weekend that President Obama was fed up with Republican obstructionism on appointments, my reaction was, “Good for him. Take it to them.”

Dick Polman discusses the predictable Republican reaction and sums up the Republican view of bipartisanship (emphasis added):

Naturally, the Republican response to Obama’s move was a textbook case of hypocrisy. They behaved this weekend as if Obama, by making these recess appointments, had somehow invented a whole new form of socialist-tinged tyranny – while somehow forgetting, of course, that recess appointments are encoded as an executive option in the U.S. Constitution.

(snip)

Today’s Republicans know all this; their real complaint is that Obama now seems so willing to confront them. They like him better when he extends his hand, in the spirit of bipartisanship, so that they can slap it away. . . .

(snip)

The bottom line is that elections have consequences, and any president of either party is rightly entitled to choose his own qualified team. So says the Constitution, anyway. As for Obama, he need not bother waiting for the Senate Republicans to suddenly recognize that basic right. More recess appointments will surely be necessary; as I noted here six weeks ago, there’s not much point in Obama extending his hand to people whose first instinct is to devour it and then demand his wrist and forearm for dessert.

DelawareLiberal has more on Republican bipartisanship and the one-way street.

(Aside: I thought the days of recycling that headline were gone)

The Republicans are taking troops’ and troops’ families’ health care home with them and not playing any more because they don’t like how the last inning of the game turned out.

Remember, my son is a troop.

They are holding him and his compatriots hostage to their temper tantrum.

I shall shut up now. Because if I let loose, I will not be able to stop.

From Senator Webb’s press release:

Despite progress late in the week, Republican procedural delays have stalled a motion by Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) to provide immediate fixes to two areas of the law that would clarify and protect coverage for millions of veterans and recipients of TRICARE.

Senator Webb’s legislation, the TRICARE Affirmation Act, has garnered 65 cosponsors, including every Democratic senator and six Republican senators. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) this week also sent out strong letters of endorsement, urging a vote on the bill this week.

See the bill here.

Via What Is Right for Virginia.

Brendan points out how the Teabaggers are behaving like abusers by claiming that, when confronted with threats and vandalism, “Well, you made me do it.”

As digby so concisely puts it, “It will be the Democrats complaining about their inflammatory rhetoric that made the teabaggers snap. If they’d just stayed quiet and not made daddy mad, he wouldn’t have had to hit them.”

He has a point. His post is worth a while.

I used to have a boss who was a retired bird colonel USA. He told us that the army had taught him that, when there was a decision being considered, to

“. . . fight like hell until the decision is made, then shut up and make it work.”

Dick Polman on Republican “contempt for democracy” (the title of his post):

These cancellations and disruptions (among others) were not precipitated by bad weather, or a power outage, or a busted water main, or a national emergency. They happened because the Republicans were behaving like toddlers.

Having failed to get their way on health reform, the losers threw a tantrum and refused to let the grownups get on with the everyday business of governing – actually for the second straight day, thus confirming the recent vow by John “Country First” McCain that there “will be no cooperation for the rest of the year.”

It’s worth the five minutes it takes to read.

Michael Tomasky, writing at the Guardian, compares the US political climate in the Sixties with the climate today. Some nuggets (I couldn’t narrow it down to just one):

It’s the Republicans’ posture that makes this violence different from violence on the political left in the 1960s. You didn’t find Democrats defending the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers or other violent radical tendencies. Those groups hated the Democratic party almost as much as they hated the Republicans.

. . .

Now we have a radical movement, a wing of which is directly threatening violence not just against members of Congress, but in general, with this talk of insurrection and civil war we hear emanating from some quarters. And the courageous response of the GOP has been to put a narrow amount of “space” between the insurrectionists and themselves, but only when pressed to do so by the media.

. . .

This is twisted. You have a group of people who, unhappy with a legislative outcome legitimately reached by duly elected people, think it’s somehow their “right” to call that oppression and threaten violence. They are people, let’s be blunt, who know nothing about history and political thought.

Helen reprises Lysistrata.

H/T Karen for the link.

I observed in an email to one of my two or three regular readers:

Boy the crazies are coming out of the woodwork like termites swarming in the old Orkin commercial.

(Thus betraying my age. “When termites start swarming/you have to take warning./Call Otto the Orkin man.” I tried to find it on YouTube but could not. It’s too old.)

She emailed back:

They really are. It wasn’t this bad in Dallas in the 60’s.

She grew up in Dallas in the Sixties.

I suggested that, if the actions of the KKK, the bombings of churches during the civil rights struggles, and stuff like that were taken into account, the violence of the Sixties might rank right up there.

Over at SLANTBlog, F. T. Rea also differs with my reader. He says in part

Terrorism flowing from the radical rightwing opposition to healthcare reform is not all that different from thuggery stemming from the bitter opposition of court-ordered desegregation in the ‘60s. It’s not so different from the terrorism/thuggery that’s taken place in the name of being anti-abortion. It’s not different enough from blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City to attack/threaten the government, or blowing up the World Trade Center towers to attack/threaten our society.

(snip)

I’m old, I’ve seen this kind of crap before.

But then I got thinking. There is something different today.

Back in the Sixties, when I was a young ‘un, the national leaders of both the Republican and the Democratic Parties neither excused nor encouraged the violence.

One cannot say that about the leadership of today’s Republican Party.

I have not before seen the leadership or those who are seen* to represent the leadership of a major United States political party excuse, embrace, and encourage violence without rebuke from their own party.

The Republican Party has shown itself to favor uncivil government.
_____________________

*If the Republican Party cared to disavow the Becks, the Hannitys, the Limbaughs, or any of the other haters, it could easily do so with a press release. It choses not to. By its silence, it endorses them.

National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman says that Tom Perriello is responsible for Mr. Perrielo’s brother’s propane line being cut, apparently in retaliation for Mr. Perriello’s vote for the health care bill.

Blue Virginia quotes the Roanoke, Va., Times, then comments.

While his organization doesn’t condone such behavior, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Andy Sere said Perriello is not the victim.

“Central and Southside Virginians are the ones who are going to have the bear the burden of increased taxes,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a frustration among his constituents who believe he’s not listening to them.”

That’s right, according to the NRCC spokesman, threats of violence (and worse) against his family are actually Tom Perriello’s fault because he had the audacity to vote for health care reform. In other words, the NRCC spokesman is arguing, in America if you disagree with a policy of your government or a vote by your duly elected representative, the recourse is not the “ballot box” but the metaphorical “bullet box.”

Follow the link for the entire post.

Get your card here.

Via Eschaton.

Republican Grassley.

TPM has a map.

From the bullet items under the map:

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) (who has received death threats–ed.), who is on the map above, today said he confronted Minority Leader John Boehner over an interview in which Boehner said Driehaus would be a “dead man” if he voted for the bill. “I think it’s really important for folks around here, especially leader Boehner, to understand that his words have consequences,” Driehaus said.

That they are crazy does not mean they are no less dangerous. I will not be surprised if someone kills in the name of Republicanism.

If that happens, watch them back off watch the party disclaim responsibility.

Addendum:

Glomarization has more.

Later:

Now it’s faxes of nooses.

Even Later:

More death threats.

Afterthought:

These people are nuts.

Russell King itemizes the bill at TPM.

It’s quite astounding to see it all in one list.

Via DelawareLiberal.

Not necessarily inaccurate, just over the top. A nugget:

The most striking elements of so-called health care in America these days is how cruel and unjust it is, and in taking a stand against reforming it the Republican party appeared to be firmly in support of cruelty and injustice. This would be well within the historical tradition of other religious crusades which turned political — such as the Spanish Inquisition and the seventeenth century war against witchcraft.

Via Balloon Juice.

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