Politics of Hate category archive

I have mentioned earlier that, when I was young, white Southerners looked to South Africa as a beacon of sympathy.

Read Dan Simpson’s memories of serving in South Africa.

And weep, for, though they dress it up in fancy language, this is the vision of the New Secesh.

Out Harper’s Ferry way, a new rebellion is taking shape.

“In Maryland, we have a number of irreconcilable differences with the state government and how they govern,” he said.

The laundry list of grievances that underpins the Liberate Western Maryland movement runs from higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes to “oppressive” gun control legislation, in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, and even stricter rules on septic tanks.

Several hundred people had signed a petition backing the statehood movement by the time Strzelcyzk and a handful of supporters presented their vision to about 80 people who attended the rally at Allegany College in Cumberland.

Also, the rest of Maryland is full of the blahs.

They certainly won’t talk about it, of course, but, if racism isn’t a big undercurrent in this, I’m not a southern boy.

The bad neighbor: why, the one who built the fence, of course!

The teachings of Republican St. Paul Ryan:

Via Escape from Whitemanistan. Follow the link for commentary.

. . . almost always means, “I’m racist, and . . . .”

Video moved below the fold because autoplays on some systems.

Dammit.

Read more »

Entitled twits.

Via Raw Story.

You realize, of course, that these people are nuts, and dangerous nuts at that.

Harold Meyerson nails teabaggery. The nugget (emphasis added):

Today’s tea party-ized Republicans speak less for Wall Street or Main Street than they do for the seething resentments of white Southern backwaters and their geographically widespread but ideologically uniform ilk. Their theory of government, to the extent that they have one, derives from John C. Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification — that states in general and white minorities in particular should have the right to overturn federal law and impede majority rule. Like their predecessors in the Jim Crow South, today’s Republicans favor restricting minority voting rights if that is necessary to ensure victory at the polls.

Out in the New River Valley, the Roanoke Times is hosting a duel between the secesh and the sane.

Indeed, Godwin’s Law has come into play.

Here’s a snippet from a column by Halford Ryan in response to an exercise in Confederate revisionism by John C. Cahoon (that’s right, “Cahoon,” not “Calhoun”):

But Cahoon’s most troubling claim is his attempt to rationalize the Civil War. “Like the Vietnam veteran, the Confederate soldier did his duty as he understood it to be in his era . . . all deserve to be honored by us irrespective of what we today think of their wars or the governments that asked them to fight.” Surely, the ends for which soldiers fought must be considered. Go figure why Germans do not celebrate Nazi History Month or the Nazi heritage of hearth and home.

Reg Henry follows the trail of teas. A nugget:

The Tea Party was a strange phenomenon from the start. It began no later than February 2009, apparently sparked by the efforts to stimulate and shore up the economy left moribund by the previous administration. This, of course, was an outrage to some. How dare anybody rebuff the iron will of the market for the general welfare!

President Barack Obama had been in office one month — one month! — yet already he was considered a socialist/Marxist. Most presidents get a political honeymoon — Mr. Obama wasn’t given enough time to find the White House bathroom. But thank goodness his race was not a factor, and if you believe that, pull my leg, it’s got a bell on it.

The other day, we grabbed lunch at a beachfront eatery; it was mid-afternoon, the season is waning, and business was slow, so we had a pleasant chat with the only waitress on duty, who looked to be college age.

She mentioned that, based on the attitudes of some of her customers, she thought that persons are more bigoted and prejudiced than they used to be.

I disagreed, but I did say that, as far as I can tell, compared to a couple of decades ago, persons sure are a damned sight more willing to be open about their bigotry than they were a couple of decades ago.

Teabaggery is exhibit A-one.

Excerpt, about the Republican “base”:

There’s the corporate shills, there’s the religious fanatics and then there are the ‘freedom’ fiends, the one that want to make sure that you have the right to sleep under a bridge.

Via Raw Story.

In a follow-up to the previous post, twits with tea crackers.

Chauncey Devega, in a typically long and tightly reasoned post (I almost always say that, because his posts almost always are), exposes the recipe for Tea(bag) Crackers(TM).

A nugget:

The disruptive political behavior by the Tea Party is also a direct function of how the Republican Party is the country’s de facto “White” political interest group–and how the Tea Party, its most extreme element, functions as a White Identity organization.

Obama has been the focus of repeated efforts by the Right to delegitimize his presidency. Most of these are fundamentally rooted in a deep anxiety about his race. In all, a black man is incompatible with the “real America” that the Tea Party and neo-Confederate Republican Party yearns for. Obama’s personhood, and all of the history and weight that comes with it, is outside of the boundaries of what it means to be “American” for the White Right, their allies, and many in Red State America.

Via C&L.

Picture the God Squad.

Republicans vote to kick poor folks off food stamps.

Elsewhere, E. J. Dionne comments on the logic of these tactics. A nugget:

There is a thread running through the antics of kamikaze caucus. Almost everything they are doing is designed to keep government from acting against inequality and addressing the stagnation or decline of incomes among both poor and middle-class Americans.

These are not nice people.

Determined to be where they are not wanted.

The North Dakota town of Leith, population 24, has established a legal defense fund to resist being taken over by white supremacists, the Bismark Tribune reported Thursday.

Craig Cobb, 61, purchased a dozen plots of land in Leith (pronounced ‘Leeth’) and plans to turn it into a colony for white supremacists, the Bismark Tribune reported last month. He has already sold or transferred ownership of some plots to people who share his white nationalist beliefs, and advertised the town as a place where “responsible hard core” white nationalists can fly “racialist” banners, the New York Times reported.

Read the story from the Bismark Tribune.

Visit the town’s nascent website.

As I said once, I’m not a big Al Sharpton fan, but, as my old boss used to say, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.