The success of the Presidency of Barack Obama is on the line. It is imperative that a health-care bill pass WITH a public option. Seventy-one per cent of the America people want a universal health care system that includes the public option. Fifty-seven percent say they would be willing to pay more taxes for universal health-care. Yet, conservative Democrats and Republicans in the Senate will attempt to block the public option. Obviously, they are not listening to the will of the people and what we as a nation need. Our economy is drowning in the for profit system that enriches the medical industry at the cost of the nation’s populace. They owe their souls to the “company stores” we call hospitals, the AMA, the pharmaceutical industry. Theirs is not the interest of the people. The reluctant need to have letters/Twitters sent to them. Check out Bill Maher’s assessment of the Democrats and Republicans at this stage of our history. RGN
Obama May Lack Votes for Health-Care, Feinstein Says (Update1)
By Gopal Ratnam
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may not have enough votes in the U.S. Senate to pass his effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said.
“I don’t know that he has the votes right now,” Feinstein said today on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus.” Controlling costs of the new system is a “difficult subject.”
Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana said on the same program that the overhaul should be done slowly, and not this year, to ensure it doesn’t “threaten the basic structure of the economy.”
Congress is working to meet an October deadline that Obama, a Democrat, set for signing the legislation into law. As a presidential candidate he pledged to expand coverage to the 46 million people who lack health insurance while lowering the cost of a system of care that makes up 17 percent of the economy.
Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley said on CNN that the Senate Finance Committee is “dialing down some of our expectations” of the legislation in response to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that earlier options under consideration would cost $1.6 trillion.
“Our goal is affordability,” said Grassley, who is the top-ranked Republican on the finance panel.
‘Running Away’
Senators from both parties are wary of health-care overhaul because of the $1.6 trillion cost estimate, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week” program today. The budget office calculation “was a death blow to government-run health care plan,” he said.
Democratic senators are “running away from the government- run health care where the bureaucrat stands between the doctor and the patient,” Graham said. The Finance Committee “has abandoned” the plan, he said.
Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said the idea of delaying action on the legislation until next year is a mistake.
The last thing the American people “want us to do is to wait and delay for 2010 or 2011, because this is the economic threat to our country,” Casey said. “If we don’t get this right and get it done, American families are going to pay far too much.”
Most Americans are willing to pay higher taxes so everyone can have health insurance and back a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll of 895 adults conducted June 12-16 had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at gratnam1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 21, 2009 12:09 EDT
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Complicity of Right Wing Vitrol: the Escalation of White Nationalist Violence
More on the "Lone Wolves" and the complicity of America's right wing. This take is by Judith Warner. RGN
June 11, 2009, 8:05 pm
The Wages of Hate
It is all too familiar.
A lone gunman takes a life in a hate crime. Law enforcement officials describe him as acting alone.
But he’s not alone — not in spirit, at least.
Like Scott Roeder, the man charged in the shooting of the Wichita, Kan., doctor George Tiller nearly two weeks ago, James von Brunn, the white supremacist charged with killing a guard in an attempted shooting rampage at the Holocaust museum in Washington on Wednesday, doesn’t have any current, overt links to extremist groups. Yet his violent hatred — of Jews, blacks, the government — echoes throughout the universe of right-wing extremists, who just a few years ago hailed and revered him as a “White Racialist Treasure.”
And though he’s an outlier — disturbed, deranged, disavowed now by many who share his core views — his actions really can’t be viewed in isolation. As was the case with Tiller’s murder, which followed months of escalating harassment and intimidation at abortion clinics, von Brunn’s attack on the Holocaust museum has to be viewed as an extreme manifestation of a moment when racist, anti-Semitic agitation is rapidly percolating. White supremacist groups are vastly expanding. And right-wing TV rhetoric, thoughtless in its cruelty and ratings-hungry demagoguery, is helping feed the paranoia and rage that for some Americans now bubbles just beneath the surface.
Hate group membership had been expanding steadily over the course of the past decade — fueled largely by anti-immigrant sentiment. But after Barack Obama’s election, it spiked. The day after the election, the computer servers of two major white supremacist groups crashed, because their traffic went through the roof, Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks right-wing extremists and hate groups, told me this week.
As the former Klansman and Louisiana state representative David Duke predicted last June, the face of the first black man in the White House was a “visual aid” for white supremacists, spurring a rapid rise in recruitment and radicalization.
“Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported this past April.
I wrote last week about the rising threats to and vandalism at abortion clinics that followed the election of our first pro-choice president in eight years. A similar increase in intimidating activism has been observed over the past seven months among hate groups — and simply hateful individuals. In November, a predominantly black church under construction in Springfield, Mass. was burned to the ground by three men who bragged of doing so in protest of the election. A cross was burned outside the home of a family of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J.
As was the case with increasing clinic vandalism and verbally violent protest, it was only a matter of time before this racially motivated destruction and intimidation turned to physical violence. And there’s one additional, highly disturbing parallel between von Brunn’s intended white supremacist shooting rampage and Scott Roeder’s “pro-life” killing of George Tiller: In both cases, at least some of the core beliefs of extremists were echoed, albeit in more socially acceptable language, by right wing news commentators.
Bill O’Reilly had routinely talked in recent years about “Tiller the baby killer.” Other right-wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh have similarly tapped into — in somewhat coded form — some of the key concerns of extremist hate groups: that the economy has been destroyed by government-proffered “bad” loans to illegal immigrants, for example, or that FEMA may or may not — Beck equivocated for an awfully long time — be running “concentration camps” for U.S. citizens, or that the Obama administration is declaring war on decent Americans by labeling them as “extremists.”
(“So you have a report from Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security, portraying standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives as posing a bigger threat to this country than Al-Qaeda terrorists or genuine enemies of this country like Kim Jong Il,” is what Limbaugh had to say about Homeland Security’s April report.)
The result of this wink-wink anti-immigrant and anti-government rhetoric has been “a kind of mainstreaming of hate propaganda,” Potok said. “The white supremacist propaganda agenda is being expressed by pundits, politicians, and preachers. Criminal violence by members of this movement is a tiny danger to most Americans. The larger danger is the mainstreaming of these very vile and provably false ideas that do lead to violence.”
You can’t accuse Beck or Limbaugh of inciting violence. But they almost certainly do stoke the flames. They may give people who are just about to go over the edge — the sort of “guy that could not take it anymore” as one poster on the white supremacist forum Stormfront.org, described von Brunn — some sort of validation for their rage.
“The pot in America is boiling,” Beck said this week, in the wake of the Holocaust museum killing. “And this is just yet another warning to all Americans of things to come.”
That creepy schadenfreude just about says it all.
Paul Krugman on Conservatives and the "Lone Wolves"
Paul Krugman "outs" conservatives as shills for the angry white nationalists. He makes the point that the recent killers of Dr. George Tiller and Stehpen Johns were fueled in their hatred with the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck to name a few. RGN 
June 12, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).
But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.
It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.
Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.
What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.
June 12, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).
But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.
It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.
Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.
What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
White Nationalists at War?: Right Wing Killings
The recent assassination of Dr. George Tiller by a killer with Militia ties and the killing of Stephen Johns by a known white supremacist at the Holocaust Museum in DC are no more than the violent manifestations of conservative and right wing propagandists among politicians and major media personalities. Ron Walters provides a political context that protects these so-called "Lone Wolves." Just a few weeks ago, Homeland Security was forced to apologize for an alert relative to the rise of violent right wing groups as a result of a hew and cry on the part of right wing Republicans. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Joe Scarborugh are among the most notable white nationalist media types to provide cover for these right wing nut cases. They want to pretend that there is no blood on their hands. In fact, they now claim that these white supremacists are "Lefties." That is how bankrupt they are. This escaltion of white supremacist violence is indicative of the desperation of the extreme white nationalists and white supremacists in this new period. White nationalism was defeated at the ballot box but its intellectual class and "warring class" have not accepted that defeat. RGN
Are Racist “Lone Wolves” Really Alone”
By Ron Walters
On Wednesday evening June 10, I was supposed to have attended the preview of a play by Janet Cohen, an African American writer and wife of Jewish former Secretary of the Army, Steve Cohen at the Holocaust Museum, but that day it was attacked by James von Brunn, long time avowed white racist. At the entrance to the Museum von Brunn shot and killed Stephen Johns, a beloved African American security guard who had worked there for six years. This was a supreme irony because Janet’s play, Anne and Emmett was about introducing more Americans to the lives of Anne Frank and Emmett Till, two Jewish and African American icons of the human rights movement whose lives have been used to repudiate racist violence. Needless to say, the preview was cancelled and I awoke the next day to find the American media cutting the foundation of American racism out of the story by emphasizing that von Brunn was a “lone wolf.” But was he really? We make two points. So-called “lone wolves” are part of a larger official community which gives them substantial legitimacy and two, when that legitimacy falters they are most likely to show their violent fangs.
With the upsurge of the conservative movement, racist violence and hate speech became staples used to mobilize people, not necessarily into racist groups, but also into campaigns and voters for elected officials. When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1980, not only did he open his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi where civil rights martyrs Schwerner Goodman and Chaney were killed by the Klan, Klan members took off their sheets and staged “Vote for Ronald Reagan” rallies at events on the campaign trail. And even though Reagan mildly repudiated their support, the new road to the legitimacy of the radical right had been forged.
In the 1990s, as one publication put it, “a feeling of rage is building across the country,” an expression of which became the militias that were forming in many states, ostensibly to protect citizens from all sorts of government conspiracies. Many of these had ties to racist, neo-Nazi and Ayran supremacy movements and most militia members were also card carrying members of the National Rifle Association which gave them political protection. So serious was this movement regarded that in return for grass roots assistance, some members of Congress included them in campaign operations and gave them access to government resources. In March of 1995, the paranoid rumor of a federal plan to raid them prompted inquiries to Attorney General Janet Reno’s office from mostly Republican members of Congress, such as: Robert Dornan (CA), Mac Collins (GA), James Hansen (UT), Larry Craig, (ID), Lauch Faircloth (NC), and Steve Stockman (TX).
Next month on April 19, when “lone wolf” Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City federal building, because he had ties to the Michigan Militia, members of Congress with ties to such groups, such as Rep. Helen Chenoweth (ID) who had associations with the Commander of the United Militia Assn. and others were pressured to explain the nature of these ties.
Bill Clinton tried to de-legitimize the hate-filled atmosphere with speeches addressing directly the need for stronger hate crimes legislation. Official statistics indicate that most such crimes are oriented toward race and most of these involve African Americans. But although the Clinton administration wanted to expand it to include crimes against gays and provision related to the burning of churches, in his last days in office, he publicly regretted the fact that Republicans had prevented the passage of any hate crimes legislation.
Indeed, Republicans made such moves extremely difficult. When in 1999, Democrat, Rep. Robert Wexler (CA) attempted to pass a resolution condemning the Council of Conservative Citizens, a new version of the supremacist group, White Citizens Council, Republicans blocked it. Politicians who had associations with the Council inc luded Senators Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, Bob Barr, Governor Kirk Fordice (MS) and others. This led Wexler to ask why the Congress could pass a resolution denouncing black hate speech by Khalid Muhammad, then of the Nation of Islam by 97-0, but did nothing in this case. That same year, Congress also refused to denounce the speech of Republican Sen. Ernest Hollings who called black people “darkies” and Hispanics “wetbacks” and said that African heads of state came to International conferences to “get a square meal instead of eating each other.”
With the latest change of administrations it may appear that legitimacy for racism has weakened, and so the “lone wolves” may come out once more.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. Among his books is: White Nationalism, Black Interests (Wayne State University Press)
Are Racist “Lone Wolves” Really Alone”
By Ron Walters
On Wednesday evening June 10, I was supposed to have attended the preview of a play by Janet Cohen, an African American writer and wife of Jewish former Secretary of the Army, Steve Cohen at the Holocaust Museum, but that day it was attacked by James von Brunn, long time avowed white racist. At the entrance to the Museum von Brunn shot and killed Stephen Johns, a beloved African American security guard who had worked there for six years. This was a supreme irony because Janet’s play, Anne and Emmett was about introducing more Americans to the lives of Anne Frank and Emmett Till, two Jewish and African American icons of the human rights movement whose lives have been used to repudiate racist violence. Needless to say, the preview was cancelled and I awoke the next day to find the American media cutting the foundation of American racism out of the story by emphasizing that von Brunn was a “lone wolf.” But was he really? We make two points. So-called “lone wolves” are part of a larger official community which gives them substantial legitimacy and two, when that legitimacy falters they are most likely to show their violent fangs.
With the upsurge of the conservative movement, racist violence and hate speech became staples used to mobilize people, not necessarily into racist groups, but also into campaigns and voters for elected officials. When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1980, not only did he open his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi where civil rights martyrs Schwerner Goodman and Chaney were killed by the Klan, Klan members took off their sheets and staged “Vote for Ronald Reagan” rallies at events on the campaign trail. And even though Reagan mildly repudiated their support, the new road to the legitimacy of the radical right had been forged.
In the 1990s, as one publication put it, “a feeling of rage is building across the country,” an expression of which became the militias that were forming in many states, ostensibly to protect citizens from all sorts of government conspiracies. Many of these had ties to racist, neo-Nazi and Ayran supremacy movements and most militia members were also card carrying members of the National Rifle Association which gave them political protection. So serious was this movement regarded that in return for grass roots assistance, some members of Congress included them in campaign operations and gave them access to government resources. In March of 1995, the paranoid rumor of a federal plan to raid them prompted inquiries to Attorney General Janet Reno’s office from mostly Republican members of Congress, such as: Robert Dornan (CA), Mac Collins (GA), James Hansen (UT), Larry Craig, (ID), Lauch Faircloth (NC), and Steve Stockman (TX).
Next month on April 19, when “lone wolf” Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City federal building, because he had ties to the Michigan Militia, members of Congress with ties to such groups, such as Rep. Helen Chenoweth (ID) who had associations with the Commander of the United Militia Assn. and others were pressured to explain the nature of these ties.
Bill Clinton tried to de-legitimize the hate-filled atmosphere with speeches addressing directly the need for stronger hate crimes legislation. Official statistics indicate that most such crimes are oriented toward race and most of these involve African Americans. But although the Clinton administration wanted to expand it to include crimes against gays and provision related to the burning of churches, in his last days in office, he publicly regretted the fact that Republicans had prevented the passage of any hate crimes legislation.
Indeed, Republicans made such moves extremely difficult. When in 1999, Democrat, Rep. Robert Wexler (CA) attempted to pass a resolution condemning the Council of Conservative Citizens, a new version of the supremacist group, White Citizens Council, Republicans blocked it. Politicians who had associations with the Council inc luded Senators Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, Bob Barr, Governor Kirk Fordice (MS) and others. This led Wexler to ask why the Congress could pass a resolution denouncing black hate speech by Khalid Muhammad, then of the Nation of Islam by 97-0, but did nothing in this case. That same year, Congress also refused to denounce the speech of Republican Sen. Ernest Hollings who called black people “darkies” and Hispanics “wetbacks” and said that African heads of state came to International conferences to “get a square meal instead of eating each other.”
With the latest change of administrations it may appear that legitimacy for racism has weakened, and so the “lone wolves” may come out once more.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. Among his books is: White Nationalism, Black Interests (Wayne State University Press)
The Iraeli Right Wing: An Obama Challenge
Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was no doubt historic and set a new path for U.S. relations with the Middle East. Barack's integrity and genuis were in clear evidence in that speech when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. Unfortunately, the right wings of the world condemned his search for resolutions to threats to civility and human rights for America and the world. While sensible forces supported the President, conservatives of all stripes, Muslim, American and Israeli, prefer belligerence and the threats or acutual violence. This includes the players in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A real test to the Obama presidency will the Iseali right wing in their challenge to perserve the Isreali occupaction of the West Bank. The President seems to not have a partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The occupation must end if there is to be peace in the Region. RGN
Netanyahu endorses Palestinian independence
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 14, 2009 4:58 PM
JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions like demilitarization that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state - a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.
With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."
The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal as an attempt to determine the outcome of negotiations while maintaining Israeli settlements, refusing compromise over Jerusalem and ignoring the issue of borders. They also said that demilitarization would solidify Israeli control over them.
Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."
But in Washington, the White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an "important step forward."
Netanyahu's address had been eagerly anticipated in the wake of Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world.
His speech was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.
Many Israeli commentators speculated that after the re-election of Iran's hardline president, Netanyahu would focus the address on the threat of Iran's suspect nuclear program. While reiterating his belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is a grave threat, Netanyahu spent little time on the issue.
"I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions," he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. "Let's make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place - in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem."
Since assuming office in March, Netanyahu has been caught between American demands to begin peace talks with the Palestinians and the constraints of a hardline coalition. With his speech, he appeared to favor Israel's all-important relationship with the U.S. at the risk of destabilizing his government.
Netanyahu laid out his vision in a half-hour speech broadcast nationwide during prime time. He spoke at Bar-Ilan University, known as a bastion of the Israeli right-wing establishment, and his call for establishing a Palestinian state was greeted with lukewarm applause.
As Netanyahu spoke, two small groups of protesters demonstrated at the entrance to the university.
Several dozen hard-liners held up posters showing Obama wearing an Arab headdress and shouted slogans against giving up West Bank territory. Across from them, a few dozen dovish Israelis and foreign backers chanted slogans including "two states for two peoples" and "stop the occupation."
Police kept the two groups apart.
The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.
Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, has always resisted withdrawing from these lands, for both security and ideological reasons. In his speech, he repeatedly made references to Judaism's connection to the biblical Land of Israel.
"Our right to form our sovereign state here in the land of Israel stems from one simple fact. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people," he said.
But Netanyahu also said that Israel must recognize that millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, and continued control over these people is undesirable. "In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem," he said.
Netanyahu has said he fears the West Bank could follow the path of the Gaza Strip - which the Palestinians also claim for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas militants now control the area, often firing rockets into southern Israel.
"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.
"If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state," he said.
Netanyahu became the latest in a series of Israeli hard-liners to soften their positions after assuming office. Earlier this decade, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza before suffering a debilitating stroke. His successor, Ehud Olmert, spoke eloquently of the need to withdraw from the West Bank, though a corruption scandal a disastrous war in Lebanon prevented him from carrying out that vision.
Netanyahu gave no indication as to how much captured land he would be willing to relinquish. However, he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, saying, "Israel's capital will remain united."
Netanyahu also made no mention of uprooting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. He also said that existing settlements should be allowed to grow - a position opposed by the U.S.
"We have no intention to build new settlements or expropriate land for expanding existing settlements. But there is a need to allow residents to lead a normal life. Settlers are not the enemy of the nation and are not the enemy of peace - they are our brothers and sisters," he said.
Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians have refused to do so, fearing it would amount to giving up the rights of millions of refugees and their descendants and be discriminatory to Israel's own Arab minority.
Erekat said Netanyahu's plan was unacceptable since it effectively imposes a solution on the core issues of the conflict.
"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," he said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."
Although the Palestinians have agreed to demilitarization under past peace proposals, Erekat rejected it, saying it would cement Israeli rule over them.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, another Palestinian official, called on the U.S. to challenge Netanyahu "to prevent more deterioration in the region."
"What he has said today is not enough to start a serious peace process," he added.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the speech "racist" and called on Arab nations "form stronger opposition" toward Israel. Hamas ideology does not recognize a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.
Netanyahu also came under criticism from within his own government - a coalition of religious and nationalistic parties that oppose Palestinian independence.
Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Jewish Home Party, which represents Jewish settlers and other hard-liners, said Netanyahu's speech violated agreements struck when the government was formed. "I think the coalition needs to hold a serious discussion to see where this is headed," he told Israel Radio.
Israeli media speculated that Netanyahu might turn to the centrist Kadima Party, which heads the parliamentary opposition, to shore up his government if the coalition falls apart.
Kadima, the largest party in parliament, denied a report that there were secret talks with Netanyahu over the matter ahead of the speech.
Israel's ceremonial president, Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres, called the speech "real and brave."
© 2009 The Associated Press
Netanyahu endorses Palestinian independence
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 14, 2009 4:58 PM
JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions like demilitarization that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state - a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.
With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."
The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal as an attempt to determine the outcome of negotiations while maintaining Israeli settlements, refusing compromise over Jerusalem and ignoring the issue of borders. They also said that demilitarization would solidify Israeli control over them.
Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."
But in Washington, the White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an "important step forward."
Netanyahu's address had been eagerly anticipated in the wake of Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world.
His speech was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.
Many Israeli commentators speculated that after the re-election of Iran's hardline president, Netanyahu would focus the address on the threat of Iran's suspect nuclear program. While reiterating his belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is a grave threat, Netanyahu spent little time on the issue.
"I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions," he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. "Let's make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place - in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem."
Since assuming office in March, Netanyahu has been caught between American demands to begin peace talks with the Palestinians and the constraints of a hardline coalition. With his speech, he appeared to favor Israel's all-important relationship with the U.S. at the risk of destabilizing his government.
Netanyahu laid out his vision in a half-hour speech broadcast nationwide during prime time. He spoke at Bar-Ilan University, known as a bastion of the Israeli right-wing establishment, and his call for establishing a Palestinian state was greeted with lukewarm applause.
As Netanyahu spoke, two small groups of protesters demonstrated at the entrance to the university.
Several dozen hard-liners held up posters showing Obama wearing an Arab headdress and shouted slogans against giving up West Bank territory. Across from them, a few dozen dovish Israelis and foreign backers chanted slogans including "two states for two peoples" and "stop the occupation."
Police kept the two groups apart.
The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.
Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, has always resisted withdrawing from these lands, for both security and ideological reasons. In his speech, he repeatedly made references to Judaism's connection to the biblical Land of Israel.
"Our right to form our sovereign state here in the land of Israel stems from one simple fact. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people," he said.
But Netanyahu also said that Israel must recognize that millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, and continued control over these people is undesirable. "In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem," he said.
Netanyahu has said he fears the West Bank could follow the path of the Gaza Strip - which the Palestinians also claim for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas militants now control the area, often firing rockets into southern Israel.
"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.
"If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state," he said.
Netanyahu became the latest in a series of Israeli hard-liners to soften their positions after assuming office. Earlier this decade, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza before suffering a debilitating stroke. His successor, Ehud Olmert, spoke eloquently of the need to withdraw from the West Bank, though a corruption scandal a disastrous war in Lebanon prevented him from carrying out that vision.
Netanyahu gave no indication as to how much captured land he would be willing to relinquish. However, he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, saying, "Israel's capital will remain united."
Netanyahu also made no mention of uprooting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. He also said that existing settlements should be allowed to grow - a position opposed by the U.S.
"We have no intention to build new settlements or expropriate land for expanding existing settlements. But there is a need to allow residents to lead a normal life. Settlers are not the enemy of the nation and are not the enemy of peace - they are our brothers and sisters," he said.
Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians have refused to do so, fearing it would amount to giving up the rights of millions of refugees and their descendants and be discriminatory to Israel's own Arab minority.
Erekat said Netanyahu's plan was unacceptable since it effectively imposes a solution on the core issues of the conflict.
"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," he said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."
Although the Palestinians have agreed to demilitarization under past peace proposals, Erekat rejected it, saying it would cement Israeli rule over them.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, another Palestinian official, called on the U.S. to challenge Netanyahu "to prevent more deterioration in the region."
"What he has said today is not enough to start a serious peace process," he added.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the speech "racist" and called on Arab nations "form stronger opposition" toward Israel. Hamas ideology does not recognize a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.
Netanyahu also came under criticism from within his own government - a coalition of religious and nationalistic parties that oppose Palestinian independence.
Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Jewish Home Party, which represents Jewish settlers and other hard-liners, said Netanyahu's speech violated agreements struck when the government was formed. "I think the coalition needs to hold a serious discussion to see where this is headed," he told Israel Radio.
Israeli media speculated that Netanyahu might turn to the centrist Kadima Party, which heads the parliamentary opposition, to shore up his government if the coalition falls apart.
Kadima, the largest party in parliament, denied a report that there were secret talks with Netanyahu over the matter ahead of the speech.
Israel's ceremonial president, Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres, called the speech "real and brave."
© 2009 The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Eugene Robinson on Barack and the Muslim World
Barack Obama, just being Barack Obama, is changing the world and America's place in it. His nearly 70% approval rating is indicative that Americans like what he is doing. Though somewhat uncertain about his handling of a disastrous economy which he inherited, the American people like his straight talk and his fighting for them and not the corporations. He has been honest about our foreign policy. Eugene Robinson points out the respect he has shown to other peoples including the Muslim world. The world loves him and America is better off because of how he is viewed around the world. No one, not Hillary, not McCain, could have engendered to respect that the world has of America. He has been able to speak a truth that none of his competitors could have done. The right in America accuses him of apologizing for America. He has not apologized. On the other hand, Americans traveling overseas during the Bush administration did have apologize for our government's behavior that betrayed our fundamental values. If the trend of his first five months continues, the chance of having his image on Mount Rushmore will be greatly improved. RGN
The Importance of Being Obama
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
I used to fear that President Obama was overestimating the power of his personal history as an instrument of foreign policy. Now I wonder if he might have been underestimating.
In several interviews during the long presidential campaign, Obama mentioned the potential impact in other countries of seeing an American president with an appearance and a life story like none of his predecessors. He spoke of how the Muslim world especially, addressed by a president who had a Muslim father and who spent years of his childhood in a Muslim country, might be more inclined to believe that the United States is not an enemy of Islam.
But nations tend to act on the basis of perceived national interest, not personality. I thought that in the final analysis, if Obama became president -- which seemed a very long shot when I first heard Obama mention this theme in a March 2007 interview -- he would be seen as friend or foe depending on how he conducted U.S. foreign policy.
Now, after Obama's trip to the Middle East, I think we were both right.
Taking a cold-eyed view of international affairs is never wrong. But it's also wrong to ignore the spectacle of an audience member, at Obama's Cairo University speech, interrupting an American president to shout, "We love you!" You will recall that the last memorable presidential appearance in the Arab world was the news conference in Iraq at which George W. Bush dodged two shoes hurled at his head.
Not being Bush was a big factor. But at least as important was being Obama -- and being able to say, as the president did in Cairo, that "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed."
Obama was referring to the "generations of Muslims" in his father's Kenyan family, his early years in Indonesia and his experience working in Chicago communities where "many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith." The most important word in that sentence, however, came at the end: By saying "revealed" rather than "born," Obama was acknowledging Islam as a divinely given faith.
Obama quoted liberally from the Koran, drawing applause. Perhaps more important was that he opened the speech by putting Islam in the historical context that many Muslims believe the West willfully ignores. He spoke of how the Islamic world kept the light of civilization burning during Europe's Dark Ages -- and mentioned the Koran that Thomas Jefferson kept in his library.
Obama was speaking the language of Islam in a tone of respect. What a concept.
The rest of his speech consisted essentially of a summary of U.S. policy in the Muslim world, and in truth there were no real departures from traditional American policy. Prior administrations have called for a Palestinian state, and Obama hasn't been nearly as tough with Israel as, say, James Baker's State Department during the administration of George Bush the Elder. Obama had nothing substantive to announce on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he properly asserted the right of the United States to defend itself against terrorists.
Familiar policies sounded different coming from Obama, though -- not just because of his identity but also because he showed a little humility. He acknowledged that in recent years our nation had acted in ways "contrary to our ideals," and noted that he had ordered an end to torture and the closing of the prison at Guantanamo. There are those who believe that admitting mistakes is a sign of weakness. I think it's a sign of confidence and strength, and I believe that's how it was received by Obama's intended audience.
Perhaps the best indication of how Obama played in Cairo is the reaction of his competitors for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hezbollah, an influential radical Saudi cleric and the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood all warned followers not to be taken in by Obama's seductive words -- which suggests a fear that Obama had been dangerously effective. A Web site that often reflects the thinking of al-Qaeda referred to the president after the speech as a "wise enemy."
The fact that many Muslims now see a sympathetic figure in the White House creates new possibilities. It turns out that being Obama matters more than I thought.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
The Importance of Being Obama
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
I used to fear that President Obama was overestimating the power of his personal history as an instrument of foreign policy. Now I wonder if he might have been underestimating.
In several interviews during the long presidential campaign, Obama mentioned the potential impact in other countries of seeing an American president with an appearance and a life story like none of his predecessors. He spoke of how the Muslim world especially, addressed by a president who had a Muslim father and who spent years of his childhood in a Muslim country, might be more inclined to believe that the United States is not an enemy of Islam.
But nations tend to act on the basis of perceived national interest, not personality. I thought that in the final analysis, if Obama became president -- which seemed a very long shot when I first heard Obama mention this theme in a March 2007 interview -- he would be seen as friend or foe depending on how he conducted U.S. foreign policy.
Now, after Obama's trip to the Middle East, I think we were both right.
Taking a cold-eyed view of international affairs is never wrong. But it's also wrong to ignore the spectacle of an audience member, at Obama's Cairo University speech, interrupting an American president to shout, "We love you!" You will recall that the last memorable presidential appearance in the Arab world was the news conference in Iraq at which George W. Bush dodged two shoes hurled at his head.
Not being Bush was a big factor. But at least as important was being Obama -- and being able to say, as the president did in Cairo, that "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed."
Obama was referring to the "generations of Muslims" in his father's Kenyan family, his early years in Indonesia and his experience working in Chicago communities where "many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith." The most important word in that sentence, however, came at the end: By saying "revealed" rather than "born," Obama was acknowledging Islam as a divinely given faith.
Obama quoted liberally from the Koran, drawing applause. Perhaps more important was that he opened the speech by putting Islam in the historical context that many Muslims believe the West willfully ignores. He spoke of how the Islamic world kept the light of civilization burning during Europe's Dark Ages -- and mentioned the Koran that Thomas Jefferson kept in his library.
Obama was speaking the language of Islam in a tone of respect. What a concept.
The rest of his speech consisted essentially of a summary of U.S. policy in the Muslim world, and in truth there were no real departures from traditional American policy. Prior administrations have called for a Palestinian state, and Obama hasn't been nearly as tough with Israel as, say, James Baker's State Department during the administration of George Bush the Elder. Obama had nothing substantive to announce on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he properly asserted the right of the United States to defend itself against terrorists.
Familiar policies sounded different coming from Obama, though -- not just because of his identity but also because he showed a little humility. He acknowledged that in recent years our nation had acted in ways "contrary to our ideals," and noted that he had ordered an end to torture and the closing of the prison at Guantanamo. There are those who believe that admitting mistakes is a sign of weakness. I think it's a sign of confidence and strength, and I believe that's how it was received by Obama's intended audience.
Perhaps the best indication of how Obama played in Cairo is the reaction of his competitors for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hezbollah, an influential radical Saudi cleric and the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood all warned followers not to be taken in by Obama's seductive words -- which suggests a fear that Obama had been dangerously effective. A Web site that often reflects the thinking of al-Qaeda referred to the president after the speech as a "wise enemy."
The fact that many Muslims now see a sympathetic figure in the White House creates new possibilities. It turns out that being Obama matters more than I thought.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Krugman on the Reagan "Transformation" that has Imperiled Us All
Yesterday, President Obama gave recognition to what would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday this coming February. In fact, today, a statue of Reagan was unveiled. In the midst of such high praise, it should must also be made clear that Obama is now trying to clean up an economic mess that began under Reagan. Paul Krugman provides as excellent perspective of how the "Reagan Revolution" got President Obama and us into this economic mess. Obama has consistently recognized that the Reagan presidency was transformational. That conservative "revolution" ended with the election of of Obama and the economic collapse that accompanined the the election. Reagan's was the bad transformation. Obama promises to be thegood transformation. This piece by Krugman pin points the Reagan genesis of the problem Obama is now trying to solve. RGN
June 1, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Reagan Did It
By PAUL KRUGMAN
“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.
He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts. On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe. But he was right about the legislation’s significance. And as for that jackpot — well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
For the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.
Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.
On the latter point: traditionally, the U.S. government ran significant budget deficits only in times of war or economic emergency. Federal debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1980. But indebtedness began rising under Reagan; it fell again in the Clinton years, but resumed its rise under the Bush administration, leaving us ill prepared for the emergency now upon us.
The increase in public debt was, however, dwarfed by the rise in private debt, made possible by financial deregulation. The change in America’s financial rules was Reagan’s biggest legacy. And it’s the gift that keeps on taking.
The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.
But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down.
These restrictions were put in place in the 1930s by political leaders who had just experienced a terrible financial crisis, and were trying to prevent another. But by 1980 the memory of the Depression had faded. Government, declared Reagan, is the problem, not the solution; the magic of the marketplace must be set free. And so the precautionary rules were scrapped.
Together with looser lending standards for other kinds of consumer credit, this led to a radical change in American behavior.
We weren’t always a nation of big debts and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income, slightly more than in the 1960s. It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared from the American way of life, culminating in the near-zero savings rate that prevailed on the eve of the great crisis. Household debt was only 60 percent of income when Reagan took office, about the same as it was during the Kennedy administration. By 2007 it was up to 119 percent.
All this, we were assured, was a good thing: sure, Americans were piling up debt, and they weren’t putting aside any of their income, but their finances looked fine once you took into account the rising values of their houses and their stock portfolios. Oops.
Now, the proximate causes of today’s economic crisis lie in events that took place long after Reagan left office — in the global savings glut created by surpluses in China and elsewhere, and in the giant housing bubble that savings glut helped inflate.
But it was the explosion of debt over the previous quarter-century that made the U.S. economy so vulnerable. Overstretched borrowers were bound to start defaulting in large numbers once the housing bubble burst and unemployment began to rise.
These defaults in turn wreaked havoc with a financial system that — also mainly thanks to Reagan-era deregulation — took on too much risk with too little capital.
There’s plenty of blame to go around these days. But the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it.
Ron Walters on Sotomayor and the New Haven Case
Ron Walters puts into perspective the challenge to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor nomination as the New Haven case goes before the Supreme Court. While the law might be on the side of her ruling in the appellate court, he is not as optimistic about how this right wing court will rule. It seems that we will have 5 "activist" justices overtuning aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. RGN
Conservative Justice and the Ricci Firefighter’s Case
By Ron Walters
In the developing fight over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, some conservative Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Delay are raising the charge that she is “racist” and would be an “activist” judge because of her ruling in the Ricci v. DeStephano case. Better known as the New Haven Firefighters’ case, its opponents apparently believe that activism only applies to Democrats or liberal judges. Moreover, the recent preliminary arguments before the Supreme Court suggest that the Conservatives on the court are poised to attack Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which protects those excluded by testing devices. This has been settled law for over 35 years.
The role of political Conservatives in the modern era, as it has been historically, is to protect white interests, not to ensure that the law is fair to all groups in society. In fact, some whites of this persuasion appear to live in a bubble of majority power, where the legitimate interests of other groups are perceived as a threat and where decisions defending their narrow group self interests are perceived to be objective.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VII, section 7h) prohibited the use of tests that would be used intentionally to discriminate, or tests that would be used without the intention to discriminate but would nevertheless, have an exclusionary (disparate) impact. The continuing importance of this is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found that in 2007 discrimination charges involving test screening of job applicants have significantly increased due in part to security concerns raised by 9/11 and the economy.
Now all of the protected groups under Title VII, such as the Age Discrimination Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, are protected from biased testing in addition to African Americans. So, any change in the law that seeks to invalidate Title VII for blacks would also affect others in these categories. Yet, activist conservatives on the Court seem poised to do so.
My suspicion however, is that the Supreme Court conservatives see red meat in the charge that white firefighter Ricci makes – that the City of New Haven’s attempt to comply with Title VII is, in itself, race discrimination against whites who are protected by the principle of “equal protection of the laws” under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This charge has been the great battle ground over Affirmative Action that has had the Conservative movement proposing the ridiculous concept of “reverse racism.” Since when has limitations on the powerful from exercise of absolute power over employment, seats in college, contracts and etc, actually proven to be racist against whites? The original aim of the law was to attempt to strike a balance by opening the doors of inclusion of blacks who had been excluded from such institutions and practices of American society, but Conservatives believe that any impingement on the power of the majority in an attempt to create an equalitarian and democratic society is oppressive to whites.
You would think that the attempt to change settled law in the ’64 Act would get a push-back from other whites to believe in social justice. But the media has all but created a platform where Right wing opinion is promoted. In doing so, they are protecting their fallacious and undemocratic position. In one of my most recent books, White Nationalism, Black Interests, I have written that the reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, as Ricci and his colleagues are attempting to do, amounts to the reconfirmation of “white rights.”
Powerful conservative politicians and judges began this project with the case, Shaw
v. Reno which narrowed the basis for the inclusion of African Americans in college enrollment to the point that we now have an ill-defined standard of something called “diversity.” This move against employment in an atmosphere of economic decline and rampant black unemployment could not come at a worse time. Blacks should not have to confront biased testing if they are to get back to work and to be promoted after this Depression is over.
But, we will eventually need two Sonia Sotomayors to have a Court that represents the interests of all the Americans.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (Univ. of Michigan Press)
Conservative Justice and the Ricci Firefighter’s Case
By Ron Walters
In the developing fight over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, some conservative Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Delay are raising the charge that she is “racist” and would be an “activist” judge because of her ruling in the Ricci v. DeStephano case. Better known as the New Haven Firefighters’ case, its opponents apparently believe that activism only applies to Democrats or liberal judges. Moreover, the recent preliminary arguments before the Supreme Court suggest that the Conservatives on the court are poised to attack Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which protects those excluded by testing devices. This has been settled law for over 35 years.
The role of political Conservatives in the modern era, as it has been historically, is to protect white interests, not to ensure that the law is fair to all groups in society. In fact, some whites of this persuasion appear to live in a bubble of majority power, where the legitimate interests of other groups are perceived as a threat and where decisions defending their narrow group self interests are perceived to be objective.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VII, section 7h) prohibited the use of tests that would be used intentionally to discriminate, or tests that would be used without the intention to discriminate but would nevertheless, have an exclusionary (disparate) impact. The continuing importance of this is that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found that in 2007 discrimination charges involving test screening of job applicants have significantly increased due in part to security concerns raised by 9/11 and the economy.
Now all of the protected groups under Title VII, such as the Age Discrimination Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, are protected from biased testing in addition to African Americans. So, any change in the law that seeks to invalidate Title VII for blacks would also affect others in these categories. Yet, activist conservatives on the Court seem poised to do so.
My suspicion however, is that the Supreme Court conservatives see red meat in the charge that white firefighter Ricci makes – that the City of New Haven’s attempt to comply with Title VII is, in itself, race discrimination against whites who are protected by the principle of “equal protection of the laws” under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This charge has been the great battle ground over Affirmative Action that has had the Conservative movement proposing the ridiculous concept of “reverse racism.” Since when has limitations on the powerful from exercise of absolute power over employment, seats in college, contracts and etc, actually proven to be racist against whites? The original aim of the law was to attempt to strike a balance by opening the doors of inclusion of blacks who had been excluded from such institutions and practices of American society, but Conservatives believe that any impingement on the power of the majority in an attempt to create an equalitarian and democratic society is oppressive to whites.
You would think that the attempt to change settled law in the ’64 Act would get a push-back from other whites to believe in social justice. But the media has all but created a platform where Right wing opinion is promoted. In doing so, they are protecting their fallacious and undemocratic position. In one of my most recent books, White Nationalism, Black Interests, I have written that the reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, as Ricci and his colleagues are attempting to do, amounts to the reconfirmation of “white rights.”
Powerful conservative politicians and judges began this project with the case, Shaw
v. Reno which narrowed the basis for the inclusion of African Americans in college enrollment to the point that we now have an ill-defined standard of something called “diversity.” This move against employment in an atmosphere of economic decline and rampant black unemployment could not come at a worse time. Blacks should not have to confront biased testing if they are to get back to work and to be promoted after this Depression is over.
But, we will eventually need two Sonia Sotomayors to have a Court that represents the interests of all the Americans.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (Univ. of Michigan Press)
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Attack on Sotomayor: White Nationalist Outrage!!!!
The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States may have defeated white nationalism in the body politic but the election did not defeat the white nationalist ideologues. On November 4, 2008, America became a lot bluer. The New York Times demonstrated that Obama’s election showed Republicans to be almost a regional party, with the rest of America trending bluer. Profound changes that have taken place with regard to racism since the days of Jim Crow. Overwhelmingly, older Black Americans never thought they would see the day when a Black man would become president. In the face of America’s white nationalist legacy, the changes have been profound.
Scott Simon on NPR reminded us that May 30 was the birthday of Benny Goodman. Important among his achievements was that he was the first to perform at Carnie Hall in 1938 with a black musicians, almost ten years before Jackie Robinson broke into Major League Baseball. Today, it is taken for granted that artists perform without regard for race. Will Smith, Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters and so many other Black public figures have become major marketing icons. While still a very small percentage, marriages across racial lines are no longer a novelty. The acceptance of African Americans into the hearts and minds of most Americans is certainly supportive of the idea that white nationalism is no longer hegemonic. The election of Obama is indicative of that.
On the other hand, it should not have been expected that white nationalism that is deeply embedded in America’s history would die without a fight. Having been defeated at the ballot box, the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor has given the white nationalist ideologues some “meat” for a fight back. Judge Sotomayor is being attacked because she recognizes and gives legitimacy to her existence and experience as a Latina. She is being opposed on the basis that she does not a priori legitimize white nationalism. A fraud like Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, she is not! She is qualified. Led by the white nationalism of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gringrich, Tom Tancredo, and Joe Scarborough, among others, the racist attacks on Judge Sotomayor have been nothing short of outrageous. Unabashed white nationalist, Patrick Buchanan, accuses Judge Sotomayor of discriminating against white males. The racists have made her nomination the ideological battle to promote white males as the victims of “reverse discrimination.”
This attack on Sotomayor is an attack by the white nationalists to maintain their hegemony. It is time that these racist arguments be beaten back. The election of Barack Obama was a direct challenge to the hegemonic character of white nationalism. The nationalist campaign against Sotomayor is an attack on the rights of people of color and to re-establish the acceptability of the norm of racism in America.
We must resist allowing the media and their right wing pundits to set the agenda in this debate. We must fight back. When it comes to the Supreme Court, it must be exposed for what it has been. The question must be asked as to whether Chief Justice Roger G. Taney’s being a slaveholder had any relevance in the Dred Scott case? Why is it ok for Associate Justice Alito can take into account to discrimination against his Italian immigrants when he is deciding a case and not for Judge Sotomayor. This hypocrisy and racism is an attack on us all.
Media Matters exposes of these vicious attacks. RGN
POTUS picks "bigot" "liberal" "radical" "racist" "reverse racist" "activist" "socialist" "Marxist" "anti-constitutionalist" "affirmative action" nominee for SCOTUS
Be sure to bookmark Judicial Matters for the latest on conservative misinformation in media coverage of President Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
On Tuesday morning, President Obama announced his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. In the four short days that followed, understandably, most of the media's attention has centered on the nominee, though much of that attention has been riddled with conservative misinformation.
Yesterday, Media Matters released a special report noting that in coverage of Obama's announcement, the media have advanced numerous myths and falsehoods about Sotomayor. In some cases, the media assert the falsehoods themselves; in others, they report unchallenged the claims of others.
The report suggests that in addition to evaluating these claims on their merits, the media should also consistently report that conservatives were reportedly very clear about their intentions to oppose Obama's nominee, no matter who it was. Their attacks must be assessed in the context of their reported plans to use the confirmation process to, among other things, "help refill depleted coffers and galvanize a movement demoralized by Republican electoral defeats."
As documented in the report, the myths that have emerged or resurfaced since Sotomayor's nomination was announced include:
• Sotomayor advocated legislating from the bench
• Sotomayor said, "Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges"
• Sotomayor's Supreme Court reversal rate is "high"
• Liberal judges like Sotomayor are "activist[s]"
• Sotomayor was "[s]oft on New Jersey [c]orruption"
• New Haven firefighters case shows Sotomayor is an "activist"
• Sotomayor lacks the intellect to be an effective justice
• Sotomayor is "domineering" and "a bit of a bully"
• "Empathy" is code for "liberal activist"
Be sure to read the entire report for a detailed breakdown of the facts dispelling these right-wing myths and falsehoods.
In all, this week, Media Matters released more than 100 research items, blog posts, video clips, and columns surrounding media coverage of the Supreme Court and Sotomayor's nomination.
As the week went on, it became clearer that Sotomayor would be a victim of attacks from conservatives in the media reminiscent of those on Obama:
• MSNBC's Pat Buchanan called Sotomayor a "lightweight," "an anti-white, liberal judicial activist." He and his sister Bay both claimed that Sotomayor's nomination was the result of "affirmative action."
• Media Matters' Eric Boehlert went head-to-head with former Rep. Tom Tancredo on CNN over the context of Sotomayor's past comments. During the segment, Tancredo claimed Sotomayor was a member of the "Latino KKK," earning the right-wing former congressman the mocking of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
• Jeffrey Kuhner, filling in for right-wing radio host Michael Savage, claimed Sotomayor believes "that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic and misogynist society."
• Fox News' Glenn Beck said Sotomayor's appointment was more evidence of a Marxist "hostile takeover" of the United States. He also called her a "racist," who "is not that bright" and "divisive."
• Savage described Sotomayor as "Chairman O's pick for the Supreme Court" and a "radical activist."
• Radio host and conservative movement leader Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor "an angry woman," "bigot," and "racist."
• Mark Krikorian, over at the National Review Online, had an issue with the pronunciation of Sotomayor's name, writing that "it sticks in my craw."
• Fox News' Sean Hannity claimed Obama turned "his back on Mainstream America" by nominating "the most divisive nominee possible," a "radical."
• Politico's Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin initially reported that Sotomayor was "a Latina single mother" despite the fact that Sotomayor has no children.
If media coverage of week one of the Sotomayor nomination is any indication, it's going to be a long, hot summer. Fear not, though -- Media Matters will be there through it all.
Other major stories this week:
Is there something in the water at Fox Nation?
Back in March, while promoting its newly launched website, TheFoxNation.com, Fox News ran advertisements telling viewers that "[i]t's time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech." In the weeks since the website's launch, Media Matters has documented more than 50 instances where Fox Nation failed to come close to the bias-free, "fair play" standard set out by Fox News.
This week has been particularly awful. Case in point:
• Fox Nation is just asking: "Sotomayor Argued Death Penalty Is Racist... Is She?"
• With picture of burning WTC, Fox Nation wonders if Obama has "Pre-9/11 Mindset"
• Fox Nation: "Need Another Tea Party? National Sales Tax 'on the Table' "
• Fox Nation baselessly claims Sotomayor "Wants to Ban Guns"
• Fox News still trafficking in birth certificate theories
• Continuing to be "bias"-free, Fox Nation calls Obama "Cocky Barack"
Be sure to check out the Media Matters archive on Free Republic ... er, Fox Nation.
Rush Limbaugh's Failure-palooza
By now, everybody watching the Obama administration remembers Rush Limbaugh's well wishes for the new president the day before his inauguration -- that's when El Rushbo said, "I hope Obama fails." The comment picked up a head of steam in the press, provoking Limbaugh to elaborate two days later, saying, "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black." A month later, Rush let us all in on "the dirty little secret," as he described it, that "every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it."
Since then, Rush has been quick to wish failure on all kinds of things. For example, back in February, Limbaugh said, "I want the stimulus package to fail." In March, he strangely compared his hope for Obama's failure to a Steelers fan wanting the Cardinals' QB to fail in the Super Bowl. The same month, he seemed to offer up some reverse psychology, claiming, "If there's anybody who wants America as it was founded to fail, it's Barack Obama."
And so, Rush Limbaugh's failure-palooza marched on this week as news of Obama's selection of Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court was reported. Without skipping a beat, Limbaugh said of the president's nominee: "Do I want her to fail? Yeah."
To give you an idea of how completely warped Rush's thinking is, two days after his Sotomayor "fail" comments, Limbaugh claimed, "This country is failing because President Obama is succeeding."
http://mediamatters.org/
So, was it Sasquatch or Chupacabra driving the Chrysler?
Another week, another bizarre conspiracy theory from the right. Eric Boehlert brings us the story of the budding Obama scandal that's been hatched this week within the right-wing blogosphere, which has all the hallmarks of previous failed Obama conspiracy theories. The latest centers on the idea that Obama's White House, as part of the automaker's restructuring, personally selected which Chrysler dealership would be closed. Not only that, but the Obama White House punished dealerships whose owners gave campaign contributions to Republicans. The horror!
Conservative bloggers excitedly claim that their research proves a massive conspiracy's afoot. Their research? A laundry list of names of dealers who have indeed given money to the GOP and have indeed been closed down as part of the GM restructuring. So why doesn't that prove Obama has a hit list? First, because nearly 800 dealerships are being closed down, yet bloggers detail campaign contributions for less than 10 percent of those dealership owners. Second, all the bloggers actually prove is that a lot of dealership owners are Republicans. Does that surprise anyone?
Statistician Nate Silver demolishes the theory with actual research, noting, "It shouldn't be any surprise, by the way, that car dealers tend to vote -- and donate -- Republican. They are usually male, they are usually older (you don't own an auto dealership in your 20s), and they have obvious reasons to be pro-business, pro-tax cut, anti-green energy and anti-labor. Car dealerships need quite a bit of space and will tend to be located in suburban or rural areas. I can't think of too many other occupations that are more natural fits for the Republican Party."
This week's media columns
This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert asks why Washington Post columnists didn't call Cheney a disgrace; Jamison Foser looks at how suddenly it's OK to call a judicial nominee a racist; and Karl Frisch discusses the Right's supremely flawed opening argument against Sotomayor.
Don't forget to order your autographed copy of Eric Boehlert's compelling new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press (Free Press, May 2009).
Do you Facebook or Twitter?
If you use the social networking site Facebook, be sure to join the official Media Matters page and those of our senior fellows Eric Boehlert, Jamison Foser, and Karl Frisch as well. You can also follow Media Matters, Boehlert, Foser, and Frisch on Twitter!
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary.
Scott Simon on NPR reminded us that May 30 was the birthday of Benny Goodman. Important among his achievements was that he was the first to perform at Carnie Hall in 1938 with a black musicians, almost ten years before Jackie Robinson broke into Major League Baseball. Today, it is taken for granted that artists perform without regard for race. Will Smith, Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters and so many other Black public figures have become major marketing icons. While still a very small percentage, marriages across racial lines are no longer a novelty. The acceptance of African Americans into the hearts and minds of most Americans is certainly supportive of the idea that white nationalism is no longer hegemonic. The election of Obama is indicative of that.
On the other hand, it should not have been expected that white nationalism that is deeply embedded in America’s history would die without a fight. Having been defeated at the ballot box, the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor has given the white nationalist ideologues some “meat” for a fight back. Judge Sotomayor is being attacked because she recognizes and gives legitimacy to her existence and experience as a Latina. She is being opposed on the basis that she does not a priori legitimize white nationalism. A fraud like Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, she is not! She is qualified. Led by the white nationalism of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gringrich, Tom Tancredo, and Joe Scarborough, among others, the racist attacks on Judge Sotomayor have been nothing short of outrageous. Unabashed white nationalist, Patrick Buchanan, accuses Judge Sotomayor of discriminating against white males. The racists have made her nomination the ideological battle to promote white males as the victims of “reverse discrimination.”
This attack on Sotomayor is an attack by the white nationalists to maintain their hegemony. It is time that these racist arguments be beaten back. The election of Barack Obama was a direct challenge to the hegemonic character of white nationalism. The nationalist campaign against Sotomayor is an attack on the rights of people of color and to re-establish the acceptability of the norm of racism in America.
We must resist allowing the media and their right wing pundits to set the agenda in this debate. We must fight back. When it comes to the Supreme Court, it must be exposed for what it has been. The question must be asked as to whether Chief Justice Roger G. Taney’s being a slaveholder had any relevance in the Dred Scott case? Why is it ok for Associate Justice Alito can take into account to discrimination against his Italian immigrants when he is deciding a case and not for Judge Sotomayor. This hypocrisy and racism is an attack on us all.
Media Matters exposes of these vicious attacks. RGN
POTUS picks "bigot" "liberal" "radical" "racist" "reverse racist" "activist" "socialist" "Marxist" "anti-constitutionalist" "affirmative action" nominee for SCOTUS
Be sure to bookmark Judicial Matters for the latest on conservative misinformation in media coverage of President Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
On Tuesday morning, President Obama announced his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. In the four short days that followed, understandably, most of the media's attention has centered on the nominee, though much of that attention has been riddled with conservative misinformation.
Yesterday, Media Matters released a special report noting that in coverage of Obama's announcement, the media have advanced numerous myths and falsehoods about Sotomayor. In some cases, the media assert the falsehoods themselves; in others, they report unchallenged the claims of others.
The report suggests that in addition to evaluating these claims on their merits, the media should also consistently report that conservatives were reportedly very clear about their intentions to oppose Obama's nominee, no matter who it was. Their attacks must be assessed in the context of their reported plans to use the confirmation process to, among other things, "help refill depleted coffers and galvanize a movement demoralized by Republican electoral defeats."
As documented in the report, the myths that have emerged or resurfaced since Sotomayor's nomination was announced include:
• Sotomayor advocated legislating from the bench
• Sotomayor said, "Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges"
• Sotomayor's Supreme Court reversal rate is "high"
• Liberal judges like Sotomayor are "activist[s]"
• Sotomayor was "[s]oft on New Jersey [c]orruption"
• New Haven firefighters case shows Sotomayor is an "activist"
• Sotomayor lacks the intellect to be an effective justice
• Sotomayor is "domineering" and "a bit of a bully"
• "Empathy" is code for "liberal activist"
Be sure to read the entire report for a detailed breakdown of the facts dispelling these right-wing myths and falsehoods.
In all, this week, Media Matters released more than 100 research items, blog posts, video clips, and columns surrounding media coverage of the Supreme Court and Sotomayor's nomination.
As the week went on, it became clearer that Sotomayor would be a victim of attacks from conservatives in the media reminiscent of those on Obama:
• MSNBC's Pat Buchanan called Sotomayor a "lightweight," "an anti-white, liberal judicial activist." He and his sister Bay both claimed that Sotomayor's nomination was the result of "affirmative action."
• Media Matters' Eric Boehlert went head-to-head with former Rep. Tom Tancredo on CNN over the context of Sotomayor's past comments. During the segment, Tancredo claimed Sotomayor was a member of the "Latino KKK," earning the right-wing former congressman the mocking of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
• Jeffrey Kuhner, filling in for right-wing radio host Michael Savage, claimed Sotomayor believes "that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic and misogynist society."
• Fox News' Glenn Beck said Sotomayor's appointment was more evidence of a Marxist "hostile takeover" of the United States. He also called her a "racist," who "is not that bright" and "divisive."
• Savage described Sotomayor as "Chairman O's pick for the Supreme Court" and a "radical activist."
• Radio host and conservative movement leader Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor "an angry woman," "bigot," and "racist."
• Mark Krikorian, over at the National Review Online, had an issue with the pronunciation of Sotomayor's name, writing that "it sticks in my craw."
• Fox News' Sean Hannity claimed Obama turned "his back on Mainstream America" by nominating "the most divisive nominee possible," a "radical."
• Politico's Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin initially reported that Sotomayor was "a Latina single mother" despite the fact that Sotomayor has no children.
If media coverage of week one of the Sotomayor nomination is any indication, it's going to be a long, hot summer. Fear not, though -- Media Matters will be there through it all.
Other major stories this week:
Is there something in the water at Fox Nation?
Back in March, while promoting its newly launched website, TheFoxNation.com, Fox News ran advertisements telling viewers that "[i]t's time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech." In the weeks since the website's launch, Media Matters has documented more than 50 instances where Fox Nation failed to come close to the bias-free, "fair play" standard set out by Fox News.
This week has been particularly awful. Case in point:
• Fox Nation is just asking: "Sotomayor Argued Death Penalty Is Racist... Is She?"
• With picture of burning WTC, Fox Nation wonders if Obama has "Pre-9/11 Mindset"
• Fox Nation: "Need Another Tea Party? National Sales Tax 'on the Table' "
• Fox Nation baselessly claims Sotomayor "Wants to Ban Guns"
• Fox News still trafficking in birth certificate theories
• Continuing to be "bias"-free, Fox Nation calls Obama "Cocky Barack"
Be sure to check out the Media Matters archive on Free Republic ... er, Fox Nation.
Rush Limbaugh's Failure-palooza
By now, everybody watching the Obama administration remembers Rush Limbaugh's well wishes for the new president the day before his inauguration -- that's when El Rushbo said, "I hope Obama fails." The comment picked up a head of steam in the press, provoking Limbaugh to elaborate two days later, saying, "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black." A month later, Rush let us all in on "the dirty little secret," as he described it, that "every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it."
Since then, Rush has been quick to wish failure on all kinds of things. For example, back in February, Limbaugh said, "I want the stimulus package to fail." In March, he strangely compared his hope for Obama's failure to a Steelers fan wanting the Cardinals' QB to fail in the Super Bowl. The same month, he seemed to offer up some reverse psychology, claiming, "If there's anybody who wants America as it was founded to fail, it's Barack Obama."
And so, Rush Limbaugh's failure-palooza marched on this week as news of Obama's selection of Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court was reported. Without skipping a beat, Limbaugh said of the president's nominee: "Do I want her to fail? Yeah."
To give you an idea of how completely warped Rush's thinking is, two days after his Sotomayor "fail" comments, Limbaugh claimed, "This country is failing because President Obama is succeeding."
http://mediamatters.org/
So, was it Sasquatch or Chupacabra driving the Chrysler?
Another week, another bizarre conspiracy theory from the right. Eric Boehlert brings us the story of the budding Obama scandal that's been hatched this week within the right-wing blogosphere, which has all the hallmarks of previous failed Obama conspiracy theories. The latest centers on the idea that Obama's White House, as part of the automaker's restructuring, personally selected which Chrysler dealership would be closed. Not only that, but the Obama White House punished dealerships whose owners gave campaign contributions to Republicans. The horror!
Conservative bloggers excitedly claim that their research proves a massive conspiracy's afoot. Their research? A laundry list of names of dealers who have indeed given money to the GOP and have indeed been closed down as part of the GM restructuring. So why doesn't that prove Obama has a hit list? First, because nearly 800 dealerships are being closed down, yet bloggers detail campaign contributions for less than 10 percent of those dealership owners. Second, all the bloggers actually prove is that a lot of dealership owners are Republicans. Does that surprise anyone?
Statistician Nate Silver demolishes the theory with actual research, noting, "It shouldn't be any surprise, by the way, that car dealers tend to vote -- and donate -- Republican. They are usually male, they are usually older (you don't own an auto dealership in your 20s), and they have obvious reasons to be pro-business, pro-tax cut, anti-green energy and anti-labor. Car dealerships need quite a bit of space and will tend to be located in suburban or rural areas. I can't think of too many other occupations that are more natural fits for the Republican Party."
This week's media columns
This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert asks why Washington Post columnists didn't call Cheney a disgrace; Jamison Foser looks at how suddenly it's OK to call a judicial nominee a racist; and Karl Frisch discusses the Right's supremely flawed opening argument against Sotomayor.
Don't forget to order your autographed copy of Eric Boehlert's compelling new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press (Free Press, May 2009).
Do you Facebook or Twitter?
If you use the social networking site Facebook, be sure to join the official Media Matters page and those of our senior fellows Eric Boehlert, Jamison Foser, and Karl Frisch as well. You can also follow Media Matters, Boehlert, Foser, and Frisch on Twitter!
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
First Mom on Mother's Day: The World Loves Her!!!
President Barack Obama may be cool but Michelle Obama has taken the world by storm. Moreover, she has done it wih grace and authenticity. What a beautiful person she is through and through? Below is a piece that pays tribute to Michelle by Melissa Harris-Lacewell. RGN
From the Nation
Michelle Obama, Mom-in-Chief
posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell on 05/05/2009 @ 1:46pm
With Mother's Day approaching I want think about Michelle Obama's assertion that her primary role as First Lady is "Mom-in-Chief."
Many progressive feminists were distressed with Michelle's assertion of motherhood as her primary role. They hoped she would seek a more aggressive policy agenda.
After all Michelle Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She spent her career as an effective advocate for urban communities in their fraught relationship with powerful institutions. She is smart, capable, and independent. She maintained her own career and ambitions throughout Barack's early political career and even during his election to the U.S. Senate.
Truth is, some of us who were in the orbit of the Obamas ten years ago believed Michelle, not Barack, was the real star of the couple. So while I don't think anyone expected her to commute to a 9-to-5 job in D.C; many hoped that she would take on an independent political role in the Obama administration.
Instead, Michelle has crafted a more traditional role for herself. She is highly visible, but she has taken on relatively safe issues like childhood literacy, advocacy for women and girls, and support of military families. Even her White House garden is framed more as an initiative for healthy eating and quality family meals than as a statement of commitment to local foods as an effort against global climate change.
Early in the primaries Michelle's gentle teasing of her "rock star" husband made him seem more human and led many to believe that the Obamas would be models for gender equity in the White House. While the mutual respect between the couple remains evident, these days Michelle is more frequently photographed with her head on Barack's shoulder, grasping his hand at public events, or evading reporters by stealing brief, romantic walks on the White House grounds. The outspoken Michelle Obama that made many bristle with anxiety during the campaign has been replaced by a woman who makes us collectively say, "aaaaahhhhh" when we see her with her husband, children, and even her new dog.
Over the past several months I have received many press inquiries from reporters and scholars who are anxious about the ascendance of this kinder, gentler Michelle Obama. They worry that Michelle is being manufactured and handled in a way that thwarts her authenticity and undermines the efforts of feminist movements committed to the notion that women can and should have both family and career.
This is a potentially fair criticism, but I want to complicate this easy narrative a bit by encouraging us to remember that as an African American woman the stereotypes against which Michelle is struggling are distinct from those that seek to limit and inhibit white women.
White, middle-class, gender norms in the United States have generally asserted that women belong in the domestic sphere. These norms have limited white women's opportunities for education and employment. But the story has been different for women of color and women from poor and working class origins. These women have faced the requirement of employment and the shouldered the extreme burden of attempting to effectively parent while providing financially for their families. Black women were full participants in agricultural labor during slavery, the backbreaking work of sharecropping, and the domestic services of Jim Crow. Even middle class and elite black women have typically worked as teachers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and professionals. At every level of household income and at every point in American history, black women have been much more likely to engage in paid labor than their white counterparts. Even Claire Huxtable worked full time!
So when Michelle Obama makes a choice to focus on supporting her daughters through their school transition and providing companionship to her husband as he governs she is not really conforming to norms. She is surprisingly thwarting expectations of black women's role in the family and representing a different image of black women than we are used to encountering in this country.
As mom-in-chief Michelle Obama also subverts a deep, powerful, and old public discourse on black women as bad mothers. Enslaved black women had no control over their own children. Their sons and daughters could be sold away from them without their consent, or brutally disciplined without their protection. So when a black woman claims public ownership of her children she helps rewrite that ugly history.
In the modern era, black mothers have been publicly shamed as crack mothers, welfare queens, and matriarchs. Black single motherhood is blamed for all manner of social ills from crime to drugs to social disorder. And black mothers are often represented in popular culture and the public imagination as domineering household managers whose unfeminine insistence on control both emasculates their potential male partners and destroys their children's future opportunities. These public images of black motherhood encourage the state not to assist black mothers as women doing the best they can in tough circumstances, but instead to blame them as unrelenting cheats who unfairly demand assistance from the system.
Michelle Obama is an important corrective to this distorted view of black motherhood. She and her own mother, Grandma Robinson, are kind, devoted, loving, and firm black mothers who challenge the negative images that dominate the public discourse on black motherhood.
There is a potential danger here. Michelle Obama's public persona of traditionalism could be used as a discursive weapon against women who do not conform to this domestic ideal. The majority of black mothers are working women who struggle to raise their children without husbands and often without adequate financial support from partners or the state. It would be easy to use the Obamas to reassert that black women's salvation can be found in submission to patriarchy. This is a narrative that could undercut support for public policies focused on creation of a just and equal political and economic structure, by focusing us instead on"marriage" and "family values" as solutions to structural barriers facing black communities.
But these conservative discourses have never needed any particular excuse to exist. They have been the dominant frame for discussions of racial inequality for nearly 40 years, long before Michelle Obama began to rewrite the script on black motherhood.
Therefore, despite that rhetorical dangers, I must admit to reveling in Michelle Obama as mom-in-chief. I am a divorced, single mother who adores my work, but I am moved to see a black woman in a loving, egalitarian marriage who finds herself enjoying the privilege of focusing on her children and serving her country. There is something powerful, subversive, and new in Michelle Obama's traditionalism.
On this Mother's Day I will celebrate my sisters, my aunts, my mother, and my friends who are mothers. Some of these women are white and some are black. Each woman was shaped by the powerful social, political, and economic forces that framed her life and her choices as a parent. I celebrate the creative ways they responded to those challenges and how their choices made possible the world I now encounter as a woman and mother. This year I will also celebrate Michelle Obama and the new world of possibilities that she creates by her dignified embrace of her role as "mom-in-chief."
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/432957/michelle_obama_mom_in_chief?rel=emailNation
From the Nation
Michelle Obama, Mom-in-Chief
posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell on 05/05/2009 @ 1:46pm
With Mother's Day approaching I want think about Michelle Obama's assertion that her primary role as First Lady is "Mom-in-Chief."
Many progressive feminists were distressed with Michelle's assertion of motherhood as her primary role. They hoped she would seek a more aggressive policy agenda.
After all Michelle Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She spent her career as an effective advocate for urban communities in their fraught relationship with powerful institutions. She is smart, capable, and independent. She maintained her own career and ambitions throughout Barack's early political career and even during his election to the U.S. Senate.
Truth is, some of us who were in the orbit of the Obamas ten years ago believed Michelle, not Barack, was the real star of the couple. So while I don't think anyone expected her to commute to a 9-to-5 job in D.C; many hoped that she would take on an independent political role in the Obama administration.
Instead, Michelle has crafted a more traditional role for herself. She is highly visible, but she has taken on relatively safe issues like childhood literacy, advocacy for women and girls, and support of military families. Even her White House garden is framed more as an initiative for healthy eating and quality family meals than as a statement of commitment to local foods as an effort against global climate change.
Early in the primaries Michelle's gentle teasing of her "rock star" husband made him seem more human and led many to believe that the Obamas would be models for gender equity in the White House. While the mutual respect between the couple remains evident, these days Michelle is more frequently photographed with her head on Barack's shoulder, grasping his hand at public events, or evading reporters by stealing brief, romantic walks on the White House grounds. The outspoken Michelle Obama that made many bristle with anxiety during the campaign has been replaced by a woman who makes us collectively say, "aaaaahhhhh" when we see her with her husband, children, and even her new dog.
Over the past several months I have received many press inquiries from reporters and scholars who are anxious about the ascendance of this kinder, gentler Michelle Obama. They worry that Michelle is being manufactured and handled in a way that thwarts her authenticity and undermines the efforts of feminist movements committed to the notion that women can and should have both family and career.
This is a potentially fair criticism, but I want to complicate this easy narrative a bit by encouraging us to remember that as an African American woman the stereotypes against which Michelle is struggling are distinct from those that seek to limit and inhibit white women.
White, middle-class, gender norms in the United States have generally asserted that women belong in the domestic sphere. These norms have limited white women's opportunities for education and employment. But the story has been different for women of color and women from poor and working class origins. These women have faced the requirement of employment and the shouldered the extreme burden of attempting to effectively parent while providing financially for their families. Black women were full participants in agricultural labor during slavery, the backbreaking work of sharecropping, and the domestic services of Jim Crow. Even middle class and elite black women have typically worked as teachers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and professionals. At every level of household income and at every point in American history, black women have been much more likely to engage in paid labor than their white counterparts. Even Claire Huxtable worked full time!
So when Michelle Obama makes a choice to focus on supporting her daughters through their school transition and providing companionship to her husband as he governs she is not really conforming to norms. She is surprisingly thwarting expectations of black women's role in the family and representing a different image of black women than we are used to encountering in this country.
As mom-in-chief Michelle Obama also subverts a deep, powerful, and old public discourse on black women as bad mothers. Enslaved black women had no control over their own children. Their sons and daughters could be sold away from them without their consent, or brutally disciplined without their protection. So when a black woman claims public ownership of her children she helps rewrite that ugly history.
In the modern era, black mothers have been publicly shamed as crack mothers, welfare queens, and matriarchs. Black single motherhood is blamed for all manner of social ills from crime to drugs to social disorder. And black mothers are often represented in popular culture and the public imagination as domineering household managers whose unfeminine insistence on control both emasculates their potential male partners and destroys their children's future opportunities. These public images of black motherhood encourage the state not to assist black mothers as women doing the best they can in tough circumstances, but instead to blame them as unrelenting cheats who unfairly demand assistance from the system.
Michelle Obama is an important corrective to this distorted view of black motherhood. She and her own mother, Grandma Robinson, are kind, devoted, loving, and firm black mothers who challenge the negative images that dominate the public discourse on black motherhood.
There is a potential danger here. Michelle Obama's public persona of traditionalism could be used as a discursive weapon against women who do not conform to this domestic ideal. The majority of black mothers are working women who struggle to raise their children without husbands and often without adequate financial support from partners or the state. It would be easy to use the Obamas to reassert that black women's salvation can be found in submission to patriarchy. This is a narrative that could undercut support for public policies focused on creation of a just and equal political and economic structure, by focusing us instead on"marriage" and "family values" as solutions to structural barriers facing black communities.
But these conservative discourses have never needed any particular excuse to exist. They have been the dominant frame for discussions of racial inequality for nearly 40 years, long before Michelle Obama began to rewrite the script on black motherhood.
Therefore, despite that rhetorical dangers, I must admit to reveling in Michelle Obama as mom-in-chief. I am a divorced, single mother who adores my work, but I am moved to see a black woman in a loving, egalitarian marriage who finds herself enjoying the privilege of focusing on her children and serving her country. There is something powerful, subversive, and new in Michelle Obama's traditionalism.
On this Mother's Day I will celebrate my sisters, my aunts, my mother, and my friends who are mothers. Some of these women are white and some are black. Each woman was shaped by the powerful social, political, and economic forces that framed her life and her choices as a parent. I celebrate the creative ways they responded to those challenges and how their choices made possible the world I now encounter as a woman and mother. This year I will also celebrate Michelle Obama and the new world of possibilities that she creates by her dignified embrace of her role as "mom-in-chief."
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/432957/michelle_obama_mom_in_chief?rel=emailNation
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The Obama Presidency and White Nationalist Resistance
This blog has made the case that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency was a referendum on white nationalism and white nationalism lost. The Republican right wing, which pushes an anti-civil rights agenda, was soundly defeated at the ballot box in November. Having said that, given America's over 300 years of white nationalism hegemony, those core ideas do not die easily. As a consequence, having an African American president is giving rise to white supremacist resistance. RGN
Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama
With an African-American president and the economy in bad shape, extremist groups are trying to enter the mainstream—and they're having some success.
Eve Conant
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009
It's not about hate, it's about love. Love of white people. That's the message in songs, speeches and casual conversation during a weekend retreat in Zinc, Ark., sponsored by the Christian Revival Center and the Knights Party, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. There's no overt threat of violence here. No cross burnings (or "lightings," as the KKK prefers to call them). The only fire at the grassy compound, located at the end of a long, rocky road circled by turkey vultures, is a bonfire for the Knights youth corps to roast their s'mores. The kids draw pictures of white-hooded Klanspeople and sing songs about the oppressed Aryan race; rousing sermons are read from Bibles decorated with Confederate flags. Aryan souvenirs are for sale, including baseball caps proclaiming IT'S LOVE, NOT HATE and advertising
THE ORIGINAL BOYZ IN THE HOOD.
This would all be funny (Jon Stewart, where are you?) if it weren't so disturbing. "Do you know why people are so afraid of us?" asks Thomas Robb, the soft-spoken national director—don't call him grand wizard!—of the Knights. "Because we're so normal." In his speeches, Robb is more likely to make a joke about his short stature than he is about minorities. His Web site includes careful statements about nonviolence, green energy and women's rights. But among his ideological kin, Robb equates minorities to fleas and favors a program for "voluntary resettlement" to home countries. Illegal immigrants, as well as blacks serving time in prison, should be deported, he says. "Why is it that when a black man wants to preserve his culture and heritage it's a good thing, and when a white person wants the same thing, we're called haters?" he says.
Some of the roughly 50 attendees at the Arkansas lovefest wear Knights uniforms with Confederate flags and, along with their children, raise their arms "Heil, Hitler"–STYLE to shouts of "white power!" Robb sometimes dons his white robe and hood and doesn't see why that carries any baggage: "Why do judges wear robes? It's tradition." The Klan's past is misunderstood, he insists—no history of brutal lynchings, torture and intimidation; it's gotten a bad name from, for example, federal provocateurs who instigated violence. While Robb questions the authority of other Klan groups, he happily notes that "a rising tide lifts all ships."
It's hard to conduct accurate surveys of racists, who tend to exaggerate their strength and importance. But it's fair to say that in the Age of Obama, there's growing concern. This spring, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual "Year in Hate" report, which outlines that in 2008 the number of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 percent from 2007, and 54 percent since 2000. (The SPLC doesn't measure the number of members in the groups.) An April Homeland Security intelligence report states that "the economic downturn and the election of the first African-American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment." Home foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit "could create a fertile recruiting environment," the briefing adds, and extremist groups are aiming to "broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda."
The haters are doing their best, in other words, to move out from the fringe and toward the mainstream—and they're boasting some success.
Indoctrination often starts on the Internet. Some crazies posting on MySpace, for instance, have called for armed revolution; at least one has referred to Barack Obama as "a dead man." But many leaders of white-supremacist groups and Web forums are toning down their rhetoric. The aim is to attract the kind of person Robb describes as "the guy down the road who until now had his plasma TV and car in the garage, but just lost his job and won't find a new one because some illegal already has it."
Don Black, a 56-year-old former KKK grand wizard, says he no longer has any formal affiliation with the Klan because "it just got so demonized and attracted the wrong people; it just got to be impossible." But that doesn't mean he's given up the struggle. As the founder of Stormfront.org, he has the white-supremacist world at his fingertips, all from the comfort of his West Palm Beach, Fla., home. Last spring Black made it a policy for the site to "have no swastikas and Third Reich symbols to turn off first-time visitors."
Black had to upgrade his server after it crashed Nov. 5 along with another white-supremacist site, the Council of Conservative Citizens, according to the SPLC. "I knew we'd get a surge in interest [after the election], but I didn't expect so much; we couldn't handle it," says Black. In the 24 hours following Obama's victory, he says, 2,800 new users signed up. He claims 150,000 registered users and says he gets about 50,000 unique visits a day. (It's impossible to confirm the figures independently; the SPLC thinks the numbers are slightly higher, but civil-rights groups may also have an interest in exaggerating the phenomenon.) Stormfront has some 50 active forums, including venues for dating, financial advice, gardening and homemaking. Black has 65 volunteer moderators and three administrators.
One moderator, who goes by the alias Truck Roy, is a clean-cut 32-year-old who wouldn't give his real name for fear of losing his job. During the Knights weekend in Arkansas, Roy, a guest speaker, advised white recruiters to "keep it subtle. Don't hit 'em with anything too hard right off the bat or you will shock them. Find a chink in their armor and make friends. If you are too radical, they won't listen."
The Nationalist Coalition, a small outfit based in St. Petersburg, Fla., claims it has seen a jump in new members in just the past few months. In March, the Arizona chapter held a family "spaghetti night" meet and greet. Members also blanketed a Phoenix suburb with fliers depicting a white toddler and the word MISSING—an attempt to show that the future of the white race is in trouble. One of its national chiefs, Todd Weingart, says the group does not condone violence and is composed of doctors and lawyers as well as blue-collar workers. "If it was only immigration or the economy or a nonwhite running the country, there wouldn't be this interest. We know that," he says. "It's the combination that is getting people to stand up and get interested." Winston Smith, a host of the white-supremacist radio show "The Political Cesspool" in Millington, Tenn., says, "The emphasis is different now. We don't talk as much about what blacks have done to us; we're more focused on ourselves and our own culture."
At least one group has become more fashion-conscious. The National Socialist Movement—a descendent of the American Nazi Party—tweaked its uniform last year, switching from Nazi brown shirts to a more Italian Fascist look. "The uniforms we wore before were even more out there, more extreme," says "commander" Jeff Schoep, who, like the Knights' Robb, hails from Detroit. "Last April we adopted the black [uniforms]; it's part of our modernization project. We don't want to look like throwbacks to 1935. But we are not trying to trick people; there are enough white groups now trying to soft-pedal people into joining."
At one recent meeting in Springfield, Mo., a dozen NSM members wore black from chin to steel-toed boot. Some sported swastikas and tattoos and wore bomber jackets with cloth patches: NO HABLA ESPAÑOL, A––HOLE and a Jewish star being dumped in the trash. Their local leader, Cynthia Keene, has a half-shaved head and multiple piercings. She started the meeting with a 14-word pledge to secure the future of the white race. There was discussion of the "Holohoax" and the warrior nature of Aryans.
They know they're being monitored. It probably makes them feel important. Keene warns her followers, "We have to be careful what we do and say and stay out of their line of sight," referring to groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the SPLC.
One recent recruit, 31-year-old Melissa Cipcic, says she's upset about Americans losing jobs to illegal immigrants. She used to think of white-power groups as scary, she says, "but no one here advocates violence. So much more can be done with conversation."
The ADL's Mark Pitcavage says it is very difficult to track hate-group numbers because the organizations often splinter. What he tries to track is anger levels, and those, he warns, are rising—despite any superficial sweet talk: "The white-supremacist movement has been at red-hot anger levels for a long time. When I get concerned is when they get to white hot, where you see large bomb plots or talk about race wars. Right now we're at very red hot, and are concerned we might reach white hot again." He points to the MySpace account of "88Charles88" as an example of what he's seeing (88 is code for "Heil, Hitler" in the white-power world). "Charles" attacks Obama and says, "Now it's time to fight." "There is a lot of anger out there," says Pitcavage, "and these groups are trying to stoke it, to get someone like 88Charles88 to take the next step. What we're seeing is not a softening, but a hardening of attitude."
Pitcavage says current rhetoric resembles that of the early '90s (including conspiracy theories about FEMA concentration camps and gun confiscations), just before the outbreak of the white-militia movements. While some leaders of extremist groups may use softer recruiting tactics, "their membership is not toning down at all," says Pitcavage. For every NSM member, there is a nonaffiliated skinhead posting entries to hate blogs. If Stormfront has tried to tone down, that has only inspired a competing site—Vanguard—to showcase violent alternatives.
Some civil-rights activists are more worried about the racists they can't see than the showboaters trying to draw attention to themselves. "We're not going back to the '50s," says Mark Potok of the SPLC. "The country has moved forward in remarkable ways. But with that breakthrough comes something of a backlash." It's the loners, he says, who are most worrisome: "The lone-wolf idea is much scarier than the big-plot idea. Big plots don't succeed because these guys cannot keep their mouths shut."
As local law enforcement tells it, Cynthia Lynch was an Internet loner who tried to become a white activist and failed. She was recruited online to travel from Oklahoma last November to join a reputed Klan group in Bogalusa, La. The group called itself the Sons of Dixie. But after meeting the members, the 43-year-old Lynch had second thoughts and tried to back out during an extended initiation ceremony. She was shot dead and buried in the backwoods of St. Tammany Parish.
The Sons of Dixie were rounded up after two of them asked a Circle K clerk how to remove blood stains from clothing, authorities said. Their alleged leader, Raymond (Chuck) Foster, had a history of Klan involvement and was in the SPLC database, but no one had previously heard of the Sons of Dixie. As it turned out, Foster, who has been indicted for second degree murder, lived just more than a mile away from Bogalusa's mayor, James McGehee. "I thought I knew everyone here, but I guess I didn't," says the mayor. "I think these were Klan wannabes."
The mayor and local law-enforcement officers have spent the past few months working with the FBI to rule out further Klan activities in the area and meeting with local black churches to discuss the problem. As a child, McGehee grew up hearing about the Klan and watching civil-rights marches, he recalls. "The Klan was obviously here then. But I hadn't really heard that word in 25 years," he says. Cynthia Lynch might also have thought the old racists had softened with time; on Foster's MySpace page, according to the SPLC, he listed Jesus Christ as his hero and said he'd like to meet "honest loyal people who are devoted to things and take them seriously." She might have thought the Sons of Dixie would provide something—a sense of community or pride —that her life was missing. She didn't learn otherwise until it was too late.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/195085
Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama
With an African-American president and the economy in bad shape, extremist groups are trying to enter the mainstream—and they're having some success.
Eve Conant
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009
It's not about hate, it's about love. Love of white people. That's the message in songs, speeches and casual conversation during a weekend retreat in Zinc, Ark., sponsored by the Christian Revival Center and the Knights Party, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. There's no overt threat of violence here. No cross burnings (or "lightings," as the KKK prefers to call them). The only fire at the grassy compound, located at the end of a long, rocky road circled by turkey vultures, is a bonfire for the Knights youth corps to roast their s'mores. The kids draw pictures of white-hooded Klanspeople and sing songs about the oppressed Aryan race; rousing sermons are read from Bibles decorated with Confederate flags. Aryan souvenirs are for sale, including baseball caps proclaiming IT'S LOVE, NOT HATE and advertising
THE ORIGINAL BOYZ IN THE HOOD.
This would all be funny (Jon Stewart, where are you?) if it weren't so disturbing. "Do you know why people are so afraid of us?" asks Thomas Robb, the soft-spoken national director—don't call him grand wizard!—of the Knights. "Because we're so normal." In his speeches, Robb is more likely to make a joke about his short stature than he is about minorities. His Web site includes careful statements about nonviolence, green energy and women's rights. But among his ideological kin, Robb equates minorities to fleas and favors a program for "voluntary resettlement" to home countries. Illegal immigrants, as well as blacks serving time in prison, should be deported, he says. "Why is it that when a black man wants to preserve his culture and heritage it's a good thing, and when a white person wants the same thing, we're called haters?" he says.
Some of the roughly 50 attendees at the Arkansas lovefest wear Knights uniforms with Confederate flags and, along with their children, raise their arms "Heil, Hitler"–STYLE to shouts of "white power!" Robb sometimes dons his white robe and hood and doesn't see why that carries any baggage: "Why do judges wear robes? It's tradition." The Klan's past is misunderstood, he insists—no history of brutal lynchings, torture and intimidation; it's gotten a bad name from, for example, federal provocateurs who instigated violence. While Robb questions the authority of other Klan groups, he happily notes that "a rising tide lifts all ships."
It's hard to conduct accurate surveys of racists, who tend to exaggerate their strength and importance. But it's fair to say that in the Age of Obama, there's growing concern. This spring, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual "Year in Hate" report, which outlines that in 2008 the number of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 percent from 2007, and 54 percent since 2000. (The SPLC doesn't measure the number of members in the groups.) An April Homeland Security intelligence report states that "the economic downturn and the election of the first African-American president present unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment." Home foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit "could create a fertile recruiting environment," the briefing adds, and extremist groups are aiming to "broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda."
The haters are doing their best, in other words, to move out from the fringe and toward the mainstream—and they're boasting some success.
Indoctrination often starts on the Internet. Some crazies posting on MySpace, for instance, have called for armed revolution; at least one has referred to Barack Obama as "a dead man." But many leaders of white-supremacist groups and Web forums are toning down their rhetoric. The aim is to attract the kind of person Robb describes as "the guy down the road who until now had his plasma TV and car in the garage, but just lost his job and won't find a new one because some illegal already has it."
Don Black, a 56-year-old former KKK grand wizard, says he no longer has any formal affiliation with the Klan because "it just got so demonized and attracted the wrong people; it just got to be impossible." But that doesn't mean he's given up the struggle. As the founder of Stormfront.org, he has the white-supremacist world at his fingertips, all from the comfort of his West Palm Beach, Fla., home. Last spring Black made it a policy for the site to "have no swastikas and Third Reich symbols to turn off first-time visitors."
Black had to upgrade his server after it crashed Nov. 5 along with another white-supremacist site, the Council of Conservative Citizens, according to the SPLC. "I knew we'd get a surge in interest [after the election], but I didn't expect so much; we couldn't handle it," says Black. In the 24 hours following Obama's victory, he says, 2,800 new users signed up. He claims 150,000 registered users and says he gets about 50,000 unique visits a day. (It's impossible to confirm the figures independently; the SPLC thinks the numbers are slightly higher, but civil-rights groups may also have an interest in exaggerating the phenomenon.) Stormfront has some 50 active forums, including venues for dating, financial advice, gardening and homemaking. Black has 65 volunteer moderators and three administrators.
One moderator, who goes by the alias Truck Roy, is a clean-cut 32-year-old who wouldn't give his real name for fear of losing his job. During the Knights weekend in Arkansas, Roy, a guest speaker, advised white recruiters to "keep it subtle. Don't hit 'em with anything too hard right off the bat or you will shock them. Find a chink in their armor and make friends. If you are too radical, they won't listen."
The Nationalist Coalition, a small outfit based in St. Petersburg, Fla., claims it has seen a jump in new members in just the past few months. In March, the Arizona chapter held a family "spaghetti night" meet and greet. Members also blanketed a Phoenix suburb with fliers depicting a white toddler and the word MISSING—an attempt to show that the future of the white race is in trouble. One of its national chiefs, Todd Weingart, says the group does not condone violence and is composed of doctors and lawyers as well as blue-collar workers. "If it was only immigration or the economy or a nonwhite running the country, there wouldn't be this interest. We know that," he says. "It's the combination that is getting people to stand up and get interested." Winston Smith, a host of the white-supremacist radio show "The Political Cesspool" in Millington, Tenn., says, "The emphasis is different now. We don't talk as much about what blacks have done to us; we're more focused on ourselves and our own culture."
At least one group has become more fashion-conscious. The National Socialist Movement—a descendent of the American Nazi Party—tweaked its uniform last year, switching from Nazi brown shirts to a more Italian Fascist look. "The uniforms we wore before were even more out there, more extreme," says "commander" Jeff Schoep, who, like the Knights' Robb, hails from Detroit. "Last April we adopted the black [uniforms]; it's part of our modernization project. We don't want to look like throwbacks to 1935. But we are not trying to trick people; there are enough white groups now trying to soft-pedal people into joining."
At one recent meeting in Springfield, Mo., a dozen NSM members wore black from chin to steel-toed boot. Some sported swastikas and tattoos and wore bomber jackets with cloth patches: NO HABLA ESPAÑOL, A––HOLE and a Jewish star being dumped in the trash. Their local leader, Cynthia Keene, has a half-shaved head and multiple piercings. She started the meeting with a 14-word pledge to secure the future of the white race. There was discussion of the "Holohoax" and the warrior nature of Aryans.
They know they're being monitored. It probably makes them feel important. Keene warns her followers, "We have to be careful what we do and say and stay out of their line of sight," referring to groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the SPLC.
One recent recruit, 31-year-old Melissa Cipcic, says she's upset about Americans losing jobs to illegal immigrants. She used to think of white-power groups as scary, she says, "but no one here advocates violence. So much more can be done with conversation."
The ADL's Mark Pitcavage says it is very difficult to track hate-group numbers because the organizations often splinter. What he tries to track is anger levels, and those, he warns, are rising—despite any superficial sweet talk: "The white-supremacist movement has been at red-hot anger levels for a long time. When I get concerned is when they get to white hot, where you see large bomb plots or talk about race wars. Right now we're at very red hot, and are concerned we might reach white hot again." He points to the MySpace account of "88Charles88" as an example of what he's seeing (88 is code for "Heil, Hitler" in the white-power world). "Charles" attacks Obama and says, "Now it's time to fight." "There is a lot of anger out there," says Pitcavage, "and these groups are trying to stoke it, to get someone like 88Charles88 to take the next step. What we're seeing is not a softening, but a hardening of attitude."
Pitcavage says current rhetoric resembles that of the early '90s (including conspiracy theories about FEMA concentration camps and gun confiscations), just before the outbreak of the white-militia movements. While some leaders of extremist groups may use softer recruiting tactics, "their membership is not toning down at all," says Pitcavage. For every NSM member, there is a nonaffiliated skinhead posting entries to hate blogs. If Stormfront has tried to tone down, that has only inspired a competing site—Vanguard—to showcase violent alternatives.
Some civil-rights activists are more worried about the racists they can't see than the showboaters trying to draw attention to themselves. "We're not going back to the '50s," says Mark Potok of the SPLC. "The country has moved forward in remarkable ways. But with that breakthrough comes something of a backlash." It's the loners, he says, who are most worrisome: "The lone-wolf idea is much scarier than the big-plot idea. Big plots don't succeed because these guys cannot keep their mouths shut."
As local law enforcement tells it, Cynthia Lynch was an Internet loner who tried to become a white activist and failed. She was recruited online to travel from Oklahoma last November to join a reputed Klan group in Bogalusa, La. The group called itself the Sons of Dixie. But after meeting the members, the 43-year-old Lynch had second thoughts and tried to back out during an extended initiation ceremony. She was shot dead and buried in the backwoods of St. Tammany Parish.
The Sons of Dixie were rounded up after two of them asked a Circle K clerk how to remove blood stains from clothing, authorities said. Their alleged leader, Raymond (Chuck) Foster, had a history of Klan involvement and was in the SPLC database, but no one had previously heard of the Sons of Dixie. As it turned out, Foster, who has been indicted for second degree murder, lived just more than a mile away from Bogalusa's mayor, James McGehee. "I thought I knew everyone here, but I guess I didn't," says the mayor. "I think these were Klan wannabes."
The mayor and local law-enforcement officers have spent the past few months working with the FBI to rule out further Klan activities in the area and meeting with local black churches to discuss the problem. As a child, McGehee grew up hearing about the Klan and watching civil-rights marches, he recalls. "The Klan was obviously here then. But I hadn't really heard that word in 25 years," he says. Cynthia Lynch might also have thought the old racists had softened with time; on Foster's MySpace page, according to the SPLC, he listed Jesus Christ as his hero and said he'd like to meet "honest loyal people who are devoted to things and take them seriously." She might have thought the Sons of Dixie would provide something—a sense of community or pride —that her life was missing. She didn't learn otherwise until it was too late.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/195085
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Even Propagandist Newt Concedes
Of all people, Newt Gingrich concedes that the Obama presidency has hit a home run. His prediction: Obama is likely to transform "Change we can believe in" to "Change in what we believe." RGN
100 Days of Devastatingly Swift Success
by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)
Posted 04/29/2009 ET
To mark President Obama’s 100th day in office, I’m going to say something you might find unexpected, even shocking:
President Obama’s first 100 days have been spectacularly successful.
President Obama is the strongest domestic Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson. His ability to get Democrats in Congress to give him things that undermine their own power is impressive.
In just 100 days, President Obama has been devastatingly effective in moving forward swiftly the most radical, government-expanding agenda in American history.
Successfully Moving to a European Model of Government Control
At home, in everything from his economic policy to his energy policy to his just-announced science policy, President Obama has successfully moved the country from a traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to a European model of regulation and government control.
Abroad, he has succeeded in his apparent goal to be the un-George W. Bush; replacing aggressive, if sometimes flawed, American leadership with a humbled, weakened America on the world stage.
Judged by these standards, President Obama’s first 100 days have been a remarkable success.
Getting Congress to Give Him Things That Undermine Their Own Power
The Obama record in the first 100 days includes three instances of spectacular political impunity:
• Under the guise of “economic stimulus” he was able to pass a $787 billion gift for his liberal special interest base. And he did it so quickly that no member of Congress was able to read it before they voted.
• After campaigning on a pledge to end earmarks, he signed an appropriations bill loaded with 8,000 earmarks -- and paid no political penalty.
• President Obama has kept congressional Democrats marching with him in lockstep. House Democrats tow the party line an amazing 94 percent of the time and Senate Democrats vote Democratic 91 percent of the time.
Two Historic Bureaucratic Power Grabs
In these first 100 days, the Obama Administration has achieved two historic bureaucratic power grabs:
• President Obama has transformed the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) into giant engines of unsupervised spending. Together, they’ve spent the equivalent of the entire federal budget for 2007, without having to disclose where the money went.
• Just two weeks ago, the President presided over an unprecedented bureaucratic power grab when his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. This seemingly innocuous decision opens the door to wholesale regulation of American life by government. The threat is so great that politicians and activists are using the specter of an out-of-control EPA to force Congress to pass a $1 trillion to $2 trillion energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade legislation.
In Foreign Policy, Weakness and Self-Delusion
The Obama 100 days record also includes remarkable weakness and self-delusion overseas:
• In an attempt to overcome anti-Americanism abroad by agreeing with it, President Obama has gone on a global apology tour, labeling America as “arrogant, dismissive and derisive” in front of foreign audiences.
• President Obama has unleashed a domestic war over the meaning of guilt by caving in to the anti-American left and leaving the door open to prosecuting Bush Administration officials over the interrogation of terrorists who plotted to kill Americans.
All Other Obama “Accomplishments” Are Only a Prelude to His $3.5 Trillion Budget
But all these successful expansions of government at home and retractions of American leadership abroad are merely a prelude to President Obama’s looming crowning achievement: His 2010 budget which remakes our health care system, remakes our energy system, raises taxes and forecasts an amazing $9 trillion increase in the national debt.
As I write this, Democrats in Congress are fashioning a deal to pass the budget’s provisions on health care by preventing Republicans and moderate Democrats from having a voice in the debate.
Think about that. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi political machine is going to pass legislation that fundamentally affects every single American -- as well as 17 percent of our economy -- by cutting the elected representatives of half of all Americans out of the process.
If they succeed, the budget will be President Obama’s most enduring -- and devastating -- accomplishment.
Will the Future Bring Change We Can Believe In? Or a Change in What we Believe?
One thing is clear at this point in President Obama’s presidency: His control of Washington Democrats has been so masterful, and his policies so successful, that he has officially claimed ownership of the American economy.
Going forward, it won’t be possible to continue to place blame on former President Bush and the Republicans. If President Obama fails, it will be his failure and his alone.
As for us, the “success” of the first 100 days of the Obama presidency raises a threatening possibility.
As my daughter and columnist Jackie Cushman put it, if we’re not careful, instead of change we can believe in, we’re going to have change in what we believe.
It’s something to ponder for the next 1,361 days.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich
100 Days of Devastatingly Swift Success
by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)
Posted 04/29/2009 ET
To mark President Obama’s 100th day in office, I’m going to say something you might find unexpected, even shocking:
President Obama’s first 100 days have been spectacularly successful.
President Obama is the strongest domestic Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson. His ability to get Democrats in Congress to give him things that undermine their own power is impressive.
In just 100 days, President Obama has been devastatingly effective in moving forward swiftly the most radical, government-expanding agenda in American history.
Successfully Moving to a European Model of Government Control
At home, in everything from his economic policy to his energy policy to his just-announced science policy, President Obama has successfully moved the country from a traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to a European model of regulation and government control.
Abroad, he has succeeded in his apparent goal to be the un-George W. Bush; replacing aggressive, if sometimes flawed, American leadership with a humbled, weakened America on the world stage.
Judged by these standards, President Obama’s first 100 days have been a remarkable success.
Getting Congress to Give Him Things That Undermine Their Own Power
The Obama record in the first 100 days includes three instances of spectacular political impunity:
• Under the guise of “economic stimulus” he was able to pass a $787 billion gift for his liberal special interest base. And he did it so quickly that no member of Congress was able to read it before they voted.
• After campaigning on a pledge to end earmarks, he signed an appropriations bill loaded with 8,000 earmarks -- and paid no political penalty.
• President Obama has kept congressional Democrats marching with him in lockstep. House Democrats tow the party line an amazing 94 percent of the time and Senate Democrats vote Democratic 91 percent of the time.
Two Historic Bureaucratic Power Grabs
In these first 100 days, the Obama Administration has achieved two historic bureaucratic power grabs:
• President Obama has transformed the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) into giant engines of unsupervised spending. Together, they’ve spent the equivalent of the entire federal budget for 2007, without having to disclose where the money went.
• Just two weeks ago, the President presided over an unprecedented bureaucratic power grab when his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. This seemingly innocuous decision opens the door to wholesale regulation of American life by government. The threat is so great that politicians and activists are using the specter of an out-of-control EPA to force Congress to pass a $1 trillion to $2 trillion energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade legislation.
In Foreign Policy, Weakness and Self-Delusion
The Obama 100 days record also includes remarkable weakness and self-delusion overseas:
• In an attempt to overcome anti-Americanism abroad by agreeing with it, President Obama has gone on a global apology tour, labeling America as “arrogant, dismissive and derisive” in front of foreign audiences.
• President Obama has unleashed a domestic war over the meaning of guilt by caving in to the anti-American left and leaving the door open to prosecuting Bush Administration officials over the interrogation of terrorists who plotted to kill Americans.
All Other Obama “Accomplishments” Are Only a Prelude to His $3.5 Trillion Budget
But all these successful expansions of government at home and retractions of American leadership abroad are merely a prelude to President Obama’s looming crowning achievement: His 2010 budget which remakes our health care system, remakes our energy system, raises taxes and forecasts an amazing $9 trillion increase in the national debt.
As I write this, Democrats in Congress are fashioning a deal to pass the budget’s provisions on health care by preventing Republicans and moderate Democrats from having a voice in the debate.
Think about that. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi political machine is going to pass legislation that fundamentally affects every single American -- as well as 17 percent of our economy -- by cutting the elected representatives of half of all Americans out of the process.
If they succeed, the budget will be President Obama’s most enduring -- and devastating -- accomplishment.
Will the Future Bring Change We Can Believe In? Or a Change in What we Believe?
One thing is clear at this point in President Obama’s presidency: His control of Washington Democrats has been so masterful, and his policies so successful, that he has officially claimed ownership of the American economy.
Going forward, it won’t be possible to continue to place blame on former President Bush and the Republicans. If President Obama fails, it will be his failure and his alone.
As for us, the “success” of the first 100 days of the Obama presidency raises a threatening possibility.
As my daughter and columnist Jackie Cushman put it, if we’re not careful, instead of change we can believe in, we’re going to have change in what we believe.
It’s something to ponder for the next 1,361 days.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Ron Walters: Grading Obama at 100 Days.
Walters grades Obama in his first 100 days as somewhere between an "A-" or "B+". Obama has tackled a finsncial crisis, crisis in auto, the illegality and immorality of the Bush-Cheney policies, he has wowed (!!) the E-20 and the OAS and he gets somewhere between an "A-" or "B+"??!!! Walters' concern is about Obama's lack of targeting programs that center on problems of the black community. RGN
Grading President Obama
By Ron Walters
This is the season for giving President Barack Obama his 100 day grade and in my participation in a number of these events, I concluded that he has earned somewhere between an “A-“ and a “B+”, more the latter. My reasoning is two fold: while he has done a great deal for the nation, from which blacks also benefit, he has done little to directly target the persistent problems faced by the black community yet.
The comparison to the performance of President Obama is often made to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who also inherited an economic crisis and who sponsored 15 major pieces of legislation to attempt to fix it. Barack Obama has to some extent matched that record by gravity of his decisions. For example, Roosevelt had not inherited a war, but Obama made the decision as his first act of business, to inform the nation that he was changing course and establishing a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq. In his era, Roosevelt had nothing like the financial behemoths that roam the landscape of American capitalism today and so, Obama’s treatment of the banks, the financial institutions and the auto industry must be seen as comparable to Roosevelt’s regulation of the banking industry.
Where there seems to be more comparability is in the social sector where both men created programs to get America working again. Obama crafted a $787 billion Stimulus Package and a $49 billion small business assistance package. Roosevelt did not have the equivalent of the home foreclosure crisis, but Obama enacted a $79 billion home stabilization package. This performance was, therefore, not only breath-taking in its scope, but unprecedented in its historical importance in attempting to turn the country around.
On the other hand, I don’t see the Obama administration giving much special attention to the Black community and even black leaders interviewed admit that his administration has been weak on grass economic measures. So, in order to give Obama an “A” at this point, you would have to come to the conclusion that blacks not only benefit, but benefit as equally as others from the general policies that have been enacted on behalf of the nation. But how is that possible when blacks entered these crises suffering from double the rates of unemployment, triple the rate of incarceration, nearly double the lack of home ownership, and serious gaps with whites in almost every category of life? In this case, the rising tide will not lift all the boats equally.
In order not to grade him down, you would have to come to the conclusion that he could not possibly enact any targeted solutions to the problems faced by blacks and other such populations. Some accept that logic and give him a pass. I’m not ready to do that because I know that – without proposing legislation devoted specifically to blacks -- there are many non-racial ways of targeting public resources so that they effectively reach specific populations. The White House Office on Urban Policy could be such a vehicle, but he has not yet given it the profile or the mandate to do anything. No one has seen its Director, no speeches have been given about its agenda and so, one suspects that is in the offing for some time in the future.
If targeting public policy is not possible, then how do you account for the fact that one of the first acts of President Obama was to include a healthy percentage of women in his cabinet (some are still being confirmed). He then, signed the Lilly Ledbetter act promising equal pay for women, lifted the international gag rule for abortion counseling on American aid programs, followed that up with a White House Council of Women and Girls, and etc. In fact, this is an impressive list of actions devoted to women, who – not incidentally -- constitute 53% of the electorate.
This first 100 days would have been difficult for any President to mark important achievements, but especially when one has inherited the monumental problems faced by this Administration. Moreover, my colleagues believe that it is the second 100 days in which presidents have generally achieved much more. So, one should not despair that the black agenda has not been vigorously addressed as yet, but at the same time, one should not let the honeymoon that President Obama is enjoying among blacks and their leaders extend too far into the future.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center, and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (U. Michigan Press.)
Grading President Obama
By Ron Walters
This is the season for giving President Barack Obama his 100 day grade and in my participation in a number of these events, I concluded that he has earned somewhere between an “A-“ and a “B+”, more the latter. My reasoning is two fold: while he has done a great deal for the nation, from which blacks also benefit, he has done little to directly target the persistent problems faced by the black community yet.
The comparison to the performance of President Obama is often made to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who also inherited an economic crisis and who sponsored 15 major pieces of legislation to attempt to fix it. Barack Obama has to some extent matched that record by gravity of his decisions. For example, Roosevelt had not inherited a war, but Obama made the decision as his first act of business, to inform the nation that he was changing course and establishing a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq. In his era, Roosevelt had nothing like the financial behemoths that roam the landscape of American capitalism today and so, Obama’s treatment of the banks, the financial institutions and the auto industry must be seen as comparable to Roosevelt’s regulation of the banking industry.
Where there seems to be more comparability is in the social sector where both men created programs to get America working again. Obama crafted a $787 billion Stimulus Package and a $49 billion small business assistance package. Roosevelt did not have the equivalent of the home foreclosure crisis, but Obama enacted a $79 billion home stabilization package. This performance was, therefore, not only breath-taking in its scope, but unprecedented in its historical importance in attempting to turn the country around.
On the other hand, I don’t see the Obama administration giving much special attention to the Black community and even black leaders interviewed admit that his administration has been weak on grass economic measures. So, in order to give Obama an “A” at this point, you would have to come to the conclusion that blacks not only benefit, but benefit as equally as others from the general policies that have been enacted on behalf of the nation. But how is that possible when blacks entered these crises suffering from double the rates of unemployment, triple the rate of incarceration, nearly double the lack of home ownership, and serious gaps with whites in almost every category of life? In this case, the rising tide will not lift all the boats equally.
In order not to grade him down, you would have to come to the conclusion that he could not possibly enact any targeted solutions to the problems faced by blacks and other such populations. Some accept that logic and give him a pass. I’m not ready to do that because I know that – without proposing legislation devoted specifically to blacks -- there are many non-racial ways of targeting public resources so that they effectively reach specific populations. The White House Office on Urban Policy could be such a vehicle, but he has not yet given it the profile or the mandate to do anything. No one has seen its Director, no speeches have been given about its agenda and so, one suspects that is in the offing for some time in the future.
If targeting public policy is not possible, then how do you account for the fact that one of the first acts of President Obama was to include a healthy percentage of women in his cabinet (some are still being confirmed). He then, signed the Lilly Ledbetter act promising equal pay for women, lifted the international gag rule for abortion counseling on American aid programs, followed that up with a White House Council of Women and Girls, and etc. In fact, this is an impressive list of actions devoted to women, who – not incidentally -- constitute 53% of the electorate.
This first 100 days would have been difficult for any President to mark important achievements, but especially when one has inherited the monumental problems faced by this Administration. Moreover, my colleagues believe that it is the second 100 days in which presidents have generally achieved much more. So, one should not despair that the black agenda has not been vigorously addressed as yet, but at the same time, one should not let the honeymoon that President Obama is enjoying among blacks and their leaders extend too far into the future.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center, and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (U. Michigan Press.)
And what is happening to the working class???
Bob Herbert is right-on on his critique of who is really paying the price of this "economic recovery." The bankers have not learned their lessons and the work force shrinks. We are hemmoraging workers. RGN
________________________________________
April 28, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Workers Walk the Plank
By BOB HERBERT
I’m sure everyone is thrilled to know that the high rollers on Wall Street are bouncing back. With profits on the rebound, the big shots at the biggest institutions are on track, as The Times reported Sunday, to make as much money this year as they were hauling in before the mega-recession began.
The growing legions of the unemployed can be forgiven for not shouting hallelujah. It’s a little like watching the drunken driver who plowed into your family car and caused untold havoc and heartache, suddenly pulling up one morning, no worse for the wear, in a sparkling new vehicle.
The folks who led the nation to this financial abyss are the ones being made whole on the taxpayers’ dime. We can look after them, all right. But we can’t seem to get credit flowing in any normal way again; we can’t stanch the terrible flow of home foreclosures; and we’re not doing nearly enough to address the most critical need of all: putting people back to work.
While Wall Street is breaking out the Champagne yet again, the rest of the economy is beyond terrible, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, offered a rundown of the unemployment crisis in remarks she prepared for a House subcommittee last week. Ms. Shierholz began by noting that next month the current economic downturn will become the longest since the Great Depression.
“The 10 postwar recessions prior to this one have averaged 10.4 months in length, with the longest being 16 months,” said Ms. Shierholz. “The current recession is now in its 16th month and the labor market is still shedding over 600,000 jobs a month.”
Wall Street can swallow all the Champagne it wants, and the market fanatics can obsess until their brains lock over the daily gyrations of the Dow. The simple fact is that working men and women are being squeezed in the ever-tightening jaws of a catastrophe.
The American auto industry is fading before our eyes. Chrysler is looking to Fiat — Fiat! — as a savior. The once-impregnable General Motors is now a giant junkyard sinking in quicksand. It disclosed Monday that it will cut another 21,000 factory jobs in the United States over the next year. If G.M. were to go under it would take an enormous chain of satellite industries down with it.
More than 13 million people are officially counted as unemployed, with some 5.6 million jobs lost since the recession started. Ms. Shierholz tells us that since the first of the year about 23,000 men and women were being added to the jobless rolls every day.
Job losses on such a scale are knockout blows to ordinary American families.
The importance of employment to the everyday life and long-term health of the nation is too often given short shrift. A recent report, “The 2009 MetLife Study of the American Dream,” found, not surprisingly, that “work is the linchpin holding the dream together” for most Americans.
In fact, the mythic American dream is becoming more and more elusive. The big concern facing millions of families at the moment is economic survival. More than half of all Americans — 56 percent — are concerned that they might lose their jobs in the next year. Few are prepared for such a setback.
As the authors of the MetLife study reported:
“With the erosion of social and corporate safety nets, tightening credit and declining home equity, most Americans have little financial cushioning to survive a job loss. Without a steady paycheck, 50 percent of Americans say they could not meet their financial obligations for more than a month — and, of that, a disturbing 28 percent couldn’t support themselves for more than two weeks of unemployment.”
That’s the case in an environment in which more than three million Americans already have been out of work for more than six months.
The employment issue is not being addressed with the level of urgency that is warranted. For all the talk of green jobs, there is no large-scale creative effort to turn this employment debacle around. There is no crash program on anything like the scale needed, for example, to rebuild the rotting infrastructure — a big-time potential source of jobs.
The financial industry is seen as essential, but millions of American workers are not. They’re expendable.
If as much attention, energy and resources were given to the effort to put Americans back to work as has been given to putting the banking industry back on its feet, you’d have fewer Champagne toasts on Wall Street but a lot more high-fiving in family homes across the country.
________________________________________
April 28, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Workers Walk the Plank
By BOB HERBERT
I’m sure everyone is thrilled to know that the high rollers on Wall Street are bouncing back. With profits on the rebound, the big shots at the biggest institutions are on track, as The Times reported Sunday, to make as much money this year as they were hauling in before the mega-recession began.
The growing legions of the unemployed can be forgiven for not shouting hallelujah. It’s a little like watching the drunken driver who plowed into your family car and caused untold havoc and heartache, suddenly pulling up one morning, no worse for the wear, in a sparkling new vehicle.
The folks who led the nation to this financial abyss are the ones being made whole on the taxpayers’ dime. We can look after them, all right. But we can’t seem to get credit flowing in any normal way again; we can’t stanch the terrible flow of home foreclosures; and we’re not doing nearly enough to address the most critical need of all: putting people back to work.
While Wall Street is breaking out the Champagne yet again, the rest of the economy is beyond terrible, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, offered a rundown of the unemployment crisis in remarks she prepared for a House subcommittee last week. Ms. Shierholz began by noting that next month the current economic downturn will become the longest since the Great Depression.
“The 10 postwar recessions prior to this one have averaged 10.4 months in length, with the longest being 16 months,” said Ms. Shierholz. “The current recession is now in its 16th month and the labor market is still shedding over 600,000 jobs a month.”
Wall Street can swallow all the Champagne it wants, and the market fanatics can obsess until their brains lock over the daily gyrations of the Dow. The simple fact is that working men and women are being squeezed in the ever-tightening jaws of a catastrophe.
The American auto industry is fading before our eyes. Chrysler is looking to Fiat — Fiat! — as a savior. The once-impregnable General Motors is now a giant junkyard sinking in quicksand. It disclosed Monday that it will cut another 21,000 factory jobs in the United States over the next year. If G.M. were to go under it would take an enormous chain of satellite industries down with it.
More than 13 million people are officially counted as unemployed, with some 5.6 million jobs lost since the recession started. Ms. Shierholz tells us that since the first of the year about 23,000 men and women were being added to the jobless rolls every day.
Job losses on such a scale are knockout blows to ordinary American families.
The importance of employment to the everyday life and long-term health of the nation is too often given short shrift. A recent report, “The 2009 MetLife Study of the American Dream,” found, not surprisingly, that “work is the linchpin holding the dream together” for most Americans.
In fact, the mythic American dream is becoming more and more elusive. The big concern facing millions of families at the moment is economic survival. More than half of all Americans — 56 percent — are concerned that they might lose their jobs in the next year. Few are prepared for such a setback.
As the authors of the MetLife study reported:
“With the erosion of social and corporate safety nets, tightening credit and declining home equity, most Americans have little financial cushioning to survive a job loss. Without a steady paycheck, 50 percent of Americans say they could not meet their financial obligations for more than a month — and, of that, a disturbing 28 percent couldn’t support themselves for more than two weeks of unemployment.”
That’s the case in an environment in which more than three million Americans already have been out of work for more than six months.
The employment issue is not being addressed with the level of urgency that is warranted. For all the talk of green jobs, there is no large-scale creative effort to turn this employment debacle around. There is no crash program on anything like the scale needed, for example, to rebuild the rotting infrastructure — a big-time potential source of jobs.
The financial industry is seen as essential, but millions of American workers are not. They’re expendable.
If as much attention, energy and resources were given to the effort to put Americans back to work as has been given to putting the banking industry back on its feet, you’d have fewer Champagne toasts on Wall Street but a lot more high-fiving in family homes across the country.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Barack Gets Rave Reviews
President Barack Obama is being received well by the American people. For his First 100 Days, Obama has shown competence, intelligence and confidence in handling an agenda that is simply unbelievable. There have been some minor bumps and those will be corrected (i.e. holding Bush, Cheney et al). The Republicans nw have a 21% approval rating. Their white nationalism, with its divisiveness, conservatism and racism, is being rejected. RGN
From Politico
April 27, 2009 04:18 AM EST
President Barack Obama scores high marks for how he has handled his job in his first three months in office, according to new polls released as the 100-day anniversary of his presidency approaches this Wednesday.
A Gallup survey found 56 percent of Americans giving Obama an excellent or good job rating, vs. 20 percent who grade him terrible or poor so far. The partisan breakdown in the poll was stark: 88 percent of Democrats surveyed gave Obama a good or excellent rating, compared with 24 percent of Republicans; and just 3 percent of Democrats said he has done a poor or terrible job in his first 100 days, compared with 40 percent of Republicans who said that.
When asked what was the best thing Obama has done since becoming president, 27 percent cited his economic measures, and 21 percent said improved foreign relations. In both cases, the responses were driven by positive responses from Democrats. Asked about the worst thing Obama had done, Republicans led with negative comments: 28 percent cited economic measures (particularly bailouts, the budget and economic stimulus packages), and 11 percent said national security issues, citing relations with enemies, the closing of Guantanamo Bay and the release of information about Bush administration torture techniques.
In a new poll by The Washington Post, 69 percent of those surveyed approved of Obama’s job performance. Majorities also approved of his handling of health care, global warming, taxes and Cuba; 38 percent disapproved of his handling of taxes and the federal deficit; and 53 percent opposed how he has dealt with big U.S. automakers.
“About three-quarters of Americans see Obama as a ‘strong leader,’ as ‘honest and trustworthy,’ as empathetic and as someone who can be trusted in a crisis,” the Post reported. “Six in 10 said he is in sync with their values, and nearly as many rate him a good commander in chief.”
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
From Politico
April 27, 2009 04:18 AM EST
President Barack Obama scores high marks for how he has handled his job in his first three months in office, according to new polls released as the 100-day anniversary of his presidency approaches this Wednesday.
A Gallup survey found 56 percent of Americans giving Obama an excellent or good job rating, vs. 20 percent who grade him terrible or poor so far. The partisan breakdown in the poll was stark: 88 percent of Democrats surveyed gave Obama a good or excellent rating, compared with 24 percent of Republicans; and just 3 percent of Democrats said he has done a poor or terrible job in his first 100 days, compared with 40 percent of Republicans who said that.
When asked what was the best thing Obama has done since becoming president, 27 percent cited his economic measures, and 21 percent said improved foreign relations. In both cases, the responses were driven by positive responses from Democrats. Asked about the worst thing Obama had done, Republicans led with negative comments: 28 percent cited economic measures (particularly bailouts, the budget and economic stimulus packages), and 11 percent said national security issues, citing relations with enemies, the closing of Guantanamo Bay and the release of information about Bush administration torture techniques.
In a new poll by The Washington Post, 69 percent of those surveyed approved of Obama’s job performance. Majorities also approved of his handling of health care, global warming, taxes and Cuba; 38 percent disapproved of his handling of taxes and the federal deficit; and 53 percent opposed how he has dealt with big U.S. automakers.
“About three-quarters of Americans see Obama as a ‘strong leader,’ as ‘honest and trustworthy,’ as empathetic and as someone who can be trusted in a crisis,” the Post reported. “Six in 10 said he is in sync with their values, and nearly as many rate him a good commander in chief.”
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
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