Great article here with the most detailed history in one place I have seen about racial politics and how the party’s switched positions. Racism has been intertwined with policy at the Federal Level since before the Civil War. This article provides a great background on the what, who, and why…
This isn’t an article about how Republicans shut down the government because they hate that the President is black. This is an article about how racism caused the government to shut down and the U.S. to teeter on the brink of an unprecedented and catastrophic default.
I understand if you’re confused. A lot of people think the only way that racism “causes” anything is when one person intentionally discriminates against another because of their color of their skin. But that’s wrong. And understanding the history of the forces that produced the current crisis will lay plain the more subtle, but fundamental, ways in which race and racism formed the scaffolding that structures American politics — even as explicit battles over race receded from our daily politics.
The roots of the current crisis began with the New Deal — but not in the way you might think. They grew gradually, with two big bursts in the 1960s and the 1980s reflecting decades of more graduated change. And the tree that grew out of them, the Tea Party and a radically polarized Republican Party, bore the shutdown as its fruits.
How The New Deal Drove The Racists Out
In 1938, Sen. Josiah W. Bailey (D-NC) filibustered his own party’s bill. Well, part of his party — Northern Democrats, together with Northern Republicans, were pushing an federal anti-lynching bill. Bailey promised that Southern Democrats would teach “a lesson which no political party will ever again forget” to their Northern co-partisans if they “come down to North Carolina and try to impose your will upon us about the Negro:”
Just as when the Republicans in the [1860s] undertook to impose the national will upon us with respect to the Negro, we resented it and hated that party with a hatred that has outlasted generations; we hated it beyond measure; we hated it more than was right for us and more than was just; we hated it because of what it had done to us, because of the wrong it undertook to put upon us; and just as that same policy destroyed the hope of the Republican party in the South, that same policy adopted by the Democratic party will destroy the Democratic party in the South.
Bailey’s rage at the affront to white supremacy was born of surprise. Until 1932, the South had dominated the Democratic Party, which had consistently stood for the South’s key regional regional interest — keeping blacks in literal or figurative fetters — since before the Civil War.
But the Depression-caused backlash against Republican incumbents that swept New Yorker Franklin Roosevelt into the White House and a vast Democratic majority into Congress also made Southerners a minority in the party for the first time in its history. The South still controlled the most influential committee leadership votes in Congress, exercising a “Southern Veto” on race policy. The veto forced FDR to stay out of the anti-lynching fight (“If I come out for the anti-lynching bill, [the southerners] will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing,” he lamented).
The veto also injected racism into the New Deal. Social Security was “established on a racially invidious, albeit officially race-neutral, basis by excluding from coverage agricultural and domestic workers, the categories that included nearly 90 percent of black workers at the time,” University of Pennsylvania political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. wrote in The Nation. “Others, like the [Civilian Conservation Corps], operated on Jim Crow principles. Roosevelt’s housing policy put the weight of federal support behind creating and reproducing an overtly racially exclusive residential housing industry.” Read the rest of this entry »
1,282 marines were furloughed at the Marine Air Ground Task Force Combat Center
Movie production was suspended in Angeles National Forest, the L.A. River, the Sepulveda Dam and the West Lost Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center
Colorado:
The Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit in Grand Junction was closed.
Research into rat lungworm disease at the University of Hawaii was halted.
Idaho:
850 of the state’s National Guard’s civilian workers (half of the total staff) were furloughed.
Attorneys were expected to file motions to temporarily halt court proceedings in environmental lawsuits, tort cases and other civil matters.
A rescue mission for a missing Boise woman was put on hold Tuesday because workers were furloughed. On Wednesday, Idaho officials announced that they were able to get more boots on the ground to help with the search.
Air Force Reserve furloughed 300 workers at the 934th Airlift Wing. “How do you feed your family? How do you house your family? It’s ridiculous right now,” said one of those furloughed workers.
The Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge center closed its sites and locked its gates.
The Columbia Environmental Research Center — a U.S. Geological Survey research facility — was closed.
In mid-Missouri, people were no longer allowed to apply in person for a replacement Social Security card or a replacement Medicare card.
Montana:
The Bozeman Fish Technology Center, the Bozeman Fish Health Center, the Creston National Fish Hatchery, the hatchery in Ennis and the Montana Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office in Billings all closed.
Glacier and Yellowstone national parks were closed to visitors. Those already at the parks were told to leave by Thursday.
Nebraska:
The commodity supplemental food program was shut down and food is not being distributed.
Roughly 3,600 people were furloughed at the Navy shipyard in Norfolk.
Washington:
A trip to Washington, D.C., that eighth graders from Washington state had spent more than a year raising money for became a “huge disappointment” due to closures.
West Virginia:
1150 national guard employees were furloughed. “I mean we’ve got folks that aren’t going to get paid. They are going home. And some of them have just come back from war,” said Major General James Hoyer, state adjutant general.
Wisconsin:
The state’s Hunger Task Force said it would lose out on 217,000 pounds of food it receives every two weeks from the federal government if the shutdown lasts into mid-October.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) accused President Barack Obama of being a driving force of “racial tension and violence” in the nation during an interview this week, arguing that his administration was the worst since the 1960s on the issue.
But Gohmert saw a silver lining in the Department of Justice release announcing the change, saying that Holder had finally admitted that “violence is down,” even though the administration has attempted to push further anti-violence measures. The outspoken Republican went on to directly blame Obama for what he saw as growing racial division:
“I tell you what though, in that release there was a great statement that I’m glad somebody in this administration finally admitted because they’re constantly screaming about all the hate violence and all of this kind of stuff,” Gohmert said. “Of course we know that this president, this administration has done more to stir up racial tension and violence than any administration since, you know, the sixties. I thought that we were going to have a post-racial president and he’s become the president of division, of envy, of jealousy.”
The 1960s were monumental for civil rights progress. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy forced segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace to comply with federal court orders and allow two African-American students to register for courses at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It was the second time in two years he’d faced down a southern governor, forcing them to desegregate a public institution. Hours after the Alabama incident, Kennedy addressed a national audience and outlined his a federal blueprint to ensure further integration.
President Lyndon B. Johnson picked up Kennedy’s civil rights mantle in the middle part of the 1960s, successfully ushering through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. He built upon his record a year later, overseeing the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
While both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations made clear federal strides on civil rights, the decade was also stricken with racial tension and violence as many parts of the nation were forced to meet their racist tendencies head-on.
Gohmert’s remarks on race also echo those made by a number of conservative Obama opponents, particularly in the wake of the president’s decision to inject himself into the debate over Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen slain by George Zimmerman last year. Obama weighed in on the issue again following Zimmerman’s acquittal, sparking sharp reaction from predominantly white conservatives who argued that racism was over in the nation, and that Obama was only making things worse by discussing racial bias.
Not sure why some clown in Tennessee would be coming after a Congressman from Virginia – but this seems a bit like the nuts attacking the fruit in a fruitcake…
The FBI says a Tennessee man has been charged with threatening the family of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Agents arrested 62-year-old Glendon Swift of Lenoir City on Wednesday.
He is accused of leaving two voicemail messages at Cantor’s office in suburban Richmond on the evening of Oct. 27. In the profanity-laced messages, the caller calls Cantor “Jew boy.” He also says he is going to destroy Cantor, rape his daughter and kill his wife.
Swift made a preliminary appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley Jr. in Knoxville on Thursday.
Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon said the Republican congressman had no comment on the threats.
Yes there are black folks in the Occupy Movement – including Occupy Wall Street, despite the disparagement by conservatives that the movement is made up of privileged white kids. This video alone has more black folks than the entire Glenn Beck Tea Bagger rally on the mall last year on MLK’s Birthday.
The FBI interviewed a bank manager who said Huff told him on April 15 that Fitzpatrick had been falsely arrested, that Huff was in the Georgia militia, and that 8 or 9 other militia groups were headed to Madisonville on April 20 to “take over the city.” The bank manager said Huff told him he’d see Huff’s actions on the noon news.
FBI agents interviewed Huff at his home on April 19, and Huff said he would be traveling to Tennessee to help Fitzpatrick get the charges against him dropped. Huff told agents there would be no violence unless they were provoked into violence.
Still, he told agents he planned to travel with his Colt .45 handgun and AK-47 rifle. The FBI monitored Huff and observed him leaving his house around 6:15 am on April 20. The Tennessee Highway Patrol pulled him over for various traffic and registration violations.
The troopers said Huff volunteered that he planned to travel to Madisonville to take over the courthouse, to arrest the people on Fitzpatrick’s warrants–who he termed “domestic enemies of the United States engaged in treason”–and to turn those arrested over to state police to place in jail.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Prosecutors described a frightening standoff at a Tennessee courthouse between law enforcement and an armed man who vowed to take it over in his quest to oust President Barack Obama. The man’s attorney said he was just a “loudmouth” expressing his political opinions.
The defense didn’t work for Darren Wesley Huff, who was convicted Tuesday on a federal firearms charge that could send him to prison for up to five years.
Huff, 41, was armed with a Colt .45 and an assault rifle on April 20, 2010, when he and about 15 others, some also armed, arrived in Madisonville, a small town about halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Read the rest of this entry »
Had a friend send me this article by former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren under the subject line, “Informative reading for tonight’s Republican showcase.” I’m probably late in seeing it, but Lofgren’s piece raises fascinating and terrifying questions about the future of our political system and the increasing possibility that we are headed toward something like a civil war, or a constitutional crisis.
Lofgren, in describing the reasons for his defection from the Republican party, describes a Republican camp that increasingly acts not like a traditional peacetime political organization, but more like an apocalyptic cult or one of the authoritarian movements from early 20th century European history.
In particular, the insane decision to turn the once-routine procedure of raising the debt ceiling (Lofgren notes it was done 87 times since WWII) into a political crisis revealed that the GOP party mainstream had sunk to the level of terrorism – holding our economic system hostage in exchange for political concessions. Read the rest of this entry »
This one should cause no end of conservative whining. An outfit called Stavingeyes Advergaming has come up with a “battle the zombies” game where the Zombies (gasp!) are Faux News commentators and Tea Baggers.
The Game, “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” is free, and I am sure will be on the “guilty pleasures” list of many progressives and moderates who have had it up to their eyes with the ever squalling right wing. I am sure this will get 24 x 7 coverage on Faux as conservatives complain that the game is encouraging violence against their ilk. The hole in that argument is that the last dozen or so times in the last 25 years any nutcase has actually tried to harm an elected official, news commentator, or public figure (remember the Anthrax Terrorist Attacks and Gabby Giffords) the targets have been real live “Liberals”, and the attackers have been folks steeped in the violent right wing mythology promoted by Faux and their right wingdizzie bretheren.
Seems Progressives, unlike their right wing counterparts – know the difference between political fantasy, and real life.
If tea party opponents are really aiming for political civility, the latest online video game from Brooklyn-based StarvingEyes Advergaming won’t do much to further their cause.
Although it isn’t exactly James Hoffa saying “Let’s take these son of a bitches out,” a new video game called “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” has surfaced on the Internet.
The objective of the game is to destroy zombies made in the likenesses of conservative figures including Bill O’Reilly, Brit Hume, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, the Koch brothers and Glenn Beck.
The game also offers players an opportunity to shoot up the headquarters of Fox News, and of the right-wing “Americans for Prosperity” organization.
Americans for Prosperity spokeswoman Jennifer Ridgely declined to comment on the game and StarvingEyes Advergaming did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller’s request for comment.
In 1987 the stock market took it’s worst hit in over 50 years. That day has become to be known as “Black Monday”.
Well – with the 635 point hit the Stock Market took today, following a 500 pint hit last Thursday, I think we call this was Black Tea Monday – in honor of the folks responsible for it – the Tea Baggers in Congress.
If you don’t have a recall election scheduled in your district, and are represented by one of the Tea Baggers…
I suggest you start a petition, or a more immediate group effort with something like tar, feathers… and a rail.
The Dow Jones plummeted under 11,000 today, dropping 635 points as the United States’ downgraded credit rating punished the markets. The drubbing took the Dow down 5.55% to 10,810, reports MarketWatch. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 bled more, shedding 6.90% and 6.66% respectively.
“The initial reaction with most things problematic in the market is to sell and ask questions later,” one investment banker told the Wall Street Journal this morning. The turmoil sent investors scrambling to an ironic place for safety: US Treasuries, which saw big gains despite the downgrade. T-note yields hit their lowest level since January 2009. Gold also soared, closing at more than $1,713 an ounce.
This is why I have little respect for the Congressional Black Caucus. With 42 members in the US House, the CBC can pretty much do to Republicans what Republicans did to Democrats between 2008 and 2010…
Stop damn near everything in the House, unless they got Bill Riders or legislation voted on they care about.
Sooooo… WTF aren’t they being proactive about derailing Jim Crow Voter ID? Why don’t you pass a Bill that every state that enacts a Voter ID requirement must meet Federal Civil Rights review by the Justice Department before receiving any federal funds?
Close down Military Bases, and federal facilities in any state with Voter ID laws. Now those are pretty extreme – but I think you get my drift.
Fillibuster and shut down the next “Symbolic Vote” by the tea Baggers in Congress.
If I were head of the CBC, you wouldn’t be able to pass water in Congress without a bill doing something about black unemployment.
Seems to me these guys could be doing a lot more than just speechifying and playing the victim card.
Washington – Black Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta is joining several other Democrats arguing that the rise of voter–identification laws across many states is a coordinated attempt by Republicans to suppress minority and elderly votes.
Lewis, a civil-rights activist in the 1960s said, “We must fight back. We must speak up and speak out. We must never, ever go back. We will not stand idly by while millions of Americans are denied their right to participate in the democratic process.”
Lewis spoke along with other Democrats and warned that the state laws must be rejected.
“These new policies are a clear attempt to prevent certain pre-determined segments of the population from exercising their right to vote,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge. “To be frank, Mr. Speaker, these efforts have an all-too familiar stench of the Jim Crow era.”
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said the voter-ID laws are a Republican response to President Obama’s election.
“Is this a serious voter problem? No,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is a cynical and malicious Republican attempt to suppress minority and elderly voters who turned out in historical numbers for the ’08 elections.”
Others said the laws are akin to a poll tax, something used more than 100 years ago in an effort to discourage minority voters. The lawmakers said the requirement of an official government identification is a cost that many cannot afford, and which interferes with their right to vote.
Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) argued the laws are an “organized effort to turn back the clocks back to the period prior to the 1965 voting rights act.”
Think it is time for another “Yellowback Donkey Award”!
While the SPLC doesn’t regard the Tea Party Movement as a hate group – I think that is an exercise in semantics. Some pretty fine hair splitting, indeed.
The number of radical right groups in America — including hate groups, “Patriot” groups and nativist groups — increased in 2010 for the second year in a row, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The organization’s quarterly publication, Intelligence Report, said the growth was “driven by resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the government’s handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities.”
The SPLC documented 1,002 hate groups operating in the United States in 2010, a 7.5% increase from the year before. It was the first time that more than 1,000 hate groups were recorded since the organization started tracking them in the 1980s.
But the biggest growth was in so-called “Patriot” groups, which the organization described as conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy. There were 300 new groups like this, an increase of more than 60% from the year before, the report said. A lot of the growth in the Patriot groups came from an increase in the number of militias recorded.
There was also a smaller increase in the number of anti-immigrant vigilante groups, SPLC reported.
“We were expecting to see the winds out of their sails because of the mainstreaming (of some of the radical right’s ideas), but that hasn’t been the case,” said Mark Potok, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project.
He cited developments in the past year such as the passing in Arizona of a restrictive immigration law as an example of extremist ideas being folded into the mainstream.
Politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement have also co-opted some of the extremist groups’ agenda, ranging from attacking birthright citizenship to requiring special permission for federal agents to carry out operations without the local sheriff’s consent.
But, Potok pointed out, there is a difference between the Tea Party movement and the Patriot movement described in the report.
The Tea Party is not considered an extremist or hate group, “but there are some strains of extremism” in it, he said.
We Know What to Do With Labor Unions and Illegals! (some current Arizona Border Vigilantes)
On the organization’s website, there is a new map that includes a list of all the hate groups and extremist organizations operating in each state. The rise of the Patriot groups is especially notable because this is the subset of radical right groups most associated with violence.
“The real large criminal plots have come more from Patriot groups than the hate groups,” Potok said.
As an example, he noted a man with a long history of anti-government activities who was arrested in January in a car filled with explosives outisde a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan.
There was also a case of a neo-Nazi who was arrested in January as he headed for the Arizona border with a dozen homemade grenades, and another case where police discovered a plot to bomb a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Washington, he said.
It has taken a while, but there has been a dramatic change of public opinion about the Tea Party, and it’s sugar daddies – not the least driven by folks experiencing exactly what having these folks in power means.
After successfully buying a movement, and election, and even judges, the Koch brothers juggernaut hit a brick wall. That brick wall is when average Americans actually had to face, and pay for the bigotry and insane policies of the Republican Party.
CPAC...Dancing With Morons and Bigots
The counter-revolution is underway.
Faux News and Tea Bagger favorite pundits are falling in terms of public opinion faster than rocks…
Sarah Palin’s tailspin is also pronounced. It can be seen in polls, certainly: the ABC News-Washington Post survey found that 30 percent of Americans approved of her response to the Tucson massacre and 46 percent did not. (Obama’s numbers in the same poll were 78 percent favorable, 12 percent negative.) But equally telling was the fate of a Palin speech scheduled for May at a so-called Patriots & Warriors Gala in Glendale, Colo.
Tickets to see Palin, announced at $185 on Jan. 16, eight days after Tucson, were slashed to half-price in early February. Then the speech was canceled altogether, with the organizers blaming “safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback.” But when The Denver Post sought out the Glendale police chief, he reported there had been no threats or other causes for alarm. The real “negative feedback” may have been anemic ticket sales, particularly if they were to cover Palin’s standard $100,000 fee.
What may at long last be dawning on some Republican grandees is that a provocateur who puts her political adversaries in the cross hairs and then instructs her acolytes to “RELOAD” frightens most voters. Read the rest of this entry »
Corruption in the United States has reached epidemic proportions. Whether it is Republican Judges in Pennsylvania taking kickbacks to lock up kids in private prisons on minor offenses, or corrupt Supreme Court Judges like Scalia and Thomas taking money, and getting their marching orders from the Koch brothers…
Wisconsin Protesters in State Capital
Seems the Koch brothers buying spree didn’t end with judges and the usual Congressman and Senators…
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rightsfor public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth toundermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries’ political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers’ largess is Scott Walker. Read the rest of this entry »
One brutal dictator or repressive government after another, in perhaps the largest series of mass demonstrations th world has ever seen – people are taking to the streets for political freedom, and economic rights…
In Tunisia and Cairo, the world was riveted as everyday citizens braved sometimes brutal violence by their repressive governments to suppress their will… And overthrew dictators.
The FBI says a Tennessee man has been charged with threatening the family of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Lewis, a civil-rights activist in the 1960s said, “We must fight back. We must speak up and speak out. We must never, ever go back. We will not stand idly by while millions of Americans are denied their right to participate in the democratic process.”
The number of radical right groups in America — including hate groups, “Patriot” groups and nativist groups — increased in 2010 for the second year in a row, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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