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An Absence of Class
A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson's disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: "If you're looking for a handout, you're in the wrong end of town."
Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another, and said contemptuously, "I'll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot."
In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.
At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can't have this: We can't allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress - epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.
It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
Glenn Beck of Fox News has called President Obama a "racist" and asserted that he "has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has said of Mr. Obama's economic policies: "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff."
The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.
The toxic clouds that are the inevitable result of the fear and the bitter conflicts so relentlessly stoked by the Republican Party - think blacks against whites, gays versus straights, and a whole range of folks against immigrants - tend to obscure the tremendous damage that the party's policies have inflicted on the country. If people are arguing over immigrants or abortion or whether gays should be allowed to marry, they're not calling the G.O.P. to account for (to take just one example) the horribly destructive policy of cutting taxes while the nation was fighting two wars.
If you're all fired up about Republican-inspired tales of Democrats planning to send grandma to some death chamber, you'll never get to the G.O.P.'s war against the right of ordinary workers to organize and negotiate in their own best interests - a war that has diminished living standards for working people for decades.
With a freer hand, the Republicans would have done more damage. George W. Bush tried to undermine Social Security. John McCain was willing to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and thought Phil Gramm would have made a crackerjack Treasury secretary. (For those who may not remember, Mr. Gramm was a deregulation zealot who told us during the presidential campaign that we were suffering from a "mental recession.")
A party that promotes ignorance ("Just say no to global warming") and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country. Back in the 1960s, John Lewis risked his life and endured savage beatings to secure fundamental rights for black Americans while right-wing Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were lining up with segregationist Democrats to oppose landmark civil rights legislation.
Since then, the right-wingers have taken over the G.O.P. and Mr. Lewis, now a congressman, must still endure the garbage they have wrought.
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76 Comments so far
Show AllThe right wingers are scary. They are morphing into a mix of paranoid red-baiting commie bashers and old south bigots -- and they're an RCH away from turning into a lynch mob.
Speaking of scary, I came across this link today. Is this protected speech?
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=8&f=35&t=402562
Now, THAT'S scary. And if anyone just brushes it off as a few loose screws, they are mistaken. I have seen too much of these kinds of ravings on the TeeVee machine--vile, vitriolic, screaming, red-faced white people who advocate violence as a means to run the country. There has been a coordinated effort to rain down violence and hatred on any and all who supported the signing of this bill, even to the encouragement of threatening assassination of the children of any Democrats who voted for the bill. I fear for my country now more than ever...people are acting as if the years of fighting for civil rights and equality and a fair society are all just a dim memory. I'm afraid the worst is yet to come--intimidation and hatred seem to be the new order of the day in America. Oh, and yes...I'm afraid that does fall under the area of free speech....although I wonder why. I thought shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theatre was against the law, but these days it seems anyone can say or do any damn thing they please and get away with it. Accountability seems to be a dim memory, as well.
And, when confronted with facts such as these, they invariably blame Clinton, who only finished what Reagan started by enacting NAFTA and the WTO. The problem is, the shouters just don't understand they've been played for the saps they are. I can't be the only one who gets viral emails which can be refuted by visiting any number of debunking websites. Keep the saps distracted, fighting amongst themselves, and just about anything can be accomplished against them.
The model I see is a descent to something resembling a big Colombia - but with no FARC-EP to fight back against these filthy thugs while they drag passive-pacifict liberals out to be shot.
We could seriously sprain our index fingers wagging them at all the folks out there who aren't respectful. There will be more disrespect too as more unravelling comes from peak oil, climate change and economic meltdown. Better to imagine quite new possibilities for ourselves and our communities. It's possible, but takes courage to see and work with them.
http://www.radicalrelocalization.com
For a moment, the thought entered my mind that Herbert was going to be talking about an absence of class analysis (i.e Marxian) in the healthcare bill.
Stupid me.
The Republicans didn't even vote for the bill. Although their action is reprehensible, their actions are a distraction. The article should be about those who crossed the American people, the Democrats.
Well said and absolutely correct!
Using William O. Paxton's history of the development of fascism in various countries in the 20th century, Sara Robinson has written a couple of articles on America's highly possible slide into fascism.
It starts (stage 1) with folks like the UnaBomber, Timothy McVeigh and the abortion-doctor murders who have grievances, who seek scapegoats to blame and to hate, and who are capable of violence.
We are now on the cusp between Paxton's stages 2 and 3 (although we're looking more like 3 every day), by which time a conservative elite uses the same hate-filled language and spouts the same propaganda as that used only by the stage 1 haters -- among whom are surely some who are themselves capable of violence.
The conservative elite? Many Republican members of Congress and occupying state legislatures around the country, rich right-wing supporters of hate-filled causes, right-wing talk shows and other media, pro-war/pro market fundamentalist corporate interests with profits to protect.
I've noticed only this year that liberals are challenging the crud these folks spread so prolifically every day. Thank goodness.
Herbert continues to push the meme that Repugs are bad and Dems are good. Look at his examples. "The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy.".. As though Clinton's fingerprints weren't all over that train-wreck. NAFTA and the "economic modernization bill" were his pet projects and, under him, the CEO/median-worker ratio went from about 85-1 to over 400-1. He and his evil side-kick Rubin were sharpening their knives for Social Security "reform" (always fear the word "reform") when clueless Newt Gingrich blundered in with his Monica Lewinsky drama (thus sinking his own political career, as the bankers realized the oaf couldn't see the big picture). "As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich." The Obama current proposal? Tax cuts! For small businesses to hire... exactly what small bus. wants to do since their customer base is unemployed and has no $ to spend! We need 15 million jobs to get back to where we were 8 years ago and it isn't the Repugs who're throwing TRILLIONS to Wall St., it's the Dems. The country is a rudderless riverboat drifting towards a waterfall and all writers like Herbert do is encourage us to run from one side of the doomed craft to the other. It's what they get paid for.
" The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere ". Well what do you expect when most of this poison is spread by the three stooges Glenn, Bill, and Sean at Foxy News! And the #1 ditto head Rush.
Though we can agree about the actions of that fringe element in Washington that you mention Bob, if you wanted to see real "fear, ignorance and divisiveness" being practiced,if you wanted to view "foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior" all you had to do was step indoors and watch Congress in action.
When you say "A party that promotes ignorance" or "provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country" you must be talking about the democratic party.
The tremendous damage that the democratic party is doing won't be obscured Bob, you can count on that.
The process of passing "Obamacare" Bob is as politically toxic as the bill itself.
I have some vile epithets I'd like to scream at members of Congress myself, though I won't foam at the mouth.
Deflection is not going to work on this Bob. If you want to see a real lack of class, look to this Congress and this President. The epitome of a lack of class would be Nancy Pelosi.
Who flagged Veritas's comment? I thought that it was completely truthful and rational.
Lex Thomas
Very kind, thanks!
No problemo. Glad I could help. I have defended great progressives who would face persecution from others even if I disagreed with them. I had no problem doing that on Alternet but on Huffington Post and Daily Kos I was labeled "Lex Luthor" and I was finally banned and all my posts gone. This site is pretty cool even if I am quasi-green quasi-libertarian.
We have a WIDE range of folks here and generally cool ones too.
For years I lived in a big apartment building.
Periodically, we were subjected to clusters of false alarms-- either by neighborhood delinquent pranksters slipping into the building, or inadequately supervised special-needs tenants mainstreamed into units rented by a local social-service agency.
There's been a recent rash of either random or wholly unjustified flaggings here. It feels exactly the same as those false alarms, even though the ensuing commotion isn't as onerous.
I can understand why the flagging option needs to be anonymous, but it MIGHT help if the REASON for banning is displayed-- it's possible that a vicious, cowardly, and/or inarticulate flagger might be deterred by the thought of publicly justifying itself.
I don't much care for either the "flagging" or "banning" options, but I can only hope that bad-faith flaggers are deprived of further access.
Someone recently said, and it might have been you, that being flagged by a "drive by" flagger was a compliment and I took your or whoevers comment to heart.
There have indeed been some puzzling flaggings here lately. People that usually disagree with me normally just step up and say..."you idiot" have you lost your mind?
So I figured whoever flagged me identified themselves for what they are.
Thanks for your input!
Veritas: Someone told me the same thing -- being flagged, or having a post removed, can be counted as a badge of honor. One Sunday, two or three months ago, I had two or three posts removed. In addition, on that particular Sunday, several other writers had their posts removed, too. I have no idea if my posts were ever flagged, but they were removed! One of the posts was reposted, but I see no point in all of the flaggings, either -- as outlined by Obedient Servant. I also agree that the reason for the flagging should be published on the article/site.
Thanks Kay! Very kind.
Is "Beck" around? If you jump anything the DLC supports, this person objects vehmently.
If you are referring to that one from Alternet, let her try. She doesn't even show up on Alternet. I'm surprised she ever shows up here. Did I miss something?
I miss JenniferB and maxpayne on Alternet and I hate the new format of that site. Glad to see you again. I hope I don't have to vote for the Constitution Party again even if it's just to call this health sham bill unconstitutional.
Edit: Nevermind, I looked through the archives and I saw "Beck" and her obnoxious posts.
I don't know who flagged me, but thanks for the compliment!
As far as I'm concerned, class is missing on both sides of the aisle -- Democrats as well as Republicans. Who in their right mind could ever say that Bill Clinton was a class act? Or, Madeline Albright, especially after the May 12, 1996 interview with Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes? And, how about Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, whose January 2010 statement supported the idea that Hurricane Katrina was a good thing? Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton stood in front of a group of "have mores" at a St. Louis fundraiser and said that if Gandhi were alive today, he would be working in a gas station. Were Hillary Clinton's words classy?
I guess it depends upon which meaning of class you might be referring!
Real class, by either party, would mean that all of us, each and every human being, are treated with the dignity we deserve. Real class would mean stopping the wars, enacting REAL universal health care reform, making sure that everyone has a place to live, clean drinking water, etc. The list is long if you want to claim excellence as a qualifier in judging a group of people, understood to be classy.
"For a moment, the thought entered my mind that Herbert was going to be talking about an absence of class analysis (i.e Marxian) in the healthcare bill." -- pjd412
For a moment, I had the same thought!
Indeed, Kay-- "class" has left the building-- at least the marbled sepulchres that house the institutions of Amerikan government.
It's easy to detect and despise ignorant, brutal, barbaric yahoo low-lives, the dramatis personae of "Deliverance" and Faulkner novels. Even those of us who believe in conviviality, tolerance, and charity can't help but sneer or even shake a fist at muddled Tea Party Beckistas and acolytes of self-righteous sociopaths like Fred Phelps-- or Bart Stupak.
But I again hearken to a scathing couplet from the compelling, mythic Bob Dylan/Jacques Levy song "Hurricane":
"♪ Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise... ♪"
It comes to mind when one watches a grinning Obama sign the abominable No Insurer Left Behind scam into almost-law, and add a few more rhetorical flourishes of perjury and prevarication in the bargain. The very BAD bargain.
Now, THAT's déclassé-- and damned Ugly, to boot!
You reminded me:
Amerika V. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do) -- Steve Earle
Look around
There's doctors down on Wall Street
Sharpenin' their scalpels and tryin' to cut a deal
Meanwhile, back at the hospital
We got accountants playin' God and countin' out the pills
Yeah, I know, that sucks – that your HMO
Ain't doin' what you thought it would do
But everybody's gotta die sometime and we can't save everybody
It's the best that we can do
And, you are correct: "THAT's déclassé-- and damned Ugly, to boot!" -- Obedient Servant
Obedient Servant, nice comments from both you and Kay Johnson. My compliments to you both.
The higher one rises in the modern US political system, the greater the extent to which the political process weeds out the good.
It occurs to me that if anti-war or single-payer protester spat at a congressman, the police would have immediately hauled him away. Is the lynch mob mentality of the extreme right actually tolerated?
hamster: I took the following from an article written by Alan Fram for the Associated Press:
"Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Cleaver's office said he would decline to press charges, but Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: 'We did not make any arrests today.'"
According to Talking Points Memo, the person who spat at Cleaver was arrested, but Cleaver was NOT going to press charges.
Evidently, according to most reports, the "N" word was tossed about with abandon, and directed at John Lewis, among others.
I agree -- if a peace activist or single-payer advocate would have spat at a congressman, he or she would have been arrested immediately. But then, peace activists and single-payer advocates are arrested simply for being. They don't have to do anything other than have an idea, or hold a sign.
And why this assymetrical treatment? The answer should be obvious. Right wing extremists, even when they are running death squads, are not threatening the power of the propertied class. But leftists, no matter how peaceful and passive, are threatening their "freedom" to assert their class-perogatives.
The cops, starting early in their training, understand who they serve down to their marrow, even when they are not conscious of it, and most of these pigs are too stupid to be conscious of it.
Thus, vile thugs who are the very difinition of "disorderly conduct" get a pass, while on the same day, 20 peaceful anti-war protestors were arrested simply standing on a sidewalk that was fully open to tourists and everyone else.
Kay Johnson
Now Cleaver is showing what real class is. You don't dignify trash like that with the compliment of filing a charge.
Congressman Clever has seen the real thing in his day, not ersatz trash like this wannabe KKK.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Ersatz trash? Trash is trash. The trash who spat at Cleaver deserved to be charged with what you or I would have been charged with: Assault. The reason Cleaver chose not to prosecute is probably so the right-wing media would not make a cause celebre' out of the situation and use it to encourage more such behavior on a grander scale. They've been feeding that beast since Obama won the primaries.
I still contend that the POS that spit at him is not as good as trash. Ersatz as in not good enough to be trash.
I think Clever just has real class.
This matter boils down to an important point in the Left-Right struggle for America's soul.
If a backer of the Left had spit on a backer of the Right, the Right would've milked the martyrdom for all it was worth because the Right is running on a cynical, Machiavellian ethos. Same deal if this individual had been charged with assault. They'd use it to gain power.
In this case, a backer of the Right spat on a backer of the Left, and 'we' rolled over because 'we' simply have more dignity. The Right uses our decency against us at every conceivable turn, a tactic their own Ayn Rand railed against. Being, essentially, evil, gives them more power. This is a worry. Who's in charge here? Stooping to their level wouldn't exactly serve us.
Metal, Dude, you're absolutely spot-on about your Summit. So if you can start organizing a Liberal _ not 'Progressive,' but out-and-proud Liberal Summit, say June 25, 2011 _ it's Saturday _ pick your place, Washington, Seattle, Eugene, New Orleans _ and get Common Dreams or someone to send you as a member of their delegation, I'll help sponsor you.
It occurs to me that if anti-war or single-payer protester spat at a congressman, the police would have immediately hauled him away. Is the lynch mob mentality of the extreme right actually tolerated?
without having to defend Democrats as PERHAPS the "side" of parties in the USA that tends to attract what can be described as LESS "rabid" people - despite the democrat party's own mismanagements - it seems true (at least from this observer) - that
the most rabidly cruel characteristics ARE attracted TO the GOP ..and this is whether it gives BIRTH to them or simply nurtures them.
in that sense - Herbert IS correct.
pointing out the mistakes of the democrats (kowtowing to or conniving or compromising with the GOP and being one side of the same corporatocratic party) -
is , imo, a DISTINCT issue from what the GOP INDEED displays so consistently as Herbert describes it.
these two things should not be confused with each other:
Democrats as being as guilty as GOP in being a "war party" , corporatist, etc...
GOP as a party that DOES attract the WORST characteristics in americans and people and actually displays them with great rabidity - that eventually DOES affect where the country -- and by some measure - where the democrats GO.
but all in all -- on the question of why these things are "tolerated" in the USA -
I think the real answer is quite simple:
Democrat or GOP -- the USA IS a RIGHT WING country ....that has ALWAYS been PRONE to such things that the GOP displays so well.
it was only a matter of time and triggering it.
the Democrats as a party, imo, tend to attract the LESS rabid ones, or those that have any hope that their "america" might be guided to a more tolerant way and , indeed, what they perceive or understand as a more "democratic way" - according to how they are LED by their own party representatives who themselves ,because of their expected affiliations with their supporters have to behave and promote "values" that are - to put it diplomatically, less "rabid" than those of the GOP. thus -- their known Compromising way..that ultimately drags their entire party and supporters down the road that the GOP takes and has NO intention of abandoning or even making compromises with.
the GOP on the ohter hand - make no bones about how RABID they ARE - and INTEND to be...and attract similar forces.
but BOTH taken together - they are AMERICA as a RIGHT WING, CONSERVATIVE party....whose perceived or stated distinctions between its "wings" are either very small or insignificant enough that it can NOT be called anything NEAR a "progressive" or a left-wing, or socialist , or - democratic society - at all.
instead - it is really a CULTURE, if that is what it might be called - of "all stripes" whose dominant and defining characteristic is of "ME , MINE, PRIVATE PROPERTY" obsession...and FAR from
"common wealth"....despite the constant talk about "WE the people" .
in that sense - it is a RIGHT WING nation.
this is the bottom line, i think...
the USA - AMERICA - IS A RIGHT WING tending country. always has been.
i have always thought of it that way, actually.
Good points. Except, if the Democrats really wanted to stifle this shit they could. They could hammer away at it and call out Republicans and the Fox freaks to stop fanning the flames.
When Republicans get onto something they don't like, they won't let it go till they get their asses kissed. Like forcing legislation to defund ACORN, (which is now broke and going under) another great defense of the people by our Black Democratic president and our Dem majority, eh? Or forcing the Senate to condem MoveOn for their Betrayus ad a few years back.
But the Democrats choose not say much at all because they want a divided nation.
They're working for the same corporate people as Republicans which in their own twisted way, some of the Teabaggers are defending.
What Dems don't realize there is some serious vitriol right now.
Excellent points in putting things in greater perspective. Thanks! in Additional light of which, as others have also mentioned -- there just seems to be NO getting away from the fact , or for all intents and purposes, the seeming reality that the major parties in the USA , Congress, the presidency..just about every institution,,,even the so-called justice system ...the processes that are skewered towards the "ruling class"..the divisiveness, the confused among the populace or even the national intellectual and moral inertia , the culture of "denial" ........
are now so THOROUGHLY corrupt.
just today -- i had some discussions with some folks - at their instigation really about the "health care" ..etc...
and when I presented them with what any honest reading of history and the real "dark nature" behind the facade of american "democracy" ..such as the imperialism done in americans' name...the history , the remarks even by the "forefathers" of "exterminating" native indians. what was done to weaker countries and the destruction of their economies and cultures...things about general smedley butler, etc...
all some of them could say was:
"oh....don't say THAT -- this is a GREAT country...it's the best country in the world"........
if THAT doesn't tell you about why Ludwig von Mises thought very little of "american intelligence".....or perhaps more correctly - american "conscience" and ability and willingness to ADMIT truth especially when it is inconvenient to one's erstwhile presumptions about "great america" ..........
i don't know what else would.
Heh. Yeah. Funny how that works, isn't it?
It's like the cops have orders not to touch them, no matter what.
I suppose the cops would be forced to make an arrest if one of the Baggers murders someone, but who knows in this country lately.
Everything's staged, rigged, or covered up.
RichM
Great comment as usual!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Good point, but Herbert is allowed to focus on the intrinsic nature of the GOP in his article if he wants to. I dislike both Parties intensely, but sometimes it seems too many of the posters on CD forget the core contagion of Republican ideology and how it systematically pervaded and co-opted the media and the Democratic Party over time, not the other way around.
You're kidding, right?
The Democrats over the last thirty years, have walked hand in hand with Republicans to get things done for corporate interests.
They're just lying, sneaky, cowards about it.
I agree with nearly all of this post, but think that the comment about the Tea Baggers is insufficient. To say they are obnoxious is equivalent to saying of Genghis Khan, that he was a rather good horseman.
And I would say the same thing about the Republicans in both houses of Congress.
What a massive parade we have here at CD. The socialists, anarchists, communists, belittlists,... the endless trampling and the smell of de feet. Repeat after me, "We vow to be endlessly persistent in our outrage. We promise to avoid a moment's joy until utopia is universal."
Well, like the bumper sticker says:
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Quit disturbing your comfort zone by reading of other people's suffering and go back to sleep like a good little lamb from the Amurkan sheeple herd.
Anne and metal, one thing (of many) which disturbs me is the lack of a little joy in too many of the CD posters. Amidst our corporatocracy there are often little victories which many refuse to celebrate. Without a little joy I see future burnout or worse.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I believe you. What are some of your favorite examples so that you can cheer us up? We all need to be cheered up from time to time.