I've talked to people who openly admit to murder and were never tried or convicted.  They all thought that their victims "deserved it".  There is a subculture of self-righteous violence in this nation that manifests itself in many forms, from bar fights and crimes of passion to lynchings and bombings.  It persists because we condone its portrayal in popular culture and dismiss reports of actual occurrences as hyperbole or excuse them as "blowing off steam" or that "something snapped".  We will not be a civilized country until these dysfunctional, destructive notions are exposed, discredited and extirpated.  Tuesday, I tried to expose a popular artist whose work condones and clearly encourages mob violence.  My message was muddled in a tapestry of extraneous details.  The commentary was good, but just as diffused as my narrative.  It's time to focus.

By now we've all heard the reasons Democrats have lost elections for the past four decades.  Frames.  Memes.  Defined by opponents.  Attack ads.  Political capitulations.  Weak on defense.  And crime.  And the voters are stupid.  Oh, and the media are biased.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that all of the above are the politics of mass distraction.  The real reason Democrats lost elections for the past four decades?  Just three:

Racism.  Sexism.  Organization.

Please join me over the fold....

I steer clear of cable news, much the way I try to avoid toxic fumes or rabid dogs.  But Jon Stewart's recent anthology of clips featuring the idio-punditocracy's use of "card" to describe every tactic by either campaign – culminating, of course, with McCain's playing of the "race card," helped me realize something.

The "race card" has virtually nothing to do with defining Obama and everything to do with McCain defining himself.

I have not supported a Republican candidate since John Lindsay ran for Mayor of New York. By support I don't only mean vote or campaign for, I mean even have a modicum of regard for. And I am not referring only to candidates for whom I was eligible to vote, I am referring to all Republican politicians of whom I am or was aware for at least the last thirty years, with the possible exception of a few tortured souls who are still Republicans only out of a foolish sense of loyalty to a party that has long since abandoned the principles for which they originally joined it. My real problem with Republican politicians of the last thirty or more years is the way they derive their power and that they do it knowingly. To borrow a recent phrase of McCain's and modify it slightly, they would rather divide a nation than lose an election.  

I did not know until I chanced a look at today's events in history that today's honored event happened on Aug. 6.

But I knew it had happened in the 1960s, and I, as you, have long thought that a farce of liberty.

If you pay taxes and are not in jail, you should be allowed to vote.

Apparently that was a controversial stance in 1965. Apparently a lot of people thought you should be smart by so much, rich by so much, whatever.

And while all tax payers today cannot vote (the 15-year-old whose part-time wages are taxed gets no vote in how those tax dollars are spent), many more could vote on August 6, 1965, than could vote on August 5, 1965.

Today we celebrate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This is a piece is an excerpt from a series I wrote (Losing What We Never Had)for the Black Agenda Report. In light of the recent coverage concerning Barack Obama's stance on the vital issue of affirmative action, I thought that it was important to reintroduce my thoughts and concerns

In an exclusive conversation with anyone who cares to listen, we will be looking at John McCain's controversial connections with Irish extremists.  There are serious questions that John McCain has yet to answer, and since Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly are busy with the Muslims, someone has to raise these serious issues.

The silence of the liberal and conservative media on this subject just tells me that it's too hot for them to handle.  But as a courageous journalist in the spirit of Hannity and O'Reilly, today I will be taking a closer look at McCain's ties to radical Irish extremists.

Welcome to today's edition of the No Spin Zone.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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In an attempt to quell the controversy over McCain's ousting of Stephen Pricethe sole black reporter at a rally in Tallahassee, especially after Keith Olberman's coverage, the McCain campaign apologized to Stephen Price in a phone call. Here's one version:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called Price on Tuesday evening and apologized on behalf of the campaign.

Rogers said "We feel terrible about it," according to Price.

"I accept the apology," Price said. "I definitely wish I was never singled out. I came up there to do a story. That's all I wanted to do is write a story."

Rogers told Price that McCain would call him in the next few days.

John McCain has become so enamored of the surge in Iraq, which he has trademarked and owns exclusive rights to (and which did not lead to the Anbar Awakening), that it is now his answer to everything.  Last week he proposed a surge in our cities to keep the population under control.  He honestly believes that America needs armed government thugs on every corner.  Now he proposes an "Economic Surge."  John McCain says, "We'll fight those pesky market indicators with our own, better equipped market indicators.  We will bring war to every aspect of life in the United States.  We're going to have a Straight Surge to fight the Gays.  We're going to have a Religious Surge to fight every person who believes in the wrong things.  By God, we will definitely have a White Surge to combat the uppity Illinois Senator.  And thanks to Viagra, I will have a surge in my pants too."  (paraphrased)

Much more after the flip

Many of you may be familiar with Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  He's more publicity hound than law enforcement officer, more racist than Tom Tancredo, and he's both loved and hated by the dichotomy that is Arizona.  And he's been racially profiling by pulling over anyone remotely brown, getting his deputies federally deputized so they can enforce controversial immigration laws, and generally acting like an racist bigoted ass.

A few weeks ago, while he was doing a publicity tour in Tucson (way outside of his jurisdiction of Maricopa County) a local immigrants rights groups protest got a little rowdy.

Off with his head after the jump.

After reading Pat Buchanan’s racist rant this morning regarding – of all things – Barack Obama’s supposed racism, I have waited all day to see only one diary even address the issue.  I am outraged and pissed off to no end.  Partly because of what he actually said, but possibly even more because of the lack of righteous outrage.  I’m sick to death of him spewing his vile, angry, racist rants on a respected media outlet.  Why does no one confront him on this bullshit?  Why is he allowed free reign to spew his racist bile on almost practically program on MSNBC, from Sunup to Sundown?

In today’s bullshit hit job, he basically spends an entire column sneering at and condescending to Barack Obama, a man of African heritage who has had the audacity to achieve an unprecedented amount of success in America.  Though the entire tone is one of unabashed racism, there are four main quotes I’d like to point out.

"We’ve got to do better. We’ve given people the license to kill," Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the NAACP
Toledo Blade
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.
.
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And the white cop says:

"There was absolutely, positively no doubt in my mind right then and there that whatever this was is shooting and they’re trying to kill me,"

Problem is, it was a young black mother holding her baby.

After hearing 3½ days of testimony in Allen County Common Pleas Court, the jury of four white men and four white women deliberated a little more than three hours before returning the not-guilty verdicts for misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide and negligent assault.

I just saw Pat Buchanon Pukecannon ranting on Hardball about how it was Obama that dropped the race card because Obama referred to McCain's camp as saying that "he did not look like the other presidents on the dollar bill."

Neither Pat Buchanon PukeCannon nor his fake counterpoint bothered to mention that it was a direct reference to McCain's ad on his website that showed Obama's face on the $100 bill!!

So why does this ignorant, OR bought and paid for, media continue to LIE and say that Obama injected race into the campaign, when it is clearly a documented FACT that it is John McCain's camp that began the RACE BAITING with this ad!!??

LYING! BASTARD! MEDIA. SHILLS!!

Not all Republicans are racists but most racists assuredly consider themselves to be socially conservative.

Many Republicans remain in a state of denial about their party's decades-long practice of race-baiting.

Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes, have all used codes to attract working class whites.  They have called it the Southern Strategy.  We call it the Dog Whistle.

But today as a Black man stands between the Republicans and the White House, the Dog Whistle falls away for the Bull Horn.

Like Mumia has always said, the struggle is about more than just him. Another very important case is the Angola 3, who were recently featured in this article in The Advocate HERE

Also, at the angola3.org website, you can watch an NBC news report, that was also pretty solid for the mainstream media. Interestingly, the widow of the slain prison guard is supportive of a new trial, because she says she doesn't want innocent people to be blamed for his death.

Please stay tuned to my future diaries as I will be spotlighting many other political prisoners.

I’m going to go ahead and spend some time writing my own diary today. I’m a little irritated. Well, a lot! I got a few bones to pick all with the same theme.

I’m going to go ahead and start with the ignorant bitchasses that keep saying...

"You’re just voting for Obama because he is black!"

I will try and respond to this without cursing or getting angry.
Since I’m a factual kinda gal, let’s look at the facts.

Just got an email from a reporter on this story published Saturday, blasting the excuse used by McCain's proxy that his "national" news reporters were separated from the "local" reporters:

I'm a reporter for an international news agency and have covered a fair number of these kinds of events. I can tell you that the traveling, local and international media are always seated together. There is no special seating for one or the other and using that as an expiation does not hold up.

In my last assignment I sat between a local newspaper reporter and a reporter from the Denver Post. Behind me were a photographer from Reuters and a reporter from the AP which were traveling. I am a regional reporter and do not travel. I have NEVER seen the traveling and non-traveling press segregated.

Greg Kearney