Rich Raging

.
Frank Rich opines on the sorry reaction to the smearing of Shirley Sherrod.

Maybe Frank gets together with these guys for tea and crumpets from time to time. But it's long past time to recognize that this situation, this evil, persists because too many in the media, too many in the political elite, treat the Breitbarts and Limbaughs and Drudges as some amusing little theatre.

Yet incidents of violence are on the rise, threats of danger are on the rise. Who will own the tragedy now foreshadowing?

Who will look in the mirror honestly and admit the false equivalencies, the ginning-up, the "it's out there" level of danger growing within? Beck? O'Reilly? Ailes? Murdoch? Armey? McConnell? Bachmann? Angle? Palin? Erickson? The numbers are legion.

The willful blinders shamefully obvious. The enabling media equally so.

The Breitbarts never change. The evil oozes out of them like fetid slime, spreading fear, hate, division. The wonder is that so many, still, whitewash the full depth of what they do.

White sheets...too easy to crawl between 'em and close your eyes.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

FOX = Racist, Misogynistic "News"

.
First [in this latest go-round] there was the "terrorist fist jab" courtesy E.D. Hill now being replaced, according to reports, by Laura Ingraham...what? E.D. wasn't coded enough?

In response to Imus' bringing up the incident with Chris Wallace this morning, Wallace's clipped "well, she apologized" begged the question. WTF is Fox News up to?

Quick on the well-rounded heels of that bit of catapulting Rethug slime tactics was the screen text calling Michelle "Obama's baby mama." An insulting derogatory demeaning term for a successful woman who has lived the American dream of going to the highest levels based on hard work, intelligence, dedication, and strong integrity.

Not a wealth-inheriting fortunate son or daughter riding on the laurels of daddy's power and/or wealth.

Let's be blunt. These attacks on Michelle and Barack Obama and their strong marriage and family are attacks on all our families, on all families who are working daily to make better lives for their children and the larger community that is America.

Which pretty much fits in the pattern of the Rethuglican pro-Fatcat, anti-Family Agenda.

Sure, they tout family values...during election season...but then they go back to business as usual...tearing down families with their personal deeds and their legislative agenda.

These misogynistic tactics may be business as usual for a propaganda network where exploitation of women and pushing the lowest sleaze as "entertainment" tabloids with "news" to create the media equivalent of something I'd use to line the bottom of the cat litter box.

FOX "News" and Roger Ailes ['cause you know this stuff doesn't just pop out of the mouths or keyboards of the hired help] and Rupert Murdoch all owe Barack and Michelle Obama—and all of us—an apology.

A real apology this time. One that's coupled with "we get it." Even if "we get it" means they at long last understand we are not going to take this crap any more.

It is racist. It is misogynistic. It is anti-family. It is anti-American. It is anti-democracy.

Ostensibly

.
Tuned into Hardball tonight for the first time in a long time, because I'd missed seeing live the endorsement of Obama by John Edwards. I expected that would be a reliable source for seeing the replay.

Unfortunately, what I also got was what Hardball has become a master of playing of late. The race card, courtesy the Tweety-Buchanan double-team. And cheap shots, courtesy Andrea Mitchell.

First the race card. They're really pushin' it at Hardball. Kentucky, it's all about Kentucky, because Kentucky is full of all those "you know"s. Evidently there are no hardworking Americans nor white people either in Oregon. One thing this campaign season has proven, it hasn't been just Hillary Clinton getting increasingly brazen and ham-handed about pushing the race card.

And then there's Mitchell, who brings up a fundraising letter sent by Edwards today to his supporters. Only after several minutes elapsed did she say "Ostensibly" it's about raising funds for college students. Caught with your ham-handed fist in your mouth, too, Andrea? One wonders who made the call that got the producer whispering into her ear piece sayin' you better clean up your mess, Mrs. Greenspan.

That's my scenario, and I'm stickin' to it. Here's the Edwards letter. Judge for yourself if it's "ostensibly" about fundraising for college students:

I want to begin by thanking each of you for all of your support and commitment over the last year. It has meant so much to Elizabeth and me. We have been very busy since January working on the causes that got us into the campaign in the first place -- helping to build the One America we all believe in.

You may have heard me talk about one of those programs called College for Everyone -- a scholarship pilot project that Elizabeth and I started a few years ago in Greene County, North Carolina.

The program is based on a simple promise to students: make good grades, work at least 10 hours a week, and stay out of trouble -- and the program will help pay for your first year of college. Since we launched this effort in 2005, the percentage of Greene County high school graduates attending college has increased from 54 percent to 74 percent.

As I write you, 165 high school seniors in Greene County are set to graduate in May and 94% have been accepted into N.C. colleges and universities. Most of these young people are doing just what many of us did -- sitting around the kitchen table with their parents, wondering how they will pay for tuition.

Every parent wants to give their child the opportunity that comes with a college education. But for too many American families, the dream of a college degree is just that -- a dream. Now, I need your help to make the dream of a college education a reality for some hard-working students in rural Greene County.

That's why I need your help today -- with a tax-deductible donation of $10, $25, $50 or $75, whatever you can afford -- to bring us one step closer to our goal of College for Everyone. By contributing now, you will help fulfill the college dreams of deserving students in Greene County and show the world that if we work together on big and important issues, change is possible.

But change can only come with your help. Please contribute now and bring us closer to building One America where every child has the opportunity to go as far as his or her talents and hard work will take them.

Thank you,

John Edwards

P.S. Contributions made by Friday go towards scholarships for the students graduating in May.

The link takes you to Network for Good, not the Edwards campaign.

Shame on Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan and Andrea Mitchell...and Hardball and MSNBC and NBC.

Maybe I could watch to learn if they mend their ways, but why waste the time? Instead, I think I'll go read Evan Thomas' review article in the new Newsweek, "Divide and Conquer"--which tells us about Nixonland, "a stunning new book that argues that Nixon was also the grandfather of today's politics of hate."

And Nixon's philosophical grandchildren are alive and well on Hardball these days.

If It's Tuesday...

.
Another Tuesday, another primary....

Today it's West Virginia, where the vote for Clinton is expected to dwarf that for Obama. Lots of chatter around the edges about Hillary's base, those "hard working Americans." Christy over at firedoglake, herself a native West Virginian, gives a context and texture to the WV primary that the soundbite media doesn't pause to do between their Very Important Punditry and their commercials boosted by the enduring pace of the Democratic primary season.

Enough talk of Obama paying off Hillary's campaign debts. The media should. They were the ones who whipped up and sustained this horserace to the benefit of their own bottom line. Heck, $20 mil would be chump change for Rupert and GE and the Mouse. [We won't include CBS since they may well have their own upstart woman to settle up with sooner rather than later.]

On-the-ground reporting and context has been in short supply in many quarters this campaign season. So much more fun to bloviate amongst yourselves, VIPs. So much easier for getting back to the cocktail wienie Washington salons if you only need to gather in DeeCee teevee studios rather than actually go out and, ewwww, mingle with the locals.

So, although the subject matter is a troubling one—the brushes with racism that Obama's campaign field staff and volunteers have had to deal with from time to time—the Washington Post has done both due diligence and contextual reporting that we should see more of, instead of the cliched crowd shots and rope lines and.... crowd shots and rope lines....

In this year of change, we're seeing the best and worst of what America can be. And as we shift gears from the primary season to the general election, the contrasts between what the Democratic Party and the Republican Party offer the country and all of us could not be more stark.

My first political experience was similar to those I read about in the Post article...suspending college in order to work for Eugene McCarthy's campaign. First working stop: Indiana. And first memory [besides getting lost driving the Chicago interstate system] was the news of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

It's been a long time for the ugly stew of racism to keep on simmering in some hearts, fed by predatory fearmongering preachers of hate and their opportunistic political brethren. Long past time we put the fire out and build a stronger America together.

And then they came for me

.
Here in Prairie Country, we like to flatter ourselves that we're pretty much removed from the kind of race-baiting, code-wording crapola that's re-emerged in this election campaign via voices as disparate as Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton and Lou Dobbs and John Hagee and, well, the list, sadly, goes on...and on...and on...and....

We see it in the subjects the media choose to focus on. The endless Rev. Wright. Hmmmm, just who is actually going to be on the ballot this year? Hillary Clinton, or Bill? Barack Obama or his former pastor? John McCain or George W. Bush? The lines are way too blurry these days.

Maybe in your neighborhood, you, too, have thought, hmmm, it can't happen here.

Until it does. Switch off the news about the gang shootings in Chicago, or the punditizing about the Alabama section of Pennsylvania or the upcoming Appalachian spring back to a previous century, and it's still right here.

Here in the Red River Valley of the North the ugly head of bigotry and hate emerges, too. North Dakota not-so-nice at the University in Grand Forks these days. A Jewish student has lived in fear, subjected to a swastika painted in the stairs at his dorm, a pellet gun shooting at his dorm room door. A school administration too slow to respond, to investigate, to do anything until the glare of publicity forces their hand.

So, hate radio is merely "bombast" and political campaign tactics merely "this ain't beanbag" until each and every one of us must say, enough.

Enough of smear by association. Enough of the politics of fear and hatemongering. Enough of screed and slime in the name of furthering a personal agenda of power or privilege.

Because the more we let ourselves be divided against "them," whoever "them" may be, the weaker we all become.

The collapse, right here in the heartland, of a major bridge across arguably the most important river in America, the Mississippi, is omen of these times. Neglecting the ties that bind us, the power that is "We, the people..." invites collapse and ruin.

Together, we are stronger, we are, yes, our brother's keeper. We are the exemplar of living toward a more perfect union, not division, of states.

Too often, it's easy to forget the lessons of history, or give them short shrift. And then comes an episode that reminds us of one pastor's call*:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The version inscribed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. reads:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.

New England Holocaust Memorial

The version inscribed at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts reads:

They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

* Martin Niemoller's poem, in various forms can be found at Wikipedia.

Wrongs of Spring

.

Still gathering information, but having heard while driving in the tall timber some emerging details about a show by the Saddle and Sirloin Club at North Dakota State University that insults presidential candidate Barack Obama, women, gays, and who knows who else, I want to go on record immediately with the following:

I graduated from this university. I edited its newspaper back in the day. I had encounters back then with racist attitudes, including by a fraternity. It was an issue I thought would have been left in the dark, ignorant history of those Vietnam era times. I guess I was wrong.

As an alumnus and an almost lifelong resident of Fargo, I am ashamed to know that this kind of activity took place, and it goes to show just how much Barack Obama's speech on racism actually speaks to reality. A sorry time for our university.

And asinine arguments that it was their first amendment right to do it are a pathetic apologist effort. There can be no excusing, no rationalizing, no equivocating on the wrongness of this program.

It was wrong. It was offensive. It was stupid. It was willfully ignorant...of the times and of basic human decency. Mockery of people by stereotype is discrimination.

That it occurred under the umbrella of a university, my university, is beyond offensive. That it reflects the current standard of "willful ignorance" that is promulgated from the White House, through rightwing hate radio and down to the schoolyard is no excuse.

My name is Sandy Scheel Huseby, NDSU, Class of '71, and today, I am ashamed. And I'm sorry.

What digby said....

.

If you're not a regular reader of digby's hullabaloo, here's a good place to start: her Easter Sunday observations on Obama, Wright, and the state of politics and America. Solid food for thought. And no more posting here today, so you've no excuses not to take the time to go read what digby has to say on Wright and Wrong.

.

Honor for an American Hero

.

Today in a ceremony at the White House, Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble will finally receive the Medal of Honor for his heroism and sacrifice. Keeble is the first full-blooded Dakota Oyate (Sioux) to receive the honor.

The full story of his heroism is recounted in our local media, and here at military.com, and in the words of ND Senator Byron Dorgan here. A story of heroism so profound his comrades all submitted him for Medal of Honor consideration. But the paperwork was “lost.” Maybe they thought the Purple Hearts and other awards were enough. Funny how that happens when you’re a person of color.

Not daunted, his name was again submitted for Medal of Honor consideration. Paperwork “lost” again.

Many don’t know that Native Americans serve in the military at the highest percentage of demographic groups. Serve, and are wounded, and come home in flag-draped coffins. And to what?

“Lost” paperwork it takes half a century to put right.

For some, the fate of Ira Hayes. Or for lives on reservations that too often look like Appalachia…and apartheid.

There are heroes serving today, of all colors and demographics. Most of us will never know their names. As Prince Harry—who was fighting for us, by the way—pointed out, he’s no hero. It’s the guys coming home, on the plane with him, on other flights, missing a leg or an arm, or suffering emotionally from the traumas of war.

The men and women who selflessly serve. How shall we honor them? With a White House ceremony in a few years or past a lifetime?

Master Sgt. Keeble’s award will be presented posthumously. He lived 65 years among his people and his neighbors and died in 1982. A giant in stature, a giant among men.

As a commenter notes at the military.com website:

America the "Greatest" Country in the world but we still have some of the Greatest problems, Racism, Bigotry and Hatred so we must continue to Pray and ask God to bring about Change. This Medal is Long overdue and it adds to what someone once said "Please" give me my Flowers while I can still smell them... God Bless America.