Vyan over at Daily Kos has written an excellent piece about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's deconstruction of Fox's race baiting and the Republican Party's most recent southern strategy of scorched earth politics.
Maddow: That's pretty raw in 1960 comic book form, right?
Well, here's what it looked like in 1990. It's the same thing, this time in the form of a campaign ad on television.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is. He supports Ted Kennedy's racial quota law but makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications.
You wrote on this issue next Tuesday. For racial quotas: Harvey Gantt. Against racial quotas: Jesse Helms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The balled up white fist, the anger at what's being given to black people because it's being taken away from white people. It's a zero-sum. Black people are coming for you. They're coming for your job. They're coming to get you. You better band together not surrender, to fight back against the black people who were coming for you.
After the political success in the South, the politicians like George Wallace, who, again, remember, was elected four times as Alabama governor, after the political success of politicians like Lester Maddox, who used as his political symbol when he ran for governor in Georgia the pick ax handle he brandished to defend his segregated restaurant from black people.
That and after the civil rights era, the political strategy of terrifying white people about the threat posed by black people-black people coming to get them, coming to take what's rightfully theirs. That strategy got a new name, the Southern Strategy.
In 1970, Republican political strategist Kevin Phillips explained to "The New York Times," quote, "From now on, Republicans are never going to get more than 10 percent to 20 percent of the Negro vote, and they don't need more than that. But Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act." Meaning, if they blocked black people from registering the vote because he says, "The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are."
That's where the votes are. That's the way to get white votes, by counting on white people being afraid of black people. Make clear where the black people are, politically, and count on what Kevin Phillips calls Negrophobia-locking up all of the white votes on the other side.
Since the 1970's that's what the Republican Party has been - the party of the Negrophobes. It's not that they hate black people - no, not hardly. They just don't want black people taking all their stuff away from them. Their schools. Their jobs. Their money.
That's also the way it's been during the entire candidacy and Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.
Going all the way back to the cherry-picked and twisted quotes from Reverend Wright, to Obama's big giant Pal the Domestic Terrorist (who was never tried or convicted of anything), his membership in ACORN (even though he was never a member), his "radical communist" buddy Van Jones, Sonia Sotomayor the "Wise Latina" who discriminated against those White Fire-fighters (by following standard judicial precedent), his administration blocking Voter Fraud cases against Black People and the New Black Panthers (except they didn't, the Bush DOJ did) and now fostering the racist (but NOT racist) Shirley Sherrod at the USDA and NAACP - the plan has been to MAKE WHITE PEOPLE afraid of a Black President.
And if you don't see that - you just don't know "the facts!"
Maddow's comments last night are the direct result of an Andrew Breitbart right wing witch hunt of yet another another African American, U.S. AG official, Ms. Shirley Sherrod.
On his website Breitbart had posted a video clip of a speech Ms. Sherrod gave over twenty years ago. But Breitbart did not upload the full video clip. He had instead edited out parts of it in order to portray Ms. Sherrod as a racist who hates white people. Fox "News," the propaganda arm for the GOP played the edited video. A political firestorm quickly followed. The NAACP had failed to double check the sourcing and called out Ms. Sherrod. Her boss, AG Secretary Tom Vilsack, also failed to do due diligence and he immediately demanded Ms. Sherrod's resignation.
Two days later, after Ms. Sherrod worked diligently and heroically to save her reputation and career she has been rightfully vindicated. Fox "News" and Andrew Breitbart have been busted, yet again, for yellow journalism and bald face lies.
An elderly white couple in Georgia had stepped forward to speak out against yet another horrendous injustice. Ms. Sherrod had aided the couple with saving their farm in Georgia over twenty years ago. The farmers have not forgotten her efforts and their support of Ms. Sherrod helped to unravel Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's credibility. This most recent right wing assault and character hit job reveals just how low Fox "News" and Andrew Breitbart will stoop.
Unfortunately this is not the end of scorched earth politics and swift boat smear attacks from the race baiting right because former Bush/Cheney lackeys and smear artists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie are raising millions of dollars from anonymous donors in order to do all the above in 2010 and 2012.
Meanwhile today in the online edition of the Houston Chronicle about John Culberson and other Texas Republicans that have joined Michele Bachman's tea party caucus, the following is a response to a statement I had made about Andrew Breibart and his character assassination campaign against Shirley Sherrod. I had asked if John Culberson, Pete Sessions, Joe Barton, Louie Gohmert and the other Texas Republicans embraced Andrew Breitbart and his smear campaign against Ms. Sherrod. I had accused the GOP of engaging in character assassination tactics (among a few other things).
You have it reversed in your deluded drug fried brain. The libruls, headed by the thug-in-chief, are the ones with the smear campaigns, character assassination and out right bald faced lies about any and everybody that doesn't tow HIS agenda line. You really fail to pay attention when some poor fool has the gall to ask Hussein an unscripted question? You really don't have any idea about what happens to anybody that is even hinted to oppose his holiness in 2012? You think that is the way the Framers wanted this country to play out? It's amazing how backarsewards you libs twist things and you will still not have the wherewithal to know what happened after you are summarily routed in November. YOU are your own worst enemies, not us.
I guess this pretty much sums up the talking points and agenda of the tea party.
Many of those on the right who respond vehemently to my posts obviously listen to and obey Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman and other demagogues that run the tea party movement.
Pretty soon it will be only the inmates of insane asylums, the Christian version of the U.S. and Texas Taliban and rabid right wing racists that will vote for Republicans. Below is a sample of whom that includes. This comment was posted on the comment board at the Houston Chronicle's online edition yesterday. It was posted in response to an article written about President Obama's visit to Texas and how Rick Perry would like to talk to the President about immigration.
Hey Guv, Arizona is going it alone and we can too. Brewer even has a website up for the private defense against the Fool in Chief in Washington who is so ignernt that he doesn't know to stop digging the hole he is into deep.
Rabid attack dog tactics, obstruction, obfuscation and saying no to everything all of the time offer no solutions to anything positive or constructive.
Nor will hate tactics and fear win the hearts and minds of most of the American people. We are so much better than that.
