So Much Trouble On My Mind

I spoke with Elon James White on TWiB Radio yesterday regarding all the nonsense we’ve had to deal with lately (I’m on at 1:16:50).  Please check out the entire show as Elon and the crew take Cornel West, among others, to the woodshed.

A Letter To The NeoConfederates

Dear NeoConfederates,

2014 is coming – and SO ARE WE.  Not in the way you claim to fear.

No marauding gangs, no riots, no Birth Of A Nation-induced fantasies.

Those two New Black Panthers (the SAME two, at that!) you guys drag out every time you want to make each other wet yourselves?  Non-factor.

No, we’re coming brandishing the one thing that actually scares you – our VOTES.

You and ALEC can try all your tricks – we’re coming.

You can end early voting – we’re coming.

You can close polling places – we’re coming.

You can “accidentally” delete names from voting rolls – we’re coming.

You can gin up as much outrage as you wish – a Brooks Brothers riot won’t help you this time.

The FerengiMedia™ may be your allies, but they won’t be enough.

Are you willing to use fire hoses?  Dogs?  Guns?

Because that’s what you are going to have to do.  And even that won’t be enough.

You see, we’ve had more than enough of your crap.

You’ve been on the longest temper tantrum in recent history. Running at full speed since November 4, 2008.

We are now fully aware that there is no common cause with you.

There can be no compromise because you do not wish it.  You want us dead, gone, marginalized, or in servitude to you.

NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

It didn’t have to be this way. YOU forced this.

Remember that when your electoral gains are dust, and you have gone the way of the Whigs.

Your hatred of us will be your undoing.

And you will only have yourselves to blame.

Advertisement

We Are Upon The Crossroads

A few thoughts on the aftermath of the Zimmerman trial:

The only relevant thing that came out of this “trial” is something many of us already knew – black life is expendable. To be disappointed in the verdict indicates that one expected a just outcome in the first place. That so many people of all walks of life are disappointed, and by extension expected a just outcome, is comforting in that it holds at bay the complete and utter despair that I would otherwise feel. Non-NeoConfederates in general, and people of color in particular, have been under intensified attack since November 4, 2008. The complete and utter hatred that these people have for us has driven them completely mad, to the point where not only will they block any and all laws that would benefit the American people, they will go out of their way to enact laws that would aggressively harm those citizens – including their own supporters. There is apparently no line they will not cross, no conspiracy they won’t embrace, no level of hell they won’t attempt to subject us to – all in the name of their false supremacy.

I fear that they are creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, If you continually put it to people that you consider them less than “real” Americans, less than decent people, less than human, and deserving of being shot down in the street with absolutely no consequences whatsoever, what do you think the eventual outcome might be?

If you want a change, you’re going to have to vote – while you still can.

A Rhetorical Question

 

If you continually put it to people that you consider them less than “real” Americans, less than decent people, less than human, and deserving of being shot down in the street with no consequences, what do you think the outcome might be?

Chuck Todd Gets One Right

Four years late to the party, Chuckie Todd figures out that the GOP isn’t all that interested in doing work (via John Cole at Balloon Juice):

Recently, the top-two Senate Republicans — Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn — wrote a letter to the NFL and other major sports leagues warning them not to participate in any campaign to promote implementation of Obamacare. The Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity is in unchartered waters running TV ads to help prevent the law from being implemented, while the Obama political arm is also on the air promoting implementation. And Senate Republicans have vowed to filibuster any nominee (no matter how qualified) to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the financial-reform law. […]

And this all raises the question: What’s the line between fighting for your ideology and ensuring that the government that pays your salaries actually works — or even attempts to work? At some point, governing has to take place, but when does that begin? We know what opponents will say in response to this: These are bad laws, and we have to do whatever it takes to stop them. But at what point does an election have a governing consequence?

***

One of the novel developments in conservative thought during the Obama years is a burgeoning hatred not merely for government but for lawmaking. Before the Obama era, the ends of crafting laws divided the parties, but the means did not. The process of corralling votes, placating hold-outs, and hammering out compromises was not something either side especially loved — you’ve heard the classic line about watching the sausage get made — but also not something that one side disliked more than the other. But a hatred for lawmaking has emerged in the Obama years, first as a Republican tactic, and then as an apparently genuine belief system.

John called this back in 2009 with this epic quote:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

So let’s hear it for Chuck – he may have to have an anvil repeatedly dropped on his head, but he eventually gets it.

For a minute.