This time, it’s a proposal to eliminate birthright citizenship!
And who’s backing this latest unconstitutional foray? As usual, the local racist Know Nothing Party!
Gorilla says: “Which brave legislator will introduce a bill to give Arizona back to the Indians and get these white immigrant racists the hell out of Tombstone?”
That Mississippi was, is, and apparently always will be a neanderthal state of hateful bigots?
That the national media doesn’t want to report straightforwardly that the Know Nothing Party is the last bastion of the batshit insane?
Gorilla says: “Wake me when reality sets in again, please!”
Triumph Of The Swill
When the President of France isn’t too busy fending off accusations that he’s a sleazebag, he’s happy to deflect attention by backing a racist assault on liberte, egalite, and fraternite.
Yes, it’s the hijab ban, which is, like the Defense of Marriage Act in the US, aimed entirely at a minority that doesn’t behave the way the majority would like. So the majority will have its way, in the old days with a gun and a gas chamber, these days with a vote and significant tut tutting.
Why not just ban religion altogether? It’s difficult to see how the sexual deviants who wear collars, or the subservient women in their cult who wear habits, are any less of a threat to the French. It’s difficult to see how the United States ever becomes a more inclusive society so long as most religions view misogyny as an acceptable lifestyle.
In fact, the number of hijab wearing women in France is roughly 2,000, in a country of 60 million.
Demonization of minorities is as old as Europe itself: Jews were slaughtered, Gypsies were slaughtered, you name the minority and there’s a reasonable chance a majority somewhere in Europe wanted them dead and/or deported.
15 years after the Serbs slaughtered thousands of Muslims, and Europe did absolutely nothing to stop it, it’s comical to see a European leader cower in fear at the prospect of a few women in hijabs threatening the enjoyment of a local pastis.
It’s not the job of politicians to engage in race baiting, or gender baiting, or sexual orientation baiting, but they do it every chance they get when things aren’t going well.
Gorilla says: “Modern racism comes with everything but the camps, much easier these days to isolate than to kill!”
One of the most troubling aspects about today’s Know Nothing Party is the clear tinge of racism, particularly by the so-called Tea Baggers (who are nothing much other than what used to be called the extreme right).
It’s very clear in the eyes and minds of these nutjobs that the only real Americans are white Americans.
The feeling that the “other” is getting some unfair advantage, principally because the country’s done the unthinkable and elected a black man, is pervasive in the diatribes of mainstream Know Nothings and Tea Baggers alike.
So, today’s report from the Census Bureau will no doubt strike terror in the hearts of these racists: in terms of birth rates, within the next couple of years the majority will be the minority!
Gorilla says: “Time to learn Spanish at the John Birch Society!”
More than 1 in 3 young black men are unemployed; 30% of young black women are unemployed.
Why? Lack of jobs where urban blacks live, lack of education and skills training in the failing schools urban blacks attend, and the reality, documented in study after study, that even in good times qualified young blacks have no better chance of being hired than a white man just released from prison.
Of course, it’s racial, one needs only look at the efforts of national Know Nothing political leaders, overtly and covertly, to deny the legitimacy of an elected black President and to encourage the belief among whites that blacks and Hispanics are getting special benefits from things like health care reform and the stimulus package. Today’s undeserving “other” is the direct descendant of Reagan’s welfare queen.
Gorilla says: “It’s not about the other, it’s about what we can do to look out for each other, and that begins with the acknowledgment that we need each other!”
These were the items that were most important this week:
*Health care vote put off until September. Gorilla thinks health care reform is dead as a serious issue, and we’ll get some half-assed insurance exchange where a few Americans can but not must buy. This will be disguised as a “co-op” and called a “public option”. Employers will continue off-loading workers, benefits, or both. Obama has blown this one in exactly the same way as he blew the stimulus, by negotiating with himself and letting the opposition define every aspect of the “debate”.
*Beers all around. Racism and racial profiling by police departments remain, but that’s not the conversation people want to have about race in their increasingly segregated communities. We want to feel good about how we feel about the other. Gorilla believes we’ve seen the last of the post-racial society.
*The economy is still contracting. GDP was much worse in Q1 than first reported, but not as bad in Q2 as feared (until those numbers are revised). Consumers and businesses are not spending at all; without government spending, the numbers would be far worse. Gorilla believes the economy will not recover for at least another 12 months and that unemployment will be at or above 10% until 2011 or 2012.
*The curious refusal to face reality goes on, from Washington to Kabul and from Cambridge to Wall Street. Americans want lots of things, but don’t want to pay for them. They don’t trust government, except when they need government. They know that things are getting worse, but at a much better rate than they used to. Gorilla isn’t sure which planet is in more trouble: the one with economic, geopolitical, and environmental disasters or the one Americans think they live on.
Gorilla thinks these things will be remembered about this week:
*The health care legislative package gets put off another month. Gorilla thinks the chance of meaningful health care reform, with a public option, a shift away from a fee-based system, and effectiveness studies, is now less than 50-50.
*The US economy continues to sputter. We are still a long way from the beginnings of real job growth, that is when new unemployment claims fall below 350-400,000/week. Gorilla believes the unemployment rate will hit 10% in the next 3 months and remain above 10% for the next 2 years.
*The Chinese are beginning to look like the world beaters of the 21st century. Their scientific research isn’t restricted by ethical considerations or wingnuts. Their decision to allocate $2 trillion to building up Chinese business presence in emerging markets will have a profound impact on how the world financial system is reordered. Gorilla thinks we’re heading towards a new bipolarity.
*Wheel spinning continues with respect to North Korea and Iran. Neither is a serious threat to the US, but we can’t seem to figure out how to deal with them. Once either country sorts out its internal politics, Gorilla would not be surprised to see Hillary Clinton in Pyongyang or Tehran in the next 12 months.
*Denial continues with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan. We don’t seem to have an exit strategy, and we clearly don’t have enough troops to win on the ground (whatever winning may mean) in Afghanistan. We can’t seem to get out of our own way to encourage Pakistan to fight radical Islamic terrorism. Gorilla believes we will be negotiating with the Taliban, declaring victory and getting out of Afghanistan within the next 12-18 months. Gorilla thinks we’ll try for some kind of grand regional bargain with India and Pakistan, so as to free up Pakistani troops to fight in Waziristan and Baluchistan.
*Racism and political corruption remain as American as apple pie and as unremitting as torture. We’d like to believe we’ve moved on, but facts and events, large and small, keep getting in the way. Gorilla firmly calls the plus ca change side of the coin.
Our President has shocked, shocked the mainstream media by stating a simple truth: The police officers who arrested the Harvard professor, apparently for Homeowning While Black, “acted stupidly”.
Was this a “volatile issue” as the NY Times would have it? No, this sort of racist and/or misogynist profiling happens every single day to women and minorities. Electing a black man may help, but it hasn’t yet changed the equation.
Gorilla says: “When John McCain is arrested in one of his 7 homes solely because he’s a white male, the unempowered can rest more easily”.
