I Wasn't Going to Comment on the Sherrod Story

But if you haven't read this, you really should. ~ No1KState

THE REAL STORY OF RACISM AT THE USDA

By Chris Kromm

Facing South - A New Voice for a Changing South The Online
Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies

July 22, 2010

http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/07/the-real-story-of-racism-at-usda.html

Right now, if you do a web search of the words "racism" and
"USDA," the majority of links will steer you to coverage of
this week's Shirley Sherrod affair, in which the African-
American U.S. Department of Agriculture staffer based in
Georgia resigned after a conservative website reversed the
meaning of a speech she gave last year to imply she would
deny farm loans to whites.

It's an astonishing development given the history of race
relations at the USDA, an agency whose own Commission on
Small Farms admitted in 1998 that "the history of
discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture ... is
well-documented" -- not against white farmers, but African-
American, Native American and other minorities who were
pushed off their land by decades of racially-biased laws and
practices.

The Result of Conservative and Neoliberal Economic Policies

Let's get this drilled into our collective consciences: the economy we're experiencing today started in 1981 (or thereabouts) with the election of Ronald Reagan as president. The crazies who call the unemployed "lazy" and unemployment benefits, that the unemployed have paid into mind you, a disincentive to seeking work - they're just saying what conservatives have said for decades.

And trust me, when trouble starts knocking at your door, you won't mind someone with a "bleeding heart" coming along to help you.

22 Statistics That Prove The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America

You Must Be a Racist If . . .

. . . you're Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams.

The Right is "Taking Back" the Civil Rights Movement, Remember?

Black Power's Gonna Get You Sucka:
Right-Wing Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Modern Racism
By Tim Wise

July 10, 2010

Prominent white conservatives are angry about racism.

Forget all that talk about a post-racial society. They know better than to believe in such a thing, and they’re hopping mad.

Fox Hunting, Join the Hunt

via colorofchange.org:

FOX is up to its old race-baiting tricks. But this time, CNN is repeating FOX's distortions and taking them mainstream.

FOX is claiming that under President Obama, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is refusing to prosecute voting rights offenses when the victims are White and the perpetrators are Black.[1] It's a bogus story based on the allegations of one former Republican DOJ attorney, and it sidesteps a mountain of facts.[2]

If I Were a (White) Boy . . .

. . . it would be 72 and clear all the time! Only white folks get to be so oblivious to reality.

The Right Just Might Be . . . On to Something

With their whole deification of the "Founding Fathers."

Yes, it's been a very long time since my last post.  No, I haven't lost my mind or my soul in the interim. Just bare with me for a moment.

The political right has taken to going on and on about returning to the ideals of Washington, Jefferson, et al. Of course, what they're trying to get at is small government and no taxes. Their tortured relationship with the Constitution and mis-writing history notwithstanding, they may have a point about returning to the ideals of our country's founder, their racism, sexism, classism, and elitism notwithstanding. (After all, it was the slaveowning founding fathers who initially granted the right to vote exclusively to propertied white men and still felt state legislators should stand between the popular vote and the Senate.)

But still, the right just might be on to something.