Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Irony: April 19th
Tonight while watching the Evening News on NBC, I was struck by the irony (or was it) of the placement of two pieces. Back to back, there was coverage of the NRA rally/protest in Washington D.C. I was under the impression that the District's gun laws were some of the toughest in the U.S. Apparently not! People were walking around with AK-47's strapped across their backs and complaining that their 2nd Amendment rights are somehow being threatened or are in danger. Uh, I hope so. I live in a state where a child can not have license to carry a rifle until he/she is 5 years of age. YES, that's right, FIVE!! As in, oops, you missed the cut off to start kindergarten, but here's a rifle, go have some FUN! Okay, so what does NBC show next??? The 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Showing all the empty chairs of people who would still be here, if not for one, Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was a gun lover/monger. Stock piles of weapons all based on his 2nd amendment right to bear arms. An NRA member. Yes, he was the radical side of the spectrum, but isn't it a bit radical to WANT to carry a loaded, potentially fatal weapon around in the middle of a city??? Thanks, NBC, I hope a few others caught that "irony."
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The South Fought to Keep Slavery, Period
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
"We went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery. Men fight from sentiment. After the fight is over they invent some fanciful theory on which they imagine that they fought.'' -- Confederate Col. John Mosby
Ten years ago, I received an e-mail from a reader who signed him or herself ``J.D.'' ``I am a white racist,'' wrote J.D., ``a white supremacist, and I do not deny it.''
From that, you'd suspect J.D. had nothing of value to say. You'd be mistaken. J.D. wrote in response to a column documenting the fact that preservation of slavery was the prime directive of the Southern Confederacy. ``I was most pleased to see you write what we both know to be the truth,'' the e-mail said. ``I never cease to be amazed at the Sons of Confederate Veterans and similar `heritage not hate' groups who are constantly whining that the Confederacy was not a white, racist government . . .''
That argument, noted J.D. with wry amusement, plays well with ``white people who want to be Confederates without any controversy.''
It was an astute observation, the truth of which was deftly illustrated recently by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. Seems he issued a proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month in the Commonwealth. Said proclamation contained not the barest mention that the Confederacy went to war to preserve slavery, an omission that got the governor pilloried in the court of public opinion.
So McDonnell apologized and tried again, inserting into his proclamation a paragraph observing that this Confederacy we are invited to commemorate was built upon an ``evil'' and ``inhumane'' practice. That little bit of cognitive dissonance neatly accomplished, the proclamation was duly reissued.
But there's still a flaw in it. Namely in a line that speaks of how ``the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America.'' See, no one asked half a million of ``the people of Virginia'' about joining any Confederacy. As they were owned by their fellow citizens, they had no say in the matter.
And so it goes in the ongoing effort by apologists for the Confederacy to convince the rest of us that an act of high treason committed in the name of preserving human bondage somehow deserves honor and respect. It's a case that cannot be made on its own dubious merits, so they are obliged to pretend the cause wasn't what it was, to write slaves and slavery out of the story.
McDonnell is hardly the first. Indeed, the practice is nearly as old as the Civil War itself. Confederate ``President'' Jefferson Davis once flatly cited ``the labor of African slaves'' as the cause of the rebellion. After the war, with that cause repudiated, he wrote, ``slavery was in no wise the cause of the conflict.'' It's a straight line from Davis' amnesia to McDonnell's omission.
The governor seeks to render the Confederacy harmless, to be a Confederate without controversy. He seeks to validate the vestigial southern impulse which insists, contrary to logic, that the tragic suffering and incontestable bravery of Confederate forebears must somehow redeem the awful cause for which they fought. But the simple truth is, they do not. Nor can they until or unless we agree to murder memory, to kill recollection of our greatest national trauma, to enter into a conspiracy of romantic lies.
Confederate hero John Mosby, quoted above, understood this. Even J.D., the unrepentant racist, did.
It is past time the entire remnant of the Confederacy, all its apologists and battle flag fetishists, understood it, too. The alternative is to continue insisting upon sophistry as truth, and to periodically embarrass themselves and mystify the rest of us with their stubborn fealty to the stinking corpse of a long lost cause. It is to learn for the umpteen-millionth time what the governor was just taught.
Memory dies hard.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/14/1578171/the-south-fought-to-keep-slavery.html#ixzz0l63Slkk1
An Evil with Many Masters
An evil with many masters
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
A few words about Christian terrorism.
And I suppose the first words should be about those words: ``Christian terrorism.'' The term will seem jarring to those who've grown comfortable regarding terrorism as something exclusive to Islam.
That this is a self-deluding fallacy should have long since been apparent to anyone who's been paying attention. From Eric Rudolph's bombing of the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics to the so-called Phineas Priests who bombed banks, a newspaper and a Planned Parenthood office in Spokane, from Matt Hale soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago to Scott Roeder's assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, from brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams murdering a gay couple near Redding, Calif., to Timothy McVeigh destroying a federal building and 168 lives in Oklahoma City, we have seen no shortage of ``Christians'' who believe Jesus requires -- or at least allows -- them to commit murder.
If federal officials are correct, we now have one more name to add to the dishonor roll. That name would be Hutaree, a self-styled Christian militia in Michigan, nine members of which have been arrested and accused of plotting to kill police officers in hopes of sparking an anti-government uprising.
Many of us would doubtless resist referring to plots like this as Christian terrorism, feeling it unfair to tar the great body of Christendom with the actions of its fringe radicals. And here, we will pause for Muslim readers to loudly clear their throats.
While they do, let the rest of us note that there is a larger moral to this story, and it has less to do with terminologies than similarities.
We are conditioned to think of terror wrought by Islamic fundamentalists as something strange and alien and other. It is the violence of men with long beards who jabber in weird languages and kill for mysterious reasons while worshipping God in ways that seem outlandish to middle-American sensibilities. And whatever quirk of nature or deficiency of humanity it is that allows them to do what they do, is, we think, unique. There is, we are pleased to believe, a hard, immutable line between us and Them.
Then you consider Hutaree and its alleged plan to kill in the name of God, and the idea of some innate, saving difference between us and those bearded others in other places begins to feel like a fiction we conjured to help us sleep at night.
``Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive,'' it says on Hutaree's website. And you wonder: Who is this Jesus they worship and in what Bible is he found? Why does he bear so little resemblance to the Jesus others find in their Bibles, the one who said that if someone hits you on your right cheek, offer him your left, the one who said if someone forces you to go one mile with him, go two, the one who said love your enemies.
Why does their Jesus need the help of men in camo fatigues with guns and bombs? In this, he is much like the Allah for whom certain Muslims blow up marketplaces and crowded buses. Muslim and American terrorists, it seems, both apparently serve a puny and impotent God who can't do anything without their help.
Sometimes, I think the only things that keep us from becoming, say, Afghanistan, are a strong central government and a diverse population with a robust tradition of free speech. The idea that there is something more is a conceit that blows apart like confetti every time there is, as there is now, a sense of cultural dislocation and economic uncertainty. That combination unfailingly moves people out to the fringes where they seek out scapegoats and embrace that feeble God. And watching, you can't help but realize the troubling truth about that line between ``us'' and ``Them.''
It's thinner than you think.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/07/1566736/an-evil-with-many-masters.html#ixzz0l62KRcOS
Monday, April 12, 2010
Quotable Quotes and Random Gaffes from 2009
--Rep. Charlie Rangel chides a reporter who asks about his alleged ethics violations: "I know it's your job, and I don't blame you, but it's really rude"...
--California's First Lady, Maria Shriver, is busted twice in one week for talking on her cell phone while driving-a practice her husband, the governor, made illegal.
--In New Orleans, on Hurricane Katrina's lingering effects. "I wish I could just write a check...There's this whole thing about the Constitution." -Barack Obama
--"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing races that way." -Justice of the Peace, Keith Bardwell, on denying an interracial couple a marriage license in Louisiana.
--"The Internet has been around for a while now." -RNC Chairman, Michael Steele, in a blog post introducing the newly redesigned GOP.com
...And now my personal favorite of '09
"I stand here today...knowing that my piece of the American Dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me." --Michelle Obama, in her Democratic Convention Speech
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Anonymity brings out the worst instincts
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
It must have seemed like a great idea at the time.
There was this new medium, the Internet, and newspapers were posting stories on it, and someone decided to create a forum where readers could discuss and debate what they just read. It must have seemed an inspiration kissed by the spirit of Jefferson: a free public space where each of us could have his or her say.
Unfortunately, the reality of the thing has proven to be something else entirely. For proof, see the message boards of pretty much any paper. Or just wade in the nearest cesspool. The experiences are equivalent.
Far from validating some high-minded ideal of public debate, message boards -- particularly those inadequately policed by their newspapers and/or dealing with highly emotional matters -- have become havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety.
For every person who offers some trenchant observation on the point at hand, there are a dozen who are so far off point they couldn't find their way back with a compass and road map. For every person who brings up some telling fact, there are a dozen whose ``facts'' are fantasies freshly made up to suit the exigencies of arguments they otherwise cannot win.
Why have message boards failed to live up to the noble expectations?
The answer in a word is, anonymity. The fact that on a message board -- unlike in an old-fashioned letter to the editor -- no one is required to identify themselves, no one is required to say who they are and own what they've said, has inspired many to vent their most reptilian thoughts.
So, some of us are intrigued by what recently happened in Cleveland. It seems someone using the alias ``lawmiss'' had posted provocative comments and scathing personal attacks on the website of The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Some of those comments and attacks evinced an unlikely familiarity with cases being heard by a local judge, Shirley Strickland Saffold. When lawmiss made a comment about the mental state of a reporter's relative, the paper decided to trace the nickname. It found that the postings came from Judge Saffold's personal e-mail account.
Saffold claims her 23-year-old daughter authored the comments. Sydney Saffold, who lives in another city, supports her mom's story. Believe them if you choose.
Meanwhile, the paper has been criticized by some observers for unmasking lawmiss, and there is some merit to that. It's wrong to offer anonymity, then yank it away. But it would've been more wrong to have evidence that a judge viewed an attorney appearing in her court on a capital case as ``Amos and Andy'' -- to use one example -- and do nothing about it.
The larger point is that the paper should not have offered its message posters anonymity in the first place. No paper should. A confidential source necessary to break the big story is one thing. But the only imperative here is to deliver more eyes to the website.
As any student of Sociology 101 can tell you, when people don't have to account for what they say or do, they will often say and do things that would shock their better selves.
That's the story of the mousy, mosque-going school teacher swept up in the window-breaking mob during the big blackout. It's the story of the milquetoast accountant who insults the quarterback's mother from the safety of the crowd. And it is the story of newspaper message boards, which have inadvertently licensed and tacitly approved the worst of human nature under the guise of free speech.
Enough. Make them leave their names. Stop giving people a way to throw rocks and hide their hands. Any dropoff in the quantity of message board postings will surely be made up in the quality thereof.
That's my opinion. If you don't like it, well, at least you know who to blame.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/31/1555967/anonymity-brings-out-the-worst.html#ixzz0jsT6Cf0U
It must have seemed like a great idea at the time.
There was this new medium, the Internet, and newspapers were posting stories on it, and someone decided to create a forum where readers could discuss and debate what they just read. It must have seemed an inspiration kissed by the spirit of Jefferson: a free public space where each of us could have his or her say.
Unfortunately, the reality of the thing has proven to be something else entirely. For proof, see the message boards of pretty much any paper. Or just wade in the nearest cesspool. The experiences are equivalent.
Far from validating some high-minded ideal of public debate, message boards -- particularly those inadequately policed by their newspapers and/or dealing with highly emotional matters -- have become havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety.
For every person who offers some trenchant observation on the point at hand, there are a dozen who are so far off point they couldn't find their way back with a compass and road map. For every person who brings up some telling fact, there are a dozen whose ``facts'' are fantasies freshly made up to suit the exigencies of arguments they otherwise cannot win.
Why have message boards failed to live up to the noble expectations?
The answer in a word is, anonymity. The fact that on a message board -- unlike in an old-fashioned letter to the editor -- no one is required to identify themselves, no one is required to say who they are and own what they've said, has inspired many to vent their most reptilian thoughts.
So, some of us are intrigued by what recently happened in Cleveland. It seems someone using the alias ``lawmiss'' had posted provocative comments and scathing personal attacks on the website of The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Some of those comments and attacks evinced an unlikely familiarity with cases being heard by a local judge, Shirley Strickland Saffold. When lawmiss made a comment about the mental state of a reporter's relative, the paper decided to trace the nickname. It found that the postings came from Judge Saffold's personal e-mail account.
Saffold claims her 23-year-old daughter authored the comments. Sydney Saffold, who lives in another city, supports her mom's story. Believe them if you choose.
Meanwhile, the paper has been criticized by some observers for unmasking lawmiss, and there is some merit to that. It's wrong to offer anonymity, then yank it away. But it would've been more wrong to have evidence that a judge viewed an attorney appearing in her court on a capital case as ``Amos and Andy'' -- to use one example -- and do nothing about it.
The larger point is that the paper should not have offered its message posters anonymity in the first place. No paper should. A confidential source necessary to break the big story is one thing. But the only imperative here is to deliver more eyes to the website.
As any student of Sociology 101 can tell you, when people don't have to account for what they say or do, they will often say and do things that would shock their better selves.
That's the story of the mousy, mosque-going school teacher swept up in the window-breaking mob during the big blackout. It's the story of the milquetoast accountant who insults the quarterback's mother from the safety of the crowd. And it is the story of newspaper message boards, which have inadvertently licensed and tacitly approved the worst of human nature under the guise of free speech.
Enough. Make them leave their names. Stop giving people a way to throw rocks and hide their hands. Any dropoff in the quantity of message board postings will surely be made up in the quality thereof.
That's my opinion. If you don't like it, well, at least you know who to blame.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/31/1555967/anonymity-brings-out-the-worst.html#ixzz0jsT6Cf0U
Challenge to GOP: Condemn the violence
By LEONARD PITTS
Hi, boys and girls! As a public service, I've prepared the following statement for Republican leaders to use when some disgruntled opponent of health care reform injures somebody -- or worse. Given recent reports of threats against Democratic lawmakers in the wake of last week's historic vote, that moment has come to feel inevitable.
When it happens, don't you want your favorite GOP lawmaker to be ready? You can ensure that he or she is simply by clipping this statement and mailing it to them. That way, when the time comes, all your lawmaker will have to do is circle the appropriate choices and fill in the blank!
***
``We condemn, in the strongest terms, the recent bombing/stabbing/beating/shooting that wounded/killed Senator/Representative/President __________________. There is no place in our democracy for that kind of thing and our party stands foursquare against those who would bring violence into political debate. We extend our best wishes/heartfelt condolences and join with other Americans in hoping the perpetrators of this heinous act will be swiftly caught and punished.
``At the same time, we must also reject the suggestion, made by some, that our behavior over the course of this long debate on healthcare somehow set the scene for this tragic incident which, as we have already said, we condemn.
``Some have contended that -- through incidents like Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst where he called the president a liar during a joint session of Congress, and the one where members of our party cheered hecklers in the public gallery during last week's debate and that thing where Rep. Randy Neugebauer yelled `baby killer!' and that comment by Rep. John Boehner that Rep. Steve Driehaus `may be a dead man' because of his vote -- we have contributed to a coarsening of political discourse that made this tragedy entirely predictable. This tragedy that we, of course, strongly, strongly condemn.
``Some have gone so far as to suggest that the tea party patriots who have led the charge against the socialistic/communistic/tyrannical/satanichealthcare bill are themselves a graver threat to the nation than the legislation they oppose. The tea partiers have been characterized as dangerous and intolerant extremists by people who have read their signs and listened to their rhetoric.
``We object to this slander of these concerned Americans. Just because at least ten representatives have reported death threats since the bill was passed and Rep. Dennis Cardoza says he's been physically threatened, and vandals broke the door of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's office, and bricks have been thrown through the windows of other representatives' offices and just because a tea party leader posted what he thought was Rep. Thomas Perriello's home phone number and address with an invitation for tea party members to `drop by,' and just because the information was actually for Perriello's brother, Bo, who has four children at home, none older than eight, and just because somebody cut a gas line at that house, and just because police and the FBI are taking all these threats seriously and now there's this latest bombing/stabbing/beating/
shooting (that we strongly condemn), is no reason to cast aspersions upon the entire tea party movement.
``By attempting to focus the nation's attention on all these isolated incidents, leftwing Democrats and their allies in the media seek to divert us from what should be the real story here. Namely, the fact that we in the Republican Party are working nonstop to repeal this monstrous/disgusting/demonic/diabolical bill. To that end, we are pursuing all available legal challenges and procedural options.
``We are also inventing a time machine.
``As this important work goes on, we are proud to have the able assistance of the patriotic Americans in the tea party movement. Some have suggested that the Republican party, the party of Reagan and Lincoln, should be ashamed of its close affiliation with these patriots.
``We reject that idea. Indeed, if our critics know nothing else about us after this long and rancorous debate, they should know this:
``We have no shame.''
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/27/1550273/challenge-to-gop-condemn-the-violence.html#ixzz0jsQnnScV
Hi, boys and girls! As a public service, I've prepared the following statement for Republican leaders to use when some disgruntled opponent of health care reform injures somebody -- or worse. Given recent reports of threats against Democratic lawmakers in the wake of last week's historic vote, that moment has come to feel inevitable.
When it happens, don't you want your favorite GOP lawmaker to be ready? You can ensure that he or she is simply by clipping this statement and mailing it to them. That way, when the time comes, all your lawmaker will have to do is circle the appropriate choices and fill in the blank!
***
``We condemn, in the strongest terms, the recent bombing/stabbing/beating/shooting that wounded/killed Senator/Representative/President __________________. There is no place in our democracy for that kind of thing and our party stands foursquare against those who would bring violence into political debate. We extend our best wishes/heartfelt condolences and join with other Americans in hoping the perpetrators of this heinous act will be swiftly caught and punished.
``At the same time, we must also reject the suggestion, made by some, that our behavior over the course of this long debate on healthcare somehow set the scene for this tragic incident which, as we have already said, we condemn.
``Some have contended that -- through incidents like Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst where he called the president a liar during a joint session of Congress, and the one where members of our party cheered hecklers in the public gallery during last week's debate and that thing where Rep. Randy Neugebauer yelled `baby killer!' and that comment by Rep. John Boehner that Rep. Steve Driehaus `may be a dead man' because of his vote -- we have contributed to a coarsening of political discourse that made this tragedy entirely predictable. This tragedy that we, of course, strongly, strongly condemn.
``Some have gone so far as to suggest that the tea party patriots who have led the charge against the socialistic/communistic/tyrannical/satanichealthcare bill are themselves a graver threat to the nation than the legislation they oppose. The tea partiers have been characterized as dangerous and intolerant extremists by people who have read their signs and listened to their rhetoric.
``We object to this slander of these concerned Americans. Just because at least ten representatives have reported death threats since the bill was passed and Rep. Dennis Cardoza says he's been physically threatened, and vandals broke the door of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's office, and bricks have been thrown through the windows of other representatives' offices and just because a tea party leader posted what he thought was Rep. Thomas Perriello's home phone number and address with an invitation for tea party members to `drop by,' and just because the information was actually for Perriello's brother, Bo, who has four children at home, none older than eight, and just because somebody cut a gas line at that house, and just because police and the FBI are taking all these threats seriously and now there's this latest bombing/stabbing/beating/
shooting (that we strongly condemn), is no reason to cast aspersions upon the entire tea party movement.
``By attempting to focus the nation's attention on all these isolated incidents, leftwing Democrats and their allies in the media seek to divert us from what should be the real story here. Namely, the fact that we in the Republican Party are working nonstop to repeal this monstrous/disgusting/demonic/diabolical bill. To that end, we are pursuing all available legal challenges and procedural options.
``We are also inventing a time machine.
``As this important work goes on, we are proud to have the able assistance of the patriotic Americans in the tea party movement. Some have suggested that the Republican party, the party of Reagan and Lincoln, should be ashamed of its close affiliation with these patriots.
``We reject that idea. Indeed, if our critics know nothing else about us after this long and rancorous debate, they should know this:
``We have no shame.''
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/27/1550273/challenge-to-gop-condemn-the-violence.html#ixzz0jsQnnScV
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