Different Day, Same Shit.

And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left him, and went their way.

The sage advice of Matthew 22:20-22 wasn't in the cards for Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. The man whose actions nearly precipitated armed conflict between federal agents and a devoted group of self-styled militiamen laboring under misunderstood notions of sovereignty and rugged individualism had no interest in rendering unto Uncle Sam what was rightfully his, whether it was $1 million or so in unpaid grazing fees accrued since 1993 or the 58 head of cattle that were initially impounded as a long-coming result of his failure to pay said fees.

In spite of his professed love of country and willingness to express patriotism with profound ebullience, Bundy continues to operate under the belief that the things which are Uncle Sam's are actually his and his alone. It's the same modus operandi that many militia organizations and those within the sovereignty movement operate under: for whatever reason, the governing bodies of the United States are fraudulent and therefore, the militiamen/freemen are free to operate peacefully* outside of the bounds and without interference from the U.S. government, even as they live and work on U.S. soil. Which, by the way, isn't believed to belong to the U.S. but instead falls under the governing purview of the individual U.S. states, following the old conventions of the Articles of Confederation (and tossing the Supremacy Clause out the window as a result).

The militia/freeman movement and tea-party conservatism both feature a variety of overlaps on the Venn diagram of political ideology, so it was only a matter of time before Cliven Bundy became the darling of Fox News and a folk hero among conservatives longing to stick a Second Amendment thumb into the government's eye. You can't tell yours truly that the images of "ordinary Americans" demonstrating their right to bear arms against a government they could care less for (except when it works for them) didn't give other like-minded conservatives at home the warm and fuzzies.

It all could have went south. At least, if it wasn't for the Bureau of Land Management and other federal officials not wanting to replicate the worst missteps of Ruby Ridge and Waco and if it wasn't for the protesters displaying some rather desperate and craven tendencies just to get their point across. A full-fledged shootout between federal officials (framed for this purpose as "jack-booted thugs") and heavily-armed self-styled militiamen (framed as "real American patriots) not only would have made for great television ratings, but it also would have made for a powerful expression of martyrdom that resonated throughout the tea-party contingent and beyond. The consequences of that are best left uncalculated.

It's little wonder that the BLM decided it would be best to back off and not hand Bundy and Co. the opportunity to be remembered as martyrs for a flawed cause. Instead, the FBI's taking a more mundane interest into Bundy's supporters.

---

Meanwhile, Cliven Bundy represents the picture-perfect embodiment of American welfare in one of its most idealistic forms. It was the massive expropriation of land from its former native owners and the introduction of homestead acts that opened the doors to settlement to the "right" sort of Americans that made it possible for Bundy to have his current livelihood**. And it's only through the generosity of the U.S. government that Bundy was and remains able to maintain his livelihood - otherwise he'd join the thousands of farmers who've lost their lands due to debt and foreclosure. There's no telling how many federal grants, subsidies and loans he's applied for so far to help bolster his ranching operations.

In return, Bundy lashes out with a generous helping of furious pseudo-patriotism, all the while using stereotypical views of black Americans and their supposed affinity towards government welfare as a foil for his own brand of "cowboy welfare":

Former conservative media darling Cliven Bundy ran into a tougher crowd on Thursday, when CNN anchor Bill Weir poked fun at both the disappearing act from his former media allies while also questioning Bundy’s claims that he should be able to graze his cattle for free on federal land.

“You are writing off a whole class of people, African-Americans as sort of dangerously dependent because they get government assistance,” Weir said, playing off of Bundy’s instantly infamous press conference earlier in the day. “At the same time, you’re grazing your cows on public land for free. So, how are you not sort of a welfare queen in a cowboy hat?”

“I might be a welfare queen,” Bundy shot back. “But I tell you something, I’m producing something for America and using a resource that nobody else can use, would use or could use and I’m putting red meat on your table. Maybe I’m not doing enough, but I’m trying.”

Bundy's own desultory views of the Negro as better off under chattel slavery serve as red meat for the legions of unreconstructed who hail Bundy as a "freedom fighter" of sorts against "government tyranny," especially now that the Oval Office is currently occupied (or "tainted" as some conservatives may say) by a "socialist Marxist Kenyan."

As with any major cause, there has to be a generous purse lurking in the shadows. In the case of Cliven Bundy, the purse strings belong to a few groups working on the behalf of billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch:

Two affiliates of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity are helping conservative media promote the cause of a Nevada rancher who has made violent threats against the federal government.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the conservative non-profit group, was founded by and has been largely funded by billionaires Charles and David Koch. The Center for Media and Democracy reported that in its previous incarnation as Citizens for a Sound Economy, AFP received $12 million of its $18 million in funding from the Koch Family Foundation.

During the 2012 election, AFP spent $122 million in an effort to defeat President Obama and Congressional Democrats. AFP has also sponsored and organized bus rallies and town hall meetings to promote conservative ideas, including deregulation, tax cuts, and opposition to health care reform.

AFP has been at the forefront of spending in the 2014 election, launching several ads attacking the Affordable Care Act which have come under fire for inaccuracy by independent fact checkers. As of March, AFP had aired a reported 17,000 television ads.

Two of its local affiliates, Americans for Prosperity Nevada and Americans for Prosperity Colorado, have become active boosters of Bundy's actions.

AFP Nevada's Facebook page posted a graphic attacking the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for spending "one million dollars" to enforce the court order to round up Bundy's cattle on federal land. Another photo attacked the Bureau for creating a designated "First Amendment Area" for protesters to gather in near the property.

Still begs the question why the Kochs would be interested in supporting the likes of Bundy and Co.:

Matador Cattle Company operates three ranches: Beaverhead near Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Spring Creek in the scenic Flint Hills of Kansas, and the historic Matador Ranch in Texas.

Acquired between 1941 and 1952 by Fred C. Koch, the ranches total about 460,000 acres under management, including about 235,000 deeded acres. They wean about 9,500 calves annually and support more than 12,000 head of cattle.

In this light, Bundy's defiance over paying his grazing fees takes on a whole different perspective. If the likes of Bundy had the power to run roughshod over the BLM, then it becomes much easier for a heavyweight like Koch Industries to steamroll the agency into accepting concessions allowing the conglomerate to access acre upon acre of formerly protected land for its various resource extraction operations.

The Kochs know what's up. As long as they can advance Bundy's interests in maintaining his livestock and livelihood with little repercussions, their own interests also take a few steps forward. If it doesn't work out, it's back to the drawing board for another plan and avenue of attack. Like any good robber baron, the Kochs are always on the lookout for any opportunity for land and profit, even if it means hitching a rough and wild ride with a welfare cowboy.

* Or so they say.
** Despite claims of his family as the area's first pioneers, official records show that the Bundys were relative newcomers to the Bunkerville area. The range where Bundy makes his living was purchased in 1948.

Paul Ryan is an idiot. Most of us know this already. So it was no surprise that he would attempt to woo Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferers with the following patented dogwhistle:



The above conjures up the ages-old image of the indolent Negro and the equally old argument that a Negro whose back was not under the direct path of an overseer's whip was a Negro bound for a life of excessive sloth and inexcusable leisure. Therefore, it was nearly a moral imperative to "encourage" otherwise indolent Negroids to donate their sweat equity to the cause of hard labor for their white American betters. The "convict lease" programs of the early 20th century were more or less an involuntary push to deliver the Negro from the ills of idleness.

Fast-forwarding to the modern era, scolding the black community over the lack of well-paying jobs and the resultant poverty is a comforting pastime for conservatives and quite a few progressives, as well. Solving the actual problems of poverty and joblessness among inner city black Americans requires a structural teardown and rebuild of our society, something that many Americans are loath to do. Instead, it's much easier to scold from afar, although that does as much good as blaming a man who woke up in the eye of a hurricane for his current predicament.

Suggesting that poverty and joblessness are cultural problems allows people to equate systemic failures among a group of people as a moral and personal failing of said group. It makes it that much easier to dismiss inner city black Americans as a lazy, shiftless lot unwilling to do a hard day's work - consequently an echo to those times when even an accusation of loitering spelled swift imprisonment under the employ of a farm or a mining company, for starters. Nevermind that job prospects for black Americans have always been dismal.

Ryan's feigned pseudo-sincerity over the inner city black American's plight exists only to gain an edge in the popularity polls and all the electoral advantages they offer.

You'd figure the Ku Klux Klan would be a nascent relic of the bad old days long gone. In spite of the sheer terror inspired by these and countless other groups at the height of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era, it remains hard for many folks to take seriously a bunch of bed sheet and bath robe-wearing imbeciles with a remarkable persecution complex. Nevertheless, the following should give anyone brief pause:

Deal: "Why do you want your face covered here?"
Grand Dragon: "Because I care about my job."
The two claim to be part of an invisible empire.
"We have police officers, paramedics, judges," said the grand dragon. "They're everywhere."
And the members said they're 1,000 members strong and growing.
"You start looking at numbers, start looking at census and you realize whites are the minority," said the other klansman.
That's why he joined a year ago, saying he's interested in preserving the white race.

Unless you're a FBI agent deep undercover within these groups, it's hard to suss out whether or not this is all just hot air. But given the predilection of law enforcement officials to heap abuse on minorities and for legal system representatives to stack the deck against them, it's something that'll undoubtedly occupy the backs of many a minority's mind.

And that's the thing. In many cases, no one knows what lurks in the hearts of men and women, especially when it involves them dealing with black Americans and other minorities. Whereas the Deep South and other places touched by Jim Crow proudly wore their collective racism on their sleeves for all the world to see, today's racism comes in a variety of innocuous and covert forms. With overt racism relegated to society's dustbin, many of the unreconstructed among us have opted for a quieter, more covert form of bigotry involving dog whistles, code words and a simple refusal to air their views in "polite company."

For many minorities, it's nearly impossible to know if the smiling face they see in front of them hides a butcher's knife intended for their back. Black Americans and other minorities have plenty of reason to be distrustful of their white counterparts, often to the detriment of white Americans who mean well but are nonetheless slighted by what they process as "black racism."

When you think about it, there's already an "invisible empire" of police, judges and others of authority, but you won't see them at the next Wednesday night cross burning ceremony - they're not interested in what the Klan has to offer. Instead, its a tangled web of individual prejudices, whether personally held or institutionally or parentally indoctrinated, converging into a matrix of racism that transcends boundaries. Chances are this "invisible empire" has little to no inkling that it's working to maintain the white status quo through millions of individual movements, but that's exactly what's happening.

There's something else that's freaking the hoods right out:

"You start looking at numbers, start looking at census and you realize whites are the minority," said the other klansman.

The writing is on the wall, according to recent U.S. Census studies - it expects white Americans to fall into minority status as soon as 2043. A sobering thought for anyone who subscribes to Racial Holy War (RaHoWa) theory and obsesses over the Turner Diaries. Fears of turnabout being fair play with "Whitey" in the minority's seat is driving what I can only accurately describe as a terminal case of psychosis within the ranks of the unreconstructed and a rush to embrace the same sort of "victimhood" that black Americans get taken to the woodshed over on a regular basis. Better to prepare for the inevitable, I suppose.

Unfortunately, many other Americans are preparing in other ways, namely by hoarding more guns and adopting a quasi-survivalist's mentality that relegates the cities to the so-called "chimps," "thugs" and "liberals," while "real Americans" hunker down in concrete bunkers while burning their own dung and filtering their own piss through expensive water purification systems, all while watching "zombies" descend on the Super Bowl on a flatscreen TV attached to one of several brand-new generators they had stocked up during the last "scare."

As for the Klan itself, exposing many of these hood-doning cowards would quickly thin out the ranks until only the most unrepentant were left. And for all of their bravado, they and other white supremacist groups will never express the desire to take on the likes of the Black P-Stones, Gangsters Disciples, MS13 or any other well-armed and well-seasoned minority gangs. As any sensible predator would have it, only the weak and vulnerable will do.

Remember Freedom Industries, the fine folks who brought licorice-flavored water and all of its attendant side effects to West Virginians (and possibly folks along the Ohio River) everywhere?

Those guys are filing for bankruptcy. Turns out befouling an entire region's drinking water for the foreseeable future comes with a huge price tag and the folks behind Freedom Industries just aren't prepared to stomach the entire cost:

Freedom Industries, the company that fouled thousands of West Virginians' water with a chemical leak into the Elk River last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday.

Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents. The company also owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS has placed at least three liens on Freedom's property, demanding payment.

The unpaid taxes date back to at least 2000, according to a lien filed in 2010.

Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating.

The filing also puts a hold on all of the lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. Since the leak last week, about a mile and a half upriver from West Virginia Water American's plant in Charleston, about 25 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom in Kanawha Circuit Court. The company also faces a federal lawsuit.

But that's not all:

About an hour after its bankruptcy filing, Freedom filed an emergency motion for what's called "debtor-in-possession," or DIP, financing, which would allow it to secure up to a $5 million loan to continue to function in some capacity. The loan would, according to the filing, "provide additional liquidity to [Freedom] in order to allow it to continue as a going concern."

The lender in a debtor-in-possession case generally gets first priority when it comes time for the debtor, in this case Freedom, to pay money back.

"Under the bankruptcy code, when there is DIP financing from a DIP lender, 99 percent of the time, they get priority over all the other creditors," said Bob Simon, a prominent bankruptcy lawyer with the Pittsburgh firm Reed Smith. "You're putting your money in at risk, and the debtor is not going to have a lot of options, so the bankruptcy clerk permits the DIP lender to get priority over all the other lenders."

Freedom's proposed lender is a company called WV Funding LLC. That company does not exist in West Virginia, according to business records on file with the West Virginia secretary of state. Pennsylvania's secretary of state also has no records online for it.

The DIP agreement has places to sign for Freedom Industries and for WV Funding "by Mountaineer Funding LLC."

Mountaineer Funding was incorporated with the West Virginia secretary of state on Friday. Its one listed member is J. Clifford Forrest, Freedom Industries' owner.

So the owner of Freedom Industries goes and starts a new company the same day of filing the old company's bankruptcy and files an emergency motion that effectively places the new company at the front of the line for the old company's assets in the event of a discharge. It's a slick way to have your cake, eat it and avoid any liability for cleaning up the crumbs afterwards.

And conservatives everywhere not only think this is good business, but want Americans everywhere to hoist the EPA's head on a stick and willingly accept corporate lordship. As serfs, of course. Because every company needs a bunch of serfs who are willing to die for their betters out of sense of misplaced pride and fidelity:

Though some state legislators have called for reforming the state's famously lax regulations, the general response has been to yell at the media and outsiders. The battle cry: Others don't appreciate the personal sacrifices West Virginians make to provide the nation with chemicals and coal.

It is true. Outsiders don't appreciate them and, furthermore, don't respect them. They can't understand why anyone would let absentee landowners level their mountains and bury their streams in waste. Birds don't dirty their own nests.

The hard-luck people of Appalachia deserve their reputation for physical courage and a strong work ethic. But they suffer more from servility than from bad luck. Outsiders wince when the natives angrily declare their independent spirit and then cringe before corporate polluters, however tawdry.(...)

(...)But Waggoner's most powerful "to hell with" was reserved for fellow West Virginians. These were people who bought into the idea of "constant sacrifice as an honorable condition" and who "turned that condition into a culture of perverted, twisted pride and self-righteousness, to be celebrated and defended against outsiders."

Outsiders. Creating an aura of specialness that must be protected from outside influences is how cult leaders keep their members in check. It takes a good deal of mind control to turn mass sucker-dom into a bragging point.

West Virginia is a pretty dire place, even by Appalachian standards. With Big Coal as practically the only opportunity to make a decent living and with those opportunities themselves scarce, the only thing that's often left is pride. And when all a person has is their pride...

One of the most notable exploits of Jamaican-born leader Marcus Garvey, aside from the formation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the cultivation of Pan Africanism and black nationalism throughout the 1910s and 1920s, was his attempts to encourage black Americans to return to their continent of origin by way of Liberia. The African nation had already been established during the early 1820s by the American Colonization Society as a sanctuary of sorts for black freedmen.

Opposition from European leaders, a lack of interest from black Americans and Garvey's own troubles with the proto-FBI and the initially successful but ultimately troubled Black Star Line put an end to those efforts. It didn't help that Garvey, a firm believer in black nationalism and separatism, and W.E.B. DuBois, who believed his "Talented Tenth" would lead blacks into an era of prosperity and eventual inclusion into the mainstream, were constantly at loggerheads with one another. You just don't call someone a "Supreme Negro Jamaican jackass" for nothing.

The underlying premise of pulling up stakes for greener African pastures was simple - if America is so bad for blacks, why stay?

---

Mychal Massie must had thought that the spirit of Marcus Garvey was moving through him as he wrote his latest column for World News Daily, the virtual hangout for washed up, past-prime conservatives like John Stossel and Walter Williams. Whereas Garvey posited his question as a response to the systemic, institutionalized mistreatment and subjugation of people only decades removed from actual slavery, Massie's question comes as a condescending sneer towards a people seen as, for the lack of better words on the part of yours truly, a bunch of whiny titty babies:

If America is so bad, blacks - why stay?

The entirety of Massie's column is a finger-wagging admonishment of the so-called "race baiters" and "angry black militants" who dare speak out about America's on-going racial injustices. In short, the entire piece screams "America - Love it or Leave it" to an audience Massie sees as ungrateful and unwilling to forgive their white counterparts for age-old injustices and current "misunderstandings."

When a piece starts out like this, you know you're in for a treat:

A fact in retail is that there ultimately comes a time when you are unable to satisfy a customer who insists on being irrational and/or is unwilling to accept what is being done for him or what is being offered to him. When you have exhausted all efforts to accommodate said customer, you apologize and politely offer that it is apparent, despite your best efforts, that you are unable to satisfy him. And you suggest that perhaps his or her interests would be best served elsewhere.

If America were a restaurant, black America would be the party of five who had to wait an hour and a half for the table next to the men's restroom and then wait around for a server who studiously ignores them while taking everyone else's orders, only to be told to kindly piss off and dine elsewhere if they don't like the service shortly after wondering aloud if that server would ever stop to take their order.

Massie's apparent ideal is for black America to patiently wait and wait and wait until its almost closing and the server finally takes their order, but most of the menu items are gone and whatever's left is half-cooked and unceremoniously dumped into a takeout bag, which is then plopped down on the table by a now-smirking server whose smirk disappears when black America rightfully refuses to leave a tip. "How typical," she says...

"It is THEIR OWN FAULT they decided to show up without a reservation," mutters the conservative couple a few tables over, nevermind how black America spent hours trying to get one only to be told again and again that there weren't any tables available, even if the restaurant is huge and half-empty nearly all of the time. "They did it to themselves. Besides, it was years ago they couldn't even set foot in the joint, so why are they complaining now?" say the libertarians across the aisle. "It's all in the past - they should be grateful."

“Plainly there was more to American race slavery that white masters brutalizing resentful Negroes,” Derbyshire writes. “Slavery is more irksome to some than to others; and freedom can be irksome, too.”

The above comes courtesy of John Derbyshire. Previously, yours truly covered the former National Review columnist's "remix" of The Talk, giving sensible white Americans everywhere 15 easy-to-follow steps to indulge in their fear and avoidance of the dreaded Negro.

Derbyshire's latest beef involves the new movie 12 Years a Slave. He hasn't seen the movie yet, by his own admission, but he's still a bit upset over what he sees as "abolitionist porn." Derbyshire's VDARE column also puts a positive PR spin on the peculiar institution, noting how slaves were simply "happier" during their time of bondage and servitude:

Life expectancy? After crunching the numbers:

U.S. slaves had much longer life expectations than free urban industrial workers in both the United States and Europe.

We’re talking about a period, remember, when life was very wretched for a great many free men: the period of Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, and of Hugo’s Les Misérables.

According to Derbyshire, the average Negro of the period should thank his lucky stars he was bound and chained, otherwise he'd have to live a short, brutish Dickensian life like other free men.

But this is where Derbyshire's column jumps off the rails, over a shark and into the pseudo-intellectual abyss:

Take the matter of what Scarlett O’Hara referred to as “slave concubinage.” Where did all those mulattoes come from, if not from plantation owners and white overseers having their way with helpless Negro slave women?

Genovese quotes Mary Chesnut’s diaries on this topic:

Like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines; and the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody’s household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.

Northerners who visited the South came to similar conclusions.

Fogel and Engerman, however, go to the numbers:

It is not the eyesight of these travelers to the South which is questionable, but their statistical sense. For mulattoes were not distributed evenly through the Negro population. They were concentrated in the cities and especially among freedmen . . . The share of Negro children fathered by whites on slave plantations probably averaged between 1 and 2 percent.

Plantation records and diaries show that overseers were sternly warned against fraternizing with slave women, and were generally dismissed if they did so, as their adventures “could undermine the discipline that planters so assiduously strove to attain.”

Venturing into very seriously un-PC territory, Fogel and Engerman argue that Southern white men anyway did not desire black women, an aversion the authors put down to “racism.” They support this with some data from Nashville:

The 1860 census showed that just 4.3 percent of the prostitutes in that city were Negroes, although a fifth of the population of Nashville was Negro. Moreover, all of the Negro prostitutes were free and light-skinned . . . White men who desired illicit sex had a strong preference for white women.

Again, the authors are on their way here to a refutation of the stereotype of black promiscuity. Fogel and Engerman really meant well.

It has done them no good, of course: their fascinating book is down there with The Bell Curve in liberal esteem. Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

Here, Derbyshire makes great pains to diminish the mulatto phenomenon, often times living and breathing proof of one-sided master/slave sexual relations, as evinced in the following instance:

The following passages sketch the nature of the master-slave relations, and their consequences:

"Maria was a thirteen-year-old house servant. One day, receiving no response to her call, the mistress began searching the house for her. Finally, she opened the parlor door, and there was the child with her master. The master ran out of the room, mounted his horse and rode off to escape, 'though well he knew that [his wife's] full fury would fall upon the young head of his victim.' The mistress beat the child and locked her up in a smokehouse. For two weeks the girl was constantly whipped. Some of the elderly servants attempted to plead with the mistress on Maria's behalf, and even hinted that 'it was mass'r that was to blame.' The mistress's reply was typical: 'She'll know better in the future. After I've done with her, she'll never do the like again, through ignorance'" (Stanley Felstein, Once a Slave: The Slaves' View of Slavery, p.132).

Here, the mistress was able to take out her aggressions on the girl rather than the guilty master. I suppose we could empathize with the frustration and betrayal these wives felt, but the outlet of their aggressions often became the slave girl. Women in the south were quite powerless. Because the option of divorce was not readily available, the mistresses often times punished the slave women for their husbands' wrong-doings.

Or in this particular instance:

"Louisa Picquet had even less choice. Interviewed after she was set free, she recalled: Mr. Williams told me what he bought me for soon as we started for New Orleans. He said if I behave myself he'd treat me well; but, if not, he'd whip me almost to death. He was over forty; I guess pretty near fifty.

Q. Had you any children while in New Orleans?

A. Yes; I had four

Q. Who was their father?

A. Mr. Williams.

Q. Was it known that he was living with you?

A. Everybody knew I was housekeeper, but he never let on that he was the father of my children. I did all the work in his house(...)nobody there but me and the children. When he had company, gentlemen folks, he took them to the hotel.

When Mr. Williams told me what he bought me for I thought, now I shall be committin' adultery, and there's no chance for me, and I'll have to die and be lost. I had this trouble with my soul the whole time. I begin to pray that he might die, so that I might get religion. It was some time before he got sick, He said that if I would promise him that I would go to New York, he would leave me and the children free. In about a month, he died. I didn't cry or nothin', for I was glad he was dead. I was left free, and that made me so glad I could hardly believe it myself" (Dorothy Sterling, ed., We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, p. 24)

It wasn't uncommon for slaveowners to take "liberties" with some of their attractive chattel, whether their bound charges wanted to or not. And it's not surprising to see Derbyshire make a book noted for its liberal helpings of slavery apologia as one of his go-to references for this particular piece. For a bit of supplemental reading, he should crack open the pages of Herman G. Gutman's precision-guided dismantling of Fogel and Engerman's work.

John Derbyshire's hand-waving of slavery in a greater effort to dismiss a movie he hasn't even bothered to see would be hilarious - if such dismissals weren't already so commonplace in mainstream society. As Bob Cesca notes, he would have made the perfect "noble" slaveowner - one who only and "reluctantly corrects" his slaves, most of whom would have appreciated the (barely) dry lodgings, square meals (from scraps) and the structured activity and lifestyle that being enslaved affords.

Remember, this is the same man who believes that white supremacy is one of history's "better arrangements." Little wonder the man was unceremoniously jettisoned from the National Review, itself a decidedly conservative publication.

The cherry on his stacked shit sundae comes in the form of a comparo of slavery to, of all things, communist China:

People are born, raised, educated, and find themselves in a certain kind of society to which those around them are all accustomed. American slave society was a way of life; a settled way that most people took for granted, as most people will anywhere.

There were aspects of life resembling slavery in the communist China where I lived, 1982-3. People had no liberty to find their own employment. You were “assigned” to a “unit.” If unhappy there, it was a devil of a job to get re-assigned.

Families broken up? One of my Chinese colleagues lived alone because his wife was “assigned” to a distant province. He only saw her once a year.

The guy drank a lot.

Yet while there was much grumbling, and some scattered seething rebelliousness, most Chinese got along with the system. A lot of people were very happy with it. You didn’t have to think much, or take much responsibility. And that suits many of us just fine.

At this point, I think I need a stiff drink.

The above video (sadly dead as of 2014) serves as a recap of the events surrounding the five-hour attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Criticisms surrounding the attack included the claimed lack of sufficient security at the compound, as well as why additional Army forces were nowhere to be found when the consulate needed help most.* Some claimed that not only did the White House delay their response to the attack, officials also seemed reluctant to immediately pin responsibility on the usual suspect in the region (Al Qaeda). Republicans attempted to parlay these criticisms into a scandal that would hopefully leave the Obama administration tarred and feathered.

This was supposed to be an impeachable moment for the president. In Benghazi, the GOP saw Barack Obama finally meeting his very own Watergate or better still, Iran Hostage Crisis. So far, that seems about as likely as New Coke being reintroduced on the soft drink market. So Republicans simply changed targets - instead of striking at a lame duck with a seemingly unimpeachable image, they're focused on scuttling Hillary Clinton's possible 2016 presidential candidacy, notably by returning a favor:

The brief period of bipartisan peace initiated by 9/11 ended for good in May 2002. CBS News reported that the president had received an intelligence briefing in early Aug. 2001 that "specifically alerted him of a possible airliner attack in the US."

Th CBS report left much open to question, but that mattered little to Democratic leaders in Congress. They saw an opportunity to attack the president's strong suit--his leadership in the war on terrorism.

The Democrat who most aroused the ire of the White House was Hillary Clinton. She declared, "Bush had been informed last year, before 9/11, of a possible al Qaeda plot to hijack a US airliner." She held up a newspaper headline, "BUSH KNEW." "The president knew what?" Clinton asked.

To the White House, Clinton's remarks seemed calculated to manipulate the narrative concerning who should be blamed for 9/11, trying to shield the legacy of her husband's presidency by shifting blame for overlooking available intelligence away from him & onto his successor.

GOP talking heads suggest that the president had prior knowledge of an impending attack and, for whatever reason, decided to sit on that intel and let the chips fall where they did. Of course, few people asked the magic question: exactly how would the Obama administration profit by allowing such an attack to happen? Even the talking heads over at Fox & Friends are backing away from the conspiratorial mayhem surrounding Benghazi:

On Monday, the morning show hosted cable news all-star Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), for his latest in a long string of attempts to prove that the U.S. government engaged in a massive cover-up of the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Although hosts Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade are normally happy to promote a good conspiracy theory — for example, they recently seriously questioned whether or not NBC is replacing Jay Leno on The Tonight Show because he made a joke about President Obama — even they’re fed up with Chaffetz’s unsupported claims that “we were certainly misled every step of the way.”

“Are you saying that admirals Pickering and Mullen are complicit because they did the review board?” Kilmeade asked of Chaffetz’s suggestion that the government manipulated the findings of the Accountability Review Board report on the attack. “Are you saying that the CIA is complicit because they allowed their talking points to be edited?”

“What were they trying to cover up?” Doocy asked.

“You had the former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta — who was revered by both sides of the fence — coming out and saying, ‘Hey, we couldn’t have gotten anybody there.’ So you have him on the line. You have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, President Obama, Admiral Mullen. Would all of these people go to bat just to get President Obama re-elected?” Carlson asked.

What do you want to bet if this was a picture of a black man, with a Black Liberation flag hanging in the background, watching The New Black Panther Party on TV, surrounded by weapons, calling for black people to take up arms against the government, accusing the government of trying to take their guns away and calling it tyranny, we would have us some gun control legislation quick, fast and in a hurry?

Oh Redeye, you and I know full well that gun control bills would be flying out of the anuses of every Republican senator and representative on Capitol Hill if that ever happened. It's the reason Madame J. Edgar came up with COINTELPRO in the first place. Well, that and those dangblasted commies.

America's excessive fascination with guns transforms into abject fear whenever they end up in the hands of blacks, Latinos or any other vaguely threatening minority groups. Ironically, the whole idea of gun control was to keep guns out of the hands of those awful Negros and other assorted "undesirables" in the first place:

In the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, the slave population successfully threw off their French masters, but the Revolution degenerated into a race war, aggravating existing fears in the French Louisiana colony, and among whites in the slave states of the United States. When the first U. S. official arrived in New Orleans in 1803 to take charge of this new American possession, the planters sought to have the existing free black militia disarmed, and otherwise exclude "free blacks from positions in which they were required to bear arms," including such non-military functions as slave-catching crews. The New Orleans city government also stopped whites from teaching fencing to free blacks, and then, when free blacks sought to teach fencing, similarly prohibited their efforts as well. [4]

It is not surprising that the first North American English colonies, then the states of the new republic, remained in dread fear of armed blacks, for slave revolts against slave owners often degenerated into less selective forms of racial warfare. The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that "a Negro could be free" also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free. Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. [5]

Understandably, restrictions on slave possession of arms go back a very long way. While arms restrictions on free blacks predate it, these restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, a revolt that caused the South to become increasingly irrational in its fears. [6] Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead..." The existing laws under which free blacks were occasionally licensed to possess or carry arms was also repealed, making arms possession completely illegal for free blacks.[7] But even before this action by the Virginia Legislature, in the aftermath of Turner's Rebellion, the discovery that a free black family possessed lead shot for use as scale weights, without powder or weapon in which to fire it, was considered sufficient reason for a frenzied mob to discuss summary execution of the owner. [8] The analogy to the current hysteria where mere possession of ammunition in some states without a firearms license may lead to jail time, should be obvious.

One example of the increasing fear of armed blacks is the 1834 change to the Tennessee Constitution, where Article XI, 26 of the 1796 Tennessee Constitution was revised from: "That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence," [9] to: "That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." [10] [emphasis added] It is not clear what motivated this change, other than Turner's bloody insurrection. The year before, the Tennessee Supreme Court had recognized the right to bear arms as an individual guarantee, but there is nothing in that decision that touches on the subject of race. [11]

Ardent gun lovers will go as far as threaten to commit mass murder or contemplate treason to maintain their "God-given" right to own as many AR-15s, Calicos and SKSs as their budgets and dwelling spaces allow. These same people wouldn't hesitate to talk up coups de tat, revolutions and even breaking away from the U.S. if they don't get their way. All of this, just to keep gun control off the table.

Add blacks to the equation and the tone suddenly shifts. You'll start hearing millions of reasons why black Americans shouldn't have guns. You'll have reams of crime statistics thrown in your face by "race realists" who use data to bolster their beliefs and validate their theories. Listen long enough and you'll hear talk of RaHoWa - race wars that aim to "purify" the nation of its supposed "filth." You start with a white American spending hours in his basement caressing his gun collection and you end with Algiers Point.

Fear - that's the main active ingredient in the potion whipped up by certain pro-gun advocates, lobbyists and self-proclaimed militia organizers, an ever-present element that's literally driving this country to the brink of psychotic collapse. Only the gun manufacturers seem to benefit - every time gun nuts hear a rumor about the scary black guy in office taking their guns away, they buy more of them. It's a lovely racket as long as you have enough lawyers on hand to keep your business distanced from what your buyers do with your product.

Fear of what black Americans might do in masse if they ever got the sense to do as their WASP gun-loving brethren are doing is what historically drove - and continues to drive - efforts to keep themselves armed to the teeth and efforts to keep blacks and other minorities perpetually disarmed and perpetually vulnerable. History is a great tool for figuring out America's peculiarities when it comes to gun ownership. Without it, it would be a lot easier to swallow the assumption that stockpiling guns is a sure-fire sign of liberty.

Last time yours truly turned his attention to Steve King, the Republican congressman from Iowa bragged about having a sixth sense for spotting illegal immigrants and opined how America should sift through its incoming legal immigrant population like shoppers sifting through a scratch-and-dent clearance bin at the local Kmart.

Yesterday, Storm Lake's very own preceded to eat one of his wingtips while expressing concern over federal aid planned for Hurricane Sandy refugees survivors:

"I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that's over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast," King said during a Tuesday evening debate in Mason City, Iowa.

"But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook, because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary," he said later, referring to Hurricane Katrina.

Seven years after the storm opened a Pandora's Box of incompetence and self-service from a variety of state and federal officials along with a helping of racial antagonism, Hurricane Katrina remains a code word and a catch-all for anyone wanting to compare or comment on black America's supposed predilection towards profligate welfarism, helplessness and wanton destruction. In other words, it's a convenient way to avoid stepping over the "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon" while making your point about those ni*CLANG* and anyone looking to act like them.

For general reference, King was also one of 11 congressmen who voted against a $51.8 billion relief package aimed towards Hurricane Katrina relief back in 2005. He still sees it as "a good vote." He also has a penchant for opposing disaster relief and prevention bills:

King has opposed other disaster relief and prevention bills, including twice voting against a bill to authorize funding for the National Flood Insurance Program.

He's also the same gentleman who not only boarded the S.S. Legitimate Rape with Paul Ryan and Todd Akin by supporting the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," which would have banned Federal funding of abortions except in cases of forcible rape, but also invoked a certain incredulousness when it came to young victims of incest and statutory rape:

"Well I just haven't heard of that being a circumstance that's been brought to me in any personal way, and I'd be open to discussion about that subject matter," he said.

He might want to take some notes from the Guttmacher Institute on that one, or better still, quietly listen in on an interview with a young victim of incest and rape.

In short, Stevie K is exactly what you'd expect from a staunch conservative - a man who expresses his personal prejudices under the guise of fiscal and moral responsibility. Here's to hoping Christie Vilsack overcomes King's current four-point lead.

On Friday, a man was photographed by Getty Images at a rally for the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket in Lancaster, Ohio, wearing a T-shirt that read "Put The White Back In the White House." Conservatives now say the man may have been a liberal plant designed to make Romney look bad, and the GOP nominee has disavowed the racist T-shirt. On Saturday, a Romney spokesperson told Buzzfeed the shirt is "reprehensible and has no place in this election."

A "liberal plant" is probably one of the lamest excuses offered so far. Besides, Mitt Romney doesn't need some guy in a T-shirt to make him look bad, since he's spent his entire campaign making himself look like extruded crap.

What's more telling is how certain segments of this nation's population would rather choose a capricious, tone-deaf and arrogant man who cares nothing about the ordinary population save for their ability to generate greater wealth for him and his peers over a man who's made some serious strides towards helping Americans of all walks of life, for the sole reason of his ethnic makeup. You give these people a knife and tell them a black man was living inside of their stomachs and they'll stab away with sheer, uninhibited gusto.

The following is Missouri Senate candidate and current Representative Todd Akin shoving a size 12 patent leather shoe down his own throat:


There's not much anyone with any common sense can say about this, except that this is perhaps the unmitigated height of stupidity and insensitivity.

I don't think anyone knows exactly what a "legitimate rape" is. It's probably the same thing as Whoopi Goldberg's "rape rape." The fact that there's an established threshold before anyone takes rape seriously should make just about anyone throw up.

I've heard of theories about how the stress and trauma of rape supposedly cuts off the chemical and hormonal processes needed to facilitate pregnancy. The underlying implication here is that if you were really raped, your body wouldn't allow the fertilization process to continue. Therefore, if you become pregnant after you were raped, then you really weren't raped, were you? And if you want an abortion, that would make you some sort of slut, right? "Good girls" don't get themselves into those typ...*pauses to throw up*..es of situations.

I hope you had a barf bag on you. That stuff's hell to clean off a keyboard.

It's not just Akin who thinks this way. The GOP has successfully cultivated a legion of politicians who are absolutely retrograde when it comes to matters that affect women most. These people are stuck in the mindset that declares female autonomy over their own destinies and biological functions to be the greatest societal sin imaginable. To them, it just ain't right that women can make their own decisions about bringing new life into this world and protecting themselves from predatory assholes who not only mistake a woman's vagina for a 24-hour convenience store, but feel that if women didn't want their registers robbed, they shouldn't have been open in the first place. No, I don't understand that line of thinking, either.

And people wonder why rape remains one of the most under-reported crimes out there.

The GOP is insistent using the power of the federal government to lock down women's reproductive rights at the same time it's equally insistent on the power of the federal government to be vanquished in just about every other matter save for the country's ability to go to war. That definitely speaks to the rather fucked up priorities of conservatives nowadays.

It's not just Todd Akin who's busy refining rape to fit retrograde sensibilities. It's definitely worth mentioning that GOP vice-president candidate Paul Ryan was Akin's partner in crime when penning the infamous "forcible rape" language in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Ryan himself believes that abortion should be illegal everywhere, under any circumstance. If you need an abortion to keep yourself alive due to pregnancy complications or if you don't want to carry a child conceived in rape to term, then you're all out of luck.* If you think you'll at least have birth control, don't. Ryan's against that, too.

None of this is about maintaining the well-being of women everywhere. If that were the case, this post wouldn't exist and neither would these attitudes. It's about maintaining control over women, a two-pronged process that involves shrinking women's autonomy over their own being via legislation while sanctioning society's shaming of women who remain determined to exercise their rights. The hoped result for many is a return to a society where women are seen (and fucked), but not heard. The menfolk are no longer threatened  by women who are not only not impressed with their success and trappings, but are more than capable of creating their own. In this rather fucked-up scenario, women remain property passed on from father to husband (and if said husband or father dies, from uncle to brother-in-law).

Akin later issued out a boilerplate tweet that expressed regret over being excoriated over his comments:

"To be clear, all of us understand that rape can result in pregnancy & I have great empathy for all victims. I regret misspeaking."- Todd
— Todd Akin (@ToddAkin) August 19, 2012

Meanwhile, Dana Loesch thinks people, namely the Democrats, are making too much of a fuss over this issue. Loesch managed to write the book on abject stupidity on countless occasions, so there's no new ground being broken here. You'd think that even a conservative woman would recognize how wrong Akin's comments were. *sigh*

*Unless you travel to another country that's more than happy to get that done, but who's wealthy enough to make that happen?

This past Fourth of July, the fine folks in Winfield, Alabama woke up to the handywork of their friendly neighborhood "Christian organization", that left flyers encouraging the town's white Christians to join them for a Negro-free holiday gathering full of good food, great music and plenty of pro-white propaganda.


Gee, I thought Christ's love didn't recognize any ethnic boundaries. Or many religious ones, at that. Then again, when your Jesus looks like this, you kinda expect him to stay on the right (or is that white?) team.


The city is a bit miffed. They don't want to be associated with any of this shit, and I don't blame them. The only thing that sucks more than a closeted Klansman in a Hardee's bathroom is a bunch of "Christians" using the faith as a cover for their bigoted tendencies. Speaking of which:

According to the flier, the three-day conference, being held in a rural area, will end with a "Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony."

Welp, at least they saved on the laundry bills. And I'm done.

Being outspoken is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, not so much:

Politico has suspended White House correspondent Joe Williams over comments suggesting that Mitt Romney is more "comfortable" around white people.

Williams, who is African-American, made the comments during a Thursday appearance on Martin Bashir's MSNBC program. During the appearance, Williams discussed how he believes Romney appears more "comfortable" appearing on Fox News Channel, as opposed to other outlets, and implied that race is a factor.

So, what exactly did this man say to have POLITICO swooning in the general direction of the nearest fainting chair?

"Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings, why he can't relate to people other than that," Williams said during the appearance. "But when he comes on 'Fox and Friends,' they're like him. They're white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company."

Oh.

I wouldn't say Sir Willard Milton Romney's visible discomfort stems from his reluctance towards darker hues. He's a wealthy man who feels most at home with men and women of his economic and social class. No wonder the man has to feign sincerity everywhere he goes - connecting with the common man is a foreign concept to him.

It seems like this straw was the last one the POLITICO camel could carry before its back snapped. Not only is Williams on the hook for the above quoted, as spoken on Martin Bashir's show on MSNBC, he's also on the hook for a string of Twitter comments, including this one:



Seriously, there have been worse things said about Mitt and Ann. In the cold, cruel world of the Internet, this would be a non-issue. Except the folks at Breitbart decided to make it one and commenced flagging this and other tweets penned by "jdub":



This is tame. Spectacularly tame. Other organizations would see Breitbart's attempts to make something of nothing for what it is and subsequently ignore it. Instead, POLITICO rushed to throw Williams under the bus. Essentially, this guy got suspended (without pay) for doing what Glenn Beck does on a regular basis. If a Fox News White House Correspondent made a similar remark about President Obama, they'd get a pat on the back and plenty of thumbs-up.

I can't see POLITICO throwing one of their correspondents under the bus unless it was 1)an inside beef between Williams and the editors or 2)the POLITICO was so fearful of the response from Breitbart and other conservative outlets that it collectively shat itself and consequently shat on Williams. From my understanding, POLITICO is supposed to be neutral, yet it has a soft touch for Mitt Romney, as evinced by its executive editor and chief White House correspondent's accusations of the New York Times and Washington Post being biased against Mitt Romney:

On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady....

...and the horse-riding story came a few weeks after a second story that made Republicans see red – another front-pager, this time in the Washington Post, that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay, in high school nearly a half-century ago. The clear implication to readers: Romney was a mean, insensitive jerk.

These "implications" aren't implications at all: they're pretty much fact, verified by countless media outlets. The Romneys are wealthy as all get out and Mittens was, in fact, an asshole back in his high school and college days.

The official explanation from POLITICO for Williams' suspension is as follows:

"Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility," POLITICO's founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in a memo to the staff. "His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way."

"Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words," the continued. "This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them. This is true for all POLITICO journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams."

"Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter," they wrote.

Williams declined to comment on the matter.

In the memo, Harris and VandeHei reminded staff that "POLITICO journalists have a clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias."

From Williams himself:

I regret that this happened. I understand and respect John Harris' point of view - that I've compromised Politico's objectivity, and my own. At this point my suspension without pay is still indefinite, and I don't know what management has in mind as an appropriate sanction, so I can't object or appeal. Politico still employs me, but the review process hasn't started in earnest so my future remains unclear.

Having covered the Shirley Sherrod firing and seen the fallout from James O'Keefe's brand of journalism, I'm not surprised a small group with internet access and an ambitious agenda can affect reporting and distort analysis of political news. It's quite unfortunate and incredibly frustrating, however, that I landed in the crosshairs this time, calling Politico's integrity into question and jeopardizing a job and a career that I love.

I have a feeling Williams might have to call someplace else home after the dust settles.

Dr. Boyce Watkins believes that since Joesph Williams wouldn't emulate the more tepid and timid style of Juan Williams and refrain from going off-script, he was deemed a "rogue" and had to be put back in his place:

But you see, there’s a pattern and unfortunately Joe has been affected by it. For the most part, being born a Black man who speaks conscientiously or accurately about issues of race effectively defines you to be a rogue. There isn’t much of a disconnect between the Black man who is stopped and frisked on the street, and the Black male professor/journalist/doctor/lawyer who has his capabilities questioned, even when he does nothing wrong.

Cornel West was a rogue at Harvard for seeking to reengage the black community. I was a trouble maker in elementary school when I answered questions without raising my hand. Barack Obama was defined as a radical leftist by the Republican Party for saying that the wealthy should pay slightly higher taxes. It’s easy for black men to be marginalized very quickly in most mainstream environments, primarily because people are waiting for you to say something that they can define to be volatile or dangerous.

That's what made Breitbart's methods of attack so pernicious. Breitbart's team of plucky "journalists" have been successful in derailing and demolishing the careers of outspoken individuals who don't quite adhere to the desired arch-conservative narrative, under the pretense of maintaining "journalistic integrity." They know how to pick their targets, from the folks at ACORN to Shirley Sherrod - targets who could be assumed guilty before proven innocent of their "crimes" and easily disposed of with little to no consequences. No heads have rolled over the loss of ACORN or Shirley Sherrod, and I suspect no heads will roll over the premature disposal of Joesph Williams.

I suppose if Williams decided to comment on how President Obama seemed "comfortable only around his own people," he'd still have his job. Speaking of which, a commentator over at Huffington Post hits it out of the park (albeit on the Washington Post/NYT post):

The problem as I see it, is that certain parts of the so called press figure that if you are not attacking Obama 24/7 then you are a liberally biased news organization and not worthy of respect.

Whereas if you report anything negative about Mittens, then you are also a liberally biased news outfit.

They consider it fair and balanced only if you attack Obama incessantly and give Mittens nothing but the softball treatment with out looking deep into his background.

Reading both outfits it's easy to see Politico leaning hard to the right. They figure the cons will win all three houses and are doing nothing but preparing hopefully for a friendly relationship for who is in power...hopefully.

Politicos so called truth seeking is at best poorly done and at worst ignorant.

To cap things off, a declaration from the members of the Church of Andrew Breitbart and his Latter Day "Saints":

This is our MSM.
This is Politico.
This is why God created Andrew Breitbart.

Pardon me while I go throw up.

Some people say we've reached a point in time where we can truly consider ourselves beyond race. After all, segregation and outright bigotry are both long gone, discrimination's a thing of the past and hey, we even have a black president now. Now we can all join hands, hum "Kumbaya" and look forward to a time where the last remnants of racial antagonism and bigotry can die along with the people who practiced and held those traits, beliefs and ideas.

Or not.

John Derbyshire, in response to black parents giving their children "the talk" about how to best avoid the numerous pitfalls that lead to jail, untimely death, or both, decided to create a "white" version of that talk to give his kids. The big difference between "the talk" and what Derbyshire cooked up lies with how many racial stereotypes, false "facts" and outright bad advice Derbyshire managed to compress in about 15 "life-saving" tips.

Derbyshire starts off by sneering at the rather quaint idea of refraining from archaic terms that border on disrespect or insensitivity towards blacks. This is mixed in with a little bit of "Why can't I call them the N-word?" and "I can call you whatever I want".

(1) Among your fellow citizens are forty million who identify as black, and whom I shall refer to as black. The cumbersome (and MLK-noncompliant) term “African-American” seems to be in decline, thank goodness. “Colored” and “Negro” are archaisms. What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks.

You can already tell where this is headed. As for Tip #2, Derbyshire proudly states that "10 percent of the African American population is more than half European in ancestry", but won't say how that happened. Funny that.

(3) Your own ancestry is mixed north-European and northeast-Asian, but blacks will take you to be white.

Because not even white Americans can tell by sight alone one another's precise ethnic makeup. Hence why people proudly pronounce themselves as "Scots-Irish" or "Italian on my mother's father's side". Otherwise, they're about as white as Wonder Bread, for all intents and purposes.

I wouldn't mind knowing what's on Derbyshire's sons' driver's licenses. Did they tick the "White" box without a second thought? Most likely.

(4) The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship. In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety.

Uh-oh. I wonder what Derbyshire meant by that. Don't worry, I'll get into that later on.

Tips #5 through #8 are merely weak statistical justifications for what could be summed up as "typical black behavior," along with something I can only discern as "blacks are not special snowflakes" and "blacks are anti-social." Tip #9 is where we really get down to the meat of the whole article:

(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.

Eh?

You know what? Here's a small exercise for all those paying attention:

(9) A small cohort of whites—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to blacks and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of whites—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that blacks have it coming.

See what just happened?

But it isn't as bad as the following tip #10, along with all the addendums tacked onto it:

(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

I think Derbyshire left out (10j) clutching your (man) purse when passing a strange black and (10k) calling the cops whenever you feel "threatened" by one. And there's always (10k)(2) if you're in a state with a "stand your ground" law: just shoot the black if you feel "threatened". The police will back you and you'll be home for dinner in no time.

Derbyshire's article and advice is akin to a man who stands on his head in the tub and proceeds to take a massive, wet shit all over himself and the tub. John continues his coprophiliac celebration by touching on blacks' inherently low IQ (#11) the evils of Affirmative Action and how his feelings were hurt by the DMV lady who told him he couldn't add "mixed north-European with just a splash of minty northeast-Asian" on his driver's license (#12), how to use "intelligent blacks" as a human shield against accusations of racism (#13 and #14), and an ill-thought-of jab against President Obama (#15) as a parting shot.

And Derbyshire's claiming to teach his kids all of this. One can only hope he's being factious about the whole thing, but considering how many people tend to take their own bigotry seriously, even the most satirical effort can appear to be laced with bitter diatribe that tells the audience how the writer genuinely feels about the whole thing.

The whole point of letting racism and bigotry die becomes moot if people are still passing on their maligned views on other ethnic groups to their offspring. There will always be a need for a proactive approach when it comes to stamping it out. It's not gonna die on its own.

EDIT: Jonah Goldberg does not approve of your work, John:

Well, you know what they say: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats every day. Give a man a welfare check, a free cell phone with free monthly minutes, food stamps, section 8 housing, some Air Jordans, a 40-ounce malt liquor, a crack pipe and a pack of rubbers and he votes Democrat for a lifetime.”

You gotta love racists, especially some of the more benign ones that litter the Internet. The above quote hits on every single stereotype plaguing the black American Democrat voter, as well as general black "dependency," whether it be on government largess or the benevolent graces of the white, well-to-do plantation owner.

The late Andrew Breitbart's website seems to be littered with comments like the above. Turns out the new editor-in-chief Joel Pollak is committed to continuing Breitbart's legacy of confused and intellectually deficient "journalism" that even Fox News would take great pains to avoid.


Seems Pollak is fixated on racism these days, as long as it's purely on the left. He seems like the kind of guy who'd expound on the deficiencies of those "fucking [coons]" around a few beers with George Zimmerman.

The type of comments a website or blog attracts depends on the type of tone set by the owner/moderators and content. Little wonder.

Meanwhile:

"If a white kills a black we revolt, if a black kills a white it's jail time, we kill each other it's Miller time. It's as if somebody has the right to kill us."

Well of course, Jesse. To them, we're just somebody's property.

So far, this has been an interesting week. Not only did our political village idiots speak on President Obama's address on Trayvon Martin, but one particular idiot had the temerity to chastise a fellow House Rep. for standing in solidarity with the slain young man, by citing an obscure and formerly unknown (to the public) dress code forbidding hats, or in this case, hoodies. As Abagond dutifully noted, there's an ongoing media campaign to drag Trayvon Martin's name into the dirt. Apparently, having an empty ziplock bag is a surefire sign of criminality in some parts.

Meanwhile, its 2012 and a small group of village idiots thought it was 1928 all over again:



At least this guy got to wear bracelets, but a felony charge was too much to ask? I suppose if the black guy who stood up to this walking, talking symbol of cowardice and stupidity had brandished a weapon, he'd be cooling his heels in lockup, sans bail, with a felony charge right about now.

I'm still wrapping my head around the whole individual mandate and single-payer healthcare thing. I'm not that good with bullshit jargon, but apparently it's necessary to sneak any hope of having national healthcare a la Canada or [add sane country here], but with so many people ready to vote against their interests to the benefit of the healthcare insurance industry, I guess you have to sugar coat this pill to have any hope in hell of average Americans chancing a swallow. No telling how this will pan out in the Supreme Court.