The God-Given Right of White and Grumbles from the Grave*

Here's some excerpts from the BuzzFlash Editor's Blog about 'race':

As far as race, we wrote an editorial in 2007 entitled "From Little Rock to Baghdad." In it we reflected on a visit to Little Rock, the pernicious legacy of the Confederacy, and how that connected to the war in Iraq.

We then went on to connect the "white male entitlement" mindset of the Confederacy to the War in Iraq and the fierce anti-Clinton hatred among a large contingent of white men:

Why would a white Southern male betray his race and gender and voluntarily abandon "white entitlement"? White male entitlement is the ultimate affirmative action program. In fact the entire system of slavery was an affirmative action society and economy run for the benefit of a white power base. Just look at Bush. The man would be lucky to get a job cleaning out stables if he didn't have the ultimate white male entitlement "pedigree."

And so it is with Cheney, who relentlessly utters the mantra of "victory" and "honor" lying ahead of us in Iraq, because a white man can't "lose" to men and women of color -- and non-Christians to boot.

This is the definition of "victory" in the end for Bush and Cheney: white men -- whatever their personal deficiencies -- can't lose. It is just not allowed.

But when you owned a plantation in the days of slavery, you weren't accountable to anyone but yourself -- and if a black slave got uppity, you just lashed or hung him.

A white man never lost. That is the heritage mindset of Cheney and Bush.

Personally, I take it a step further: We're all niggas to those bastards, pawns to be exploited in their evil game, the sources of blood and money in their quest for world domination.

In the same article are some quotes from the dear departed Molly Ivins, whose book "Bill of Wrongs" I'm currently reading.

Which brings us to the late Molly Ivins, who we had the pleasure to interview on BuzzFlash. In 2006, she wrote a column simply entitled: "I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President." Here it is:

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog (my em) and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly (or not so elegantly - G), as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

Much more, and I don't have much to add. Molly said it all.

*Apologies to Robert Heinlein.