Limbaugh and Co. Fuel Fear of a Black President

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with my cousin about the state of race relations in the age of Obama. My cousin said,"Things are getting better, but the people who have a problem with black people are getting worse." To further illustrate his story, he told me about one of his friends, a white lady, whose daughter used to play regularly with a friend, who was also white. One day, one of the girls discovered that her friend stopped showing up for playdates. Her mother went to the other mom and asked why. The answer: "You voted for Obama.

This story is all the more poignant considering the recent wing-nut fest that was CPAC, which "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart described as the "Festival of Whites." Glenn Beck got on stage and put on the same nightly carnival show he does on FOX News. One thing he did say that was correct was suggesting that the GOP needs to admit it has a problem. Beck said the problem was spending, but the real problem is race.

Jon Stewart Takes On CPAC -- The 'Festival Of Whites' - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Race is a frustrating problem in America, because it tends to attract polar opposite opinions. Black people are often aggrieved about their situation, while white people seem to be in deep denial that there is a problem. A common excuse is,"I didn't own any slaves." But that is a simplistic answer, slavery was outlawed about a 100 years ago, but there are several pressing problems affecting African Americans and other people of color.

You may not have owned slaves, but what did you do when the police were torturing and executing black men? What did you do when black men were being locked up for crimes they didn't commit? And what did you do when banks were steering people of color, with good credit, into high-interest loans?

As my cousin said there are many people who are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of a black president. They feel their old world, of white male privilege and a comfortable middle class lifestyle, is slipping away. To them Obama is the John the Baptist of the Apocalypse, the harbinger of the destruction of White America as they know it. The clearest evidence of this was seen when Obama decided to hold his impromptu Q and A session with House Republicans. Obama answered, deflected and parried their questions with aplomb, and all the while you got the impression, that this smart, articulate and knowledgeable black man, was driving them crazy.

Black people may have dominated in sports and entertainment, but in the fields of business and politics, white men still ruled the roost. Obama spells the end of that. I am sure a lot of older white men are worried that Corporate America is soon going to end up looking like the the NBA, with their grandchildren only allowed to play bit parts.

The extreme wing of the Republican party realizes this and that is why with the aid of their propaganda department, also known as FOX News, they are trying to whip white rage into a frenzy. Blue collar and middle-class Americans have a lot to be angry about, with chronic unemployment and the near collapse of the financial market. However FOX News is channeling that anger into rage at the Obama administration, when it was the Bush administration's tax cuts to the rich and unfunded foreign wars that largely caused the problem. Joe Stack, a frustrated computer programmer, was so angry that he flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, killing one worker. And even after this apparent incident of domestic terrorism, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) still said, that he emphathized with Stack and urged listerners to "implode" more IRS buildings.

This deadly mix of rage and frustration is being stoked by the conservative triumvirate of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

American Talkers recently named Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity, respectively, as the top three most influential talk show hosts in America. All three commentators are infamous for their barely-masked racial animosity. They won't come out and say they hate black people and don't think Obama should be president, but they'll use a series of code words and sleights to convey their message.

Limbaugh is fond of using words like "uppity," and "arrogant," which were used in Jim Crow times to describe black who didn't know their place. Hannity simply employs hired minstrels like Jesse Lee Patterson to say the things that any white host would be fired for mentioning.

These hate mongers understand the fears of their AM radio audience. Rush Limbaugh recently said the only reason why Obama made it through Harvard Law school is because his professors wrote his papers for him. This taps into the anger that many white Americans have about affirmative action. There is nothing worse you can call a black employee than an affirmative action hire. Limbaugh topped that by recently comparing Obama's health care legislation to reparations. (Funny how those "reparations" will benefit a lot of non-black people.) Limbaugh also said that Obama is a "primitive, indigenous guy." This is highly ironic because Obama is a graduate of Harvard Law school, while Limbaugh dropped out college in his freshman year. (Hannity and Beck are also college drop outs.)

I am not the only person concerned about the rage that is being nurtured by the right. Dr. Sherman Miller, a columnist and long-time Republican activist from Delaware, describes Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity as America's racist trinity of evilwho are "perpetuating a media lynching of President Barack Obama." Additionally, former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that right-wing bloggers urged him to physically attack First Lady Michelle Obama when she was a guest on his show. Huckabee said he was "disgusted by the anger and meanness."

Limbaugh and co. have said that they want Obama and his policies to fail, and they will use every weapon in their arsenal to stop him -- even if that means lies, smears and encouraging violence.

Right-Wing Commentators Don't Believe Their Own Hype

Jimmy Walker and Ann Coulter

Jimmy Walker Brags About His Romance With Far-Right Commentator Ann Coulter

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann once said that most right-wing commentators are just in it for the money. If you ever needed further proof of this, consider shrill neo-fascist commentator Ann Coulter.

Coulter, who extols family values, is 48 and never married. She has an active social life, which I assume must include extra marital sex, and has dated liberals in the past. (even though she has called them treasonous.) Coulter is infamous for her racist comments such as calling for Muslims to be "sexed up" at airports. She also also referred to Arabs as "jihad monkeys" and "ragheads" and defended white supremacists. She defended the Conservative Citizens Council, an organization which claims that blacks are interior to people of European descent. (I wonder how they feel about her dating choices?). Commenting on Barack Obama's book, "Dreams of My Father," Coulter said, "Here's an insider scoop about white people: We're not thinking about you. Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it. " She also was fired from the conservative National Review for saying that America should invade "Muslim countries and force them to convert to Christianity."

Now we hear stories that Jimmy Walker (J.J. from "Good Times.") is extolling the virtues of his loving relationship with Coulter. Yeah, wrap your mind around that for a while. This is not surprising because rumors about this have been floating around the blogosphere for years. "The Boondocks" also depicted Coulter in a relationships with a shiftless black man. (Turns out they were pretty close to the truth.) See the video below.

Consider the lifestyle choices of these right-wing commentators:

• Rush Limbaugh, a rabid homophobe and misogynist, has been divorced three times and never fathered any kids. He also lived separately from third wife for the last 10 years of their marriage and took an all-male trip to Dominican Republic, a notorious child sex hot spot. Limbaugh was busted returning to the U.S. with a bottle of Viagra,
• Radio show host Michael Savage, who was booted from MSNBC for making homophobic comments, was pictured nude with his close friend Timothy Leary, a noted homosexual. Savage who espouses neo-racist views is Jewish and his real name is Michael Wiener.
• Armstrong Williams, a discredited right-wing commentator and longtime bachelor, has been accused of sexual harassment twice -- by men.
• Bill O'Reilly, who bills himself as Mr. Conservative Family Values, bragged about cheating on his wife with hookers and settled a $5 million sexual harassment lawsuit. The employee who filed the suit had O'Reilly on tape making explicit sexual comments.
• Glenn Beck says he is "just an ordinary guy" but makes about $20 million a year. He is also a former drug addict who has said that he "doesn't feel comfortable around black people," and belongs to a religion, whose founder thought that black people were cursed by God.

Coulter's hypocrisy indicates that most right-wing media figures are just putting on a show. They are like the "heels" in pro-wrestling. Heels are the cartoonish villains that audiences love to hate. Many wrestlers say they prefer playing the heel because they make more money. Just like in the movies the villains get all the good lines. But when the show is over, the heels probably go out and share a beer with the "good guys."

Well that is what is going on in the political arena. Commentators like Coulter, Beck, Hannity and Michael Savage don't believe their hype. They make outrageos comments to sell books, push ads and get ratings -- and they get handsomely rewarded for it.

Limbaugh often says he is just a comedian, and I think we need to take him at his word. But don't believe what Limbaugh and fellow right-wing commentators are saying, because they sure don't. They just want to keep white people angry and keep the dollars rolling in. Remember what Rev. Rollo Goodlove, from "The Boondocks, says about Coulter, "She just do that for that redneck money."

Daily Beast Names Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh on List of Top 25 Conservative Journalists

Beck Had Said That He is Not a Journalist

It's difficult to take some of the arguments coming out of the political right seriously. After all these are the people who say that George W. Bush kept the nation safe from terrorist attack, and want a return to tax cuts and deregulation, the same polices that tanked the economy.

But this list of the top 25 Conservative Journalists, written by the Daily Beast's Tunkun Varadarajan, a research fellow at the right-wing Stanford Institute, is staggeringly inaccurate and just downright stupid. Varadarajan lists Glenn Beck as no. 2 on the list. He also lists neo-fascist propagandists, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, on the list. Now Limbaugh, on various occasions, has said that he is not a journalist, and is just a comedian. And any no journalism professor worth his salt would ever describe Hannity as a journalist.

Appearing on television doesn't make you a journalist. Also opinion columns does not make you a journalist. Beck even said explicitly on "The View" that he is not a journalist, and does'nt bother to check his facts. Of course, anyone with Google and a semi-functional brain could tell you that.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-10/the-rights-top-25-journalists/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC6

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Need a Reliable Uncle Tom? Call Project 21

Jesse Lee Peterson

FOX News knows that its a right-leaning/white-leaning network, but they realize that these days neo fascists, like Sean Hannity, cannot just came out and call black people, lazy shiftless bums, even though that is what is going through their minds. To vocalize these ugly ideas, they turn to a small cadre of black conservatives. While there maybe some black conservatives, who believe in the principles of fiscal moderation and traditional values, there are also several black straw men.

People like the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a notoriously self-loathing African American, who is happy to vocalize every racist and offensive comment white commentators are too scared to say. The good Rev. Peterson, showed true Christian spirit, when he blamed the Hurricane Katrina disaster on the poor moral values of the mainly black residents of New Orleans. Some of his other hits include:

• Calling civil rights leader W.E.B Dubois "a communist pig."
• And calling black men "weak and insecure."
• He also said Obama was elected by "black racism and white guilt"

Another Project 21 member Kevin Martin compared the NAACP to the Ku Klux Klan in an appearance on Hannity's show. Peterson is close friends Hannity, who was a major contributor to his Brother Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) foundation, a fact that Hannity failed to mentioned when he regulalry hosted Peterson on his show. So effectively Hannity was writing Peterson a check, and then asking him to appear as an "objective" guest. (But really, is any guest objective on FOX?.) Peterson has also associated with white sepratist and immigrant hating groups.

If you ever wondered where these professional Uncle Toms come from, you need to look to Project 21. Tomming has been a pretty good gig for Patterson, who has gotten a book, radio show and numerous television appearances out of it. According to left-wing journalist Max Blumenthal Project 21 was created by the National Council for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), a right-wing think tank, who were looking for black faces to rebut the many charges of racism levied at the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King riots in 1992. Project 21 provided black media pundits who could refute these charges, and in many cases vocalize the offensive comments that white pundits where too scared to say.

NCPRR Executive Director David Almasi, who is white, almost blew the lid of the Project 21 scam, when he stood in for one of his talking heads. Almasi also coordinates Project 21 media strategy and tells its pundits what to say.

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Former Hannity Associate Facing Charges, Threatened Journalist

The Republican party is currently trying to reform itself as minority friendly with the election of Michael Steel as chairman. (Whether that is a good or bad thing is a another column). But as I have mentioned before, there is still a troubling hard-core racist element in the party. You have the high-profile bigots like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, but these media figures would not succeed unless there was support from them in the party.

Left-wing writer Max Blumenthal tells a disturbing story about Hal Turner, a Neo-Nazi radio show host, who was on the FBI payroll as an informer. Turner, a former member of the New Jersey Republican party, has a disturbing past, which includes close ties to Sean Hannity. Turner used to be a regular caller to Hannity's radio show, because he had been given him a special call in number. When Hannity made it to prime time on FOX News, he tried to distance himself from Turner. Turner also worked for Pat Buchanan when he ran for president in 1992.

Blumenthal says that Turner has made death threats to Democratic candidates and left-wing writers (including himself,) which is really disturbing since the FBI was paying him about $100,000 a year. Turner's federal trial was declared a mistrial, but he is facing charges in Brooklyn and Connecticut for inciting violence against state lawmakers.

http://www.alternet.org/story/144600/meet_the_fbi_operative_who_threatened_my_life,_and_the_gov.-elect_who_may_have_helped_him?page=2

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