Shirley Sherrod ...

Impressive lady ... but notice it appears they did not actually offer her HER JOB back. They offered her a different job.

That has the appearance of taking her back, putting her somewhere out of the way and getting her to stop impressing people at their expense.

The Case of Inverted Reasoning ...

Dave concedes that the NAACP has a case, but concludes that they're wrong for making it. But they're only wrong for making it because the broader society, evidently, believes that objecting to a call for literacy tests is, in fact, just as racist as a call for literacy tests. This inversion, this crime against sound logic, is at the heart of American white supremacy, and at the heart of a country that has nurtured white supremacy all these sad glorious years.

It is the Founders claiming all men are created equal while building a democracy on property in human beings. It is Confederates crying tyranny, while erecting a country based on tyranny. It is Sherman discriminating against black soldiers, while claiming that his superiors are discriminating against whites. It's Ben Tillman justifying racial terrorism, by claiming that he's actually fighting against terrorism. It is George Wallace defending a system built on bombing children in churches, and then asserting that the upholders of that system are "the greatest people to ever trod this earth." [emphasis added]

Those who employ racism are not in the habit of confessing their nature--inversion is their cloak. Cutting out the cancer means confronting that inversion, means not wallowing in on-the-other-handism, in post-racialism, means seeing this as more than some kind of political game. Someone has, indeed, failed here. It is not the NAACP.

-- The NAACP Is Right, Cont. by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

Well, don't expect courage from Gabrielle Giffords, Repug in Dem clothing ...

Arizona continues to embarrass: Now we have death threats against Raul Grijalva, one of the few Democratic Reps who usually appears to actually be a Democrat.

Pueblo Politics: Grijalva closes office because of death threats

Unlike Gabrielle Giffords who just pretends to be a Dem like most of the critters calling themselves Dems who infest the US House and Senate.

Pueblo Politics: Giffords says no to boycott

So which is it, Gabrielle? Lack of courage or lack of convictions?

Monkey, monkey, who's got the monkey ...

In the recent past I have referred to George W. Bush as a monkey because not only did I end up disliking him but I held him in contempt. What the poor monkey did to deserve this abuse I do not know. I suppose the use of monkey to denigrate a human could in some sense show that we view the monkey as being 'a poor cousin' to a human. Perhaps, even by those who wax pale at the thought of Darwin.

While I cannot gather up any image in my mind where I would place the epithet of monkey upon Obama --I have other animals I use for Obama, and Rahm-baby also-- I do not consider the use of monkey as a racist slur. Which does not mean that all of those picking on the poor monkey, as I have done in the past, are not racists. But it also does not prove they are.

As for my animal picks for some of the current administration:

• For Obama I alternate between coyote and weasel depending upon whether I'm feeling inclined to approve or disapprove of something he's done. The coyote is an animal that appeals to me. It is intelligent. It is clever. It learns. It is a survivor. If you leave it alone it will probably leave you, the human, alone but will, if you are not very, very careful, get your chickens, your cat, your small dog. It will also get your large dog if that dog is stupid enough to be lured far enough away from the yard. For me the weasel represents just sneaky without any redeaming value.
• As for Rahm, I view him as a disgusting carrion-eating hyena. Which is probably insulting the hyena.
  

So instead of person-ifying the animal, am I animal-ifying the person?

Monkeys and children ...

Perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to assume that a darkly colored baby doll with the name Lil' Monkey' is automatically racist.

I lived in Colombia for three years as a child and remember people coming up to me to look at (and touch) my very, very blond hair (which, alas, didn't last into adulthood). Que mono they would say. A mono is a monkey and can also be used to mean 'cute.' And don't tell me we don't ever ever use the term 'you little monkey' when speaking to a child without meaning anything to do with skin color or racial background.

Feel the Christian love ...

Here's another ditzy priest:

Church parishioner sez pastor singled her out for the Obama sign on her car

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Ditzy as in dippy, dizzy, dopey.

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The joke's on us ... and the Mormon Church. Today's QUOTES:

... since ignoring Bush is paramount in the American Corporate Journalism Way there was never a chance our yapping talking TV heads were going to state the plain truth of who Palin is, the parallels to who is sitting in the White House would have been far too plain and uncomfortable. --It Wasn’t Loss of Nerve by paradox, The Left Coaster So -- the Church directly instructed its membership on the roles they were to play in the campaign, allegedly contributed hundreds of thousands in unreported in-kind contributions, kept actual politicking off their lavish campuses, and directed as much as twenty million dollars in church members' contributions to the YES campaign. But now they'd rather not have the bright spotlight of publicity on them, their members who contributed, and the businesses who contributed? ... You can speak your piece in the public square, but you may also be held accountable for your speech and your politicking by your fellow citizens. --How the Mormons Overcame Voter Apathy on Prop 8 by Teddy Partridge, firedoglake.com Can someone show me where in the Constitution or Bill Of Rights it says that "people of faith" are somehow exempt from facing protests? That their "democratic right to express their views in the public square" trumps everyone else's? --First Amendment for We But Not for Thee by Eli, firedoglake.com

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Wherein we learn whether or not Obama intends to manage his own brain ... or turn it over to pseudo analysts and pundits claiming to represent the 'center' Today's QUOTES:

There is and always has been a Beltway cottage industry of trite, platitude-spouting establishment-defenders whose only "argument" consists of issuing grave warnings that Democrats will suffer if they don't ignore and scorn "the Left" (defined as any Democrat dissimilar to Joe Lieberman). ... --Marty Peretz's assistant is the latest to be elected spokesperson for the Moderate Americans by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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Thank Glenn for putting it into words: So what if he were a muslim?

As usual Glenn Greenwald get to the heart of what's so uncomfortable about this 'Obama-is-a-muslim' attack from the holier than thou; more christianist than their neighbor; the ultimate witch-hunting, woman-hating, fetus-idolising ultra-patriots; the GOP horde of thugs.

An excerpt from Colin Powell condemns the ugliness of the Republican Party:

There has been much condemnation over the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" line of GOP attack, but almost all of it has been on the ground that the attack is factually false as applied to the Christian Obama, not on the ground that it is a reprehensible and dangerous line of attack even if it were factually true. Powell bears much of the responsibility, and always will, for the horrific U.S. attack on Iraq (one which, just by the way, resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims), but he deserves credit for using the platform he had this morning to go out of his way to make this vital point when doing so was not necessary (and perhaps not even helpful) in advancing the cause of his endorsement of Obama.

That being Muslim or Arab is a mark against someone's character is now so ingrained in our political culture that it is hardly noticed any longer. When John McCain, at that rally in Minnesota last week, sought to chide his supporter for asserting that Obama is an "Arab," McCain did so by pointing out that, in fact, Obama is a "decent family man" -- as though that proves that he's not "an Arab because "decent family man" is the opposite of "Arab": ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

"Disorder and diffusion crop up all the time and are mainly a nuisance," Pendry says. “But by understanding them, we can maybe use them to our advantage." ... So we discuss light through opaque objects. Politics should be as easy

... there is no place left for the kind of action that Thoreau advocated. His way – and that of Gandhi and King, who took so much from him – envisions a state opponent which one could hope to shame into honorable action by the superior moral force of principled civil disobedience. But the very hallmark of the present regime is its shamelessness, its utter lack of any sense of honor or principle, its bestial addiction to raw power.

A promise from Georgie-boy Bush, eight years ago: “So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.” -- One can see how important God and the Bible is to Georgie-boy as he began breaking his oath immediately, probably from second #1.

The great Digby of Hullabaloo has in instant answer to that riddle, the same answer as to why America has no single-payer health care, no trains, no daycare, slums of violent hell in every major city, and brutal working conditions: racism.

... the idea that the Rule of Law is only for common people, but not for our political leaders and Washington elite, is pervasive among the political and pundit class, in both parties. ...

Re: Caribbean Coral: "The take-home message seems to be that the most glaring problems--like bombing--might not be as serious in the long term as the quiet or silent problems, like runoff and development," says David Niebuhr, a marine biologist ...

Survey Finds Citations Growing Narrower as Journals Move Online "...Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon." --Interesting that what turns out to be a boon in access to information for the public may do further harm to 'journalistic' endeavors.

Uppity niggers got killed, for real ...

digby has a post (Smears R Us) discussing what she calls 'dog whistles' that call the racist to attention.

Some don't think certain words or images that the McCain campaign are using are racist. I think they are and I think the Republicans know they are. My father was from Georgia (and Alabama). Once he left he never went back except to visit family. I remember some of the conversations from some of those visits. My father's family referred to the former slaves as negroes or my negroes or the good negroes (which they 'took care of) or the bad negroes (who were at fault for whatever happened to them). Negroes were more or less invisible (good) except if they were 'out of their place (bad).' After one conversation I remarked to my mother that they (my grandmother and uncle, I think) talked about 'their negroes,' like I talk about my dog but I don't view my dog as a human being and that's the point. They didn't view those who did not qualify in their eyes as 'white' as full human beings. They really cared about some of them as I really care about my dog.

By invisible, I mean that in certain situations the white people really did not 'see' those classified as black. For example it was literally possible for a white person to look at a stretch of beach and say 'no one lives here.' There could be dozens of shacks on the beach with children running around etc. Point to the shacks and the children and say, 'but what about all those people?' The answer was who ya' talking about? Those blacks? They don't count.

Obama knows McCain's campaign is using racist messages.

Uppity niggers got killed, for real ... Being classified as uppity was not just a political dispute. It was a death sentence and McCain is playing with that message. I see no reason to pretend it's not happening just because Obama doesn't feel he can deal with it head on and the majority of the press is so rotten and corrupt that they let the GOP do their thinking for them.

American Vacuum of Change Only Pulls So Far

Read: American Vacuum of Change Only Pulls So Far by paradox at The Left Coaster