The Hollywood Liberal

But They’re Not Racists, Really!
The conservative Republican proponents of the corporate-bigot alliance known as “the Southern Strategy” are mounting one last frenzied Battle-of-the-Bulge effort to push the Bigot Buttons one more time in order to gain what they think will be unbreakable electoral dominance. Here’s what happened in Minnesota when a local elite screwed up at button-pushing.

The conservative Republican proponents of the corporate-bigot alliance known as “the Southern Strategy” are mounting one last frenzied Battle-of-the-Bulge effort to push the Bigot Buttons one more time in order to gain what they think will be unbreakable electoral dominance. Be it whipping up anti-immigrant hatred to freaking out about brown people they claim are Muslims — who they apparently figure are the last group left that it’s OK to hate — they have been working overtime. But when their actions result in things that might hurt their game plan — like when the folks whose prejudices they’ve inflamed go running out to stab cab drivers — suddenly they start singing the “But We’re Not Racists, Really!” song. (Even though, as Gene Lyons points out, they have nothing to fear from the “respectable” journalistic community, which is too cowardly to call them out by name.)

They apparently think it’s a catchy little ditty. George Pataki hummed a few bars on Hardball, and Word Salad Pam essayed a full-throated rendition when the racists at the Ground Zero attacked a guy whose skin was darker than theirs. Kinda reminds you of how Rush Limbaugh and his fellow hate-radio talkers still bristle when they get some of the blame for inciting the right-wing terrorist bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, doesn’t it?

It’s not just wealthy conservatives on the East Coast saying these things. You can find members of the elites saying them in the heartland as well. For example:

Here’s a local guy, “The Admiral”, from the ritzy Minneapolis exurb of Mound, Minnesota, which is on (if not in) the western end of the complex set of lakes known collectively as “Lake Minnetonka” — hence the name of his blog, “Lake Minnetonka Liberty”. His work is favorably featured on the conservative “News Busters” website, despite (or because?), among other things, calling for the assassination of Barack Obama (“Somebody please! Do a Sirhan Sirhan on this pompous ass, willya?”). We’re talking about someone who, if he were a liberal (or anything other than an arch-conservative) calling for the assassination of, say, Chief Justice John Roberts, would likely have been shamed out of public life, if not actually arrested and charged with making terroristic threats or instigating people to acts of terror. (Hell, Shirley Sherrod and Helen Thomas lost their jobs for far less — in fact, Sherrod lost her job even as it was shown that the accusation leveled against her was bogus. But I digress.)

The Admiral’s variation on the “We’re Not Racists!” theme is to play the old game of projection and accuse others, especially lefties whose skins are darker than his, of (ta-dah!) racism. (Just like what Andrew Breitbart and his fellow conservative travelers did to Shirley Sherrod. But again, I digress.) Do a search on “lake minnetonka liberty” and “racist” in most any search engine and you’ll see what I mean; here’s a recent example. (By the way, what is with Minnesota right-wingers and the linguistic atrocity “bold faced liar”? Luke Hellier uses it too.)

The latest excrescence of The Admiral is laughable, in a pathetic sort of way. It comes when he, in the midst of a full-on rant defending the right of huge corporations to buy elections in general (and a governor’s seat for Tom Emmer in particular), decided to unload the following rant against SEIU Local 26 president Javier Morillo-Alicea:

That’s right, and what business is it of yours, Javier, how much money Target makes? It doesn’t concern you. And how they choose to spend it doesn’t concern you either. Javier Morillo-Alicea. Why don’t you put on your sombrero, hop on the burro and ride your ass back to Mexico where you belong? People like you are the problem, not the solution.

He then goes on to rave about Mark Dayton’s admitted battle with alcohol, while ignoring the controversy over Tom Emmer’s two DUIs and Emmer’s efforts in the state legislature to lower the penalties for drunk driving.

Just in case ol’ Addie tries to pull a fast one and do some editing, I’ve got the screen shot of that text saved for posterity:

Now remember, this isn’t some pig-ignorant guy with a fourth-grade education who literally doesn’t know any better. This is someone who is one of the elites, just like Alan Simpson and Max Baucus and Paul Ryan.

Oh, and for future reference, Addie: Mr. Morillo-Alicea is not of Mexican heritage, but Puerto Rican. He was born in Panama, the son of a Vietnam veteran, is a Fulbright Scholar, and got his undergraduate degree from Yale, which I suspect is more than Addie has ever done. But, just to make you happy, I’ve found a burro named Pepe, just for you, and put him at the top of this post, where he can express his opinion of your opinions. Enjoy!

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 4:49 am and is filed under Main Blog (All Posts). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.