"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Today's Must-Read: In My Country, We Call Them "Republicans"

From Charles P. Pierce, who is not mincing words:

So when anybody, especially the president*, talks about what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, from the Citronella Putsch on Friday night, to the violence on Saturday morning, to the graphic fulfillment of the philosophy behind these lunatic laws on Saturday afternoon, tells you that what happened in Virginia has anything to do with "polarization," or that it is a problem equally shared by Both Sides, that person is trying preemptively to pick history's pockets.

Every Republican who ever played footsie with the militias out west owns this bloodshed.

Every Republican who ever spoke to, or was honored by, the Council of Conservative Citizens and/or the League of the South owns this bloodshed.

Every Republican administration that ever went out of its way to hire Pat Buchanan, and every TV executive who ever cut him a check, and every Republican who voted for him in 1992, and everyone who ever has pretended his views differed substantially from the ones in the streets this weekend, owns this bloodshed.

Every Republican president—actually, there's only one—who began a campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to talk about states rights, and who sent his attorney general into court to fight for tax exemptions for segregated academies, owns this bloodshed.

Every Republican who ever played footsie with the militias out west owns this bloodshed.

Every Republican politician who followed the late Lee Atwater into the woods in search of poisoned treasure owns this bloodshed.

Every conservative journalist who saw this happening and who encouraged it, or ignored it, or pretended that it wasn't happening, owns this bloodshed.

Read it. It's pretty strong stuff.

2 comments:

NPT said...

Yep. It's hard not to put all the blame on the Republicans.

Hunter said...

Especially since one can go back over the past forty-plus years -- or more, say to 1964* -- and find every step they've taken to cement their racist, neo-fascist base.

* When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and signed into law, the Dixiecrats -- the likes of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, hard-core racists -- bolted the Democratic party and went to the Republicans. Then Ronald Reagan's campaign thought it would be a good idea to stroke the Christian theocrats -- the "Moral Majority." And they've been working in that direction ever since.