Say No to Oligarchy

Posted on by

Following up the last post — this is in George Bob Herbert’s column —

The point that Ms. Sherrod was making as she talked in her speech about the white farmer who had come to her for help was that we are all being sold a tragic bill of goods by the powerful forces that insist on pitting blacks, whites and other ethnic groups against one another.

Ms. Sherrod came to the realization, as she witnessed the plight of poverty-stricken white farmers in the South more than two decades ago, that the essential issue in this country “is really about those who have versus those who don’t.”

She explained how the wealthier classes have benefited from whites and blacks constantly being at each other’s throats, and how rampant racism has insidiously kept so many struggling whites from recognizing those many things they and their families have in common with economically struggling blacks, Hispanics and so on.

“It’s sad that we don’t have a roomful of whites and blacks here tonight,” she said, “because we have to overcome the divisions that we have.”

Pretty much what we were saying in the comment thread to the last post.

See also Bernie Sanders at The Nation, “Say No to Oligarchy.”

Update: Unrelated, but it’s too funny not to mention and I don’t want to start another post — word is that Mexican drug cartels have invaded Texas and commandeered several ranches! This is reliable information from a Texas blogger, whom Michelle Malkin calls a “veteran immigration blogger.” Well-trained drug cartel commandos have taken over at least two ranches in the Loredo, Texas, area, and this has been confirmed by a reliable source in the Loredo Police Department.

Or, maybe not. Confederate Yankee called the Loredo Police Department and also the Webb County sheriff’s department and was told by one amused and one irritated law enforcement officer that the rumors were false. And see Tbogg’s take if you need a good laugh.

Apparently what set the rumors off was a gun battle on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. People heard the shots on the U.S. side and called police, who investigated and determined that no violence spilled over into Texas. Little Lulu quotes an AP story —

Frightened people on the U.S. side of the border called emergency dispatchers after hearing the gunfire, Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza said Thursday. But he said there was no spillover violence.

“We were getting reports from people who live on the river’s edge that they could hear gunfire and explosions from the Mexico side,” Baeza said.

“We didn’t have any incidents on the American side. It’s hard for people to understand who don’t live here,” he added. “They’re not Vikings, they’re not going to invade us, it doesn’t work that way.”

What does he know? A reliable source alerted me to these photos of the invasion.

16 thoughts on “Say No to Oligarchy”

  1. Sherrod commited the sin of open self-reflection. One we will not see anyone over in the Fox media camp commiting. It reminds me of when Obama shared the story of his grandmother confessing fear of young black men. Instead of understanding it as a reflection of his non-judgmental honesty, he was attacked as disparaging his grandmother.

    She also commited the sin of referencing haves and have-nots, which we will not see the Fox media camp commiting either. This threatens their status quo, and the way in which they argue it goes as follows: you don’t think people are equal regardless of class.

    Just as people’s hoensty about racism is equated with: you are a racist.

    They have everything upside-down because aggressors are very good at accusing you before they can be accused of exactly what they are. They anticipate how they are perceived deservedly, and the strategy is accuse the other side first.

    • Sherrod commited the sin of open self-reflection. One we will not see anyone over in the Fox media camp commiting. It reminds me of when Obama shared the story of his grandmother confessing fear of young black men. Instead of understanding it as a reflection of his non-judgmental honesty, he was attacked as disparaging his grandmother.

      I think that’s an excellent point. Righties on the whole don’t strike me as introspective types, and it may be that self-reflection is so alien to them they don’t understand it. I think many of them are complete strangers to themselves. Instead of responding to the world in a centered, grounded way, they’re more often frantically reacting to external cues. Dog whistles, anyone?

      I think the reaction to the lower Manhattan Islamic center is a good example. Instead of responding rationally from what are supposed to be our principles — rule of law, civil liberty, etc. — they’re reacting in a completely visceral way. Newt’s suggestion that we shouldn’t build a mosque in Manhattan (they’re already there) until there’s a church built in Saudi Arabia is so typical.

  2. “My curiosity got the better of me, and so I called the Laredo Police Department,” —Confederate Yankee, the cub reporter.

    I think his stupidity got the better of him. Maybe he should call China and get the scoop on those recent UFO sightings.

    Those of you who remember reading the Confederate Yankee’s long distant and irrelevant fact filled forensic expose of the Haiditha Massacre know that when it comes to categorizing the Confederate Yankee in any reliable news or journalistic endeavor.. you can file him under “Clown”…a self absorbed effing Clown who tries to impress Conservative dolts by peddling worthless information designed to project an air of knowledge, when in fact he has no knowledge. Life is pretty bad when your low self esteem drives you to seek approval from Michelle Malkin. Who needs a Pulitzer when an attaboy from Malkin is the greatest honor a clown can attain.

  3. Don’t laugh! Them Mexicans ARE spreading everywhere!! Even upstate NY!!!
    I just found out they’ve put something up in the next town down from us, something called a “Taco Bell.”
    Must be like their version of our bell, but’s it’s made of them ‘taco’s,’ instead of ‘Liberty.”
    I called our Police Chief, and he said he’d get right on it. Seems he’s gonna spend his lunch hour over there seeing what they got. That man’s a Christian Saint for working like that through lunch, ain’t he?

  6. Laredo needs more” boots on the ground’. Oh, brother!

    I think it’s time to exhume Black Jack Pershing to put down this almost incursion on American territory.

    Some men see things that are, and ask why…And some news organizations see things that never were, and ask..Why not?

  8. Sherrod commited the sin of open self-reflection.

    That’s one of the things that *really* pisses me off about this situation, too.

    A man came to her. She helped him – she got him all the tools he should have needed to save his farm. She did the right thing, by any standard.

    But she felt (and feels) guilty because she didn’t do more, because she grew up in a society where a man could murder her father, and walk away unindicted, in spite of there being witnesses to the murder… because the murderer was white and her father was black.

    If anyone deserved a chance to hate white people, she did. And she didn’t – she did her job, and in a manner that left her blameless. She could have let the Spooners lose their farm, and no one could have said she did wrong.

    But she didn’t. Even after sending Mr. Spooner to a lawyer, she *still* followed up, and helped him out when it turned out he needed it.

    Her lesson was not to learn that racism was a horrible ugly thing that made her hateful. Her lesson was that racism caused her to merely help, rather than truly care about, a white man. And she rejected that. With more reason for hate than most, she was angry with herself, not for hating, but for not loving more!

    And *that* is why she (and the NAACP) deserved to be shit on… at least, according to Breitbart and his supporters.

  9. Pingback: Tweets that mention The Mahablog » Say No to Oligarchy -- Topsy.com

  11. Lynne,
    I think they have a Monday night game against the Cowboys later on in the season. 🙂

  12. Poor Bob Herbert don’t get no respect. First, you call him George, and today the NYT has pasted his photo next a David Brooks column!

  13. The NY Times posted a Brooks column, but had Herbert’s picture instead.
    Of course, if you got beyond “Fox in Sox” in your reading skills, you’d never confuse any incipid Brooks column no matter who elses picture is posted.

Comments are closed.