Fraught With Significance
By Mitch Berg
David Horowitz on the importance of the events of the past two days – the Inauguration and the Martin Luther King holiday before it – to conservatives:
…In order to do [observe and celebrate the events] as conservatives — as conservatives who have been through the culture wars — we need to get past the mixed feelings we will inevitably have as the nation marks its progress in moving away from the racial divisions and divisiveness of the past. These feelings come not from resistance to the change, but from the knowledge that this celebration should have taken place decades ago and that its delay was not least because our opponents saw political advantage in playing the race card against us and making us its slandered targets.
If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. If Americans now have accepted an African American to lead their country in war and peace that is in part because an hysterically maligned Republican made two African Americans his secretaries of state. And if, after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, race has continued to be a divisive factor in our politics over the last 40 years that is because the generation of Sharpton and Jackson and their liberal supporters have made it so. What conservatives need to recognize in getting past these feelings (and therefore to celebrate) is that because of this political reality, it is only they themselves who could end it.
Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
One of the problems I have with recognizing MLK day is that when I have gone to a couple of public events (in Duluth and St Paul), I saw way too much Republican and Israel bashing. It just seems like another event for the left to bitch about people they don’t like.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:07 am
Freedom of expression really sucks, don’t it Chuckwagon?
January 21st, 2009 at 10:08 am
“”And if, after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, race has continued to be a divisive factor in our politics over the last 40 years that is because the generation of Sharpton and Jackson and their liberal supporters have made it so.””
Reminds me of the Bill Cosby flap when he had the gall . . the gall I say, to call them on it.
==
“Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal,” he declared. “These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids — $500 sneakers for what? And won’t spend $200 for ‘Hooked on Phonics.’ . . .
“They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English,” he exclaimed. “I can’t even talk the way these people talk: ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’ . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!”
==
At the risk of being accused of racism, the most racist people I know these days are members of a minority race themselves. Cosby gets it, and isn’t afraid to call them on it! The problem is, in private conversation, so many others get it as well, but remain silent. Until that changes, the issue will continue to stagnate.
There, I said it, sue me!
Flash
January 21st, 2009 at 10:20 am
Mr. Flash, Operation PUSH on line 1 for you.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:27 am
Yes, Mitch, you’re SOOO right to post a self-congratulating and wildly distorted/spun view of the MLK holiday.
While you may not remember, I do, that in fact this holiday was resisted strongly in southern and western conservative states. While Reagan may have backed it, he also hemmed and hawed about renewing the voting rights act, he also, in 1960 said it was entirely appropriate for landowners/landlords to discriminate basdd on race if they desired to.
The fact that the Congress in Carter’s AND Reagan’s time had ‘Dixie-crats’, something you like to conveniently forget – a block of representatives that routinely engaged in race baiting, and which the Republican party coopted during the 80’s – including welcoming with open arms those Dixie-crats who converted to the Republican party (aka Strom Thurmond types) – heckfire Mitch, don’t let facts get in your way of distorting reality about racial/race relations progress. Please tell all of the blacks out there who find the Republican party to be a hollow home (that would be 90% of blacks btw), please tell them again that they are idiots, that you REALLY are the home of fairness for them, that they are stupid to vote for Democrats, because after all, this kind of bloviating BS proves – by taking items at surface level, that they simply don’t know the facts. Talk about condescending claptrap.
BTW Mitch, do you know what the vote was to enact this holiday, by party? Which party voted in the vast majority for it, and which voted less so? I don’t, but I sure as hell could take a guess. Blacks aren’t idiots, they saw how Reagan spoke about ‘welfare mommas’, they saw the condescending ‘lift yourself by your bootstraps’, and ‘just say no’ malarkey for what it was, rhetoric intended to excuse doing NOTHING to solve real problems, all while handing money upward.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Freedom of expression really sucks, don’t it Chuckwagon?
Well, that is the mantra being perpetuated by you putzes on the left. Hence your guy
upChuck Schumer pushing for the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.January 21st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I see that angryclown sees nothing wrong with perverting and politicizing a man and a message:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
January 21st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
penigma,
Do you wonder where the “crats” in “Dixie-crats” came from?
Do you get all your “information” from DU?
January 21st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
BTW Mitch, do you know what the vote was to enact this holiday, by party?
You didn’t read Horowitz’ article, did you?
Because the answer is IN THERE.
Which party voted in the vast majority for it, and which voted less so? I don’t, but I sure as hell could take a guess.
Go ahead. Take your guess. I DO know the answer – we did a bunch of shows on the subject that week.
I’ll bet you haven’t the foggiest clue.
You know, being a fundamentally humble person, I don’t condescend. But when dealing with someone who’s so obviously shooting in the (ahem) dark as often and as badly as you, I gotta confess – it’s hard NOT to.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Ah yes, Mitch, living in the distant past. No doubt you’ll serve up Barney Frank and his manwhore of yesteryear. Maybe Chappaquiddick or Robert Byrd’s long-ago KKK membership. Whatever gets you through the next four-to-eight years, big fella. How terribly disappointing to see all your evil work of the past eight years unravelling!
January 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
all your evil work of the past eight years
I actually only worked for the HMO for one year.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
“Ah yes, Mitch, living in the distant past. No doubt you’ll serve up Barney Frank and his manwhore of yesteryear.”
Wasn’t this written by the guy who just blathered on about Bush’s ‘incompetence and stupidity’? And who regularly invokes the specter of Florida in 2000?
January 21st, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Bush’s incompetence and stupidity is pretty recent, Blofeld. It only ended yesterday at noon. Rather, his incompetence and stupidity are likely chronic conditions. They stopped influencing matters of state just a day ago.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
But AC, there are those of us who reasonably believe that Frank’s escapades of two decades ago — which included fixing parking tickets for his manwhore — are issues that involve clear violations of the public trust and so are pertinent to this day.
Larry Craig doesn’t have any friends in Washington. Frank is chair of the house Financial Services Committee.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Frank’s escapades, to the extent they involved the public trust, were limited to fixing tickets for the manwhore. Not exactly laudable behavior, but politicians fixing tickets is pretty penny-ante stuff. For which Frank was reprimanded by the House many years ago. You may think all this “remains pertinent to this day.” Angryclown figures it only comes up cause that’s the best you wingnuts have got. If it weren’t for Frank’s manwhore, you’d be mewling about his getting caught without a hall pass in high school.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:51 pm
AC, google ‘barney frank’ and ‘herb moses’. Frank has a history of abusing the public trust for the benefit of his ‘manwhores’.
Or is the collapse of fannie mae not pertinent anymore?
January 21st, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Thanks, Terry, but Angryclown declines the invitation to step into the rabbit hole of wingnut conspiracy theories. Maybe you could post a link to some reliable source.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
wingnut conspiracy theories
Hahahahahahaha!
Now I can see why it is that liberals never had the slightest suspicion that a politician from Chicago might be tainted by corruption.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
So that link to a reliable source is…coming?
January 21st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
wingnut conspiracy theories
or not
January 21st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
It is a bit funny to read someone as amazingly full of sh*t as angryclown (it’s his role, I’m told) begging for a “reliable source”.
How long ago did the Democrat Governor of Illinois try to sell the Presidents Senate seat?
I really had to get out the archeology gear to find that one.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Gee BradC, you slow-witted wingnut. There’s nothing at all in there about “herb moses,” which is what that silly volcano dweller Terry was on about. Please, pay a little more attention or you’ll end up getting shunned.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
You too Troy. When has Angryclown ever said a word in defense of the felon in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, Illinois? Do try to keep up.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
My comment was aimed at the “living in the distant past” meme angryclown was on about. *shrug*
January 21st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Oh very well. God, I hate to be seen holding hands with a clown:
“He recently broke up with Herb Moses, whom he referred to as his “lover,” after a relationship of more than 10 years. The two are still friends.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/frank121898.htm
No go on and find out where Herb Moses worked 91-98 and what his job was. Go on, you can do it all by yourself, now. Don’t be afraid.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:45 pm
You have some wingnut point you want to prove, go ahead and prove it. Don’t expect Angryclown to do it for you. Angryclown had the idea you were just a little less allergic to facts than the typical wingnut. So prove Angryclown right or sink back down into the well of ignorance in which your fellow Mitchketeers dwell.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:42 pm
You asked for a link. I gave you a link. You haven’t read the article in question.
Keep putting bricks in that wall of ignorance, Angry Clown. Maybe that will stop the voices.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 am
I’ll slow this down for you, Terry. Link….good. Link to ten-year-old story that doesn’t remotely address your point…..not so good.
This story says that Moses was Frank’s boyfriend, for about 10 years, until sometime around 1998.
The modicum of faith Angryclown placed in you was apparently undeserved, Terry.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
Gee, first it was twenty years ago, now it’s ten years ago . . . converging, don’t ya think? Say, what has changed in Barney Frank that you think he won’t sell out his country to gain points with his boyfriend now? the scumbags know that he’ll sell out for a manwhore.
The guy is a crook. He’ll sell out you and me & every other American to make points with whoever his boyfriend is these days.
Barney Frank, American Hero.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:54 am
The limit might have to be yesterday. Did Barney do anything bad yesterday (that you know of)? If not, it doesn’t count (for angryclown, anyway).
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 am
Terry, you’re being a moron. Perhaps it’s because you’re a moron. Your link shows that Barney Frank was boning some dude, with whom he broke up during the Clinton administration. That does not surprise me, as Barney Frank is openly gay. If you’ve got a point somewhere, why don’t you go ahead and make it?
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Frank sat on the committee that oversaw the operations of Fannie Mae while he was shacking up with one of the executives of Fannie Mae. Said executive (Heb Moses) was instrumental in developing Fannie Mae’s practice of buying sub prime mortgages. Frank has demonstrated clearly that he will push congressional ethics to keep his boyfriend happy.
You are an idiot. Angry Clown. Enjoy your bought and paid for Chicago president.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Yeah, Terr. See that’s the part you need a link to a reliable source for.