The distracting benefits of ACORN hysteria

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/17/acorn_hysteria/index.html
Earlier this week, I wrote about how the Fox-News/Glenn-Beck/Rush-Limbaugh leadership trains its protesting followers to focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government (and, not coincidentally, Fox News). It's hard to imagine a more perfectly illustrative example of all of that than the hysterical furor over ACORN.

ACORN files suit against filmmakers

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27501.html
ACORN filed suit today in Maryland against conservative filmmakers James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and conservative Web site Breitbart.com for secretly taping the organization’s employees at its Baltimore office.

In the complaint, ACORN alleges that the filmmakers entered into the organization’s offices in July with a “hidden camera and microphone” and taped employees Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams. Both employees are listed as plaintiffs on the complaint, filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

The crux of the lawsuit centers around a Maryland law which makes it illegal to tape someone without their consent – ACORN is alleging O’Keefe and Giles did so. ACORN is asking for $500,000 in damages to be awarded to each of the employees filmed by O'Keefe and Giles, and ACORN itself wants $1 million in damages.

Buchanan on RACE: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

Does Buchanan have any valid points?

A Few

 

 1

None - He's a racist teabagger and I have HAD it!!!

 

 1

This post makes my blood boil.

 

 1

Other (please comment)

 

 2

"Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individ uals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??

Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona ? And Johnstown , and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving ' white kids.? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America 's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

http://www.redcounty.com/sarasota/2009/02/buchanan-to-obama

Liberal McCarthyism says George Will

What Percentage of People that oppose Obama's policies do so only because they don't like black people?

100%

 

 0

80%

 

 1

60%

 

 0

40%

 

 1

20%

 

 2

5%

 

 2

George Will on 'Liberal McCarthyism': 'When In Doubt, Blame Racism'

By Noel Sheppard | September 20, 2009 - 12:47

Leave it to George Will to perfectly explain in just two words all the recent accusations by Democrats and their media minions that anti-government sentiment sweeping the nation is caused by racism.

Liberal McCarthyism.

Delicious.

Fortunately for those not understanding the reference, Will explained further when the Roundtable discussion on Sunday's "This Week" turned to all the recent pronouncements of racism directed at anyone having the nerve to challenge President Obama's agenda (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

What we’re hearing is the liberals’ McCarthyism, which is, when in doubt, blame people for racism. Litigators have an old argument: When the law’s on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither’s on your side, pound the table. This amounts to pounding the table.

I have yet to see evidence, is there -- does evidence even intrude in this conversation? Is there any evidence that these people are racists? I think not.

Unfortunately, those pounding the table include so-called journalists who should be exposing the lack of evidence rather than participating in the charade.

Kurtz Accidentally Exposes Hypocrisy In Media's Race Baiting

By Noel Sheppard | September 20, 2009 - 11:51

On Sunday, Howard Kurtz accidentally exposed how poorly the media report on issues of race, and how they not only use implications of prejudice to "[pump] steroids into an ordinary story," they also either ignore important events or badly misreport them due to their own biases.

In the first segment on the most recent installment of CNN's "Reliable Sources," Kurtz and his panel discussed comments made by various press members last week that opposition to Barack Obama's agenda is being fueled by racism.

Kurtz as he normally does had the last word: 

My two cents is the President told NBC, "The media love to have a conversation about race," and I agree with it. You take any story -- it could be Jeremiah Wright, it could be Henry Louis Gates, it could be the Duke rape case -- and once you inject race into that -- as the media sometimes have no choice but to do, but sometimes love to do -- it's like pumping steroids into an ordinary story. It makes it live on for weeks and weeks and months and months. You know, a white Harvard professor gets arrested in a dustup with a police, or a misunderstanding with a police officer in Cambridge, it's a two-paragraph story. It happens to a black professor, particularly probably one like Gates, and we all jump on it.

Unfortunately, what Kurtz failed to point out was that in two of the examples he gave -- Duke and Gates -- the press's own prejudices and biases caused them to badly get the story wrong.

Newsweek's Kelley: Protests Against Obama Are Because He's Black

By Noel Sheppard | September 19, 2009 - 13:12

Media cries of racism every time someone criticizes Barack Obama are becoming quite commonplace now, but this one from Newsweek's Raina Kelley takes the cake:

Let me say this clearly so there are no misunderstandings: some of the protests against President Obama are howls of rage at the fact that we have an African-American head of state. I'm sick of all the code words used when this subject comes up, so be assured that I am saying exactly what I mean.

Got that? 

Well, in case you're at all confused, Kelley made things crystal clear in her article published Saturday amazingly titled, "Play the Race Card" (h/t Tim Graham):

When "Tea Party" leader Mark Williams ap-pears [sic] on CNN and speaks of "working-class people" taking "their" country back from a lawfully elected president, he is not just protesting Obama's politics; he is griping over the fact that this country's most powerful positions are no longer just for white men.

You believe this nonsense? But it got worse:

Did anyone think it would be otherwise? There were always going to be aftershocks in an Obama presidency. Landmark events that change the paradigm between black and white people don't happen without repercussions—some are still complaining about Brown v. Board of Education. Black skin has meant something very specific in this country for hundreds of years. It has meant "less than," "not as good as," "separate than," and even "equal to." It has never meant "better than" unless you were talking about dancing, singing, or basketball. Obama represents "better than," and that's scary for people who think of black people as shaved gorillas.

Amazing. But then Kelley went from merely offensive to downright silly:

This hesitancy to even speak of racism widens the divide between readers and the journalists who are supposed to be covering the world as it is, not as they want it to be.

Are you kidding? 

From the moment Barack Obama gave his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, American media have been falling over themselves at the thought of him becoming the first black president.

Obama's 'Extraordinary Media Blitz' Begins Friday Night with Focus on Racism Charge

By Brent Baker | September 18, 2009 - 21:21

Television network journalists on Friday night marveled at President Barack Obama's planned “media blitz” for health care reform even as they, the enablers, reveled in it as they made the very “blitz” and clips from the interviews (conducted Friday afternoon for airing on Sunday morning) their top story of the day. Based on those excerpts, the Sunday hosts were most interested in getting Obama's take on the “tone” of the health care debate (Obama blamed cable TV and blogs) and whether opposition is driven by racism. The teases:

♦ ABC's Charles Gibson at the top of World News: “Tonight, mass media. The President launches another media blitz on health care, and addresses whether race might be behind some of the criticisms of his plan.” (Gibson led by admiring: “On five, count them, five Sunday morning talk shows the guest will be Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama and Obama. That's never been done before...”)

♦ CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric: “Tonight, from Sunday morning to Monday night, the President's TV blitz for health care reform.”

♦ Brian Williams at the start of the NBC Nightly News: “On our broadcast tonight, an extraordinary media blitz by the President and now the First Lady steps in and tonight our own David Gregory asks the President directly about race and President Carter's charges.”

Democrats Run from Carter on Race Comments

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/27248
First Dems ran from ACORN, now they are running from former President Carter.

They sure do scare easily, don't they?

Democrats Run Away From ACORN

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003205222
Democrats in Congress are abandoning an embattled community organizing group after Republicans stepped up attacks on the liberal-leaning ACORN and the federal funding it receives.

Majorities of Senate and House Democrats voted Thursday in favor of separate Republican proposals to block federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The group has come under heavy criticism following the release Monday of a video showing ACORN employees apparently advising a couple, posing as a prostitute accompanied by her pimp, about how to conceal their line of work, evade taxes and handle undocumented, under-age sex workers.

ACORN Grapples With Fallout Of Damaging Videos

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112904370&ps=cprs
In the video that's been splashed all over cable TV and the Internet, a young man dressed as a pimp and a young woman posing as a prostitute are talking with an employee from the community organization known as ACORN.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis. She says all the employees involved in the videos have been fired.

"We were just as shocked, surprised as anyone," she says. "I will not tolerate that sort of behavior on my watch."

The End of An Era - Megan McArdle

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/the_end_of_an_era_1.php
ACORN another casualty. Wonder if this was a setup