So, how exactly did Shirely Sherrod get fired? Oh yeah! Tea Party Activist Gone Wild!

The phrase "teachable moment" continues to be repeated ever since the last "teachable moment."  It seems that no one, not even White House staffers or Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, learned from the Henry Louise Gates incident.  ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE OPENING MOUTH.  VERIFY, VERIFY, VERIFY.  I have come to expect this type of behavior from conservatives and the various forms of right-wing political pundentry, but then again maybe they do. 

It seems that even when the rantings and ravings of the conservative talking heads proves once more that they are deaf-as-a-post to issues of race, they boost their readership and trick everyone into looking at the train wreak of social discourse they generate.  This was the point that Politico was trying to make in their article today, The Tucker and Breitbart Show.  Tucker Carlson, former co-host of CNN's Crossfire, even admits it's hard not to get caught up in the sensationalism needed to generate viewership on their blog.  Carlson is one of the conservative pundents that I admire (but don't agree with) because he at least tries to be a real journalist. 

There's a name for the type of journalism that has been promoted by Tea Party activists, as well as conservative political operatives:  Yellow Journalism.  It's that "gotcha" type that shouts "LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND THEY CALL ME A (RACIST, HYPOCRITE, DISHONEST, etc...).  It doesn't even try to use facts to support their story, just rhetoric, accusations, and counter-accusations to push their version of the truth. 

While I was finish up my undergrad degree I worked in high end hotels, primarily at a place called the Siena Hotel (by the way if this looks like a place you would like to go for a weekend get away, tell Anthony Carey that I sent you).  One of the first things you learn in the hospitality industry is that for every person that you provide excellent guest service to, they will tell maybe 1-3 people.  For every person that gets bad service, they will tell 10 or more people. 

Throughout my political and grassroots advocacy career, this rule has applied.  That's why grassroots work for positive social change is so difficult and demagoguery is so effective.  It's easier to spread a rumor than to take the time to learn the facts or discover the truth. 

The casualty of this latest battle was Shirley Sherrod who, as many of us know, was fired/forced to resign from her job with the USDA in Georgia.  The reason was a heavily, heavily edited tape of her giving a speech at a local NAACP banquet where she talks about the event that lead her to her "ah-ha" moment on race and discrimination. 

A very teachable event of realization was butchered by Tea Party Activist and conservative political hit man Andrew Breitbart.  Thank goodness the NAACP put the whole video up on their web site so we could get the entire context and hear what she really said.  Problem with what Breitbart did, he picked the wrong person to accuse of reverse racism.  Talk about a major backfire. 

If there was any person, any African American person, that should have bigotry in their heart it's Shirley Sherrod.  But she doesn't.  A woman who's father was killed by a racist, she went on to fight for Civil Rights and against injustice her entire life.  While nobody is perfect, and Mrs. Sherrod would I'm certain would agree, she too had to work though a lot to get to the place she is regarding race relations.  In many ways, I am no different. 

But again, because of Tea Party Activists (the racist and extremist elements of the Tea Party Movement) we are talking about race and discrimination again.  The bigotry of the conservative media gets a boost in their viewership and readership, and we are all distracted from the most important issue at hand, getting people back to work and fixing our economy. 

Hide your children from the President's Socialist Propaganda: Work Hard, Stay in School

This is absolutely absurd. Bush 41 addressed school children during school hours during his first (and only) term, and there wasn't this kink of uproar. There is no indoctrination here. It's not like Obama is staging a photo-op like Saddam or Kim Jong Il to show how much they are loved by the people, or parading tanks and infantry down Pennsylvania Ave like the Soviets did in front of the Kremlin.

There are numerous studies that show people's perception of darker complected skin colors is of suspicion and mistrust. We have a dark complected President for he first time in our Nation's history and the rhetoric coming out of Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Bortz is "I don't trust this guy!" If we had a white President, would this even be a story or be this level of mistrust or suspicion of the President and his motives? I think not.

I had a conversation with a family member over a online petition to stop Government Run Health Care. I replied that this was total crap and I wasn't going to participate and I proceeded to chastise this member of my family for pushing this stuff. Long story short, I went through the whole list of how the Health Insurance Industry and the status quo was totally unsustainable and that there was little truth to the things they were regurgitating from Conservatives and Private Health Care (opponents) talking points against real Health Care Reform.

I posed the following questions to them to see what aspects of national common good they would do away with to "save" our nation from socialism:

Should we totally dismantle Public Education and only educate people that can afford to pay for Private Schools? Should we only build roads that are paid for by private companies and they charge tolls for their usage? Should we only allow private security firms to take charge of our community policing? Should we trust utilities and pharmaceuticals to do the right thing and not monitor if they are polluting our water and air or putting drugs on the market that have not been tested to see if they are safe?

They agreed with me on all these questions, that doing away with all this stuff would be a bad idea. But, then they said that Obama was "shady and slippery as hell." They don't trust him. I go back to what I said at the beginning - There are numerous studies that show people's perception of darker complected skin colors is of suspicion and mistrust. We have a dark complected President for he first time in our Nation's history and the rhetoric coming out of Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Bortz is "I don't trust this guy!" If we had a white President, would this even be a story or be this level of mistrust or suspicion of the President and his motives? Coincidence? Ironic?

Again, I go back to Dick Cheney's roll in the CIA Terror Suspects "Enhanced Interrogation" techniques. If Bush (43) had continued to listen to Cheney, the First, Forth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Amendment would have totally been erased from the Constitution, all in the name of National Security and fighting terrorism. Thank god that GWB finally figured out that Cheney was trying to shred the Constitution.

So, how is detaining and questioning suspected terrorist a threat to the Bill of Rights? In the name of National Security, anyone (even natural born Americans) could be accused of supporting terrorism if they spoke out against the Government or questionable policies (possibly, but that wouldn't happen in this country). When people are not feeling financially secure, spreading mis-information and governing by fear is much easier.

So parents, you have more to fear from Dick Cheney's attempt to shred the Bill of Rights and governing by fear than the "Work hard, stay in school" capitalist message of indoctrination from President Obama. All of this misplaced fear and mistrust of Obama is firmly rooted in bigotry. People need to grow up.

Picture found at: http://fratres.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/socialism1.jpg

Obama nominates Timothy Heaphy out of McGuire Woods to be U.S. Attorney for Virginia's Western District

It seems that the whole lobbyist ban doesn't apply to Federal Prosecutors. President Obama has nominated Timothy Heaphy out of the powerhouse Law/Lobbying firm McGuire Woods to be the next U.S. Attorney for Virginia's Western District. According to OpenSecrets.org, Heaphy contributed a grand total of $3,101 to Democrats (including President Obama) during the 2008 election cycle. This is the same district that former U.S. Attorney John Brownlee headed before he ran for the Republican nomination for Virginia's Attorney General.