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You are here: Home / Heart of darkness

Heart of darkness

by DougJ|  July 16, 201010:18 pm| 44 Comments

This post is in: We Are All Mayans Now

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It’s not every day I have something good to say about a Politico piece about a Bush appointee, but I consider this story important:

A scholar whom President George W. Bush appointed as vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Abigail Thernstrom has a reputation as a tough conservative critic of affirmative action and politically correct positions on race.

But when it comes to the investigation that the Republican-dominated commission is now conducting into the Justice Department’s handling of an alleged incident of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panther Party — a controversy that has consumed conservative media in recent months — Thernstrom has made a dramatic break from her usual allies.

“This doesn’t have to do with the Black Panthers; this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration,” said Thernstrom, who said members of the commission voiced their political aims “in the initial discussions” of the Panther case last year.

“My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president,” Thernstrom said in an interview with POLITICO.

FWIW, I find this New Black Panther story much more significant than the NAACP/Teatard dust-up. The NAACP is right to condemn teatard racism because (a) condemning racism is their job and (b) there have been numerous incidents of Tea Party racism, but that debate has tended towards abstractions about what racism is and who really is in the Tea Party.

The New Black Panther Party bullshit combines the young-bucks-buying-T-bones myth with the Weathermen-living-under-Joe-Klein’s-bed myth. It’s also the kind of thing a Boehner-led House would spend hundreds of hours investigating and the kind of thing David Broder, Charles Lane, and the rest will happily pimp as an important, possibly impeachment-worthy scandal.

If Republicans get control of the House or the Senate this fall, expect the next two years to be dominated by stories like this one.

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44Comments

  1. 1.

    shortstop

    July 16, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    The New Black Panther Party bullshit combines the young-bucks-buying-T-bones myth with the Weathermen-living-under-Joe-Klein’s-bed myth.

    Indeed. And it speaks to the age demographic they’re trying to scare and the hilarious inability of these people to stop obsessing on things that freaked them out decades ago. Would today’s Republican utes even know who the old Black Panthers were?

  2. 2.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    The Republicans have an abysmal record and unappealing slate of candidates. Their only hope was to either reform themselves or to plunge the country into a race war from which we would emerge in an impoverished, greatly weakened state. For this, they deserve to be utterly destroyed and broken, with salt plowed into their proverbial fields so they can never rise again.

  3. 3.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 10:29 pm

    @shortstop: Today’s Republican youths don’t know much, but they know they’re emasculated enough to be frightened by anyone who calls themselves a Black Panther.

  4. 4.

    Quiddity

    July 16, 2010 at 10:30 pm

    I like the mental image of

    “Weathermen-living-under-Joe-Klein’s-bed”

    Boo!

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    July 16, 2010 at 10:34 pm

    @beltane:

    Their [the GOP’s] only hope was to either reform themselves or to plunge the country into a race war from which we would emerge in an impoverished, greatly weakened state.

    Actually, it’s a class war. Race is just one front.

    .

  6. 6.

    Hunter Gathers

    July 16, 2010 at 10:34 pm

    Memo to conservatards : H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, and Stokely Carmichael are not members of the New Black Panther Party. You may now go back to coming up with new ways to call Obama a nigger.

  7. 7.

    handy

    July 16, 2010 at 10:35 pm

    Isn’t Black Panther Repub code-speak for “The Second Amendment doesn’t apply to black people?”

  8. 8.

    General Stuck

    July 16, 2010 at 10:35 pm

    If Republicans get control of the House or the Senate this fall,

    I look at Harry Reid not only recovering from about a dismal a polling popularity as any politician can have, to a solid lead over Angle. And subsequent muzzling of other tea tard candidates like Paul.. And seasoned wingnuts like Beohner and Mcconnell seeing who can say the dumbest shit possible fluffing big bidness, that most voters would just as soon put up against a wall, and my worry about the big wingnut tidal wave seems more like a puddle of piss.

    They are in no condition to put forth a saleable message to win an election when it gets down to the man o mano shit of a campaign stretch run. Bashing your opponent will only take you so far. You have to at least have a coherent idea of what you will do better. And they have none, or should I say, no sane ideas. It is looking more and more like the great tea tard revolution is more like a tempest in a chamber pot.

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    July 16, 2010 at 10:38 pm

    Thernstrom will now be found to have never actually been a conservative any more.

  10. 10.

    flounder

    July 16, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    I am considering creating a “New White Panther Party” costume, complete with nightstick, to wear to the elderly, 99% lilly-white precinct I vote at here on election day. My goal is going to be to protect white voters, much like the New Black Party were protecting black voters in an all black district.
    Am I gaming this through correctly, i.e. I will get on Fox News 90 times?

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    July 16, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    The Black Panthers should change their name to the Black Cougars, then get Jada Pinkett Smith and Halle Berry to do a PSA. Problem solved. Also.

  12. 12.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 10:40 pm

    @handy: Second Amendment remedies are not available for those who are not of a pasty complexion.

  13. 13.

    DougJ

    July 16, 2010 at 10:40 pm

    @flounder:

    It’s a great idea, flounder. Good to see you around here again.

  14. 14.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 10:41 pm

    @flounder: How could we tell the difference between a “New White Panther Party” member and a teabagger?

  15. 15.

    Bernard

    July 16, 2010 at 10:42 pm

    Obama will reap some nice “subpoenas” when the Republicans put Darryl Issa in charge in the House.

    this “fantasy” about not looking back has cooked Obama’s goose. oh well, at least the kabuki will entertain through the bad times.

  16. 16.

    Mark S.

    July 16, 2010 at 10:42 pm

    One of the men had a nightstick, if an unclear agenda — though a member of the black nationalist New Black Panther Party, he had earlier professed loathing for the Democratic “puppet” candidate, Barack Obama, who went on to overwhelmingly carry that precinct.

    I’m sure Fox regularly includes this part of the story in the 95 segments they’ve run on this in the last two weeks.

  17. 17.

    flounder

    July 16, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    @beltane
    You will know me by my leather pants and Beret. And nightstick. Or maybe 2 nightsticks.

    @DougJ, thanks, been busy the last couple months.

  18. 18.

    shortstop

    July 16, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    @flounder: How could we tell the difference between a “New White Panther Party” member and a teabagger?

    One wears tricorn hats. One attracts horny cats.

  19. 19.

    Brick Oven Bill

    July 16, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    The Iraqis braved car-bombings, machine guns, and threats of massive violence to vote.

    The Republicans were intimidated by a black guy with a baton.

    Somewhere Saddam is laughing his ass off.

  20. 20.

    jl

    July 16, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    @flounder: You could parlay it into a paying gig as some kind of expert. Let us know how it turns out. I am sure the B-J commenter would be glad to review your performances on Fox news and give you some tips.

    In return for an exclusive expose of the goings on behind the scenes.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    July 16, 2010 at 10:57 pm

    @JGabriel:

    Actually, it’s a class war. Race is just one front.

    Actually, it’s both. (It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!) Because our notions of class are so strongly tied in to race, the oligarchy can use them to manipulate people. That’s how you get poor and working-class white people to vote against programs that would help them — tell them that it’s those Other folks who are going to benefit, not them, and they’ll line up around the block to vote them down.

    When the right wing talks about “welfare mothers,” I guarantee you that not a single person listening pictures a rural white woman in that role, even though she’s more likely to be the recipient of welfare than an urban black woman.

  22. 22.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I know some rural white women on welfare who vote Republican for exactly this reason. Racism is the only thing that provides meaning in their skanky little lives. To be white is to be considered middle class in the minds of even the poorest white people.

  23. 23.

    Perfect Tommy

    July 16, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    Occam’s Razor meets Republican FUD:

    WTOP in DC, today, was playing recorded messages from folks commenting on this morning’s earthquake. One woman caller said that she felt the rumble and asked her husband “what was that?” His reply?
    Either a nuclear explosion or a terrorist attack on DC ….

    They really are doing a good job of keeping folks scared out of their socks.

  24. 24.

    Quiddity

    July 16, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    @General Stuck: While think the Democrats will not do as badly as feared, my concern is the Republicans’ message.

    We’ve already heard it and we’ll hear a lot more of it in the coming months:

    Democrats/Obama have passed all these job-killing bills and they must be stopped.

    It’s nonsense, but in today’s political atmosphere, I don’t see any push-back from the “responsible” press.

  25. 25.

    kay

    July 16, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    It’s not even that. They have to lie about it. It has to be about them protecting the voting rights of black people.

    This is the reason they’re outraged:

    The Panthers “were there to intimidate blacks. To keep them voting for Obama and other left-wing liberal Democrats,” said Niger Innis, spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality.

    It doesn’t even make sense. Voter intimidation works by keeping the voter from casting a ballot. We have a secret ballot. No one intimidates anyone into voting a certain way. You’re pretty much out of the intimidation woods once you’re in the booth.

  26. 26.

    beltane

    July 16, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    @Perfect Tommy: I don’t think this country ever would have been able to bounce back after events like the ones Europe experienced during WWII. We don’t have that type of survival instinct.

  27. 27.

    flounder

    July 16, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    @Perfect Tommy: We had a “lockdown” practice at a college about a mile from my house yesterday. The loudest intercom I have ever heard announced that everyone should stay indoors. I did and figured it didn’t concern me.
    Today in the paper it was explained that it was superloud and broadcast throughout half of town ‘cuz it was new and they didn’t know how loud it was.
    Needless to say, from reading the online comments on the story, there was an awful lot of tea-stained Vitter-briefs from people thinking that Obama was starting operation NAFTA camp.

  28. 28.

    iriedc

    July 16, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    @kay Agreed. Not hardly one of the African-American voters walking by would have paid these NBPP drama queens one iota of real attention on November 4, 2008, except to thank them for holding the door. They are about as influential at the voting booth as the 12-Tribes — i.e., not at all.

  29. 29.

    micah616

    July 16, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The whole comment is spot-on. Could you please keep saying that until all white liberals and progressives understand that in America, race is always, always a class issue? Class can be separated from race, but race can never be separated from class.

  30. 30.

    Wile E. Quixote

    July 16, 2010 at 11:45 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    The Iraqis braved car-bombings, machine guns, and threats of massive violence to vote.
    __
    The Republicans were intimidated by a black guy with a baton.

    American blacks braved threats of massive violence and massive violence to include beatings, cross-burnings, church-bombings, lynchings and murders to vote.
    __
    The Republicans were intimidated by a black guy with a baton. Republicans are a bunch of chickenshit wimps.

  31. 31.

    suzanne

    July 17, 2010 at 12:42 am

    @Mnemosyne: Ain’t that the truth.

  32. 32.

    GregB

    July 17, 2010 at 12:43 am

    More and more the political right is turning history on its head and this is just one more case.

    After spending decades claiming that Blacks and liberals merely play the race card whenever they point out instances of racism the New White Panthers are claiming that black on white racism is the greatest social injustice ever.

    It takes a special kind of cretin to play that game.

  33. 33.

    Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle

    July 17, 2010 at 12:46 am

    @iriedc: And the only network that pays them any attention is Faux Noise.

  34. 34.

    Nellcote

    July 17, 2010 at 12:46 am

    @flounder:

    Today in the paper it was explained that it was superloud and broadcast throughout half of town ‘cuz it was new and they didn’t know how loud it was.

    Hilarious! Gotta linky?

  35. 35.

    Derelict

    July 17, 2010 at 6:49 am

    If Republicans get control of the House or the Senate this fall, expect the next two years to be dominated by stories like this one.

    As well as a never-ending stream of subpoenas. Lacking any kind of governing agenda beyond more tax cuts for the wealthy and dismantling regulation, the GOP will have to keep voters distracted (and their base enraged) by launching investigation after investigation into any fauxtrage they can gin up. Their purpose will be to force government to a halt while hoping to find something to impeach on.

    Despite well-documented and self-confessed breaches of federal law and crimes against humanity by Bush and Cheney, impeachment was off the table even before Pelosi and crew took power. Despite Obama’s overwhelming popularity and straight-laced transparent governing style, impeachment is at the forefront of the GOP agenda even before they win any elections.

  36. 36.

    zzyzx

    July 17, 2010 at 7:18 am

    I haven’t been following this story at all so I’m confused. This New Black Panther thing was in one polling place in Philadelphia right for like 45 minutes or something. Meanwhile Obama won PA by over 500,000 votes. What exactly is their point?

  37. 37.

    Neo

    July 17, 2010 at 7:59 am

    “My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president”

    She is probably right. DOJ has stonewalled the Civil Rights Commission so far and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. So their efforts are a “wild notion.” On the other hand, if November brings a change in leadership on Capitol Hill, all bets are off. Holder will be gone before the summer next year, but not by the hand of the Civil Rights Commission.

  38. 38.

    Frank

    July 17, 2010 at 8:16 am

    @Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:

    And the only network that pays them any attention is Faux Noise.

    Right. But it usually works. FoxNews makes up an issue, repeats it for a few weeks and eventually the rest of the media will pick it up as a legitimate issue.

    Until the Democrats gets their own TV station that they can use as their propaganda outlet the way the GOP is using FoxNews, the Dems will always be at a huge disadvantage.

    I have never understood why the higher ups in the democratic party never addressed this issue. It shouldn’t be for a lack of money since the Democrats easily outspent the Republicans in 2008.

  39. 39.

    Xenos

    July 17, 2010 at 8:18 am

    @Neo:

    Holder will be gone before the summer next year

    How? You think this is a scandal of some kind? Even if everything you claim is true, does the concept of materiality mean anything to you?

  40. 40.

    lawguy

    July 17, 2010 at 8:20 am

    Well, if they do take power and start the investigations, maybe they will derail the gutting of Social Security by Obama, just like they did to Clinton’s efforts.

  41. 41.

    shortstop

    July 17, 2010 at 9:05 am

    Voter intimidation works by keeping the voter from casting a ballot. We have a secret ballot. No one intimidates anyone into voting a certain way. You’re pretty much out of the intimidation woods once you’re in the booth.

    Well, we used to get some booth “escorts” and “helpers,” especially accompanying the elderly, in Chicago. But that doesn’t happen any more as far as I know, and it was mostly a myth anyway.

    This New Black Panther thing was in one polling place in Philadelphia right for like 45 minutes or something. Meanwhile Obama won PA by over 500,000 votes. What exactly is their point?

    It’s Menacing Black Man Multiplication Syndrome. These “The Panthers are back!” storytellers are the same people who walk down the street, see two African American guys in casual conversation while dozens of whites are also present, and say, “Omigod, is this a black neighborhood? Am I safe?”

  42. 42.

    joe from Lowell

    July 17, 2010 at 9:30 am

    Wow, good for Abigail Thernstrom. She’s about to get annihilated and cast out.

    There are a lot of black and Hispanic people in this country who would love to be conservatives, but the conservatives won’t let them.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    July 17, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    RE: Actually, it’s a class war. Race is just one front.

    Actually, it’s both.

    And sometimes it’s neither. The left, particularly the American left, often fail to distinguish class and caste.

    That’s how you get poor and working-class white people to vote against programs that would help them—tell them that it’s those Other folks who are going to benefit, not them, and they’ll line up around the block to vote them down.

    Again, this cuts both ways. Although it is clear that the first Social Security Act was intended to help working people, the NAACP protested that exclusions (passed possibly because of political expediency), helped reinforce Southern apartheid.

    Nearly two-thirds of all African Americans in the labor force, 70 to 80% in some areas in the South, and just over half of all women employed were not covered by Social Security. At the time, the NAACP protested the Social Security Act, describing it as “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.”

    Ameican social movements have a spotty record of including blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, gays and others. On the other hand, I am not aware of segregation laws that had “rich black folk” exceptions.

  44. 44.

    timb

    July 17, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    If Republicans get control of the House or the Senate this fall, expect the next two years to be dominated by stories like this one

    Cool! Bread and circuses! It worked for the Romans. I nominate Holder for the role of Spartacus on Showtime. So, during HIS impeachment hearings, he should totally be hitting the gym. Ya gotta be buff to be on that show.

    In the meantime, America will be three years closer to crashing, but we’ll always have Boehner

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