Rand Paul and Endemic Racism

If you want to insult a black man, be afraid of him.  What's a man to think:  why are you afraid of me.  I didn't do anything.

However, there are other ways and they were so egregiously stupid that it moves me to comment.

In Kansas, Jim Gile, a relatively low-level politician, remarked in open hearings that something had been 'nigger-rigged.'  Many in the room laughed.  When someone asked him to repeat what he just said, he realised the slur and said, cleverly he thought, oh, they 'Afro-Americanized it.'  What kind of a moron covers up one slur with another one and isn't even aware of the insult.  This fool is trivial except insofar as he's an example of the fact that this is at every level of the political system.  He later apologised and said he is not prejudiced but that's what they always say when they get caught, isn't it.  (ThinkProgress:  GOP Official Apologizes To ‘Colored People’ For Using Racial Slur)

At what is ostensibly the top level, Rand Paul went to Howard University, historically a university with a predominantly black student body, to demonstrate GOP sensitivity to issues concerning black people.  His speech was so insulting in so many ways that Jon Stewart did a commentary on it, starting with Paul's opening line:  "Some have said I must be brave or crazy to be here today."  (The Daily Show:  Guess Who's Coming to Howard)

See above about how to insult a black man.

It's not so much that these politicians are racists but rather in trying to claim they're not they say things which make it even more clear.  Rand Paul's racist history is well-documented.  (ThinkProgress:  Rand Paul Falsely Says He Never Opposed The Civil Rights Act)

Part of what moves me to write is the outrage over the reverence for Margaret Thatcher as she demonstrated the highest level of government and her racism in calling Nelson Mandela 'a grubby little terrorist' and called the ANC a terrorist organisation.  How dare they oppose the apartheid of South Africa.  Later she realised the political error of her ways and invited him to tea.  Personally, I think he should have pissed in it but he's a bigger man than that.

The UK has called to people not to get violent at the funeral for Thatcher but what do they expect with such an expensive and grandiose event for someone who did so much damage to the country, just as Reagan did in the U.S.  She worked for about a year to bust the National Union of Miners and Reagan matched her in union-busting by breaking the PATCO (air traffic controllers) union.  Both espoused the hideous trickle-down theory which has been trickling down for decades both as a result of what they did and what second-rate imitators did after they were gone.

The true leaders of and for the people in the modern era were Clement Attlee in the UK and Lyndon Baines Johnson in the U.S.  Yet one hardly ever hears their names.  Reagan and Thatcher have been elevated to near godhood for working with great determination to undermine what these leaders did and the result has been economies in chaos, the slow disintegration of the middle class, and elevation of mad dogs such as Ted Nugent and Ann Coulter to positions of political authority.

(Ed:  what about JFK?)

He was just famous because a lot of women wanted to bed him.

My purpose is not to defend black people as they're quite capable of defending themselves but rather to point to that which assaults us all, a political power structure that is fundamentally racist and insensitive to the needs of anyone but the rich.  The GOP isn't just racist, they have no interest in anyone without a fat bank account or who can help them keep their fat bank accounts.

Don't think for a moment that it's just the GOP as the Democrats often act like vestal virgins but, unless you're willing to work loudly and with determination as did LBJ or Clement Attlee, it's all just political crap.