That dialogue on race: The hard part

-- by Dave

Well, it's become painfully self-evident by now that when it comes to having that actual "dialogue on race" Barack Obama tried to help inspire a couple of weeks ago, sincere people of good will are just going to have to go it alone.

The media aren't going to be helping much -- they're obviously only interested in the issue as a means for bashing liberals, and Obama in particular.

And conservatives, even more obviously, not only intend not to join in, they're only going to head in the opposite direction.

Which leaves those of us actually interested in a real dialogue hanging alone out there by ourselves. And that, really, may prove to be the most difficult part.

A crystalline example of the obstacles ahead can be found on the Kent State University campus in Ohio, where a debate has been raging about black-white relations since the publication of an interesting column in the student paper by a young white woman named Beth Rankin wrote a provocative column about her own difficulties in trying to overcome the racial gap in her own community, particularly in her dealings with the Black United Students organization, beginning with her attendance at a BUS-sponsored concert when she was a freshman:

From the moment Justin and I entered the ballroom, the tension was palpable. We received puzzled stares from students sitting around us, and though we couldn't put a finger on why, we felt incredibly unwelcome. I left feeling uncomfortable and unable to make sense of what had happened.

Back in Tri-Towers, when I told my dorm mates where I'd been, I received similar puzzled looks. You went to a BUS event? Hasn't anyone told you about BUS? They don't want white people attending their functions.

I didn't believe it. Even as I heard the exact same dialog from every non-black student and coworker I discussed BUS with, I had a hard time believing that a group fighting for equal rights would covertly push away other people fighting for the same cause.

A couple months later, as a member of the Stater editorial board, the forum editor and I had a small meeting with BUS leaders. The Stater and BUS have always had a notoriously rocky relationship, and my editor thought that by hearing from BUS itself about the group's goals, we could help bridge the gap.

Boy were we surprised when we were informed by then-leaders Teddy Harris and Demareo Cooper that BUS's goal was not equality, but to advance blacks beyond that of whites. The goal was black-owned, black-operated businesses and universities. When we said,

"... but that's racism ..." we were told that as the majority, we were unable to feel racism. We just couldn't understand.

Indeed, it is not just hard, it's practically impossible for a white person to understand the resentment that young African Americans feel after a lifetime of having doors slammed in their faces and being treated as second-class citizens. Even seemingly sincere efforts by other whites to reach out are often seen (and not always incorrectly) as self-serving attempts to make themselves feel superior, to other whites, if nothing else.

It's not clear that Rankin understands this. But it's also obvious that she's very sincere about wanting to overcome the obstacles, and so she issues a challenge worth making:

So this is what I say to you, current members and leaders of BUS: Tell me again. Tell me again what your goals are. I certainly hope they differ from those expressed to me in 2004.

Tell me what you are doing to reach out to non-black students who support your cause. As a straight girl, PRIDE!Kent has always welcomed me to their meetings and functions because they knew I supported their cause. I want to be able to attend BUS functions and feel the same love.

Racism is still a problem in this country, and it will never be solved if we continue to divide black from white. I have been called names and ostracized for the color of my skin, and I have been ridiculed for sharing my life with a man who is not white.

I am not a white bitch. I am a straight, white girl who will always do everything in her power to support the plight of all minorities.

I don't use the color of your skin against you, so please do not use mine against me.

Please, BUS: Tell me how you plan to use your powers for good. I want to hear your voice, and I want to become a united front in the fight against prejudice.

I am not a white bitch. I am not whitey. I am not a cracker. I am not the man.

And I never want to feel ostracized because of my race ever again. Don't you feel the same?

If nothing else, Rankin's efforts spurred a real dialogue on the Kent State campus in which both sides were able to clear the air:

Carla Smith, a former BUS executive board member, said students need to challenge themselves and step outside their comfort zone. They should not be afraid to be different.

"Take it beyond a conversation," she said. "You're responsible for yourself."

As blacks, Smith said, it's natural instinct to stick together. She asked people not to hold blacks accountable for not recognizing other races who attend their events if the person him or herself does not take the initiative to talk.

And just as a reminder to everyone that taking these kinds of steps produce difficulties on all sides, some white supremacists chimed in as well:

But her March 13 column found its way to a white supremacists' Web site, where some readers posted comments that she was ''groveling'' at the feet of blacks, and worse, she said.

''A couple of them said they wanted to kill my family in front of me and then me,'' said Rankin, a former student correspondent for the Beacon Journal. ''They thought I deserved to be punished.''

An FBI officer in Cleveland notified Rankin on Wednesday that her column — headlined ''I am not a white bitch'' — had attracted the attention of white supremacists.

She called KSU police, who turned out for a previously scheduled meeting on Wednesday with Black United Students, or BUS.

I recently read Randall Kennedy's excellent new book, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, which focuses on the difficulties black people face when they adopt political positions seen as inimical to black-community interests. As someone who also has been accused of being a "race traitor" by white supremacists, I pondered chiming in at the Firedoglake book salon with the perspective of a white person who deals with similar issues, but decided not to, since I wasn't sure it would be constructive.

But now I wish I had.

When Jingoes Legislate Art

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

There’s been an ongoing debate in Arizona about the state’s 9/11 memorial, which is in fact a striking conceptual piece of art that tries to encompass the broad range of public reactions, and feelings, about the 2001 terrorist attacks, and the events surrounding them.


Unsurprisingly, the problem is less with the memorial itself than with the Republican jingoes who can’t abide honesty or truth in public art. They want the memorial to be all about good ole American patriotism, and are accusing its designers of being unpatriotic, unAmerican, and just plain ungood.

Yesterday, the Republicans in the Arizona Legislature passed a resolution to remove the elements deemed insufficiently patriotic:

Known as Moving Memories, the memorial at Wesley Bolin Plaza was unveiled to widespread acclaim on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Built with $500,000 in private donations, its sweeping design of concrete and steel includes rubble from the World Trade Center and Pentagon and dust from the Pennsylvania field where the final hijacked plane crashed. Sunlight passes through 54 inscriptions laser-cut into the memorial’s cylindrical face, making the phrases visible on the concrete below.

But the memorial soon found itself the target of criticism by those who considered some of its inscriptions anti-military, unpatriotic or simply inane. GOP gubernatorial candidate Len Munsil made the memorial a centerpiece of his candidacy against Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who had praised the structure as "impressive and meaningful."

There was talk of knocking down the memorial, covering it over or building anew. In the months since, emotions have cooled little. "The memorial as it now stands shows how far the roots of moral relativism have now spread," Rep. Bob Stump, a Peoria Republican, said Wednesday.

We’re all somewhat familiar with this kind of nonsense. After all, it was just three years ago that Michelle Malkin was frothing about another 9/11 memorial that she and the other wingnuts had decided was part of a secret Islamist conspiracy to instill Muslim values in America.

What the wingnuts apparently can’t handle is any reflection of the complexity of American life, manifested in our widely varying responses to the attacks — as well as the many failures in our national-security apparatus before and after them. The only views they evidently can stand to have displayed on the memorial are those that either express support for the American military and the Bush administration, or express hatred of brown-skinned foreigners.

These are the lines the Arizona jingoes want removed:

• "Must bomb back"
• "05 19 03 Avtar Singh Cheira, a Sikh, shot in Phoenix"
• "Foreign-born Americans afraid"
• "09 15 01 Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, murdered in Mesa"
• "Middle East violence motivates attacks in US"
• "FBI agent issues July 2001 warning in ‘Phoenix Memo’ "
• "06 03 02 Congress questions why CIA & FBI didn’t prevent attacks"
• "Fear of foreigners"
• "Feeling of invincibility lost"
• "03 13 02 New Afghan leader elected"
• "You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles"
• "Violent acts leading US to war 05 07 1915, 12 07 1941, 08 04 1964 & 09 11 2001"

Now, you can argue all you like about the truthfulness or accuracy or validity of these views — but it’s incontestable that the breadth of American opinion did include them. Which is what the memorial is supposed to be about. That’s what gives it its power.

If Arizona Republicans want to have their own memorial, perhaps they can finance it themselves and erect it on their own. I’d suggest a statue of John McCain, singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

The threat of difference

-- by Dave

Well, I guess we all knew that Jonah Goldberg is simply incoherent when it comes to thinking through the logic of right-wing politics. This is not terribly surprising, since right-wing politics are really more about irritable mental gestures expressing bellicose claptrap rather than anything based in fact, logic, or reason.

Still, it's hard to top the claptrap that Goldberg propagated in his most recent L.A. Times column:

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that "hate is not a family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

It might be helpful to come to grips with the concept in question here: Bigotry is usually defined as "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own," and a bigot as "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices." Bigotry, as we have known it historically, is not based on rationality or reason -- as the scientific belief in evolution is -- but founded instead on prejudice, inbred beliefs, and supernatural reactionarism.

And what we also know about bigotry historically is that it has largely been a characteristic of the right, particularly the cultural conservatives who enforced the segregation and oppression of nonwhites for much of the 20th century.

That's not to say that liberals and the left are incapable of it. Certainly, evolutionary thinkers, as well as scientists and liberals generally, can be found to harbor bigotry as well. The Christopher Hitchens brand of atheism making the rounds these days probably qualifies as a kind of anti-religious bigotry.

But sporting a Darwin Fish on your car isn't any indication of bigotry. Clearly, the Darwin Fish symbol isn't an attack on Christianity per se -- it's an unadulterated assertion of belief in the Darwinist evolution, in contradistinction to the Creationist brand of Christianity (which is, in fact, a very narrow band of Christian belief).

It's entirely possible, in fact, for a practicing Christian to have one on their car, given that large numbers of Christians in fact also believe in evolution. (I know this from experience; my devout, church-going and elderly mother -- who also thinks creationism is a pile of balderdash -- proudly sports one on hers.)

Obviously, there are belief systems that naturally conflict, and the Creationist view clearly conflicts with evolutionary thinking. And naturally, there is some antagonism toward the opposition inherent whenever each side asserts their values.

But to argue that this constitutes "bigotry" is blithering nonsense. People can and should be able to strongly assert their own beliefs without others feeling threatened by that.

Is it "bigotry" when right-wing conservatives (like Jonah Goldberg) assert that global warming is either vastly overstated or a hoax?

Is it "bigotry" when Republicans insist that Democrats should not win voters' approval?

Is it "bigotry" when Christians insist that the world was created in seven days -- in contravention of every bit of real science known to humans?

Indeed, one might more reasonably argue that the "Jesus fish" swallowing the Darwin fish we've all seen similarly adorning people's cars -- like the one atop this post -- is in fact a form of bigotry, because it clearly is intended as an attack on other people's beliefs. But Goldberg seems either to be unaware of the existence of such stickers, or he simply finds them inconvenient when it comes to his thesis.

But then, as we saw with Liberal Fascism, eliding the inconvenient fact is a central motif of Goldberg's style of argumentation.

Goldberg is like so many conservatives: They see any ideology or idea that falls outside of their own belief system as a threat to those beliefs. So any assertion of ideas outside that realm becomes interpreted as an attack.

This is why so many right-wingers love to attack gay marriage as an "assault on the institution of marriage" -- when in fact no gay marriage on the planet harms a single straight marriage. It's also why so many creationist types insist on trying to remove science education from their children's curriculum.

Now, opposing beliefs often do come into contention, and that clearly is the issue underlying the whole "Darwin fish" matter. It's probably reasonable that someone might fear that someone's opposing beliefs might prove their own hollow, absurd, or meaningless -- as innately an attack on them. And so the easy response to this is to dismiss these as "bigotry."

But the only real bigotry in play here -- the kind that simply cannot tolerate someone else holding beliefs different from theirs, and so they must attack those beliefs on the grounds that they are attacking -- is the kind that Jonah Goldberg is blithely promoting. And of course, consonant with the projection strategy, he's doing so in the name of supposedly attacking it.

The problem with racist cops

-- by Dave

We've discussed previously the red flags that go up whenever law-enforcement officials are involved in any kind of racist organizations.

Recent news reports about two cops in Philly, both members of an elite squad, who were found with racist stickers in their locker were especially disturbing:

Two racist stickers were found inside Schweizer's locker. One sticker read: "White Power." The other depicted a cartoon of a man, half as an officer in uniform and half as a Klansman, with the words "Blue By Day — White By Night."

Ramsey described the discipline as harsh but just, and said he stopped short of firing the officers because they "had no histories that would indicate that they engaged in any racist type of activities."

Schweizer's attorney, Allan J. Sagot, maintained that his client was the victim of a practical joke played by another officer, who affixed the stickers to the outside of Schweizer's locker. Once he saw the stickers, Schweizer pulled them off his locker and stuck them inside, Sagot said.

An Internal Affairs Bureau investigation concluded that Dial created the stickers and put them on Schweizer's locker in the narcotics strike force headquarters in the city's Bridesburg section, Ramsey said.

The story notes (as does an An AP story about the cops) that the men weren't fired because they hadn't any prior history suggesting racist activity -- which seems reasonable enough, I suppose.

But there really can't be any tolerance at all for this kind of stuff within law enforcement, because it's essential for their credibility with the public that racist cops are immediately expelled.

And especially in Philly, which still is living with the legacy of Frank Rizzo.

Time to sink the SAVE Act

-- by Dave

If there were political booby prizes handed out each year -- something like the Razzies for the Beltway set -- the award for Worst Legislation Proposed by a Democrat this year would have to go to Heath Shuler's misbegotten "SAVE Act, an attempt to pass a "deportation only" approach to the immigration issue. Of course, it not only reflects the worldview of the anti-immigrant wing of the party, headed by Rahm Emanuel, but it's a profoundly bad piece of legislation.

Among its more awful provisions, you may recall, are "verification" measures that essentially would require every American to get an OK from the federal government every time they get a new job or change jobs.

Let's face it: Not only is SAVE a bad piece of policy (more on that shortly) it's also incredibly shortsighted politically -- it's certain to alienate the very voters (working-class people and Latinos) on whom the Democrats' electoral future almost certainly depends. It's also a remarkably dumb piece of politics in the short term: How did Democrats let themselves get dragged so far to the right by a freshman with no previous background in dealing with immigration?

Earlier this month, Republicans tried to force the bill to a floor vote in the House, just before congressional recess, using a discharge-petition maneuver that so far has accumulated 181 signatures -- short of the 218 needed.

Some 49 Democrats signed up as cosponsors of the bill, but only eight have signed onto the discharge petition. So with Congress returning this week from recess, there will be a push from the GOP to get the rest of the 41 Democrats to sign on.

But the House leadership -- with the support of activists from within the immigrant and labor communities -- has been trying to hold the line, keeping the bill in committee for the time being. The question is how much longer they'll be able to do that without hearing more from their constituents.

At the bottom of this post, you'll find a complete state-by-state list, including contact information, of the 41 Democrats being wooed to sign the discharge petition. Many of them are vulnerable Dems running in conservative districts, and a number of them have been feeling pressure to let the bill go to a vote.

We're urging every reader who opposes this bill to check the list for members of Congress from their own districts or states, and then write or phone them directly to tell them how you feel.

Time to Sink the SAVE Act

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Heath Shuler (right): 'To the right of Genghis Khan'

If there were political booby prizes handed out each year — something like the Razzies for the Beltway set — the award for Worst Legislation Proposed by a Democrat this year would have to go to Heath Shuler’s misbegotten "SAVE Act, an attempt to pass a "deportation only" approach to the immigration issue. Of course, it not only reflects the worldview of the anti-immigrant wing of the party, headed by Rahm Emanuel, but it’s a profoundly bad piece of legislation.

Among its more awful provisions, you may recall, are "verification" measures that essentially would require every American to get an OK from the federal government every time they get a new job or change jobs.

Let’s face it: Not only is SAVE a bad piece of policy (more on that shortly) it’s also incredibly shortsighted politically — it’s certain to alienate the very voters (working-class people and Latinos) on whom the Democrats’ electoral future almost certainly depends. It’s also a remarkably dumb piece of politics in the short term: How did Democrats let themselves get dragged so far to the right by a freshman with no previous background in dealing with immigration?

Earlier this month, Republicans tried to force the bill to a floor vote in the House, just before congressional recess, using a discharge-petition maneuver that so far has accumulated 181 signatures — short of the 218 needed.

Some 49 Democrats signed up as cosponsors of the bill, but only eight have signed onto the discharge petition. So with Congress returning this week from recess, there will be a push from the GOP to get the rest of the 41 Democrats to sign on.

But the House leadership — with the support of activists from within the immigrant and labor communities — has been trying to hold the line, keeping the bill in committee for the time being. The question is how much longer they’ll be able to do that without hearing more from their constituents.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a complete state-by-state list, including contact information, of the 41 Democrats being wooed to sign the discharge petition. Many of them are vulnerable Dems running in conservative districts, and a number of them have been feeling pressure to let the bill go to a vote.

We’re urging every reader who opposes this bill to check the list for members of Congress from their own districts or states, and then write or phone them directly to tell them how you feel.

It’s been clear, as things have gone along, that Shuler — who was described this week by National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Cole ("with a certain envy") as "to the right of Genghis Khan" — is uninterested in discussion or negotiation. Because he has the complete backing of the nativist wing of the Republican Party, including Tom Tancredo and Rep. Brian Bilbray, his co-sponsor, he has stormed full speed ahead in pushing the bill forward.

Because it has remained bottled up in committee, Shuler has been complaining (somewhat dishonestly, as Howie Klein observes) that somehow John McCain is to blame. But the reality is that members of his own caucus are determined to hang onto the bill.

"It’s just really stupid politics," says Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza. "For now, it’s not about how far Democrats are willing to go to protect Blue Dog Democrats, now it’s about, OK, you have one freshman who’s actually making you more vulnerable."

NCLR’s leaders, as well as the SEIU and other interest groups, have been leading the charge against SAVE, for obvious reasons: It’s simply another legislative attempt to scapegoat working-class people, Latinos especially, for a problem created by the status quo of immigration law. And with its fetish about "securing the borders," it’s singularly ineffective: It doesn’t even begin to address, for instance, the undocumented workers who come to the U.S. legally and simply overstay their visas — people who constitute nearly half of the so-called "illegal immigrant" workforce.

"We’re worried about what Mr. Shuler is trying to do," says Martinez. "In terms of the discharge petition, we’re hoping that leadership’s gonna stand strong and not allow that to happen. However, this strong stance also needs to translate to dealing with the substance of the bill and not just the procedural maneuver that’s being used right now to stop it. Our ultimate concern is that substance.
"Obviously, forcing it to the floor without any discussion is problematic, but in this case, there seems to be too much willingness to go along with something that is basically going to result in every American having to ask permission from Washington to get a job or change a job."

There has been some previous discussion of the manifold problems created by Shuler’s bill, notably by Digby, who explained that the bill:

[T]throws even more police power at Homeland Security, tons of money at police agencies, both militarizes AND privatizes the border (a neat trick), empowers the IRS to share information with other agencies and creates a new federal database that contains information about every American worker.

It’s filled with all kinds of neat new requirements for all people who work for a living. If you are a person with two jobs, like a lot of people, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this:

Notification of Multiple Uses of Individual Social Security Numbers
Prior to crediting any individual with concurrent earnings from more than one employer, the Commissioner of Social Security shall notify the individual that earnings from two or more employers are being reported under the individual’s social security account number. Such notice shall include, at a minimum, the name and location of each employer and shall direct the individual to contact the Social Security Administration to submit proof that the individual is the person to whom the social security account number was issued and, if applicable, to submit, either in person or via electronic transmission, a pay stub or other documentation showing that such individual is employed by both or all employers reporting earnings to that social security account number.

The National Immigration Law Center has a complete rundown of the bill’s provisions and the issues at play here. Among other things, SAVE would:

• • Expand the problem-plagued Basic Pilot electronic employment eligibility verification system (recently rebranded “E-Verify” by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, or DHS) into a nationwide mandatory program for all employers and workers in the economy.
  • Convert the Social Security Administration (SSA) “no-match” letter program into a blunt immigration enforcement tool by requiring employers to fire workers with mismatched information unless the workers can fix the problem within 10 days (70 percent of errors in SSA’s database pertain to U.S. citizens).
  • Require all individuals who work for more than one employer at the same time to provide proof of employment to SSA before their Social Security account can be credited.
  • Override current confidentiality of tax and Social Security information by dumping all reported anomalies such as multiple use of a Social Security number (SSN) and mismatches into a DHS database while providing few if any protections against misuse of such information.
  • Continue the exponential but ineffective increase in the number of Border Patrol agents that we have seen in recent years without providing for any balancing protections needed to hold the government accountable for reported abusive practices.
  • Continue to pour even more money into infrastructure and technological gadgetry along the southern border without addressing the problems of mismanagement that have tainted the massive contracts that have been let in recent years.
  • Expand the scope of activity that can be prosecuted as “alien smuggling” and narrow the protections from such prosecution enjoyed by religious workers.
  • Provide incentives for more state and local police to enforce immigration laws. (Police nationwide have been reluctant to embrace such enforcement because it detracts from their core mission of preventing crime and catching criminals.)
  • Continue the recent unprecedented increase in immigration incarceration capacity from 27,500 to 35,500 beds while providing for none of the reforms that human rights advocates have urged in response to well-documented abuses in current detention facilities.

It’s also worth remembering, of course, that not only is SAVE endorsed by the Tancredo wing of the GOP, it also enjoys the avid support of FAIR — recently designated a hate group by the SPLC — but also such like-minded souls as the David Duke and Stormfront factions.

"We know that the anti-immigrant folks are definitely stirring the pot on this," says Martinez. "And we know that the strategy on the Republican side to force the discharge petition right before recess was definitely to create that environment."

The current problem, however, lies within the Democratic Emanuel-Shuler faction. "What we’ve heard is that they keep saying to people to go visit them — that in conversations they can be more upfront, and that’s that they need a vote on something. And that’s the pressure to get on board with Shuler — that’s the only vote out there.

"That takes us back to the mother of all conversations on immigration — that when you have a leadership that is not articulating that position and working with its members to articulate its position, you either allow your enemy to define you, which is Republicans are doing by trying to label them soft on immigration, or you allow somebody who has no taste for the substance and is a freshman to be dragging the whole party."

Republicans, Martinez says, are going to put the squeeze on vulnerable Democrats in the coming weeks. And that’s where ordinary citizens come in.

As we suggested, check the following list for representatives within your district or state to whom you can write or phone. (Folks from Pennsylvania and Tennessee will have their work cut out for them.) If there isn’t anyone who fits, feel free to write any or all of those listed in any event. Rather than use any kind of boilerplate, voice your opposition in your own words (and feel free to explore any of the above links to help).

A number of those listed are vulnerable — notably Jerry McNerney, Kristin Gillibrand, Jim Matheson, Ron Klein, Paul Kanjorski, Jason Altmire, and Steve Kagen, all of whom have tough races this fall (Kanjorski, in fact, is running against a rabid nativist). For most of these, simply hearing from constituents and donors who oppose SAVE will give them reason to stand tough, especially if we help them think about how they can frame the immigration debate in a forward-looking way.

Some of them — notably Paul Hodes, Joe Sestak, and Patrick Murphy — are good guys who should be relatively willing to listen to these concerns. One of them — Leonard Boswell — faces a tough primary challenge from a more progressive Democrat (Matthew Grimm at Down With Tyranny has much more on Boswell’s race with Ed Fallon; it seems likely that contacting Fallon could be productive as well). Mark Udall is running for the Senate; and Bud Davis has announced he’s retiring; both should be responsive to pleas to do the right thing here. Likewise, Artur L. Davis — despite his close proximity to Emanuel politically — is bucking for a spot with the Democratic Caucus Leadership, so he should listen to constructive pressure from progressives. And of course, there are Blue Dogs and really not-very-progressive Dems on the list: Allen Boyd, Sanford Bishop, Jim Marshall, Melissa Bean, Baron Hill, Charles Melancon, Bart Stupak, David Boren, and Zachary Space. Your mileage may vary regarding the effectiveness of contacting them, but it never hurts for them to hear from the progressive side.

Others are fence-sitters who don’t face particularly tough challenges this fall: Marion Berry, Mike Ross, Ed Perlmutter, Peter Visclosky, Michael Arcuri, Brian Higgins, Tim Ryan, Robert Brady, John Murtha, Tim Holden, Lincoln Davis, Jim Cooper, Gordon Bart, John Tanner, Ciro Rodriguez, Rick Boucher, and Brian Baird. These folks will probably need the most bucking up of any group.

The important thing is to make contact and let them hear that there are plenty of Americans, plenty of their constituents, who want them to do the right thing and get a spine in the face of this kind of destructive legislation.

The list:
ALABAMA
5th District:
Robert E. (Bud) Cramer Jr.
2184 Rayburn House Office Building 2184 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0105
Phone: (202) 225-4801
Fax: (202) 225-4392
7th District:
Artur Davis
208 Cannon House Office Building 208 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0107
Phone: (202) 225-2665
Fax: (202) 226-9567
ARKANSAS
1st District:
Marion Berry
2305 Rayburn House Office Building 2305 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0401
Phone: (202) 225-4076
Fax: (202) 225-5602
4th District:
Mike Ross
314 Cannon House Office Building 314 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0404
Phone: (202) 225-3772
Fax: (202) 225-1314
CALIFORNIA
11th District:
Jerry McNerney
312 Cannon House Office Building 312 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0511
Phone: (202) 225-1947
Fax: (202) 225-4060
COLORADO
2nd District:
Mark Udall
100 Cannon House Office Building 100 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0602
Phone: (202) 225-2161
Fax: (202) 226-7840
7th District:
Ed Perlmutter
415 Cannon House Office Building 415 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0607
Phone: (202) 225-2645
Fax: (202) 225-5278
FLORIDA
2nd District:
F. Allen Boyd
1227 Longworth House Office Building 1227 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0902
Phone: (203) 225-5235
Fax: (202) 225-5615
22nd District:
Ron Klein
313 Cannon House Office Building 313 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-0922
Phone: (202) 225-3026
Fax: (202) 225-8398
GEORGIA
2nd District:
Sanford D. Bishop Jr.
2429 Rayburn House Office Building 2429 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1002
Phone: (202) 225-3631
Fax: (202) 225-2203
8th District:
Jim Marshall
504 Cannon House Office Building 504 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1003
Phone: (202) 225-6531
Fax: (202) 225-3013
ILLINOIS
8th District:
Melissa L. Bean
318 Cannon House Office Building 318 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1308
Phone: (202) 225-3711
Fax: (202) 225-7830
IOWA
3rd District:
Leonard L. Boswell
1427 Longworth House Office Building 1427 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1503
Phone: (202) 225-3806
Fax: (202) 225-5608
INDIANA
1st District:
Peter J. Visclosky
2256 Rayburn House Office Building 2256 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1401
Phone: (202) 225-2461
Fax: (202) 225-2493
9th District:
Baron P. Hill
223 Cannon House Office Building 223 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1409
Phone: (202) 225-5315
Fax: (202) 226-6866
LOUSIANA
3rd District:
Charlie Melancon
404 Cannon House Office Building 404 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-1803
Phone: (202) 225-4031
Fax: (202) 226-3944
MICHIGAN
1st District:
Bart Stupak
2352 Rayburn House Office Building 2352 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-2201
Phone: (202) 225-4735
Fax: (202) 225-4744
NEW HAMPSHIRE
2nd District:
Paul W. Hodes
506 Cannon House Office Building 506 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-2902
Phone: (202) 225-5206
Fax: (202) 225-2946
NEW YORK
20th District:
Kirsten E. Gillibrand
120 Cannon House Office Building 120 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3220
Phone: (202) 225-5614
Fax: (202) 225-1168
24th District:
Michael A. Arcuri
327 Cannon House Office Building 327 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3224
Phone: (202) 225-3665
Fax: (202) 225-1891
27th District:
Brian Higgins
431 Cannon House Office Building 431 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3227
Phone: (202) 225-3306
Fax: (202) 226-0347
OKLAHOMA
2nd District:
Dan Boren
216 Cannon House Office Building 216 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3602
Phone: (202) 225-2701
Fax: (202) 225-3038
OHIO
17th District:
Tim Ryan
1421 Longworth House Office Building 1421 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3517
Phone: (202) 225-5261
Fax: (202) 225-3719
18th District:
Zachary T. Space
315 Cannon House Office Building 315 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3518
Phone: (202) 225-6265
Fax: (202) 225-3394
PENNSYVANIA
1st District:
Robert A. Brady
206 Cannon House Office Building 206 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3801
Phone: (202) 225-4731
Fax: (202) 225-0088
4th District:
Jason Altmire
1419 Longworth House Office Building 1419 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3804
Phone: (202) 225-2565
Fax: (202) 226-2274
7th District:
Joe Sestak
1022 Longworth House Office Building 1022 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3807
Phone: (202) 225-2011
Fax: (202) 226-0280
8th District:
Patrick J. Murphy
1007 Longworth House Office Building 1007 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3808
Phone: (202) 225-4276
Fax: (202) 225-9511
11th District:
Paul E. Kanjorski
2188 Rayburn House Office Building 2188 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3811
Phone: (202) 225-6511
Fax: (202) 225-0764
12th District:
John P. Murtha
2423 Rayburn House Office Building 2423 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3812
Phone: (202) 225-2065
Fax: (202) 225-5709
17th District:
Tim Holden
2417 Rayburn House Office Building 2417 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-3817
Phone: (202) 225-5546
Fax: (202) 226-0996
TENNESSEE
4th District:
Lincoln Davis
410 Cannon House Office Building 410 CHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4204
Phone: (202) 225-6831
Fax: (202) 226-5172
5th District:
Jim Cooper
1536 Longworth House Office Building 1536 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4205
Phone: (202) 225-4311
Fax: (202) 226-1035
6th District:
Bart Gordon
2310 Rayburn House Office Building 2310 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4206
Phone: (202) 225-4231
Fax: (202) 225-6887
8th District:
John S. Tanner
1226 Longworth House Office Building 1226 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4208
Phone: (202) 225-4714
Fax: (202) 225-1765
9th District:
Steve Cohen
1004 Longworth House Office Building 1004 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4209
Phone: (202) 225-3265
Fax: (202) 225-5663
TEXAS
23rd District:
Ciro D. Rodriguez
2458 Rayburn House Office Building 2458 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4323
Phone: (202) 225-4511
Fax: (202) 225-2237
UTAH
2nd District:
Jim Matheson
1323 Longworth House Office Building 1323 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4402
Phone: (202) 225-3011
Fax: (202) 225-5638
VIRGINIA
9th District:
Rick Boucher
2187 Rayburn House Office Building 2187 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4609
Phone: (202) 225-3861
Fax: (202) 225-0442
WASHINGTON
3rd District:
Brian Baird
2443 Rayburn House Office Building 2443 RHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4703
Phone: (202) 225-3536
Fax: (202) 225-3478
WISCONSIN
8th District:
Steve Kagen
1232 Longworth House Office Building 1232 LHOB
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia 20515-4908
Phone: (202) 225-5665
Fax: (202) 225-5729

Ending the war: Gaining steam

-- by Dave

The Responsible Plan for Ending the War in Iraq showed signs of gaining real momentum this week inside the Beltway, thanks to the growing numbers of signees -- now up to 42 -- and the notice that drew in a Washington Post report:

Rejecting their party leaders' assertions that economic troubles have become the top issue on voters' minds, leaders of the coalition of 38 House and four Senate candidates pledged to make immediate withdrawal from Iraq the centerpiece of their campaigns.

"The people inside the Beltway don't seem to get how big an issue this is," said Darcy Burner, a repeat candidate who narrowly lost to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in 2006.

The group's 36-page plan does not set a specific deadline for when all combat troops must be out of Iraq. "Begin it now, do it as safely as you can and get everyone out," Burner said.

The starkest difference between the group's proposal, dubbed a "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq," and those embraced by many senior Democrats and the party's presidential candidates is that it rejects the idea of leaving U.S. troops on the ground to train Iraqi security forces or engage in anti-terrorism operations. The group instead calls for a dramatic increase in regional diplomacy and the deployment of international peacekeeping forces, if necessary.

You might want to note that Burner is having a fund-raiser and is close to reaching her goal. If you like what she's doing, go pitch in.

The Boss

-- by Dave

Went to see Springsteen tonight at the Key. This was the third time I've seen him, but it was his best performance of the three -- he seemed to be working harder and having more fun.

Best for me personally was that I finally saw him do "Rosalita," which is one of my three favorite Springsteen songs, none of which I've seen him perform before (though I didn't get to see him the first time until 1989, which was probably part of the problem). It was great, particularly Clemons' sax work, which I think this song showcases better than any other Boss song except "Kitty's Back" -- which happens to be my co-favorite (along with "Candy's Room," which I'd heard he never performed live, but which I see he has resurrected for this tour.) Someday I hope to hear him sing, "Catlong sighs, holding Kitty's black tooth ..." But getting to sing along with on "But your papa says he knows that I don't have any money" was one of the highlights of my year.

So I can sleep tonight a happy man.

Breaking through on anthrax?

-- by Dave

Credit where it's due: Fox News (and evidently no one else) is reporting a significant breakthrough in the anthrax attacks of 2001:

WASHINGTON — The FBI has narrowed its focus to "about four" suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

The story appears credible, particularly in the focus on Fort Detrick, which is indeed the most likely source of the lethal powder used in those attacks; this is something we've known since 2003, when it was clear that this, like Oklahoma City and 9/11, was another in the line of asymmetric terrorist attacks on American soil.

The fact that there was so little resolution of the matter probably had something to do with the political dimensions of the attacks. But it's also increasingly likely that there was some outright incompetence involved as well:

In December 2001, an Army commander tried to dispel the possibility of a connection to Fort Detrick by taking the media on a rare tour of the base. The commander said the Army used only liquid anthrax, not powder, for its experiments.

"I would say that it does not come from our stocks, because we do not use that dry material," Maj. Gen. John Parker said. The letters that were mailed to the media and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy all contained powdered anthrax.

But in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

"Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"

Gee, imagine that: A general with incomplete information misled the media in the process of covering his ass. Never heard of that in this administration.

Believing in the dream

-- by Dave

I think those of us who advocate comprehensive immigration reform recognize that getting there is going to be a long, slow row. But along the way, there are opportunities to help push reform forward in incremental steps.

One of these is the DREAM Act:

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (also called "The DREAM Act") is a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States that would provide high school students who are long term undocumented immigrants with good moral character and who wish to attend college or serve in the armed forces to be able to gain legal status.

The bill, in various incarnations, has been introduced several times in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the House it has never been brought to a floor vote as a stand-alone bill; in the Senate it was finally brought for debate on the floor on October 24, 2007, and though it was able to gain a majority vote it failed to gain cloture by a 52-44 vote, 8 votes short of overcoming a filibuster.[1] The text of the bill has also been included in various other immigration-related bills, including the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Acts of 2006 and 2007, though none so far has been successful.

It's an important first step in opening up a path to citizenship for immigrants and their children, which is a cornerstone of any larger progressive approach to immigration reform.

Robert Greenwald, whose Brave New Films outfit has done such great work exposing Fox News and Wal-Mart, among other targets, has turned his focus on getting the DREAM act. He's set up a Web site where you can sign a petition urging the remaining presidential candidates to support the bill:

All three presidential hopefuls co-sponsored the federal DREAM Act, yet it has never been made law. The DREAM Act would enable states to grant in-state tuition to these hardworking immigrant students, making higher education (and eventually citizenship) a real possibility.

It's a worthy cause, and well worth your signature.

A Change of Season

-- by Sara

Faithful Orcinus readers may have been wondering over the past couple months just where Sara went. The answer is: a lot is changing for me these days, and the particulars of when, where, and for whom I blog are changing, too.

Much of my mindshare since mid-January has gone to my guest-blogging gig at the Campaign for America's Future blog. The original plan was that I'd be doing one piece a week for 12 weeks, ending in the second week of April. Dave and I knew going in that this meant y'all would necessarily see quite a bit less of me here.

But it turns out that that temporary distraction isn't. At Take Back America last week, Bob Borosage called me into his K Street office and asked me if I'd be willing to make the arrangement permanent. Since it's a hugely visible site (my co-bloggers there include David Sirota, Bill Scher, Rick Perlstein, and Digby, and our own Dave has been known to pop up occasionally) and there are actual paychecks involved -- well, of course, I said yes.

Making room in my life for this new gig (and working on my thesis, which is also now fully underway) has meant I've had to get serious about re-arranging my priorities. The new schedule has me putting up a major article at ourfuture.org on Mondays or Tuesdays. (Most weeks, I'll throw up a link to it here as well, so you can hop right over and take a look.) I'll be back here at Orcinus regularly on Fridays, and perhaps a second time whenever events compel me to speak up. And since something had to give, I've cut way back on my commitment to Group News Blog, and will appear there only very occasionally when something appropriate catches my fancy.

So that's what's happening with me.

This week's piece at ourfuture.org is a contemplation on the past, present, and future of the American civil religion, and what it has to do with the persistent insanity over the candidates and their religious advisors we're seeing in this election cycle. I'll also be doing a live interview on "The Solution Zone" with Christiane Brown on KJFK, northern Nevada's Air America affiliate, this coming Monday afternoon at 3:00 pm. You can tune in online here.

Update: The radio show was pre-empted for Monday, so I've been re-booked for Wednesday at 3:00. See you there.

The McCain of the Moment and Immigration

-- by Dave

A lot of wags have been chortling about "the McCain Moment," myself included, because it encapsulates so neatly much of what's wrong with John McCain. But not everything.

We also need to deal with the McCain Of The Moment. The guy who said one thing six months ago and says nearly its opposite now. Who knows what he'll say in another six months?

As disturbing as his obvious mental lapses might be, McCain's bizarre policy flip-flops make Daffy Duck look positively stolid in comparison, especially because they have come in many cases in which he has made himself a national reputation. Things like torture and campaign finance ethics.

And this is especially the case with immigration. The co-author of the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Act -- which, comparatively speaking, took a moderate approach to immigration reform -- McCain is now saying that he wouldn't even vote for it now, let alone co-author it:

In a March 24 New York Times online piece, reporter Adam Nagourney stated that aides to Sen. John McCain "are beginning to see a general election upside ... to the problems that Mr. McCain's support of immigration legislation caused him in the primaries." But Nagourney did not report that McCain in fact reacted to those perceived "problems" by abandoning his own comprehensive immigration reform proposal during his campaign for the Republican nomination, saying that he would no longer support it if it came up for a vote in the Senate. McCain now says that "we've got to secure the borders first" -- a position at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without being rendered ineffective. The Times itself reported on McCain's reversal on immigration in a March 3 article by reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, which stated that McCain has "meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him." The article noted in particular that McCain "moved from his original position on immigration" and "went so far at a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in January to say that if his original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor, he would not vote for it."

Media Matters further notes that McCain's transigence on the issue included "conceding" at one of the presidential debates that he would vote against the bill today, when only three days earlier he had said he would sign it into law as president.

In fact, we were witness to this flip-flop on immigration as far back as last November:

John McCain spent months earlier this year arguing that the United States must combine border security efforts with a temporary worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.

Now, the Republican presidential candidate emphasizes securing the borders first. The rest, he says, is still needed but will have to come later.

"I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift," McCain told reporters Saturday after voters questioned him on his position during back-to-back appearances in this early voting state. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."

That's right: John McCain was for humane, comprehensive immigration reform before he was against it.

When we begin talking about McCain's positions on issues, we're going to need to ask: Which McCain are you talking about? The one who was talking a few months or weeks ago? Or the one who's running for president as a Republican? Or the one who plans to be president next year? Which McCain, which moment?

Unfortunately, I suspect that very few folks in the media will be explaining the difference to us.

The McCain of the Moment and Immigration

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

A lot of wags have been chortling about "the McCain Moment," myself included, because it encapsulates so neatly much of what’s wrong with John McCain. But not everything.

We also need to deal with the McCain Of The Moment. The guy who said one thing six months ago and says nearly its opposite now. Who knows what he’ll say in another six months?

As disturbing as his obvious mental lapses might be, McCain’s bizarre policy flip-flops make Daffy Duck look positively stolid in comparison, especially because they have come in many cases in which he has made himself a national reputation. Things like torture and campaign finance ethics.

And this is especially the case with immigration. The co-author of the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Act — which, comparatively speaking, took a moderate approach to immigration reform — McCain is now saying that he wouldn’t even vote for it today, let alone co-author it:

In a March 24 New York Times online piece, reporter Adam Nagourney stated that aides to Sen. John McCain "are beginning to see a general election upside … to the problems that Mr. McCain’s support of immigration legislation caused him in the primaries." But Nagourney did not report that McCain in fact reacted to those perceived "problems" by abandoning his own comprehensive immigration reform proposal during his campaign for the Republican nomination, saying that he would no longer support it if it came up for a vote in the Senate. McCain now says that "we’ve got to secure the borders first" — a position at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without being rendered ineffective. The Times itself reported on McCain’s reversal on immigration in a March 3 article by reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, which stated that McCain has "meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him." The article noted in particular that McCain "moved from his original position on immigration" and "went so far at a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in January to say that if his original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor, he would not vote for it."

Media Matters further notes that McCain’s utter transience on the issue included "conceding" at one of the presidential debates that he would vote against the bill today (see the video above), when only three days earlier he had said he would sign it into law as president.

In fact, we were witness to this flip-flop on immigration as far back as last November:

John McCain spent months earlier this year arguing that the United States must combine border security efforts with a temporary worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants.

Now, the Republican presidential candidate emphasizes securing the borders first. The rest, he says, is still needed but will have to come later.

"I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift," McCain told reporters Saturday after voters questioned him on his position during back-to-back appearances in this early voting state. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."

That’s right: John McCain was for humane, comprehensive immigration reform before he was against it.

When we begin talking about McCain’s positions on issues, we’re going to need to ask: Which McCain are you talking about? The one who was talking a few months or weeks ago? Or the one who’s running for president as a Republican? Or the one who plans to be president next year? Which McCain, which moment?

Unfortunately, I suspect that very few folks in the media will be explaining the difference to us.

Confronting the radical right

-- by Dave

One of the stranger aspects of the Nazi rally in Olympia a couple of years ago was the fact that the 12 or so neo-Nazis who gathered on the state Capitol steps to demand, among other things, an end to Latino immigration, were being protected by a phalanx of the Washington State Patrol some 275 strong.

Of course, they were there to protect these Nazis from the more than 300 people who showed up to protest them. Mind you, it was clear that the protesters were mostly intent on making fun of the swastika set, and violence was far from anyone's intent that day. But besides wasting a large chunk of government dough, the event also created the disturbing impression that the law-enforcement officers were far more interested in protecting the Nazis' free-speech rights than the anti-Nazis. I'm sure that wasn't the intent, but the impression was there, in any event.

Certainly, the role of law enforcement in being too lax created scenes the year before in Toledo that no one wanted to see reproduced. And in that instance, the laxity had raised real questions about police sympathies, too.

Mostly, law enforcement is caught between a rock and a hard spot in these situations. And there's no doubt the neo-Nazi types love to exploit that fact.

Lasty Friday a neo-Nazi demonstration in Calgary turned ugly when they began getting violent with the anti-Nazi protestors who showed up:

A group of white supremacists named the Aryan Guard staged a march from the Mewata Armoury down 8th Avenue to city hall, prompting anti-racism activists to stage their own demonstration.

The activists, plus union leaders, anarchists, minority groups, passersby and gay activists held their own rally as a counter-demonstration to the white supremacists, said Anti-Racist Action Calgary's Jason Devine.

"Our message is that there's strength in numbers ... that the community is united, that racism will not be tolerated, that it shouldn't be tolerated and that we shouldn't just turn from it," he said.

Approximately 25 Aryan Guard members gathered at the Franklin LRT station, rode the C-Train to downtown and started making their way down to the Mewata Armoury, when they were blocked by counter-demonstrators along 7th Avenue, in front of a seniors' centre.

Calgary Sun columnist Pablo Fernandez voiced some of the strong emotions that watching Nazis march under police escort can raise, especially in a community where they have taken not merely to marching but to their usual acts of street thuggery:

But since they started posting pictures of themselves on the Internet with guns and baseball bats -- and after two recent Molotov cocktail attacks in the city were tied to possible white supremacist activity -- it's the counter-protesters who have to hide their faces. One person who knows the danger of standing up against the neo-Nazis is Bonnie Collins.

She, her four children -- aged three to nine -- and her husband, Jason, were all home when their house was fire bombed on Feb. 12.

That moment was painfully relived Friday, when Bonnie -- as part of a counter-demonstration -- confronted the neo-Nazis, who asked her, "How's your house, Bonnie?" while standing behind a cordon of police officers on the front steps of city hall.

"Is it nice and toasty in there? How's Jason and the kids?"

Apart from gaining ground in their intimidation campaign, the neo-Nazis showed they have absolute freedom of movement in Calgary.

They marched, under police escort, from one end of downtown to the other, and although Calgary Police Service members faced the counter-demonstrators the entire time, the white supremacists made it clear to their opponents police were there to protect them, not the neo-Nazis.

In reality, it might have been more of a problem for the police to be protecting the Nazis had the group of protesters not been so clearly intent on confrontation and ultimately violence. That was in distinct contrast to the crowd in Olympia -- though under the circumstances, certainly foreseeable.

Fernandez starts to get the right idea later in the column:

Members of the Aryan Guard also have rights.

But the fact they can intimidate, threaten, recruit and feel comfortable enough to do as they please in full public view is something Calgarians cannot ignore.

Citizens, of course, should feel free to do as they please in public view so long as it's not criminal behavior -- including threatening and intimidation, things at which the Nazis excel. And it's that point which Calgarians have the right to demand police action.

Unfortunately, threatening and intimidation from their opponents simply negates that point. If these would-be enemies of fascism wanted to be effective, they'd also be a lot smarter.

The Moonies and McCain's Main Man

Online Videos by Veoh.com

-- by Dave

I guess we all know now that the media get all worked up about some presidential candidates who have dealings with religious figures deemed "anti-American" and "hateful" -- but not all of them. If it's a black pastor at a church attended by a Democrat, well, they're on that like stink on shit. If, on the other hand, it's a Republican candidate who embraces apocalyptic nutcases and gay-bashing extremists, well, the very scent seems to make them faint.

The same principle is at work regarding the media's allergy to reporting on the way Republicans and the Moonies have their hands so deeply into each others' pockets that they're making their coins jingle. Of course, as John Gorenfeld explores in detail in his new book, Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom, this has been going on a long time. There was a brief exception back in 2004 -- when Moon held his coronation as the "King of America" in the Senate Dirksen Building.

So we can only assume that they'll likely ignore the revelations in Gorenfeld's book that none other than uber-lobbyist Charlie Black -- not just McCain's "chief political adviser" but a right-hand man for the Bush clan as well -- played a role in making that coronation happen.

According to Gorenfeld, Black admitted to helping invite people to attend the coronation. And he's listed as a sponsor in the coronation's printed program.

The Moonies and McCain’s Main Man

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Speaking of Charlie Black …

I guess we all know now that the media get all worked up about some presidential candidates who have dealings with religious figures deemed "anti-American" and "hateful" — but not all of them. If it’s a black pastor at a church attended by a Democrat, well, they’re on that like stink on shit. If, on the other hand, it’s a Republican candidate who embraces apocalyptic nutcases and gay-bashing extremists, well, the very scent seems to make them faint.

The same principle is at work regarding the media’s allergy to reporting on the way Republicans and the Moonies have their hands so deeply into each others’ pockets that they’re making their coins jingle. Of course, as John Gorenfeld explores in detail in his new book, Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom, this has been going on a long time. There was a brief exception back in 2004 — when Moon held his coronation as the "King of America" in the Senate Dirksen Building.

So we can only assume that they’ll likely ignore the revelations in Gorenfeld’s book that none other than uber-lobbyist Charlie Black — not just McCain’s "chief political adviser" but a right-hand man for the Bush clan as well — played a role in making that coronation happen.

According to Gorenfeld, Black admitted to helping invite people to attend the coronation. And he’s listed as a sponsor in the coronation’s printed program.

You recall what happened at that event: A number of congressional figures, including at least one Democrat, Danny Davis of Illinois, participated in a ceremony in which Moon was crowned "King of America" and his place as the new Messiah rather officiously confirmed. The ceremony declared "the era of the Eternal Peace Kingdom, one global family under God." Immediately afterward, Moon confirmed to the participants that he was consulting with great leaders of the past in the spirit world: "The five great saints [Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammad, and Shankara] and many other leaders of the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murder on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."

Gorenfeld had an e-mail exchange with Black about his role in the affair:

Before the crowning became a scandal, I e-mailed Black questions about his role. "I lent my name and sent invitations to a few friends," he replied. "Unfortunately, I had a conflict and couldn’t go to the event." Was it a common kind of "event"? Black said, "I don’t know if it is annaul, but they have done similar events. I don’t know Reverend Moon, but work with the management of the Washington Times and their foundation occasionally on conservative causes. I think the dinner committee list included a number of us ‘secular’ conservatives."

McCain’s "chief political adviser" is deeply connected inside the Beltway powerhouse. [More here.] A Washington Post piece on the lobbyists inside McCain’s campaign notes:

His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.

[More on BKSH here.]

And of course, it’s helpful to recall the kinds of things that Moon has said which seem not to bother conservatives in the least:

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world. I will go beyond the boundary of the U.S., opening up the toll gate, reaching out to the end of the world. I will go forward, piercing through everything …

When we are in our battle against the whole nation of the U.S. — if you are truly in love with this nation, and if you love this nation more than anyone else, this nation will come into God’s possession, and Satan will have nothing to do with it. … With that as the bullet, we can smash the whole world.

Individualism is what God hates most, and Satan likes best.

God likes the idea of a monarchy, because it removes the cycles of election after election which can obscure the focus and direction of the nation.

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the whole world.

The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words must serve as law.

We will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so.

Telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing … that is not a sin … Even God tells lies very often.

I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight.

After the demise of communism and the destruction of democracy, all that will remain will be the True Family and True Children system, centered upon True Parents [Moon's title for himself and his wife]. That is what is happening now.

America may boast of its virtues to the world, but look, democracy is now reaching the end of its rope. People thought democracy is the final anchor of the free world, but it is reaching its end. So what is left? America has been telling the weaker nations that they have to accept democracy, forcing them to receive so-called democracy. But look at America. It is rotten, top to bottom. There is nothing to be proud of, not their way of walking or talking or thinking.

When you hear me putting America down, your ears are not pleased. But if we continue living in this hub of the satanic world, this New York-DC area, we are in the darkness.

When Clinton and his policies come into being, the first opposition must come from Christianity. But Christianity has lost its center and its hope. For that reason, they have lost their power, and that is why Clinton was allowed to win the election. It was the failure of Christianity. This nation which is supposed to be Christian has been turned into almost a model nation for Satan, losing everything precious. People are losing their own identity, losing brotherhood, losing their own parents, and losing God. This nation has really become a playground for Satan.

Apparently, you’re only anti-American if you’re a liberal Democrat.

That dialogue on race

-- by Dave

OK, just in the interest of honesty, here are some things usually associated over the years with white people that, well, I as a white person find kinda embarrassing:

Bell-bottom pants.

Mullets.

"Country living" decor.

Bad country music.

Bad heavy metal.

Bad dancing.

This is just a short sampling of a much longer list, but you kind of get the idea. There are a lot of dumb things associated with white folks that I, as a very melanin-challenged person myself, would hate being associated with. And for the most part, I'm fairly comfortable knowing that since I generally don't indulge these vices myself (except that I am a truly awful dancer), I don't need to worry much about being in fact associated with them.

I'm rather more concerned about certain other behaviors associated with certain white people -- things like swastika and "white power" tatoos and shaved heads; hate crimes; and the increasingly common rhetoric demonizing nonwhites for supposed characteristics like their criminality or their laziness or their lack of intelligence.

Now, I like to think that people like myself who work to expose these haters for what they are -- and there are many of us, though probably not enough -- stand as testimony to the fact that not all white folks are like them. Certainly, a broad spectrum of whites would object strenuously if others were to make that association -- why, they assure us, they don't have a racist bone in their bodies. Their best friend at work [or their Secretary of State] is black! Mind you, the right-wing component of this contingent seems to want to constantly undermine the work of people like myself, as well as nonwhites, at healing that racial divide, but that's perhaps beside the point: It's considered broadly unacceptable, in fact, to blame all white folks for the existence of neo-Nazis, skinheads, neo-Confederates, and nativists. And heaven forfend that any suggest that the "white community" is responsible for them.

I'm sure there will always be some black people who presume that all white folks are that way. But they're in a distinct minority.

I'm not sure the same thing could be said of white folks when it comes to certain blocs of the black community and how readily those translate into broad stereotypes. In fact, I'm pretty sure it can't.

I was thinking about this because Pam Spaulding wrote an interesting post (also at Pandagon) that started off talking about Pat Buchanan's latest column -- and I couldn't agree more that Buchanan, and the many people like him, are probably the foremost example of why we have a racial divide in the first damned place -- but it's morphed, in the updates, into something perhaps even more interesting.

Pam cites one of her readers, who relates the tale of his ride upon a bus, driven by a black man, in which some unpleasant black women boarded his bus and failed to pay their full fare, leading to a running verbal conflict with the driver. The line that caught my attention was this:

The driver turned to the Asian woman seated next to me in the front of the bus and informed her that in the City there were Black people and there were niggers. Those three were nothing but niggers and gave all black people a bad name.

Pam responds by pointing to Chris Rock's classic "Blacks vs. Niggaz" sketch (in the video atop this post} and noting:

What the driver (and Chris Rock) are conveying are class distinctions. Not all black folks are poor, under-educated criminals. Now the above comments by Rock and the bus driver conveniently skirt the issue of the underclass and the cycle of poverty that foments the pathologies of gang culture, disdain for educational achievement and other negative stereotypes that are a reality in those segments of the minority community. But Chris Rock speaks for a number of blacks who shake their heads every time they see a thug perp walk that inevitably will be seen by whites as representative of all black people.

And that really is the problem, isn't it: That whites will take a narrow spectrum of behaviors by black people and assume that they come to reflect the entire black community -- and black people hate that shit. As well they should.

A recent example of how this happens came in the Instapunk post discussed at length by Glenn Greenwald this week. Instapunk writes:

On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn't it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees -- and jeans belted just above their knees. I'm an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It's impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. . . .

Here's the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it.

Yep, it's those damned Niggaz again. And somehow, it's black people who are responsible for them.

It couldn't possibly be the responsibility of the white employers who somehow manage to overlook young black men when it comes time to hire; the white real-estate agents who won't show certain homes in certain neighborhoods or certain suburbs to blacks because, well, "blacks just don't want to live there"; it couldn't possibly be the suburban civic leaders who oppose public services and low-income housing in their towns because they might "drive down property values."

In other words, any part of the responsibility for the fact that many young, ambitious black men adopt a "gangsta" lifestyle because they know they'll never make it in the white world and don't particularly want to anyway -- that responsibility couldn't possibly lie with the people whose every step in fact closes young black people off from the very means of success that whites take for granted, could it?

Nah.

When white people insist on making every other black person bear some kind of responsibility for the behavior of a small segment of their community, people who only share with them their racial identity -- the kind of responsibility that whites repudiate on their own behalf for white miscreants -- that is nothing if not "identity politics" incarnate. And as long as it persists, there's going to be a racial divide in America that will not be bridged.

The new racism keeps bubbling

-- by Dave

Glenn Greenwald has a superb piece pointing out a Glenn Reynolds-endorsed post from post from the Reynolds-endorsed Instapunk that truly lays bare the ugly racism that has been rising, like all scum, to the top of the conservative movement these days:

Here's the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it. Which would be fine. Except that black people are not a community but a political party. They can squabble with each other in caucus but they absolutely refuse to speak the truth in public. And this is the single biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country.

I'm not proposing the generalized use of the term, just trying to be clear for once, in the wake of Obama's call for us to have a dialogue about race. However much they may scream and protest, black people will know what I mean when I demand they concede that the following people are niggers:

- Jeremiah Wright

- O.J. Simpson

- Marion Barry

- Alan Iverson

- William Jefferson

- Louis Farrakhan

- Mike Tyson . . .

You see, you've just given life to the suspicion that black people in America are, and have long been, a fifth column -- unanimously hating the very country that has afforded the highest standard of living ever achieved by black people in human history.

I've been calling this "the new racism", which really is just a slightly modified version of the truly vicious belief system that has been lying, like a cancer waiting to metastasize, from the body of movement conservatism for the many years since it was forced into semi-dormancy some 40 years ago. With folks like Rush Limbaugh leading the way, I describe it thus:

[It is] a trend in right-wing comentary, staking out positions that, if not overtly racist, at least seek to resurrect some of the hoary mythology of the era of white supremacy. As with most of right-wing race rhetoric of the past twenty years, it's all done with a certain level of plausible deniability, couched in "jokes" or abstrations that let the speakers feign indignation when the racism is pointed out; the current trend is only slightly more overt in its racism, but the underlying sentiments aren't hard to read.

It's a step beyond wink-and-nudge racism -- or, perhaps, more like that point in the winking and nudging when the winker begins nudging harder and harder.

Of course, it's not just Limbaugh, but rather something systemic within the body of conservatism generally:

[E]merging from behind a mask of genteel conservatism, it openly calls for a revival of ole-time white supremacism, having found that the "liberal social experiment" with racial equality has failed. Already, we've seen Patrick Buchanan drop all pretense and adopt a position that shifts from simple white nationalism to outright supremacism. Michael Savage airs denunciations of the Civil Rights movement. TV talkers like Glenn Beck pretend that blind bigotry toward Muslims is a "normal" perspective.

And as I noted then:

What's especially ironic is that all of this discussion is being raised by people with a record of attacking multiculturalism -- which, historically speaking, was the response to white supremacism and eugenics and became the worldview that replaced them. What we've been hearing, in a steady drumbeat from the right, is the notion that "multiculturalism is a failure" -- though notably, while unsparing in their critique, they have been discreet about what they would replace it with.

Now, evidently, we're finding out: a "new eugenics," to go right alongside a new kind of racism. It's all justified, you see, because multiculturalism has failed -- all it's done, they tell us, is make us more ethnically divided.

Nowhere in the discussion, of course, is even a glimmer of recognition that white people invented this ethnic balkanization over a century ago, instituted it for the better part of that century, and only recently have begun taking steps towards dismantling those institutions – many of which indeed persist well into this century. Nowhere is there a recognition of their own culpability, and responsibility to deal with minorities in good faith, instead of attempting to strip them of what few advances they have made in the intervening years.

More recently, we're seeing all kinds of white conservative pundits lay the blame for this turn in the discourse at the feet of black people.

As Greenwald puts it:

There is no better phrase to describe the animating feature of the modern Limbaugh/Kristol/Fox News conservative faction than "threatened tribalism." The belief that they are good and pure, yet subjected to unprecedented systematic unfairness and threatened by some lurking Evil Other against whom war must be waged (the Muslim, the Immigrant, the Terrorist, the Communist, the Liberal, the Welfare Queen) is the centerpiece of their ugly worldview.

Obama's campaign, as I've noted before, is going to be Ground Zero for this trend. And as the Jeremiah Wright controversy has made clear, the supposedly mainstream media are all too willing to play along.