Buchanan sums up teabaggers

In a recent column, Pat Buchanan summed up what the conservative teabagger/deather/birther movement is all about:America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.Kudos to Buchanan for finally getting something right. He's nailed what conservatives--Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, et al.--are whining about in 15 pithy words.

This is essentially the point I made in Decoding the Teabagger Code. So I'm glad to see Buchanan agrees with me. And so much more succinctly, too.

The Tea Party protests aren't about taxes, healthcare, or creeping "socialism." They're about white people bemoaning their loss of power. That's why 99% of the protesters are white--why minorities don't support the white power teabagger movement.

Maybe we should call Buchanan and his whining white brigade "teababies": a combination of "teabaggers" and "crybabies." Poor teababies crying over the loss of their white privilege. "They" (blacks, women, immigrants, gays, foreigners, et al.) are taking over and the teababies don't like it!

In case you weren't sure...

It's fun to lampoon the teababies, but we shouldn't ignore Buchanan's argument. In case someone thinks he has a point, Judy Gans posted this response on Facebook:I am so incredibly offended at this column. In just a small aside, Buchanan notes these folks are angry about illegal aliens being "rewarded" with education; where is their indignation over their white male (generally) CEO population being "rewarded" with corporate welfare for decades, and whose greed has caused so much financial difficulty in this country? But back to the salient moment, Buchanan's final statement. America was NOT "their" country, with their intolerances and their hatred. America (better named the United States of America) was originally home to no one whom they would consider "white." That this small, frightening segment of the population believes that they have a personal right to this country, this great "melting pot," is so offensive, even to those of us whose Caucasian grandparents arrived here from Europe generations ago in search of opportunity. And shame on Pat Buchanan for being one of them.Yes, Buchanan's argument is asinine, all right. America was a white-ruled country because Anglo Americans killed, conquered, enslaved, and oppressed people of other races, religions, and cultures. And Buchanan would like to return us to the days when white men like George Washington and Ronald Reagan ruled.

This is a continuation of Buchanan's argument in Buchanan:  US "Built by White Folks", which got trashed in Buchanan's Intellectual Dishonesty. So we don't need to discuss it further. Suffice it to say that Buchanan loses again.

For more on what today's conservative teababies think, see The Evidence for Teabagger Racism and the related links.

Below:  "I even look a little like George Washington and Ronald Reagan, don't you think? People who resemble me should be in charge."

Buchanan's intellectual dishonesty

A good response to Pat Buchanan's claims in Buchanan:  US "Built by White Folks":

The intellectual dishonesty of Pat BuchananBuchanan claimed: White men were 100% of people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg

In the strictest sense, this claim is not true--at least one black solider was killed at Gettysburg. But even though the claim is nearly true, it's intellectually dishonest to claim that it is relevant.

The implicit argument offered by Buchanan is that African-Americans sat on the sidelines during the Civil War. The reality, however, is that by the end of the war, 10% of the Union army was black.

Buchanan claimed: White men were close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy

As the above picture shows, Buchanan's claim is wrong. Not only did 2,000 African-Americans storm the beaches of Normandy, but 1.2 million blacks served in World War II. Moreover, it's important to remember that during this time, black soldiers were segregated from white. So even if Buchanan's claim were true, the reason would have been traceable to institutionalized racism, not the moral superiority of white people.

Buchanan claimed: This has been a country built, basically, by white folks

Buchanan primarily based this assertion on the above two claims plus the obviously true claim that the authors of the Constitution and the signers of the Declaration of Independence were white men.

Aside from the intellectual dishonesty of his military claims, Buchanan ignores the massive contributions of non-whites to America's development. He offers no recognition to the slaves whose labor was essential for such a long period of time and he fails to address contributions made by other immigrant groups such as Chinese-Americans who helped build the rail system, or Latinos who are an important part of the agricultural economy today.Comment:  Taking down conservative racists like Buchanan is like shooting fish in a refrigerator, obviously. In other words, much easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

Perhaps the more interesting question is what to do about crazy Uncle Pat? Should we protest or boycott MSNBC for giving this bigot a platform to spew his white supremacist rubbish? Or should we accept his presence because he represents the tip of the racist iceberg and it's important to know what today's conservatives are "thinking"?

I'd go for whichever approach would lessen the racism in this country. Lacking evidence on which way is best, I tend to agree with the commenter who said:[I]f she has Pat Buchanan on again, he should be balanced out more with another guest...a street fighter type of arguer who’s prepared to get down and dirty and can dial up the response more towards the “I’ll kick your ass” level.Yep, I'd say conservatives need to get their asses kicked on racial issues again and again until they're whipped like curs. This probably won't change their views, but at least they'll be afraid to parade them in public. They'll stay in their hidey-holes with their fellow Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and Christian patriots and leave the rest of us alone.

For more on the subject, see Teabaggers Support Racial Imagery and Racist "Jokes" Are No Jokes.

Buchanan: US "built by white folks"

Watch:  Rachel Maddow slams Pat Buchanan over Sotomayor biasWhen Maddow asked why it was that 108 out of the 110 United States Supreme Court justices have been white, Buchanan had this to say, "I think white men were 100% of the people who wrote the constitution, 100% of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country basically built by white folks."

A bit later in the exchange, Buchanan slammed Maddow for being 'out of touch' and seemed to slam judges who support affirmative action when he stated, "You know what they ought to do? They ought to defend the rights of white working-class folks."

Maddow, who kept her cool throughout the entire exchange cut him off at that point and snapped, "I don't need a lecture from you... a lot of things divide us Pat, for you to privilege race and say that what we really need to do is make sure that we tap into white people's racial grievances, you're dating yourself and playing with fire."Comment:  I'm guessing Buchanan is wrong about Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Normandy. I'm betting some minorities died there as well.

More to the point, so the hell what? White people did these things because they intentionally excluded people of color. And not because these things were something only whites could conceive of and execute.

In particular, African Americans were mostly in chains during the American Revolution and Civil War, and the Army was segregated during WW II. Suggesting that whites were great because they benefited from being slave-owners and segregationists is the height of stupidity. It's about like saying Hitler made the trains run on time.

(And yes, I'm bringing Hitler into the debate intentionally. Too bad if you don't like it. In this case it's an apt comparison.)

Moreover, whites conquered the 2/3 of the country still controlled by Indians and the 1/3 controlled by Mexicans. I guess that explains why Indians and Latinos couldn't provide too much help in "building" the country. They were too busy dying in white wars of aggression.

We could go on and on about this. 100% of the US was owned by indigenous people before whites stole it. 100% of the Europeans who came to America were aided directly or indirectly by these people. 100% of the adult Americans in the country's first two centuries were complicit in its genocidal policies against these people. Etc.

Amazing that Buchanan is what passes for a right-wing pundit these days. A child could outdebate him and his kindergarten-level argument.

For Buchanan's previous bouts of racism, see:

Sotomayor practices "tribal justice"?
American patriots have same DNA?
Mestizo leaders = "scrub stock"?
Buchanan:  Helping Indians = "pigout"

Sotomayor practices "tribal justice"?

Buchanan:  Sotomayor Practices "Tribal Justice""In her world," Buchanan wrote yesterday of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, "equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice."

"How can any Republican senator vote to elevate to the Supreme Court a judge who, all her life, has believed in, preached and practiced race discrimination against white males, without endorsing the Obama-Sotomayor view that diversity trumps equal justice, and race-based justice should have its own seat on the high court?"

In Buchanan's world, all racial groups--foreign and domestic--are competing, in a zero sum game, for the largest slice of the American pie. So a woman who spends much of her life trying to improve the livelihoods of Latinos and Hispanics is, just by default, preaching and practicing race discrimination against white males.Comment:  To refresh your memory, conservative rants such as this are based on one line in a Sotomayor speech. A line that basically said, "My experiences are different from the typical judge's so I may bring something fresh to the table."

This is the same attitude we heard in Obama's Inaugural Address. White Americans believe in democracy, fairness, reason. Brown indigenous people believe in tribal politics, self-interest, emotions.

In other words, indigenous people are more primitive and savage than we are. So it's okay to invade their lands and kill them (e.g., Columbus in the "New World," Bush in Iraq).

For more examples of Buchanan's racism, see:

American patriots have same DNA?
Mestizo leaders = "scrub stock"?
Buchanan:  Helping Indians = "pigout"

For more on Sotomayor's nomination, see Sotomayor Favors "Reconquista"?

American patriots have same DNA?

In Mestizo Leaders = "Scrub Stock"? a pundit took Pat Buchanan apart for comparing Latinos to a breed of animals. But a helpful reader brought another of Buchanan's phrases to light:

This IS Your Father's Pat BuchananIt's not the "dip" into an "obscure racist phrase" (in TPM's words) that is so disturbing--it's the use of three phrases and the ideology behind them, tied together in one article, that rise to a level I've never witnessed in recent mainstream political discourse: "blood-and-soil," "scrub stock," and "(m)ost Americans remain visceral patriots. It's in their DNA."

This rises to a level that would likely, ironically, put Buchanan in prison in today's more enlightened Germany, but might have earned him an officer's commission in the SS in 1938, the year he was born.Comment:  Gee...American DNA. I would've thought the multiracial nature of America was obvious by now, but I guess not. I wonder which Americans the white Christian Buchanan could be referring to.

Let's see...Americans Indians have always been here--since well before the beginning of recorded history, at least. They've always loved their land and their people. They've always defended America with every ounce of their blood. They're extraordinarily patriotic by definition, so it can't be them.

Hmm. The WASPs who opposed, conquered, and killed the American Indian patriots can't also be patriots, can they? No, I don't think so. If they had been, they would've upheld the supremacy of the US Constitution, with its recognition of tribal sovereignty and treaties. Instead of trampling the Constitution and the concomitant Indian rights.

I guess Buchanan is pro-Indian after all. Either that or he's a big fat racist. You make the call.

For more on Buchanan's racist ignorance, see Buchanan:  Helping Indians = "Pigout" and Pat Buchanan on Jamestown.

Below:  Buchanan and his Hitler-like eugenicist position.

Mestizo leaders = "scrub stock"?

Conservative "thinker" Pat Buchanan proves once again how racist he is:

Buchanan:  Nicaraguan Leader Is "Scrub Stock"[E]very now and then, the centrality to Buchanan's worldview of racial difference rises to the surface. In addition to his frequent MSNBC appearances, where he plays a mostly well-mannered, if hardline, conservative, Buchanan also writes a column for the far-right web magazine, Human Events. And that's where he gets himself into trouble.

His most recent effort, "The Rooted and The Rootless," takes as its premise the notion that there's a "blood-and-soil, family-and-faith, God-and-country kind of nation" that's competing with a minority represented by the "rootless" Obama and his "aides with advanced degrees from elite colleges who react just like him."

Already, we're in National Socialist territory here, but let's leave that aside (with Buchanan, once you start down this path, it can be hard to stop...). What jumped out at us was Buchanan's contention that the "blood-and-soil" part of America...

does not comprehend how the president could sit in Trinidad and listen to the scrub stock of the hemisphere trash our country--and say nothing.The posting explains that "scrub stock" means "inferior breed."[L]et's look again at who Buchanan is calling "the scrub stock of the hemisphere" who "trashed our country" at the recent meeting Obama attended in Trinidad. The leader who most prominently did so was Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, who, aside from being a left-wing former Sandinista, is, like many Latin-Americans, mestizo--meaning he's part Amerindian and part white.

Buchanan may also have had in mind Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela, who was on relatively good behavior in Trinidad, but who has frequently "trashed America" and whose handshake with Obama in Trinidad was blown up by the right into an example of the president kowtowing to America's antagonists. Chavez, of course, is also mestizo.

That's not incidental. The leftist social and political movements of Latin America--against which Buchanan has been fulminating since at least the Reagan era--have traditionally been led by mestizos, and many have been defined in part through their efforts to mobilize non-whites against the often European-descended conservative elite power structure.

With that context, the notion that Buchanan used "scrub stock" to refer simply to ineffective or morally bankrupt leaders, with no racial connotation, becomes, frankly, implausible.

So what does all this amount to? Buchanan referred--not in a heated moment while speaking, but in print--to the mixed-race leader of a foreign country with a phrase that's used to denote an animal or person of inferior stock. There's really no getting around that.No doubt Buchanan also meant to include Evo Morales, who is not merely a part-Indian mestizo but a true Indian.

For more on Buchanan's racist ignorance, see Buchanan:  Helping Indians = "Pigout" and Pat Buchanan on Jamestown.

The conservative hypocrisy on the phony "handshake with Chavez" issue may surpass the conservative hypocrisy on the phony "tax increase" issue--if that's possible. Here's a clue, dopes: Not only did George W. Bush shake hands with the leader of Communist China, he held hands with and kissed the tyrannical, terrorist-supporting leaders of Saudi Arabia. Even worse, Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Hitler-of-the-day Saddam Hussein. Yet you witless idiots didn't utter one word of protest about these handshakes.

If there's ever been bigger hypocrites than today's right-wing Republicans, it's hard to imagine them.

Below:  Members of the Stupid Conservatives Hall of Fame.

Buchanan: Helping Indians = "pigout"

Lawmakers, activists defend tribes' inclusion

By Jodi RaveNearly $3 billion slated for tribal infrastructure remains in the massive economic recovery package, even as a leading conservative criticized American Indian inclusion in the bill as the greatest “pigout” of all.

U.S. Senate lawmakers are being asked to trim the $827 billion stimulus plan intended to revive the nation's economy. Tribal provisions in the bill make up a fraction of 1 percent of the projected cost; the money would be directed to Indian communities where double-digit unemployment rates are the norm.

Late last week, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan criticized the jobs bill as the “pigout of pigouts,” pointing out the tribal provisions as a prime example of what was wrong with the spending bill. “It's $1,000 for every Indian in America, including all of those who aren't on reservations. It's ridiculous,” he said.

Buchanan was a guest on “The McLaughlin Group” talk show last Thursday.

On Monday, the comments drew fire from the offices of key senators and Indian activists.

“I saw the clip on the ‘McLaughlin' show and I don't think they knew what they were talking about,” said Barry Piatt, a spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. “You have Pat Buchanan saying, ‘This is $1,000 for every Native American.' That's an almost irrelevant point because the money is not going to Native Americans. It's going to a lot of things that help Native Americans. It's money that will improve their roads and bridges and put them to work. Buchanan made it sound like they were handing out $1,000 checks.”Comment:  If this report is accurate, Buchanan is a stupid idiot. Reservation-based infrastructure spending on roads, jails, and schools doesn't help the 70% of Indians who don't live on reservations. It does help everyone in the vicinity of the spending, whether they're Indians or not. Alleviating poverty, reducing crime, and educating the work force is in everyone's best interest.

Did Buchanan name any non-Indian regions or communities that the stimulus package would help? No? Then his targeting of Indians is discriminatory. In short, the only "pig" in this story is a racist pig.

For more on the subject, see Indian Rights = Special Rights.

Below:  "I think those greedy Indians are the only group that doesn't deserve a bailout, but I'm not a racist."