Beginning Noah's 2011 in Review: Republicans Raised the Ante with Their Racism

YES, IT'S TIME FOR NOAH'S 2011 IN REVIEW!

One good thing about the arrival of the holiday season is that it means not just that another year is about to disappear down the crapper but that Noah will be here, overflowing with his usual holiday cheer, to give it the finger as it flushes out of sight, if not out of mind. Who can forget 2009's "12 Days of Christmas Scorn"? Last year's "2010 in Review" consisted of six installments of "Random Musings," three of "Quotations of a Party on Crack: Republicans in Their Own Words," plus more!

To see what special fiendishness he has in store for the farewell to 2011, tune in Monday morning. -- Ken

by Noah

In their efforts to turn our country ever deeper into a fascist dictatorship comprised of a few lords with the rest of us in the role of serfdom, Republicans are continuing to push the envelope when it comes to using the racism that is seemingly part of who they are, right down to their DNA. That they are doing this as they keep pushing further and further into their world of Neo-Fascism shouldn't come as a surprise. One is part of the other. Fascism, neo or not, has always needed a scapegoat or a punching bag. To gain traction, fascists need to set people against each other. It's divide and conquer. They need an object of hate for the masses to focus on while they're going about screwing them in every way imaginable.

Now that Republicanism has made itself synonymous with fascism, as exemplified by what governors are doing in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona, and Ohio, you would have to be willfully blind not to see how much more and more open Republicans are about their nasty vision for the future of all of America. That vision has always been there. Certainly Nixon had it. So did Ronald Reagan when, as Governor of California, he focused on students and called for a bloodbath on the nation's campuses; a blood bath that became horribly real at Jackson State and Kent State. Fascists don't mess around. One day it's pepper spray. One day it's fire hoses. One day it's bullets. One day it's jackboots.

Think about it. Fascism has always been enabled when the corporate world and government become one. That's what happened in 1930s Germany and Italy and it's what's happening now, for example, in Wisconsin, a state whose Governor is openly financed by the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers and the corporate money raising machinations of Bush's brain, Karl Rove. For Walker and other Republican governors and legislatures, stripping workers of their rights is just the beginning. They will go as far as the people let them.

Over in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder can now, if he doesn't like the result of the vote of the people, simply overturn any town election he pleases. Previous governors were allowed to appoint emergency financial managers: as was done in the town of Ecorse by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2009. But the new radical Snyder law, known as Public Act 4, goes much further. In its broader powers, Snyder can and does insert his own party cronies in the place of or over any local officials, and sell things like local police departments, management of school systems, and even the physical assets of a city to out-of-state corporations, all while he hypocritically whines on TV about out-of-state influences and out-of-state agitators.

It's no coincidence that the municipalities that Snyder is targeting are cities and towns with very high proportions of African-Americans and other minorities. In the towns he has singled out, such as Benton Harbor (92.4% African-American), the population effectively has no representation. Even the city of Detroit is in his sights. If Snyder gets away with this, look for other Republican politicians to feel emboldened enough to repeat the process in their own states, and if a Republican gets to the White House, look out! The light-to-moderate fascism of the worst of the Democrats will look like a nice day in the mountains by comparison.

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Wherever Republicans have power, they are working feverishly to return every aspect of modern life to the bad old days of the 19th century, and rigging the outcome of elections while they still have power is now even more of a priority than it has been since those days. The people in Repug-controlled states can still vote, at least the ones that aren't being booted off the voter rolls outright or disenfranchised at record paces by such things as fewer voting machines, shorter poll hours, demands for driver's license IDs for people who don't drive or have a car, etc. But the results of their votes can and have been taken to the great Republican shredder when elected officials can just be summarily replaced with "team players" by a fascist dictator. Governor Snyder and others have radically expanded the Republican mechanics of voter disenfranchisement. Snyder's Michigan now might as well be Khrushchev's Russia.

Arizona, as we've all heard, can now stop any of us on the street and demand to see our papers. This is no World War II movie. It's Arizona in 2011.

To achieve their sick dreams, the Republican Neo-Fascists need those scapegoats I mentioned, and it's no coincidence that workers, Muslims, and Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal alike, are targets. But the harsh reality of the nation's first African-American President sitting in the White House has given Republicans a special dark focus and someone to point to. Reluctantly casting aside the cover of Herman Cain (let's face it, had Cain been an old white guy, his campaign would have disappeared faster than Rick Perry's, right after his 9-9-9 fiasco, instead of being propped up artificially for another 2 hideous and inexcusable lie- and stupidity-filled months). The Repugs will continue to zero right in on Obama, using him and promoting him as someone worthy of the most intense fear and hatred their followers can muster. Even now, the "born in Kenya" nonsense of party leaders like Huckabee, Trump, Perry, and so many others persists. They won't give it up and, very sadly, it's safe to say that the whole Murdoch media empire won't be happy until someone takes a literal shot at President Obama. Only then will the drumming stop, for a few minutes anyway.

Since the election of President Obama, Republicans have really lost their minds. They have snapped. If you went back and looked at the last 3 years of FOX, you would see a steady digression into utter madness. It's more than their tightly narrow little minds can handle. Fits of desperation and off-the-charts fear-mongering have gotten progressively worse and worse as the months go by; as they just can't come to terms with a country that accepts a dark-skinned man as President in their country. It got even worse after Seal Team 6 got Osama bin Laden and dulled the "soft on terror" argument. The Republican frustration is palpable.

There is no difference between the irrational Republican reaction to an African-American President in the White House and the irrational reactions of Republicans who awake one day to find out that an African-American family has moved into the house next door. "It just can't be!" "There goes our neighborhood." "What if their kids want to date our kids?" "I want my country back!" Well, guess what. No one took your country. If you really believed in it and you really believed in the Constitution that you raise in your sweaty frightened fists, you would be proud that your country saw no problem in having a lovely African-American family as the (horror of horrors) First Family, but you will never see them as "first" anything, except maybe first family of a non-US born President or first Muslim President -- or, as Newt Gingrich said earlier this year, as first in being a "food stamp President." Instead, Republicans would rather run that family out of town and burn down the whole damn neighborhood, if that's what it takes; hence, their mighty fights to delay economic recovery as long as possible. It's berserker nihilism. They are using the very face of the President in their quest for ultimate power. It's not just about policies, which, frankly, to date, haven't been so different than theirs. "To hell with people, even white people getting hurt." "It must be done." "To restore order." "To restore God's plan!"

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John Wilkes Booth and others like him had similar thoughts about another President, a man who freed the slaves instead of pushing beloved policies that created more slavery. The Wilkes types, too, wanted their country back. They, too, were willing to "burn down the whole neighborhood." The ironic thing, of course, is that Lincoln was a Republican. Republicans were obviously different then. So were Democrats, well into the 20th century. But now, it's the Republicans who, while they don't own racism, have become more and more overt about theirs, to the point of wearing it with pride. They have chosen to be defined by it.

It's clear that many in our country were not ready for a black President and never will be. The ugliness has really come to the forefront this year. When Obama was running, it got pretty bad, and each year it's gotten worse. It's obvious every time a Republican uses the words socialism, communism, Kenyan, affirmative action, untraditional, food stamp, tar baby, witch doctor, whatever, that they really just want to scream the N-word from the rooftops as loud as they can. They've pulled out every stop but two, so far.

Will 2012 be the year that some Republican politician somewhere forgets himself just for a second while the camera is running and uses the N-word? I've personally witnessed FOX cultists call President Obama "our (N-word) President." Less than half an hour later I heard that Obama had a secret factory in Indiana where they are making chips to insert in all of us. Republican voters believe these things, and there is no discussing it. They either just glaze over or they start yelling idiocy they heard on FOX or CNN or "got from the Internet." All that's left now is for some Republican higher-up to accuse Obama of having sex with an underage white intern.

Would it shock me if either happened? Not in the least. You just have to consider the kind of people we're dealing with here. They are unglued as unglued gets.



Over the last year, Republicans, guided by their innate bigotry and their desperation have spoken in an ever-louder code. From Newtie's "food stamp" quote to Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado calling the President a tar baby to Pat Buchanan referring to the President as "your boy" right to Al Sharpton's face on air, their cancer just grows and grows. Just the other day, FOX wacko Peter Johnson breathtakingly referred to President Obama's speech in Kansas as "A Smooth Jazz Liberation Theology Speech" while Bill O'Reilly went off into his dark little crazy world about President Obama daring to reach out to the African-American community. God forbid that any President should! What has the world come to?

Bill-O even managed to invoke Soul Train as if it was some sort of nasty, scary TV show, let alone that the show has been off the air for years. Oh well, what should we expect from a man whose mind lives in 1962 Birmingham and had a great deal of trouble grasping his experience at Sylvia's restaurant? Hey, Bill-O, I've got some more words you can chill your viewers with. How about Afro? Harlem! Cleopatra Jones! You go M-Fer!

"Smooth Jazz" indeed! What a total FREAKSHOW.

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