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I think this just completely nails it. Another of the World's Biggest Entitlement Programs. Besides the GOP's belief that it alone has this mysterious entitlement to the White House - as some sort of Bizarro World "birthright," this would be its corollary - that only Caucasians have this "Divine Right" to rule.

There are SOOOOO many old, rancid world-views that have yet to die out with the older Anglo generation - but hopefully WILL die out with them. I can see its passing in the faces of my kids and their friends:
All the young people who just don't get how gays are somehow bad.
All the young people who just don't get why a woman isn't allowed to be master of her own body, or of her own personal destiny whether it's in the home or in the workplace.
All the young people who just don't get why the rich aren't more obligated because they have more and are thus more able to shoulder more of the weight of what goes into building and maintaining a great nation that supposedly offers equal blessings for ALL.
All the young people who just don't get how the only proper definition of a family simply MUST be one headed exclusively by Alpha Male with Secondary/Subordinate Female.
All the young people who just don't get why the health and long-term survival of their planet is somehow unimportant or irrelevant.
All the young people who just don't get the prejudice thing because they're truly color-blind, because they've all grown up with classmates and friends - equals and peers in all things - who were everything from appetizer to dessert: Black, Latino, Asian, Middle-Eastern, Native American, Mixed-Race of every flavor, and of course, White too.

My kids and their friends have all grown up in that kind of environment, where they've seen, heard, tasted, touched, and LIVED WITH the true Melting Pot. It's neither strange nor foreign nor scary to them. It's what IS. They move freely in that world without even giving it a thought. And they see the whack-jobs in the upper age brackets and low-information/low-education groups for exactly what they are.

As much as I despair in my own generation's flaccidness and failure to fight back and follow-through, and the ridiculous and outmoded prejudices that rule those who are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century when they'd be far more comfortable with the 17th Century (or even farther back than that!), it's my children's generation that gives me some hope. Their collective mindset is just COMPLETELY different, utterly flexible, much more fully-grounded in reality, and totally adaptable to changing times and changing demographics. Mainly because they ARE that change. Fewer and fewer of them are shackled to that old shit.

The dinosaurs eventually died out, too. I look forward to the day when our human dinosaurs have faded into history as well.

DAYUM! I just read that Salon story. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like the skidmarks many little kids leave on their bedsheets, you mean?

"Shit-stain" seems more accurate. "Skidmark" is being more polite.

Great read in the LA Progressive website! "Message to My Fellow White People."

I think this guy just freakin' NAILS IT. Saying a lot of what we've been saying, here. My conclusion about the teabaggers, for example, has always been - "there's a black guy in the Oval Office and he isn't the janitor." THIS essay goes that one - several times better! And I LOVE the LA Progressive! Well worth your checking out.

(snip)


Okay, fellow Caucasians, now that we’re alone, we need to have a good old-fashioned heart-to-heart. Four years ago America elected its first non-white president and — to be perfectly blunt with you — a lot of you folks have reacted to this new American reality a bit….Oh, how can I put this as delicately as possible….Well, let me put it to you this way: you’re not taking it well, that’s for damned sure! In fact since Inauguration day 2009, you’ve been in full-tilt, FREAK OUT mode. I mean, hell, judging by the overreaction of some people, you would think that the president and first lady were Charles Manson and Squeaky Fromme! A lot of white people are acting like this is the end of the world – and they’re absolutely correct. We’re coming to the end of the old world. Like it or not (and I kinda like it) we’re about to enter a new world. Be brave. Grow up.

Now, let’s all just take a deep breath….

My fellow crackers, someday in the not-too-distant future, we won’t be in the majority anymore. In fact, that day will come within the lifespan of most of you who are now reading this. I know this must be a bitter pill for some of you to swallow – but that’s the way it is and there’s nothing we can do to alter the unalterable . There has been such an insane, mass hissy-fit over the fact that, for the first time in history, a black family is living in the family quarters (as opposed to the servants quarters) of the White House. Honestly, we really need to get a grip here, folks.

(snip)

http://www.laprogressive.com/white-people/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+laprogressive+%28The+LA+Progressive%29

And I remember the Bob Hope Christmas tour departure when he passed her over

for more bimbos. Granted, it's entirely understandable to add lots of pretty long-legged bimbos to a tour that seeks to entertain our mostly-male troops far from home. They SHOULD get to see pretty things from home. But it seemed such a shame that there wasn't even one extra seat on that big transport plane for her. And she was pretty unhappy about it. I was working at the time and I covered the tour's departure from Van Nuys Airport that December. And she came to be part of the send-off. Yeah, okay, perhaps by that time she was considered by some in his entourage to be old and passe. But not SO much, I thought. Not so much that she couldn't have gone with them again as she had in so many years past. She was never there for her looks. She was always there for her LAUGHS.

Only later did I come to realize just how damned versatile she was. Wonderful, caring, compassionate, and passionate about her art - WAY beyond just the comedic arts. She was kind of a Renaissance woman. And my heart always gets captured by the not-so-pretty ones who have to work harder to make it in this superficial world, where how you look carries so much more weight. She, on the other hand, was very in-yer-face about her looks. She was no sex symbol or glamour-girl, so she played that WAY UP to the point of farce, and made it part of her act, part of her persona, part of her signature.

I remember when Camryn Manheim won her Emmy for "The Practice," and in her acceptance speech she held up her statuette almost in defiance, and declared "this is for all the fat girls!" And I fell in love with her at that moment. Phyllis Diller did that for all the "not-so-pretty or sexy girls." And I loved her for THAT.

GREAT todd akin cartoon!

Found on Facebook and gleefully shared:



AND THIS:




edit - I got the wrong cartoon originally and changed it, but I still liked the first one I changed FROM. So I added it back in! So THERE!

And then I found some more!

Yes. Anyone here who gets approached by a pollster or survey group

THINK CAREFULLY when you answer questions like these. The "right direction/wrong direction" question will always be read as affecting the status quo, presumably, the incumbent, whoever he/she is. I realized that when I wanted to say "wrong direction" when I was called for one of these things awhile ago. I didn't. I knew it'd be misinterpreted as my thinking Obama was responsible for that. I blame the rise of the teabaggers and other closet racists on the GOP's extremes for our country lurching off in the wrong direction, NOT Obama!!!! But I said "right direction" because that's what I wanted them to interpret relative to Obama as the incumbent.

THIS is how those bastards need to be dealt with.

Take no prisoners. I also loved how Higgins DID NOT let that teabagger host get a word in edgewise. That's something that just drives me nuts watching some of the cable shows. Too many of OUR talking heads are still trying to be well-mannered. FUCK THAT. BE RUDE! Be loud! INTERRUPT, for God's Sake! Step on 'em. Talk over 'em. Butt in. Don't let them finish. Don't let them get even halfway through the cockamamie point they were going to make. It's probably just another lie anyway. Not worth allowing to get a full uninterrupted hearing, in the first place.

Welcome to DU!

And you're quite correct about the bad guys. I call them the bad guys because THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE.

We DO need to come out slugging. We need to hit 'em while they're still lacing their gloves on. We need to hit 'em and sabotage the water bottle they're drinking from. We DO need to fight dirty. Because it's all about winning. When you willingly participate in mud-wrestling, you can't suddenly go pantiwaist and worry about getting your face and your clothes dirty. Because that's the nature of the game you are willingly getting into. When you have to face a gunfight, only a naive idiot would arm him/herself with a feather duster.

Let's not kid ourselves here. This is a mean nasty business. It's no place for the meek and kind-hearted. They're assholes. So we need to be BIGGER assholes. Besides, it's the only language they know so you might as well speak to them in ways they understand.

And it's quite instructive to see ol' mittski whining and the GOP complaining about how mean and nasty those mean ol' nasty Democrats are being. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. That proves something very conclusively: they ARE bullies. They don't know what to do when their rough stuff is returned to them. Bullies can only succeed if they have somebody who can be bullied. Otherwise, they're nothing. Without that, they're NOTHING. And guess what they do? Whine. Which is what we're seeing now with these shameless displays from the GOP.

I've been saying this for a long time:

Taste of their own medicine. See how they like it.

Exactly. I was hoping the DNC would go second. ALWAYS get the last word.

ALWAYS.

That way the DEMS' message is the last one viewers will be left with at a crucial time. The end of the conventions around Labor Day marks the "traditional" start of Presidential campaign season, as most of the Rip Van Winkles out there START to wake up and recognize what time it is.

ALWAYS get the last word. Do NOT let the bad guy have it. EVER.