Private Danny Chen: Victim of Intolerance Inside US Army Culture?

Despite evidence that US Army private David Chen, (pictured left) was the target of a long pattern of racial slurs, insults, harassment and physical abuse aimed at his ethnicity from the time he entered boot camp, Sgt. Adam Holcomb (the first of eight soldiers court charged in a violent racial hazing just prior to Chen's death) was found not guilty of negligent homicide in a court martial at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina last week.

While the 10-person jury did find Sgt. Holcomb guilty of maltreatment of a subordinate and assault, the max he'll get is two and a half years. It leaves Chen's family, friends, neighbors and members of the Chinese-American community across the US still seeking answers and justice in the wake of the murky circumstances surrounding Chen's death in Afghanistan last year.

On the night of October 3, 2011 the 19 year-old Lower East Side Manhattan native (assigned to Company C, 3rd Battalion of the 25th Infantry Division) was found in the guard tower of a remote Army base known as Combat Outpost Palace near the Pakistan border in Kandahar Province southwest Afghanistan with a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Army lawyers claimed it was suicide resulting from Chen's struggle to adjust to the intense demands of infantry life coupled with depression over being disowned by his Chinese parents.

Chen's mother Su Zhen Chen took the stand to vehemently deny she, her husband and family were estranged from their son, or had disowned him in any way. His lawyer, Army prosecutor Captain Blake Doughty argued Chen was driven to suicide as a result of a pattern of physical abuse and harassment (including ethnic and racial slurs) that started when Chen began basic training as the only Asian-American in his platoon.

New York Times reporter Kirk Semple provided excellent insight into the case including details from the first day of the court-martial being held at Ft. Bragg, NC. [Read it.]. But with suicide rates among active duty US personnel stationed overseas at an all-time high, I thought this case was deserving of more extensive mainstream media coverage than it has received.

Chen was stationed in Fort Wainright, Alaska prior to his deployment overseas. An article in the Anchorage Daily News claims he documented the racism he faced from his Army peers and superiors in a journal he kept. [Read the ADN piece.]. The article also offers accounts from older Asian-American military veterans who document patterns of discrimination in the Army going back for years.

Few accounts encapsulate the historic struggle of Asian-Americans to overcome the obstacles of bigotry and racism within the US military more than the incredible story of the US Army's 442nd Regimental Combat team during World War Two. A unit comprised of Japanese-Americans recognized as the most highly-decorated regiment in the history off the Army. [Read about the 442nd]

In light of such lessons, paid for with the blood and sacrifice of American soldiers, you'd think the Army would've learned to crack down harder on officers, NCO's or soldiers who discriminate against any fellow soldier based on ethnicity or race.

Regardless of the outcome of the court martial it's clear lack of oversight by the Department of Defense and the Army allowed this kind of harassment to exist at the unit level. During his stint in the Army Chen was harassed because of his ethnicity at bases both here while he was training and later overseas where he was serving. Seems to me he was fighting two wars.

Hair-Gate: Gymnast Gabby Douglas Dissed by Hair-Obsessed Black Trolls

16 year-old Gabby Douglas helped lead the US woman's gymnastic team to gold on Tuesday night, then became the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in the individual all-around competition on Thursday; just the fourth American woman to win the latter.

Despite a performance that millions around the globe found inspiring, Gabby found herself the subject of criticism on Twitter. Not because of her dismount, but because of her hair.

Who would use Twitter to critique something as inconsequential as Gabby's hair? The Huffington Post Website offers a few samples of the kinds of negative comments Gabby received from, get this; black people. [Read for yourself]. Only in America folks. There's something vindictive, childish and snarky about the whole mess. 

My Grandmother had little tolerance for African-Americans who cultivated negativity within their own communities by tearing down successful people of color with snide comments. She likened them to "crabs in a bucket", pull one out of the bucket as the adage goes and two or three will be clinging on trying to drag them back down. 

Wouldn't you think a 16 year-old US gymnast could count on all Americans getting behind her efforts to compete on the world stage in one of the most difficult Olympic events?

The vast majority of us (of all races) who watched the woman's gymnastics competition on Tuesday night did just that. Watching the composure and athleticism of those five young women gave me pause to appreciate a glimpse of the essence of true American Spirit; something I hadn't really sensed in awhile.

No empty political soundbite ideology, no gloomy reports about the sluggish pace of the economy. Just a diverse group of five young American women who came out onto the floor determined to win gold.

Gabby Douglas was the perfect image of grace and athleticism; and despite the Twitter nonsense, she looked beautiful. As an African-American it made me proud to see her win and I was reminded of the qualities that make this the greatest nation on Earth.

With all the challenges we face as a nation and as a global community, someone who ignores the two Olympic gold medals Gabby won to Tweet trite, superficial comments about something as trivial as her hair seriously needs to turn off the TV, shut down the computer, get off the couch and get a life.

Sad but true: If a group of white people had started Tweeting about Gabby's hair, the same self-hating black people who actually DID Tweet about Gabby's hair would've been up in arms, outraged and calling them racists. But when we insult our own THAT's okay?

Remember how radio talk show host Don Imus was vilified when he called members of the Rutgers University basketball team "nappy-headed ho's" on the air in 2007? 

The Web is full of Trolls who use social media to insult and degrade people, but the fact that some African-Americans used their Twitter accounts to mock a 16 year-old athlete's hair says less about Gabby than it does about black self-esteem and self image.

UPDATE: Friday, August 3, 2012

Just listened to an informed discussion on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC  about the global conversation being generated by Gabby Douglas and learned there's a larger presence of black female gymnasts than I thought. A caller noted that the 2012 British, Dutch and French woman's Olympic gymnastics teams all currently have black athletes on their rosters; other countries do too.

 Another woman called in to remind listeners that Wendy Hilliard made the Olympic team in 1980 and Betty Okino was a member of the 1992 team that won a bronze medal.     

Who can forget Dominique Dawes? The first African-American gymnast to win a gold medal in an individual event during the 1996 Olympics as a member of the "Magnificent Seven".   

Listen to a podcast of the segment if you're interested, it's not that long.

Tony Mack's Bridge to Himself

In an era of scarce tax revenue, empty city coffers and drastic cutbacks in Trenton, New Jersey, mayor Mack's decision to drop $17,000 dollars on a sign fashioned after the landmark two-lane Warren Street Bridge (the one with the historic "Trenton Makes the World Takes" sign on the side that spans the Delaware River) has come to symbolize his embattled administrations troubled tenure.

Hanging over the entrance to Trenton's Cadwalader Park, (where many puzzled Trenton residents note, there are dilapidated swing sets with no swings for kids to play on) the $17,000 price tag includes a painted blue sign with yellow letters prominently featuring the mayor's name. This while many city libraries, pools and recreational facilities remain closed because of lack of funding.

Allegations of financial mismanagement, the appointment of unqualified cronies and friends to important municipal posts and shady political deals straight out of the HBO series "The Wire" are just some of the low-lights of Mack's administration that bring to mind ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's scandal-ridden tenure in Detroit.

The July 18th FBI raid of Mack's home in the Berkeley Square section of Trenton came the same day Feds searched the Ewing, NJ home of Joseph "Jo Jo" Giorgianni; a convicted child molester, Trenton business owner and prominent financial contributor to Mack's campaign. [Read about Jo Jo]. The next day agents descended on City Hall to question employees and seize boxes of records in response to allegations of bribery, extortion and corruption.

Mack, just back after slipping out of town for a well-timed "vacation" that began when the Feds arrived over ten days ago, denied the FBI allegations as he re-opened another closed city library under the name "Learning Centers"; meaning they are now staffed four hours per day by unpaid volunteers - but no one can check out the books. Sign of the times indeed.

Manuel Diaz: Anaheim Cops Claim Another Victim

With the bulk of national media coverage understandably focused on the horrific mass shooting in a Aurora, Colorado movie theater last Thursday, less coverage was devoted to another victim of unjustified gun violence; 25 year-old Manuel Diaz of Anaheim, California (pictured left).

The circumstances of his death are by now, all-too-familiar to opponents of gun violence and the justified use of excessive police force in poor urban communities from New York City to New Orleans, Houston or Chicago - yet another a young, unarmed African-American or Latino male shot and killed by police. Read the facts.
On the afternoon of Saturday July 21st Diaz was talking with his friend, Jose Gallardo, 30, in the alley behind an apartment building in a working class, mostly Hispanic neighborhood just a few miles from Disney Land. According to Gallardo, two Anaheim police officers pulled up in an unmarked vehicle and Diaz, a known member of a local gang, and others fled. Gallardo heard two shots and ran back to find Diaz laying on the ground bleeding with a bullet in his neck and lower back.

Tensions between police and the local community were already tense, Diaz was the 5th victim to be shot and killed by Anaheim Police this year. Local residents protesting the shooting found themselves attacked by police who fired rubber bullets into a terrified crowd that included women and children. According to the Occupy California blog, one officer at the scene released a police dog that attacked a woman protecting her baby and bit 19 year-old Junior Lagunas in the forearm after he went outside with his girlfriend and 1 year-old child to see what was happening.

Angry protests over the police response and the shooting continued Sunday morning at a police press conference, but after another Anaheim Police shooting on Sunday, the violence escalated into rioting that shook the downtown area on Tuesday.

Outraged local residents watched helplessly as young rioters damaged local small businesses during chaos that lasted for hours. Despite the FBI agreeing to look into the shooting on Saturday and the Orange County DA opening an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the officer's actions leading up to Diaz's death, police are bracing for more protests scheduled for today.

What kind of nation are we living in when "acting suspiciously" or "furtive movements" become abstract legal justifications for using lethal force against young black or Latino males? Manuel Diaz and Trayvon Martin will never get the chance to answer that question haunting the collective conscience of America.

Willard's 'Disconcerting' Foreign Affairs Blunder

If Mitt Romney thought a well-timed international trip to meet with the leaders of England and Israel would bolster his foreign policy cred and give him a welcome respite from the growing calls to release more than two years of his tax returns, he was sorely disappointed. His klutzy efforts to backtrack from awkward comments questioning the state of London's preparedness for the 2012 Olympics have thrust him into the spotlight of the British media, irked millions of Brits including Prime Minster David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson; and given the world a glimpse of how Romney's simplistic worldview makes him seem detached and out of touch. Back on the home front Willard's sketchy off-shore accounts and evasive statements on his taxes recently drew criticism from not-so Mitt-friendly New Hampshire in a recent Manchester Union Leader op-ed. (Read it) 'Disconcerting' performance for someone trying to sell himself as a presidential candidate.

Evolutionary Psychologist Satori Kanazawa Uses Bogus Science to Suggest Black Women Are Less Attractive

Last week Dennis Romero of the LA Times reported about the backlash from a blog posted on the Psychology Today Website by Japanese "Evolutionary Psychologist" Satoshi Kanazawa (pictured left).

In an article entitled, "Why Are Black Women Rated as Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Other Men?", Kanazawa puts forth the absurd conclusion that Sisters are less attractive based on a survey and his interpretation of black female intelligence and data about body mass index.

Kanazawa's Wikipedia page lists a strange list of controversial sociological theories that have raised eyebrows before; such as his assertion that people in some countries had poor health because they were less intelligent rather than because of poverty.

According to Wikipedia, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota, P.Z. Meyer, identifies Kanazawa as "the great idiot of social science."

One has to seriously wonder if any of the editors at Psychology Today actually read Kanazawa's piece before they posted it on their Website - and what he's doing as a member of the faculty at the London School of Economics.

Insane! Trump & Buchanan Move from Proof of Birth to Obama's GPA

Republicans just keep getting crazier.

With President Obama's surprise morning news conference to release his long-form birth certificate to confirm what he and other legal experts have been saying since 2007 (that he was born in America) still reverberating in political circles, the right wing extremists who currently dictate the GOP's agenda and policy direction struck back.

Apparently undaunted by factual proof that the entire basis for the "Birther" movement is in fact, not true, members of the right immediately moved on to questioning the President's qualifications for getting into Columbia and Harvard.

In one of the most overt displays of racism I've ever seen, quasi-Presidential hopeful/media whore Donald Trump along with former-Presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan launched into a bizarre attempt to discredit the President's academic qualifications for getting into college and law school.

Meanwhile Media Matters reports that since March 2nd, Fox News has stoked the irrational flames of the Birther movement by promoting the Birther story an astounding 52 times - 84% of those reports went unchallenged or uncorrected.

At least it's evident to Americans that the 2012 GOP presidential campaign will be about one thing - the President is black.

Russia's Treatment of Foreigners Seeking Asylum Echoes an Ugly Trend of Hate, Intolerance & Violence

An interesting investigative report by the BBC on the treatment of foreigners seeking asylum in Russia echoes a steady rise in extremism under the oligarchy of Russian Prime minister Vladimir Putin. Check out the 2007 Pod from Current TV on the right.

I visited Russia in the summer of 1987 as part of a high-school trip when it was still the Soviet Union. While Russia had a much stronger "law & order" central government authority back then and I met many, many cool Russian men and women of all ages; I still saw evidence of the kind of blanket racism directed against people of color the report talks about.

A Russian professor I had dinner and conversation with told me that Russian racism against people of color usually stems from resentment rather than the kind of indoctrinated, systematic racism based on ignorance (birthers) and fear one finds in the US.

When the Soviet Union was at the height of it's ideological and Cold War battles against the West in the 60's/70's, they made huge efforts to forge ties with poorer African, South American and Caribbean nations in an effort to extend their sphere of Communist/Socialist influence and gain access to the wealth of minerals, oil, gold/precious metals and crops. One of the results was that the Soviets allowed thousands of Africans to come to the Soviet Union and attend their best universities for free. Many working class Russians were locked into a rigid class system (despite Communist propaganda that touted an equal "worker's state"..total BS, never existed) that left them shut out of being able to send their kids to the best universities to become engineers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, musicians etc to gain entry to the "privileged class". Only rich and influential Soviets could send their kids to those schools - with rare exceptions (i.e children of high-ranking military officers, gifted athletes etc.)

So when many Russians SAW Africans in their country, they had a "built-in" internalized resentment towards them that was only magnified by the stark difference in skin color, race, language and physical characteristics. They saw these Africans as having access to privileges they themselves couldn't afford, and they hated them for it. It's still happening.

What's sad is Russia is such a rich, beautiful nation with a rich cultural history that stretches across music, literature, science and math. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, you saw the lifting of a heavy blanket of authority that had kept regional conflicts subdued under the proverbial "iron fist". The conflicts in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia for instance, exploded after the Soviet authorities departed and we all know the horrible ethnic cleansing, murder, torture and violence that resulted from simmering conflicts between religions and peoples that stretch back centuries that were allowed to rage.

Clearly Africans (or African-Americans) Cubans are NOT the only victims of racism within Russia. Nationalist movements and extremist groups that embrace violent Neo-Nazi ideology and fascism (curious given that ACTUAL Nazis murdered tens of MILLIONS of Russians in WWII...yes, racism is THAT ignorant) in recent years have targeted Jews, Muslims, political opponents of Vladimir Putin, journalists, human rights activists, foreigners and other ethnic minorities from various parts of the former-Soviet Union.

What frightens me is how some Russian state authorities quietly tolerate these groups, refuse to persecute them and essentially condone this behavior by doing very little about it. There was an excellent article on the bbc Website yesterday about how Russia treats foreigners seeking political asylum; housing Africans in leaky, cheap, substandard trailers in one of the poorest and most remote regions in Russia; people fleeing violence, civil war or worse for a chance to work and live in peace - worth a look to see how Russian immigration authorities "welcome them".

Outrage Over Orange County GOP Member Marilyn Davenport's Racist E-mail

Orange County, California may be known as "Reagan Country" for it's large conservative voting base but give OC Weekly journalist R. Scott Moxley credit for calling out the GOP's growing tolerance of overtly racist ideology within it's leadership ranks.

A recent e-mail sent by Republican Party central committee member (and Tea Party activist) Marilyn Davenport has outraged even GOP members from her own party who have called for her to resign. The image (pictured left) is basically a photo-shopped image of the President's face on a baby chimp that suggests his parents were Apes - the image was accompanied by the words "Now You Know Why No Birth Certificate."

Davenport's callous use of the image and her stubborn denial to even acknowledge that it is in fact, racist shows just how ingrained the dehumanizing, warped image is in the global sub-conscious.

Depicting peoples of African descent as apes, gorillas or monkeys actually predates the United States and goes back to the earliest European encounters with Africans in the 16th and 17th century. In drawings and writings, European explorers and "scientists" first promoted the "Negro-Ape metaphor" to explain away differences in skin tone, facial characteristics and hairstyle and soon thereafter, justify the enslavement of Africans and their forced entry into the global financial juggernaut that was the slave trade.

A long line of people, from French philosophers, to Popes, to scholars have entwined bogus scientific theories with warped images of blacks to present them as sub-human savages and justify pseudo-scientific theories of racial superiority.

So people like Marilyn Davenport, who use these images, do so for a very simple reason; to promote centuries-old stereotypes of peoples of African descent as savage animals, devoid of Judeo-Christian values and justify an extremist ideology that treats non-whites (including the President of the United States) as less-than-human. Can you imagine the GOP e-mails that we DON'T see?

Beck is Out - Roger Ailes' GOP Spin Network Cuts Ties With Delusional Television Host Glen Beck

Fact-challenged Fox News host Glen Beck tried to play off his being booted from his daily TV slot, but the reality is that his lies, distortion of truth and fear-mongering have negatively affected the Fox News brand, which is desperate to re-connect with the main-stream American audience that will ultimately decide who will win the White House in 2012.

As the 2012 Presidential race begins to take shape, clear signs are emerging that the GOP is going all-out to distance itself from the extremist radical fringe element that has dominated the party's agenda in the past few years.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Americans are over perpetual- Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's empty, right-wing soundbite politics and ceaseless wavering over whether she'll actually step into the ring as she criss-crosses the nation racking up speaker fees.

Palin is now tied with former President George W. Bush with a 25% approval rating; that's just one point above Richard M. Nixon according to the Politicususa.com Website; a fact that only confirms whisperings in Washington that the GOP was quietly working to move the former vice-president candidate and her baggage out of consideration for the Republican Presidential nominee slot.

Hoping to capitalize on these setbacks for the Tea Party, Donald Trump has stepped forward to flog the dead horse of Obama's citizenship issue with a string of TV appearances apparently aimed at the fraction of Americans who think the President is not an American citizen.

While the short term gains from such a blatant media stunt might temporarily nudge The Donald's approval ratings above Mike Huckabee's, no serious candidate is going to win the White House stoking Birther's bizarre theories - and ultimately, it's just going to drain away support from the more main-stream Republican candidates who actually might have a chance to score with mainstream American voters - the majority of whom view the GOP as obstructionist and disapprove of their attempts to force a shut-down of the entire government over their ideological budget cuts.

The GOP has a ways to go before it get it's own House in order - but pushing Palin back to the fringe where she belongs and severing it's brand with Glen Beck's strange conspiracy theory nonsense is a decent start.

Welcome to 1984! Wisconsin Republicans Demand Access to Professor Cronon's E-mails

A March 15th blog post about the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor William Cronon (pictured left) laid out the truth about the American Legislative Exchange Council.

His blog got a huge number of hits.

He also wrote a fascinating Op-ed in the New York Times showing that Wisconsin actually passed unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and public employee bargaining legislation in the early part of the 20th century with the support of Republicans.

Apparently offended that a scholar would dare to disagree with efforts to further erode America's dwindling middle class, Stephan Thompson, deputy director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin is heading up efforts to subpoena Cronon's personal e-mail correspondence using a freedom of information request.

Now I'm not debating the right of anyone to use freedom of information requests for legitimate reasons.

But Wisconsin Republicans trying to sift through the personal/work correspondence conversations of a history, geography and environmental scholar who is the president of the American Historical Association because he wrote something they didn't agree with?

It reeks of vindictive pettiness and an effort to elude substantive debate on a controversial measure to strip state employees of their bargaining rights.

What's next? A tap on his phone? Attacking a history professor? Really?

What a thuggish, McCarthy-like retaliatory tactic.

The Ghost of Diallo Haunts Miami - Chief Miguel Exposito Under Fire in the Wake of Travis McNeil's Shooting

Add 28 year-old Travis McNeil of Miami, Florida to the list.

What was his crime? He was unarmed and sitting in a parked rental car when he was shot in the chest.

When will it end and where's the oversight?

It's been more than ten years since Amadou Diallo (pictured left), an innocent civilian from West Africa who spoke five languages and was armed only with his wallet, keys and beeper was shot more than 19 times by four over-zealous white New York Police officers from the NYPD's "elite" Street Crimes Unit while standing in the vestibule of his own apartment on a cold February night.

An autopsy later showed 15 of the 41 bullets fired entered Diallo's back and sides; one shot even hit the bottom of his foot.

As an African-American male living in Manhattan at the time I vividly recall the sickening sense of fear, revulsion and anxiety all New Yorkers, and indeed, people around the globe of races, religions and backgrounds felt in the wake of one of the worst incidents of excessive police force ever recorded in the United States.

I was instantly reminded of the incident when I read the March 22nd New York Times article by Don Van Natta, jr. profiling a string of 7 killings of unarmed black American citizens in the past 8 months by the Miami police department.

The disturbing cultural similarities between the hyper-aggressive "elite" police units are disturbing. The NYPD's Street Crimes Unit motto "We Own the Night" befitted a rogue police unit with an abstract mission and little organizational oversight that patrolled any of the five boroughs. Their members were known to wear custom t-shirts emblazoned with the famous Ernest Hemingway quote:
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

Who actually shot Travis McNeil?

According to Don Van Natta's New York Times piece Detective Reinaldo Goyo, a member of Miami's gang unit who appeared in a controversial reality television series called "Miami's Finest SOS" wearing a hoodie with the word 'Punisher' on the front.

Another member of the gang unit, Officer Ricardo Martinez, killed two different men within 9 days in August, 2010. And so it continues. And continues. And continues.

US Bank's Contempt for Consumers

“Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers? The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.”

A 2007 quote from former Federal Reserve member Edward Gramlich, as quoted in Paul Krugman's latest op-ed piece in the New York Times, and it pretty much sums up a question that millions of American consumers would like to ask their banks.

I'd sure like to ask Bank of America. Here's a behemoth that defines "too big to fail". BOA got $20 billion in taxpayer funds from TARP then a guarantee of $118 billion to cover the assets of the questionable acquisition of Merrill Lynch

Yet they've fattened their own wallets by feasting on the checking accounts of it's own customers (including the blogger) using bogus charges and inflated penalties. They've used bad math, intentionally slow processing of foreclosure documents and chop shop law firms to boot people from their homes.

And how does Bank of America treat it's "least sophisticated borrowers" (see minorities) and those most subject to it's exorbitant overdraft fees?

I took the picture above with my Blackberry at the Bank of America located just off the intersection of Pico blvd and San Vincente blvd in LA last Thursday night about 8:30pm

The bank is surrounded by moderate to lower income rental apartment units, but there's a good size shopping center with a CVS, Ralph's, hardware store and a police station right there. But at night, if you try and withdraw cash - the machines "mysteriously" don't work.

Instead of dispensing cash - you get a screen like the one above stating that the machine is out of order, "please visit one of our other ATM's nearby". Nearby meaning a machine in an area with less African-American and Hispanic consumers?

Funny, as Paul Krugman observes in his latest column, Republicans seem determined to prevent the Federal government from granting it's own citizens from having even basic measures and protections in place to prevent large banks from praying on them. WTF?

Are Republican State Legislators Taking Marching Orders from A.L.E.C?

If Republicans using their new-found majority-status in state legislatures around the US to broaden efforts to suppress voter rights, strip unions of their collective bargaining rights and cast public sector workers as the villains of economic recovery concerns you, then you should become familiar with the American Legislative Exchange Council.

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor William Cronon offers searing insight into the shadowy activist group and their not-so-behind-the-scenes influence on the recent string of conservative legislative efforts around the country in a must-read blog posted on March 15th.

The A.L.E.C was co-founded in 1973 by conservative icon Paul Weyrich, (pictured above) who used money from the Coors family to launch the Heritage Foundation and coined the term "Moral Majority". Though he died in 2008, his legacy is still being felt around the nation.

Case in point: 2010 efforts by Arizona Republican lawmaker's to pass a series of draconian anti-immigration laws thrust Governor Jan Brewer and the state's conservative legislature into the media spotlight last year. Based on the state's legacy, as in former Governor Evan Mecham canceling Arizona's observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday as a Federal holiday in 1986 (famously telling critics, "King doesn't deserve a holiday.") like many Americans, I simply assumed the efforts to marginalize illegal immigrants were driven by Arizona's conservative voter base.

According to Cronon''s blog however, the 2010 anti-immigration laws were actually drafted by the A.L.E.C. Which is funny given Republican's tendency to announce their initiatives as "the will of the American people." It's not.

In the March 18th New York Times, Richard A. Oppel reports that a consortium of Arizona business leaders led opposition resulting in five anti-immigration measures in the Arizona State Senate being rejected in the wake of the nationwide backlash against Arizona (thanks to Governor Brewer and State Senate President Russel Pearce) severely impacting revenue from tourism, state contracts and tax revenue.

Seeking to limit the power and scope of the Federal government is one thing; shifting that power to state legislatures who offer up laws drafted by a right-wing organization that envisions America as an Evangelist theocracy is something else entirely.

UCLA Student's Racist Rant Goes Viral

As UCLA political science major Alexandra Wallace learned very quickly, celebrity can be a dangerous thing.

Like fire it can burn you, has an insatiable appetite and can spread REALLY fast.

Wallace, (pictured left) has quickly rocketed to international fame capped by various Facebook pages calling for her expulsion, different Youtube responses mocking her and even a New York Times article.

In the course of a 3-minute rant posted on Youtube, she manages to complain about Asian students in the UCLA library talking too loudly on their cellphones, make fun of Asian accents, bitch about Asian family members (gasp!) visiting their kids on campus on the weekends and permanently brand herself as a conceited, narrow-minded racist.

If the apparently buxom blonde was seeking fame, she's certainly found it. After receiving death threats "Allie" took her offensive op-ed piece down but it's been re-posted all over the Internet.

My favorite line? Wallace describing herself as the "polite nice girl my mom raised me to be." Great job mom!

Tea Party Reality Check: Bill Clinton Dismisses Michelle Bachmann in Davos

It had the potential to be a big "national stage" moment for the Tea Party.

But instead Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann (pictured left) one of the far right's heaviest hitters, came off looking reactionary, uninformed and tediously combative - and according to the Time's Deal Book, Bill Clinton coolly sat down for an interview on the 2nd day of the World Economic Forum and called her out for boldly suggesting "Every American knows we have the greatest health care system in the world."

Actually, we don't. According to the World Health Organization US health care ranks 37th out of 191 countries; just behind Costa Rica. Bizarre gaffes are nothing new for the quotable Bachmann, lists of her jaw-dropping observations are legion online.

Using Bachmann's fact-challenged assumption, Clinton delivered a back-hand to the Tea Party in front of reps from the world's leading nations:

“Everyone knows that is factually untrue,” said Mr. Clinton, “We have to stop conducting our politics in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts,”

With the Tea Party Senate Caucus struggling to get more than 4 members in it's ranks and 30 out of 435 in the House, the party is over and it's time to get down to business. Time will quickly tell if the party the Koch Brothers money built can muster the ability to talk straight to the American people and get along on the Hill.

Has Putin's Tolerance of Intolerance Come Home to Roost?

Pictured left, the funeral of Russian journalist Anastasiya Baburova, 25 slain by neo-Nazis in 2009 - pictured below

Last Monday, in a demand for a nationwide crackdown on extremist hate group activity in Russia (amidst the worst racial unrest since the fall of the Soviet Union) Russian President Dimitri Medvedev declared publicly that, "All Nazis, independent of where they come from... they simply undermine the cultural foundations of our state."

Seven days later Medvedev canceled his trip to Davos, Switzerland amid global shock and outrage in the wake of the apparent suicide bombing in Moscow's Domodedevo Airport that killed more than 30 and injured scores of others - raising serious questions of where the government of Vladimir Putin actually stands on the growing violent hate group activity within Russian borders that target ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants as well as Russian scholars, human rights activists and journalists.

Journalists like Anastasiya Baburova, (pictured above) a 25-year old writer for Russian magazine Novaya Gazeta killed in broad daylight less than a a mile from the Kremlin; her work focused in part on exposing Russian neo-Nazis. She was one of 14 people killed in January, 2009 a month before BTO, (a Russian neo-Nazi group) posted a "Death List" on the Internet with the names of dozens of Russian journalists, human rights activists and scholars.

For many of the millions of ordinary Russians shocked at the spike in neo-Nazi activity, the Putin government's alleged acceptance and tacit support for violent ultra-nationalist groups raises the question of whether a tolerance for extremist violence has in fact helped to create the very environment that led to today's bombing.

You can't feed the 800-pound chicken, turn your head when it violates the law using intimidation and violence, then act baffled when it comes home to roost - a lesson tiresome, fear-mongering 'Exceptional American' Sarah Palin still pretends not to have learned.

Does the term "Russian Neo Nazi" strike anyone as absurd given the (real) Nazis were directly or indirectly responsible for over 23,954,000 people killed within the borders of the Soviet Union during World War II?

Krugman Warns GOP Victory Will Prolong Recovery & Punish American Workers

Like many Americans I’m a little baffled by some Congressional leaders and candidates who seem to care less about the actual merits and long-term implications of policy decisions than they do about fueling voter anger and frustration to simply trash President Obama, denounce his agenda and shackle his efforts to help guide the nation back to fiscal health and create jobs.

Few grasp the implications of the Republican War on Reality better than Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University professor of economics, author, columnist and one of the worlds leading economic thinkers. In an op-ed piece in Today’s New York Times Krugman pounces on conservatives who brand debt-relief and government stimulus as a “reward for the undeserving.”

Recognized as a leading liberal thinker, Krugman rarely shies from calling Obama out when he thinks the President is wrong.

At a lecture at Princeton University yesterday Krugman voiced grave concerns about how tomorrow’s election results could slow the pace of the economic recovery should months of angry Tea Party rhetoric, character bashing and misinformation about the real causes of the global economic meltdown push Republicans into slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Krugman calls out the "Hell No" Republican leaders who've offered blanket opposition to the Obama's efforts to stimulate the economy. Some of the same politicians who helped loosen regulations to permit large banks to lend at the unsustainable rates that drove us into the mess we find ourselves and fed the incessant global appetite to borrow and spend during Bush's two terms.

On the eve of a mid-term election Republicans seemed poised to further erode the crumbling middle class, vilify the unemployed and increase the federal deficit by insisting tax cuts for the wealthy are the magic pill.

Helped, Krugman warns, by fickle progressives who may step into the voting booth tomorrow and re-align with the GOP because they're upset that niche hot-button issues like GITMO, immigration, clean energy and same-sex marriage were pushed aside - helping to put the same people who bear a large responsibility for driving us into the Great Recession in the first place, back into office. Madness.

Happy Halloween from the KKK!

No those weren't men dressed in KKK costumes on the lawn of a Warrenville, South Carolina home on a recent Saturday night, nor was any pre-Halloween chicanery on the agenda.

The radical Tea Party's bank-rolling of perpetually pissed-off extremist candidates like New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is apparently bearing all kinds of fruit.

Dovetailing the movement's "us versus them" anger issues, the Augusta Chronicle reports the Warrenville Klan ceremony was the first KKK cross-burning made open to the public since 1985.

Newly anointed Duwayne Johnson celebrated his ascension as the new Grand Wizard of the All American Invisible Knights by welcoming three new members with a good ole' fashioned cross-burning.

Why bother reporting about a seemingly obscure branch of a fractured, decentralized bankrupt hate organization?

"We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage." according to Chip Berlet a veteran analyst of the radical right in the US.

Americans need to pay attention when cowards who put on hoods to conceal their identities while espousing hatred aren't scared to crawl out of the shadows. We need to remember this is the byproduct of divisive Tea Party rhetoric.

As millions prepare to dress up for Halloween parades and parties, it's important to be reminded that costumes like the ones pictured above ARE scary in terms of the dark legacy of murder, terrorism and racism they represent.

Deconstructing Dinesh D'Souza

Politically speaking, writer Dinesh D'Souza has been Rogue for years. But he seems to be veering off the ranch according to reactions to his September 9th Forbes cover story, which among other things, posits the strange theory that President Obama's domestic policies and foreign policy strategy are shaped by what D'Souza describes as Obama's father's "hatred of the colonial system."

Apparently undaunted by the fact that Obama's own book "Dreams of My Father" makes clear the President was left rather disappointed with the man his father became, or that he was absent through most of his formative upbringing, D'Souza delights prominent conservative media pundits and thinkers by dangling proof that Obama is secretly some kind of foreign radical.

MediaMatters.org has completely dissected the text from the D'Souza piece and clearly identified at least ten claims from the article which are either completely false or stand in total opposition to established facts. Like Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes rushing to defend the tactless televised ramblings of Glenn Beck, Forbes stands firmly by D'Souza's error-ridden article.

Is Forbes magazine Going Rouge? The magazine wasn't always so flippant with facts. My father, a college-educated African-American raised in North Carolina during the Great Depression who went on to become a successful corporate professional and political conservative always had Forbes in his den when I was growing up. He was a long-time subscriber and considered it essential reading.

What's peculiar about D'Souza's cover story is that the Forbes brand, while certainly a bastion of the conservative, pro-capitalist economic mindset, seems to have taken a sharp right turn from the standards set by it's founder Malcom Forbes.

In the article D'Souza repeatedly combines his un-evolved conservative slant with a bizarre mix of his own brand of dime-store psychoanalysis and a rather klutzy distortion of the truth in an effort to provide some sort of intellectually substantive justification for Tea Party anger. It's like he tried to whip up some fodder for conservative pundits to use in the weeks leading up to the November election and no one at Forbes even bothered to fact check it.

D'Souza's conclusions from Obama's book "Dreams of My Father" have puzzled a number of journalists who have reported on the books factual errors.

As MediaMatters.org reports, "Everyone else" who read Dreams "saw Obama burning with disappointment in Barack Sr. In a September 13th review of D'Souza's forthcoming book, Slate.com's David Weigel wrote, "While everyone else read Dreams From My Father and saw Obama burning with disappointment in Barack Sr., D'Souza sees a man burning with 'hatred derived from the debris of the anti-colonial wars.'"

Media Matters also reports that Ryan Chittum described D'Souza's new book as "a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia." in the September 13th issue of the Columbia Journalism Review

But anyone remotely familiar with Dinesh D'Souza's writings and background can hardly be surprised that he's written an error-laden piece trashing the President.

D'Souza's simplistic antiquated observations of African-American culture have long pegged him as being right up there with Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin in terms of conservative media superstars long on wind and short on intellectual substance.

In D'Souza's book The End of Racism, he demonstrated an alarmingly uninformed grasp of American history by making the claim that the "American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well."

He wrote a book blaming liberals for the 911 attacks.

But who is he really?

D'Souza is an immigrant from Mumbai, Matashra, India who arrived in the United States in 1978.

Raised in conservative Arizona, according to a 2007 Boston Globe article by Peter Canellos, D'Souza first grabbed headlines as a 20 year-old writer and Reagan disciple who publicly outed members of the Dartmouth Gay Student Alliance in an article for Dartmouth University's Dartmouth Review - D'Souza also honed his writing by attacking Dartmouth's affirmative action policies.

According to the Globe article, "During the 1980s, before and after D'Souza's editorship, the paper was repeatedly in the news for controversies that included taping a Gay Student Alliance meeting, publishing a column in a mocking imitation of black English, ridiculing a class by a black music professor, comparing the university's Jewish president to Adolf Hitler, and falsely asserting that a university chaplain had defended a group advocating sex with adolescents."

I don't know him personally but perhaps D'Souza's ingrained biases are fueled by his conversion to evangelical Christianity? Like Ann Coulter, D'Souza's contempt for non-white, non-Christians is always cloaked in a veneer of intellectualism and so extreme in tone that it suggests that like some immigrants from India, he was quick to adopt the worn cloak of American bigotry and prejudice based on the mental indoctrination of the Indian caste system he was exposed to as a child. Some Indians, certainly not all, come to this country and quickly adopt an open contempt for those they regard as beneath them.

I've explored Indian racism towards African-Americans previously in this blog, but D'Souza genuinely puzzles me. Why was he so quick to adopt such clearly racist views on blacks?

Was he simply eager to demonstrate just how "cultured" he is by adopting negative views of homosexuals and minorities - almost as if to separate himself psychologically from the dark tone of his own skin and his Indian origins.

It's possible he has a need to distinguish himself from those he considers lower on the mental cast system he's formed inside his mind, which is his right to do.

But I'm not sure that excuses bad journalism and sloppy writing - which is exactly what his Forbes cover story is.

Europe's Roma Dilemma

For hundreds of years populations of Roma, more familiar to many as Gypsies, have wandered various European cities like a forgotten nomadic people without a country or a homeland.

Their sad plight, which began in medieval India, has recently become a lightening rod for media scrutiny of the broader immigration policies of the member countries of the European Union, most noticeably France, who deported more than 1,000 Roma immigrants in a one-month period during August and September.

The BBC reports that the recent expulsion of large numbers of Roma populations from France has divided the members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's own cabinet and pushed the already embattled leader of France to defend his policy both to his own government and to other members of the European Union vigorously opposed to the French policy of deportation.

The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, "said he has almost resigned over the issue" according to a small blurb in 'The World this Week' section of the September 4th issue of the Economist - which also reported that a gunman in the Slovak capital of Bratislava intentionally shot and killed six members of a Roma family inside their apartment in late August.

Various human rights groups have accused the French government of intentional discrimination against impoverished Roma immigrants based on a leaked memo sent from the Interior Ministry to regional police chiefs that specifically outlines a systematic policy of closing Roma encampments and settlements in France and expelling the people from the country.

Their peculiar status sadly parallels the plight of newly emancipated African-American slaves in the south after the Civil War, or Jews fleeing Europe after World War II; and Palestinians today.

For many Americans the image of the people known commonly as "Gypsies" has been formed largely from a simplistic romanticized stereotype crafted by Hollywood.

At the core of this distorted misrepresentation are a people trapped by their own identity according to an interesting piece by Suzanne Daley in the September 16th New York Times.

The all too common image of the violin being played by a mysterious dark-skinned man with a dashing head scarf tied around his head. Or the sultry bandanna-wearing Gypsy woman/sage figure reading the future through crystal balls in the back of colorful wagons at carnivals looms in the subconscious minds of many Americans who don't really understand the history and origins of the Romani.

As is often the case the media-created image is far different than reality for the impoverished, under-educated marginalized pockets of Roma people stretching from Western Europe to the borders of the middle-east.

For the more prosperous countries of the European Union struggling to manage their way out of the global recession, (each of which harbors thousands of migrant Roma populations within their borders) it begs the question of how an often-vilified and certainly ostracized population of people will survive in a Europe that seems to regard them as a problem no one wants to deal with, and no one owns.

Black and Jewish in America - Balancing Race and Religion

If the tone of my entries on this blog sometimes seem to take particular issue with the divisive politics of the right, it's only because their narrow-minded vision of America stands in complete contrast to my own upbringing.

For me, as an African-American growing up in Bethesda, Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, DC during the 70's and 80's, understanding my own sense of cultural identity was often a perplexing challenge. Being the only, or one of a few black students in schools that were overwhelmingly white was often a lonely experience.

So I was naturally drawn to David Matthews 2007 book Ace of Spades; an eye-opening non-fiction account of his being raised in Baltimore in the '80s as the son of a Jewish mother and liberal African-American journalist father. I felt a kinship with Matthews (pictured left) for wrestling with the strange sense of cultural "in between-ness" and his memoir, which I bought last Spring after hearing an interview with him on NPR, has helped me to re-examine my own childhood.

He's an interesting writer who uses language like a hammer and I kept a dictionary next to my bed to look up the many words I'd never heard of.

Though I grew up with Jewish friends and our next door neighbors were Jewish, I'd never really heard of black Jews until hearing news reports about Israel air-lifting Ethiopian Jews from famine-stricken Africa to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991.

There are indeed populations of African-American Jews living here in America, in last Friday's New York Times, Trymaine Lee penned an interesting piece on a small population of black Jews who live in Brooklyn, New York; and their search for an identity that balances religion and race.

Their story, like Matthews, struck me as a timeless illustration of the ongoing struggle of people from so many different religions, races and nationalities to find their place in the changing landscape of America.

The Tea Party Conceals its True Nature While Frank Rich Exposes the Koch Brothers

While right-wing radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck exhorted the thousands of the Tea Party faithful gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to reflect on God and pay tribute to the service men and women who've sacrificed for this nation, many people including myself were wondering where the real Tea Party was.

Frank Rich of the New York Times had an answer ready in the form of a must-read blistering critique of the Tea Party's three main billionaire backers; Rupert Murdoch and the highly controversial and mysterious Charles and David Koch.

Men whose extremist ideology stands in complete opposition to Dr. King's vision of racial equality, social justice and government responsibility for workers, the impoverished and those relegated to the margins of this society.

The anniversary and location of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech struck many in this nation as a peculiar place for a rally for a political movement financed in large part by the Koch brother's wealth.

To others, the Tea Party's presence on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Becks self-righteous attempt to lay claim to a vision of America as a nation of faith was simply an insult and an affront to the ideals of the civil rights movement.

Veteran political reporter Taylor Marsh attended the rally and reported the crowd was not a diverse mix of different segments of America as Tea Party defenders try to present it; despite the appearance of Dr. King's anti-abortion advocate niece. No offense to Dr. King's relative but she's never been relevant to the national political dialog and she isn't now; just because she showed up on stage doesn't mean the Tea Party platform is somehow magically linked to the legacy of Dr. King.

In the end the sanitized public version of the Tea Party on display on Saturday for mainstream media will be a distant memory as the November elections heat up and the reality of Beck's lunatic right-wing ramblings reverts back to the same narrow-minded rhetoric we've become all too accustomed to.

Will history remember Beck's rally more than 40 years from now? Probably not. Cheap political stunts like that rarely stand the test of time. Dr. King's defining vision will forever symbolize America's hope to fulfill it's potential.

GOP Hatred: Ken Mehlman Stirs the Ghosts of the Southern Strategy

Ken Mehlman (pictured left) is out; and in more ways than one.

With the former Bush campaign manager and top GOP strategist's public admission in an Atlantic Monthly interview that he is gay, comes fresh insight and undeniable proof that the Republican party intentionally uses hate, prejudice and fear as the basis of their political strategy.

What is perhaps most shocking is not Mehlman's sexual orientation, but that for years he used the media to help engineer the manipulation of the evangelical Christian right to fan the flames of hostility against homosexuals to score votes.

Among other things revealed in The Atlantic interview, Mehlman admits that he helped to put anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballots of at least eleven GOP-friendly states in an effort to boost votes for George Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and again as the RNC chair during 2006 congressional elections.

As if more proof was needed that the Republican party has declared 2010 the year of hate and intolerance, the TPM Website reports that GOP Louisiana Congressman John Fleming appeared before a Republican women's group and suggested that the upcoming November elections are a choice between America being a "Christian nation" or a "Godless society."

This one-dimensional, intellectually bankrupt "You're either with us, or against us" point of view cannot possibly co-exist in a nation as culturally diverse as America.

On Countdown with Keith Olberman last night, Olberman reminded viewers that the anti-gay GOP strategy is merely the latest version of the notorious "Southern Strategy" used by Republicans to capitalize on the racial fears of white, Christian voters during Richard M. Nixon's 1968 campaign.

What's unsettling here is that even Mehlman KNEW it was morally and politically wrong to race-bait voters - and the RNC chair admitted so in front of the NAACP National Convention in Milwaukee in 2005. Yet a year later he was using the same tactics against both homosexuals and illegal immigrants.

Only time will tell how this will impact restless American voters, but it does raise the question of whether the GOP actually intends to offer ANY new ideas to steer the country back out of the worst economy since the depression, or are they simply banking on stoking the fears of intolerance and prejudice as a means to win the hearts and minds of American voters.

What's happened to the voices of reason and principle in the GOP? When did it all become about marginalizing people and sewing the seeds of division?

I don't know whose party this is right now, but it sure ain't the party of Lincoln.

The Sovereign Citizen Movement Gains Traction

The fringe extremist front known as the sovereign citizen movement in the US rarely seems to pique the kind of mainstream media scrutiny that the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade center in New York receives, but the threat they pose is real and their membership is growing.


Pictured left, Joe Zane, 16, lies dead after he and his father, Jerry were shot by police officers shortly after the two sovereign citizens killed Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans, two West Memphis, Arkansas police officers on May 20th.

Sovereign citizen activists Jerry Kane and his 16 year-old son Joe were pulled over in a routine traffic stop by Paudert and Evans and minutes later were shot and killed by Joe when he jumped out of the passenger seat of their white minivan and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle killing both officers.

NBC Nightly News ran a piece on the story and the story did make headlines across the country, but serious examination of the movement seems to have fizzled in the mainstream press.

The incident shed light on a group that lacks a central leadership, but boasts a growing membership organized into cells across the country. Who are sovereign citizens?

The FBI and the IRS have begun to monitor the sovereign citizen membership and their activities more closely.

The Anti-Defamation League Website describes the sovereign citizen movement as:
"...a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed."

In its fall 2010 intelligence Report the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) raises the alarm about the sovereign citizen movement, detailing the murders of the Arkansas police officers as well as the bizarre array of activities of sovereign citizens.

Sovereign citizens believe themselves to be members of separate sovereign entities and hence are not subject to state or federal laws. Some beliefs seem harmless, but in this post-911 era are actually extremely dangerous.

They don't think they should be required to carry drivers licenses, social security cards or identification of any kind. They hold "courts" where they issue arrest warrants for police officers and judges; and even sanction violence against members of government and private citizens.

Most famously, sovereign citizens believe they are not bound to pay taxes and have developed a strange array of seminars, court filings, letters and protests to avoid doing so. I'd never heard about sovereign citizens until actor Wesley Snipes emerged as a advocate of the groups beliefs and I blogged about it here on culturegeist.

I believe the Constitution gives all Americans the right to believe what they want and to protest; but any group that advocates the execution of law police officers is a danger to us all.

More on Sovereign Citizens

Welcome to the Kochtopus - The Koch Brothers Meet Mainstream Media

Why has it taken so long for credible main stream media to begin taking a closer look at Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who have quietly and almost single-handedly bankrolled the far-right Tea Party movement?

Are these guys (David and Charles Koch pictured left) really dangerous to Democracy?

New Yorker magazine reporter Jane Mayer pens a piece in the latest issue - but why so long for the Koch brother's names to be linked to the ultra right conservative causes they espouse? The Koch's certainly aren't invisible, they're the 9th richest people in the nation. No surprise that they oppose bigger taxes.

If you've bought Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups, a Georgia-Pacific lumber product or used Stainmaster to clean your carpets you've done business with Koch Industries - regarded by some as the biggest debunkers of climate change data in the world. Why? Perhaps because Koch Industries is one of the biggest owners of oil pipelines in the country.

Back on December 9, 2009 the Think Progress Website Progress Report detailed how the Koch (pronounced like 'Coke') brothers have funneled millions (over $45 million to dozens of conservative groups since 1997) to oppose almost every agenda item from the Obama White House from the Stimulus Package to the health care bill.

Don't get me wrong, Charles and David Koch can spend the proceeds from their wealth any way they want. But it strikes me as odd that the same media that shows video clips from Tea Party events with 'outraged Americans' carrying signs depicting the President as a Nazi or a spreader of Socialism - never even mention Charles and David Koch, the guys who foot the bill to send 40 busloads of people to Tea Party events.

The Koch brothers are rich even by American standards. Their staggering wealth finances a wide range of politically conservative organizations and think tanks; including Americans for Progress (which might as well be called Tea Party Central)and The Heritage Foundation.

From "Obama isn't really an American Citizen", to "Obama is a Muslim" and the Glen Beckian "Obama is a racist", the squeakier wheels in the right-wing media movement have presented a strange tapestry of fabricated nonsense for their angry minions to flaunt - but what if it's all just a bunch of BS generated by a couple of hardcore right-wing conservative guys who own one of the largest private companies in America?

Is that First Amendment expression or media manipulation?

Let's see if Katie Couric or Brian Williams have the journalistic balls to introduce the heartland of America to the Koch brothers and the actual scope of their one-sided agenda. Now THAT would be a real Eye on America.

More About the Kochtopus!

The Growing Tolerance of Intolerance in America

Whatever happened to the idea of America as a melting pot?

If the tone and substance of the current conservative media message is any gauge, apparently we’ve got a lot of people taking issue with certain ingredients in the stew.

Used to be it was the Michelle Malkins, Ann Coutlters and Rush Limbaughs trying to couch bigotry in intellectual terms. No more.

Stirring up fear in the minds of those agonizing about what the fabric of this nation is going to look like in the future has become like a sport.

On truthdig.com Joe Conason reports that in family-friendly Seaside Heights New Jersey, hucksters at Lucky Leo's offered patrons a chance to take out their political frustrations by hurling objects at an offensive caricature of the President seen by some as racist.

Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch seem content with Glen Beck's use of his televised stage to pass off unsubstantiated rumor, opinionated nonsense and misrepresentation of fact as journalism.

According to MediaMatters.org Beck is now declaring his rants a religious mission, even suggesting the officials enacting policies in Washington are "enemies of God."

Is this a 1st Amendment free speech issue, or are people are listening?

Elias Ebuelazam was arrested as he tried to board a flight to Israel after the FBI pegged him as the suspected serial killer responsible for up to 20 stabbings in three states that were racially motivated - 18 of the victims were black, including a minister stabbed outside a church while smoking a cigarette last Saturday.

Intolerance hasn’t just gone mainstream, in some circles it’s become fashion. The button to push, the emotion to nudge; the pot to stir.

Views once considered marginalized are merging into the mainstream.

Or perhaps as Fordham University professor Mark Naison suggests, it was never really that marginalized to begin with.

Just quietly intolerant.

Glen Beck slips further from reality.

The Tea Party: Who's Party is it Anyway?

Is the Tea Party an actual political party in the traditional sense of American politics?

Lately the Tea Party seems to be less about fair taxation than a platform for intolerance, religious persecution and even hatred. The growing flap over the proposed construction of a Mosque and Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site has sparked a bizarre backlash against even moderate Muslims across the US.

Today's New York Times reports that in late June a Tea Party group in Temecula, California took signs, dogs and anti-Muslim rhetoric to protest while Muslims were attending Friday prayers.

But it's not just Muslims the Tea Party seems opposed to.

In a July 20th Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson called for the Tea Party to purge what is now widely seen as racist elements within their ranks in the wake of the group severing ties with the Tea Party Express and one of their most outspoken leaders, former right-wing radio host Mark Williams after he posted a fictional letter from NAACP Ben Jealous to Abraham Lincoln that was so overtly racist that even members of the Tea Party demanded his ejection from the broader movement.

Is the Tea Party marginalizing itself in the lead up to the November elections? Slowly it seems to be morphing into an intellectual dumping ground for some of the deep-seated fear and mistrust that simmers just below the surface of the fabric of this nation.

Not convinced? Read the full text of Mark Williams letter for yourself.