Will the REAL Republicans Please Stand Up

By Ebbtide

(Part 1 of 2)

Lately we’ve been hearing Republicans talk about how they need to stop being the party of stupid—although they usually seem to be implying that it’s okay to think and promote stupid ideas, as long as you don’t say them out loud.

Then you have Republicans like David Frum, who is either suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or has lost his ability to reason, as he laments the bad acts, idiotic positions and ridiculous comments of Republicans while seemingly shocked that they are coming from members of the Republican Party.

davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
We need to keep in mind the distinction between what is politically conservative and what is merely sociopathic.https://twitter.com/michellemalkin/status/29643309240145 …

davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
"A party achieves nothing by boldly and bravely marching off a well-marked cliff." 


davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
Post 2012, GOP needed to change on something. I was hoping it would be on universal health insurance for Americans

davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
I agree w Jindal about avoiding gaffes. But "47%" wasn't a gaffe. It was an idea. That was the problem.

davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
If GOP had not wasted past 2 years acting heedlessly, Obama wd have less leverage over Congress today

davidfrum ‏@davidfrum
Frustrated by people who want to march my party over the cliff, then respond to all objections with: "Why are you attacking your party?"
.

Frum’s new book is described thusly:

WHY ROMNEY LOST is a forthright analysis that offers a bold, hopeful plan for Republican success in the years ahead. David Frum urges a Republican party that is culturally modern, economically inclusive, and environmentally responsible - a party that can meet the challenges of the Obama years and lead a diverse America to a new age of freedom and prosperity.

 Has David Frum actually met any of today’s Republicans?

Ah, but you see, Frum and his ilk (with a huge assist from the mainstream media) seem to insist that the wingut people aren’t “real Republicans.”  It’s the No True Scotsman fallacy writ large. If you’re unfamiliar with that, it goes something like: 

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counter-example to a universal claim, rather than denying the counter-example or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule.

A simpler definition:

No True Scotsman is a logical fallacy by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing. Instead of acknowledging that some members of a group have undesirable characteristics, the fallacy tries to redefine the group to exclude them

Is it possible they’re right? That any crackpot with a conspiracy theory, a complete misunderstanding of science…or geography…or history…or anatomy….or just about any other subject is NOT representative of the Republican Party?

Let’s explore the possibility. For argument’s sake, we’ll exclude

Rush Limbaugh

Ann Coulter

Alex Jones

Bryan Fischer

Glenn Beck

Sean Hannity

Michelle Malkin

Dana Loesch

The Crew at Breitbart

Oh, what the hell, we’ll exclude everyone on the right EXCEPT elected officials.  That’s right, we’ll just look at what elected Republican officials have had to say on any number of topics and then decide if they’re just the fringe on top or fringe AT the top of the surrey party itself.

What’s That You Said?

Without further ado, here they are, alive and kicking, the Republican “exceptions” that prove the point. NOTE—a few of these wingnuts were even too crazy for Republicans to put or keep in office, but they all are current office holders, former office holders (some of whom have gone on to be convicted felons), or were highly touted candidates who made it past the primaries on the Republican side of the aisle. Trust me, when I chose a Republican who is not currently serving, it was only because the action/comment/viewpoint was too delicious to pass up. My biggest problem in compiling this report was narrowing down the examples.

I decided to do the listing alphabetically by state, so you could see the breadth and depth of the derp, and you could easily locate your local loon.

Alabama

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (brother of the Keebler elf), during climate change hearings in 2012, was more than surprised when informed by Senator Barbara Boxer that roughly 98 percent of climate scientists, contra Christy, accepted that anthropogenic warming was real and serious — he was outraged:

“Madam Chairman, I am offended by that, I’m offended by that — I didn’t say anything about the scientists. I said the data shows [sic] it is not warming to the degree that a lot of people predicted, not close to that much…”

He’s also a big-time racist. For an enlightening background on Sessions’ racist history, here’s a good recap.

Alaska

Ha. I’ll bet you thought I’d go with Sarah Palin or Joe Miller, right. Nah. Too obvious

Alaska’s one and only Representative, Don Young was wingnutty more than 15 years ago.

“Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."

- Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Alaska Public Radio, 08-19-96

Arizona

”Abortions make up well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

—Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)  Later, he said it was not meant to be taken as a factual statement.

A few other gems from the Grand Goofball Canyon State.

Life begins "from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman."

—Statement from an Arizona bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer

”He has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an

enemy of humanity.”

—Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), member of the Tea Party Caucus, on President Obama’s decision to fund international family planning organizations that support legal abortion, Sept. 26, 2009

Arkansas

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family." –said former Governor, Presidential candidate, and ubiquitous spokesman, Mike Huckabee, at a rally in MIchigan on Jan. 14, 2008 (Source: ThinkProgress, Jan. 15, 2008)

California

Gary Kreep, who recently won the race for a San Diego County Superior Court Judge seat, gained national attention for his birther obsession. After Obama's inauguration, Kreep took on a so-called "birther" lawsuit demanding proof of Obama's birth certificate. He is also currently suing the California Secretary of State, demanding she verify citizenship of all candidates before they appear on the November ballot.

Kreep earlier created an infomercial entitled, “Where was President Obama born?”

Rachel covers it all quite well here:

So, just to recap—unqualified AND a grifting birther. Be proud, San Diego.

Colorado

Doug Lamborn, Colorado GOP Rep had this to say about President Obama in 2011.

Even if some people say, ‘Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,’ they will hold the President responsible. Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby…

Not to be outdone, his cohort, Congressman Mike Coffman had this to say in May, 2012.

"I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that," Coffman said. "But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American."

Connecticut

Not many Republicans to choose from in Connecticut, so we’ll go with two-time Republican nominee (and big-time loser) Linda McMahon, who has described WWE as a soap opera, and obviously continued to live in a fantasy world during her multiple campaigns. After losing twice in two years,

"I was stunned for a moment," McMahon told Bloomberg News. "I sat there for a few minutes on my own, reflecting on what the race had been. I thought about the thousands of people who not only had touched me but whom I had touched as well. All the notes, 'Thank you for running. Thank you for showing me that it’s worth putting everything on the line,' and things like that."

Uh, Linda, honey, “thousands” of people did vote for you, about 650,000, but a whole lot more voted for Chris Murphy and he beat you by more than 11 points.

Just for giggles—a true statement by Lovely Linda:

“I have said from the beginning, I would spend what it would take 

for the people of Connecticut to know who I am and what I stand for.”

In her two tries for the Senate, she spent $97 million. So, I guess the people of Connecticut DID get to know who she was and what she stood for, and they rejected her-TWICE.

Delaware

Christine O’Donnell, never-elected, but often put forth as the Republican candidate has such a grasp of what constitutes evidence.

"Creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the earth in six days, six 24 hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more evidence supporting that"

This never gets old:

Florida

Teabag heartthrob, Marco Rubio has said many idiotic things, and lied while saying many of them, but this is my favorite:

“How old do you think the Earth is?”

Rubio’s answered, “I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States…”

Georgia

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., a member, along with Todd Akin, of the very science-y House Science Committee, doesn’t have very much respect for science.

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,”  (And this guy is a doctor.)

And then there’s Phil Gingrey, whose mea culpa to Rush Limbaugh pretty much sums up the Republican party.

Following statements made to Politico yesterday telling Rush Limbaugh to "back off," Republican congressman Phil Gingrey now has his tail between his legs. In a groveling call to Limbaugh's conservative radio program this afternoon, Gingrey offered a humble apology and described Limbaugh as a "conservative giant" who plays an integral role in maintaining the ever-decreasing Republican base.

Here's the meat of it, via Think Progress:

Rush, thank you so much. I thank you for the opportunity, of course this is not exactly the way to I wanted to come on. ... Mainly, I want to express to you and all your listeners my very sincere regret for those comments I made yesterday to Politico. ... I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments. ... I regret those stupid comments.

Hawaii

It’s hard to find Republicans in Hawaii, but this little Linda Lingle (former Governor—losing Senate candidate) tale is somewhat enlightening as to the right wing view of facts/reality.

First she said it:

Shapiro wrote that Lingle calling Bush “the greatest president ever” was “an overstatement that makes even some Republicans cringe.”

Then she confirmed she said it:

Lingle sent Shapiro an email the day the column appeared in the newspaper. “Thanks for covering my speech at the convention and the generally upbeat piece,” she wrote. “You would have to pick up on the `greatest President ever’ line that I misspoke. It was not in my notes and I meant to say a great president. It was fair comment nonetheless,

Then, when running for Senate, she flat out denied ever saying it

“I would ask that Congresswoman Hirono cite where that was said, because it’s not a statement I ever made,”

Idaho

Michael Crapo, a three-term Republican Senator with a reputation as a social and fiscal conservative, registered a blood alcohol content of .11 percent after police pulled his car over in this suburb south of Washington, D.C., authorities said.

When U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo sponsored a 2010 bill to cut taxes on small beer brewers, he said he did so for pro-business, not pro-beer reasons.

A Mormon, the Idaho Republican told The Associated Press at the time that he abstains from alcohol, and he pledged to have a root beer to celebrate if the bill passed.

(See also: Craig, Larry—I am not gay.)

Illinois

The chairman of a subcommittee that oversees issues related to climate change,  Representative John Shimkus of Illinois is —  you guessed it  — a climate-change denier.

                          

At a 2009 hearing, Shimkus said not to worry about a fatally dyspeptic planet: the biblical signs have yet to properly align. “The earth will end only when God declares it to be over,”

Indiana

Senator Dan Coates:

“It's more than health care. It's a government takeover of our lives.”

(We already know everything we need to about Richard Mourdock, so I won’t bore you with another rehash of his brilliance.)

Iowa

Within a few short months last year, Steve King, one of the dumbest people on the planet, went from:

King also bemoaned that inability of states to outlaw contraceptives and even said that King George would not have had the “audacity” of President Obama to mandate that insurance companies cover contraceptives as part of his compromise policy with religiously-affiliated organizations.

STATES’ RIGHTS, RIGHT? Well, not so much when it comes to chickens. Ever the farmboy, Stevie was fighting against California’s wish to NOT import tortured chickens, actually invoking the commerce clause, which Republicans usually avoid like the plague..

“I am asking you why should I care what they think in California? In fact, what—why should I care about the conclusions that have been brought forward by the Supreme Court?”   —Iowa Representative Steve King, February 28 2012

Kansas

From 2011: Newly elected governor Sam Brownback plans to issue executive orders eliminating the Kansas Arts Commission. (Brownback's budget report for Fiscal Year 2012 is sub-titled, "Happy New Year, Art Fags.")

These days, Sam the Sham is pushing to get rid of income taxes and corporate taxes (making up the shortfall with, “consumption” tax that disproportionately affect the poor). Democrats are up in arms, but the Tea Party thinks he’s moving too slowly at "gettin' er done. "

Brownback’s counterpart in DC, Senator Jerry Moran, wants to do the same thing on a national basic.

Kentucky

I believe Bill Maher explained Rand Paul’s latest conspiracy theory best:

Maher was especially struck by Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s line of questioning during the hearing. He asked, “Is the U.S. involved with any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, anyhow, transferring weapons to Turkey?”

Clinton at the time paused notably. “To Turkey?”

Paul later went on Sean Hannity’s talk show on Fox and said he had no proof and had had no hearing on anything with regard to Turkey. “In other words, this is just a bunch of horse shit I heard on TV that I’m going to bring into the United States Senate,” Maher said.

Here’s the actual story as it unfolded:

Louisiana

Hmmm—Jindal or Vitter; Jindal or Vitter. Oh. Let’s go with Diaper Dave (who’s rumored to be thinking of running for governor—Yikes!) In 2009, not that long after his own little prostitute issue and just a month after fellow Southern Republican Mark Sanford had been “hiking the Appalachian Trail”

Sen. David Vitter disagreed Wednesday with criticism that Southern Republicans are ruining the party and said a return to conservative values is the best way to restore political power. “I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values,” said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

 “There are a lot of us from the South who hold those value, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections.”

Maine

Maine has one crazy Teabagger Governor, Paul LePage. He showed his wingnut bona fides as far back as during his campaign, when he told an audience that when he became governor, they could expect to see newspaper headlines stating, "LePage Tells Obama To Go to Hell."

Once governor, he told the NAACP to kiss his butt.

In February 2011, LePage again gained national attention when he spoke on a local TV news program saying he hoped to repeal the Maine ban of Bisphenol A, voted for unanimously by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection, because "There hasn't been any science that identifies that there is a problem" and added: "The only thing that I've heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards....and we don't want that.

Maryland

Maryland has two Democratic Senators, a Dem governor and all other top state officials, and all but one Democratic US House reps. So it figures that their one GOP voice is a doofus. It's likely that he was only elected in the first place because his Dem opponent withdrew right before the election.

Fresh off that dynamic victory, Andy Harris was feeling his oats once he got to DC, and as HuffPo’s Jason Linkins described it: Andy Harris, Super-Genius Congressman, Takes Himself Hostage In Fiscal Cliff Talks

GOP freshman, Rep. Andy Harris (Md.), said he would vote against any tax increase that wasn’t paired with spending cuts at least 10 times as large. And if Obama rejects such a deal? "Then we go over the cliff," Harris said.

Massachusetts

Our choice for the Bay State has to be none other than pickup truck driving centerfold, Scott Brown. First of all there’s that bit about secret meetings with kings and queens. Then there was his boneheaded assertion that he saw the Bin Laden takedown (only Scotty got fooled by an interwebz hoax—what are the odds.) And there was his fundraising effort when he claimed Rachel Maddow was running for his seat.

So, I guess we can safely say, Scotty is a LIAR. But this is a new favorite (and I had not seen it until I started researching this post). Yes, it’s small and superficial, just like Scott Brown.

In all the brouhaha about Elizabeth Warren's claim of Native American ancestry, a major item has been overlooked by the so-called liberal media.  In the 1980's, after Scott Brown appeared in Cosmo, he was interviewed by the New York Times.  In that interview, he claimed to be the great-grandson of Arthur Prentice Rugg, a chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in the 19th century, and he said he found it amusing to be reading cases in which his great-grandfather was involved.  Here's a snip from the original article:

Until a few weeks ago, Scott Brown was a 22-year-old first-year law student at Boston College Law School who frequently ran across opinions written by his great-grandfather, Arthur Prentice Rugg, former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

"I read many of his cases this year," he said, "which I found amusing."

The problem for Scott?  He was not Rugg's great-grandson, they were only distantly related.  The Times had to print a retraction a few days later.

Michigan

Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature share the honors for their Emergency Manager crappola. In short, these slimebags had created a way to take total control of any city in Michigan, throw out the elected officials and set up what amounted to their own little fiefdom. They could close schools, cancel contracts, disband city councils, fire mayors, etc.

The people of Michigan rose up against it and, although the Republicans tried to get their petitions thrown out because of the font size on the paper (no, I am not kidding), the voters prevailed, got the initiative on the ballot and rescinded the Emergency Manager Law in November, 2012.

Rick and his posse were not to be thwarted. The people may have spoken, but their overlords the Republicans weren’t listening. As soon as they were back in session after the election, they enacted another Emergency Manager Law and Snyder signed it.

Rachel Maddow has covered this story from the beginning, with particular focus on the ugly treatment of Benton Harbor, MI.

 Just go to her blog and you can follow her stories since it all began. Here,  here and here are a few of the stories. 

I believe Snyder and the Michigan Rethugs may be the most heinous group in the country.

Minnesota

Okay, I really tried to come up with someone else—the other two MN Republican congress critters, while not my cup of tea, do not seem to be batshit crazy, so I guess we’re left with our long-time favorite, Michele (one l) Bachmann.

From looking for un-American congresspeople to fighting against the census to saying vaccines cause mental retardation to not believing in pretty much any form of science, Michele is definitely the poster-child for wingnuts on parade at the heart of the Republican Party.  (And she’s on the Intelligence Committee. Oy)

Mississippi

Mississippi’s GOP senators are standard issue wingnuts: Cochran and Wicker hate choice, hate gays, love prayer in school, hate healthcare reform, love war etc. etc. (Notice that even though they hold extreme positions, they don’t really stand out in the crowd in Washington.)

Where MS earns full-blown credit for craziness in on the state level. Remember, current Governor, Phil Bryant had to step into some pretty big clown shoes left by former guv Hayley Barbour. But Phil’s up to the task. One of his big goals is to shut down every abortion clinic in the state (because MS, with one of the highest number of teenage pregnancies and one of the lowest standards of living CERTAINLY wouldn’t want to allow abortions.)

Bless his heart, Phil’s just about reached his goal. As of January 31,

Mississippi’s only remaining abortion clinic, the Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, is struggling to stay open as it is faced with unnecessary, complicated restrictions imposed by the state’s Republican lawmakers… On Thursday, the clinic received its first official notice that the state intends to revoke its operating license, although the women’s health organization will be able to remain open while it awaits a state hearing on the matter…

Mississippi’s  governor revealed the GOP’s true intentions behind over-regulating the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “My goal of course is to shut it down,” Gov. Phil Bryant (R) said.

Of course, Bryant is a rabid opponent of Obamacare, and refuses to expand Medicaid to cover an additional 200,000 poor residents (and did I mention that Mississippi is poor). He believes “There is no one who doesn’t have health care in America. No one.”

But Bryant can’t be worrying his pretty little head about healthcare, y'all. He’s got embryos to save! Even though Mississippi voters, the most conservative voters in the country, voted down a personhood bill, Bryant’s not giving up, because he knows best.

About a week into the new year, GOP lawmakers in Mississippi filed a fetal heartbeat bill virtually identical to the one that failed to make it out of committee during the state’s last legislative session. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) has already made it clear that he would sign such a bill if it ever reaches his desk.

Missouri

Who can ever forget Todd Akin: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways of shutting that whole thing down” - mid 2012 Senate Campaign. That, and his followup “clarifications” caused him to crash and burn and lose by double digits to Claire McKaskill, who, until that moment, didn’t have a ghost of a chance of winning.

The double whammy was that Akin had to give up his House seat to run for Senate, so, for now, he’s outta there!

But don’t fret. MO has plenty more wingnuttery where Todd came from. Ya got yer Roy Blunt, of the famous (failed) amendment that bore his name that would allow an employer to deny health services if they conflict with their 'religious beliefs or moral convictions." (thanks, Roy.) While he was in the House, Blunt was a member of the "CREW's Most Corrupt" in 2005 and 2006.

 In the Senate since 2011, he’s known as a “culture warrior” who loves school prayer, school vouchers, GUNZ, wants to drill here/drill now (He’s one of the "Dirty Dozen" lawmakers who had "consistently sided with Big Oil and other dirty polluters" and (big surprise) doesn’t believe in global warming.

It wouldn’t be the Show Me state if I didn’t highlight Rep, Vicky Hartzler. 

She’s a birther who said, “I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do.” Vicky, who is considered the MOST anti-gay person in Congress LOVES sharing her thoughts on same-sex marriage, comparing it to incest, polygamy and pedophilia.

She's also compared gay marriage to handing out drivers' licenses to third-graders (she's against it), and proposing to modify Don't Ask, Don't Tell by forcing gay soldiers to live in segregated barracks. (I think she might be a wee bit obsessed with the whole gay thing.)

Oh, and when she was a state rep? She wanted to prosecute any woman who had a late-term abortion for murder. What a lovely lady.

I Can’t Take It Anymore

That’s enough for one sitting. We’ll be back shortly to delve further  into the stupidity (and cupidity) that is the Right Wing, In the meantime, I present you with a brief musical interlude. Sing along to get yourself in the mood for more major league derp coming up in our next installment.

Gals and gays and grans better scurry

When Repubs show up in a flurry

There are many reasons to worry

With their “fringe” on top.

Watch those tea bags wavin’ their Gadsens

Saying lefties are makin’ them mad sons

Things could still get worse from the bad guns

As their brains go pop.

Their platform’s crazy, all the planks are insane

Their speeches border on treason

But teabag favorites seem to make it plain

They’re in DC for a reason.

Two more years of House rule by baggers

Led by loons and dolts and false flaggers

Shouting NO and calling us naggers

When we try to stop

All the Rightwingnut obstruction from the

“Fringe” at the Top.

Black History: Before Rosa Sat Down, Barbara Walked Out

by Sunnyjane

Barbara Rose Johns
Portrait  by Louis Briel, who also painted the portrait of famed tennis star Arthur Ashe that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D. C.

Most Americans know the story of Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama,  who in 1955 refused to move to the back of the bus so that a white man could have her seat.  Parks's peaceful act of civil disobedience became a watershed moment for the Civil Rights movement in this country.  A privilege usually granted only to presidents and high-ranking military personnel, she was the first woman, and only the second African American, to lie in state in the United States Capitol Rotunda upon her death.

Ms. Parks has come to be known as The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.  But was she really?  

Separate-but-Equal

It was the era of separate-but-equal in America, a law intended to remedy the Negroes' dissatisfaction with the unfair treatment to which they were subjected after the Civil War.   In the seventeen states -- all in the south -- where segregation was mandatory, separate-but-equal was meant to apply to public transportation (trains, at the time the law was enacted in 1896) and all public schools.  Separate-but-equal education was one of the most heinous of the Jim Crow Laws (which basically dehumanized Negroes) that applied throughout America's southern states.

While in Farmville, Virginia, the public schools were separate, there was little resemblance to equal.  

Whites-only high school, Farmville, Virginia, 1951

"Expansion" of R.R. Moton School for Negroes, Farmville, mid-1940

Typical classroom at R.R. Moton School, 1951

In a six-classroom facility built to teach 180 students, by the mid-1940s R. R. Moton could not accommodate the 450 students who attended. Community black leaders and parents pleaded with the School Board and County Supervisors to build a new Negro school.  In response, the Prince Edward County School Board decided to build what they quaintly referred to as an extensive expansion of R.R. Moton.  Their extensive expansion took the form of erecting plywood and tar-paper shacks, which were -- to put it mildly -- woefully inadequate.

Barbara Rose Johns, a quiet and studious sixteen-year-old,  decided  It was time that Negroes were treated equally with whites, time that they had a decent school...

Winning a Battle that Started a War 

Barbara Rose Johns (right) and one of her teachers, 1951

When her frustration with the inequality between the white and colored schools reached a certain threshold in late 1950, Barbara shared her concerns with a teacher.  The response she received from the teacher,  So do something about it, left Johns feeling even more frustrated and discouraged.   But after months of stewing over the whole thing, she had what she described in her biography as divine inspiration and decided on a plan of action: There wasn’t any fear.  I just thought — this is your moment.   Seize it!

And seize it, she did.  By secretly enlisting the help of Moton Student Council members, Johns developed her plan.  They pulled a ruse on the principal to get him off the school grounds, and called an assembly to urge their fellow students to go along with the plot.  And so it happened that on April 23, 1951, Barbara Rose Johns led her peers in a walk-out, a protest strike that would last for ten days.

Community Leaders' Reaction to the Strike

 



NAACP lawyers Spottswood Robinson, left, and Oliver Hill







That ten day-strike began with little response and no action regarding the students' requests for a new school.  It was not until they appealed to the PTA president that something happened: he called the NAACP in Richmond and requested that lawyers become involved in the issue.  Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill refused, claiming they were too busy.  It was not until, according to her sister, Barbara began calling Oliver Hill on a daily basis to beg for help from his organization that things began to change.  In an effort to stop the incessant calls, Hill agreed to go to Farmville and see what it was all about.  

Prince Edward had always prided itself as a We take care of our own county, and it did not take kindly  to outside agitators, especially of the NAACP sort.  The thin patina of civility between the races was beginning to develop cracks, and the white community was not prepared to face the fact that they had been living in the artificial world of Prince Edward's Happy Negroes.   In an effort to halt the growing national attention to their situation, the school board agreed within four months of the strike to build a new colored school.  Barbara was never able to attend the new school for which she had risked so much.  Fearing for her safety after a cross was burned on the school grounds, her parents sent her to live with an uncle in Alabama to finish her high school education.  (See Ironies, below.)

The new R. R. Moton School, which opened in September 1953

The new school, which to the whites of Farmville seemed like the end to this silly uproar, was too little, too late.  By now the NAACP was fully on board with the county's black parents, and thus began to urge them to file suit to end racial segregation in the South forever.  It was with great trepidation that they reluctantly agreed to the suit.  Briefly, this suit, called Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County,  was bundled with four other state law suits and became Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas.  The law suit was named for Dorothy Davis, a fourteen-year-old Moton student who was the first person to sign the petition to bring the suit, which was the only one that was instigated by a student strike.  

Thurgood Marshall

Brown v. Board of Education was ultimately argued successfully in the U.S. Supreme Court by the NAACP's forty-six-year-old attorney Thurgood Marshall, who would go on to become the first black Associate Justice on the Supreme Court.  The 1954 decision was unanimous: Segregation's separate-but-equal laws in the United States were illegal and all public schools in the nation would be desegregated with all deliberate speed.

The Southern Manifesto and Massive Resistance 

Needless to say, the South went absolutely nuts.  Like modern-day conservatives of the far-right variety, Southerners were loath to give up their cultural peculiarities, especially the culture of racism.  Ninety-six Southern legislators from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in the U.S. Congress formulated and signed the Southern Manifesto opposing racial integration in public places.  In 1956, Virginia's U.S. senator, Harry F. Byrd, originated Massive Resistance, which was based on the 10th Amendment's states rights principles, to oppose integration in the Commonwealth.  A focal point of the issue was that Virginia had the right to close its schools if integration were forced upon its citizens.

Had these politicians spent the same time, energy, passion, and influence with constituents on developing a practical and drama-free plan to integrate Virginia's schools, the social and economic tragedies that ensued would have been avoided.

While other counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth tried closing their schools, it didn't work out too well.  Moderate white parents soon realized that such an action would hurt their children much more than it would resolve a problem, and they demanded that the schools be reopened, integrated or not.

The parents and leaders in Prince Edward County, however, took a different path and closed their schools in 1959.   White parents quickly cobbled together private schools in basements, churches, and any other available spaces.  Blacks were not so fortunate.  Many families were broken apart when parents sent their older children to live with relatives or friends in another county or state.  Children too young to be separated from their parents simply lived without an education during their formative years.  Black teachers lost their jobs and were forced to move elsewhere.

White families also suffered when the more moderate amongst them felt that the schools should be reopened as integrated facilities.  These people were shunned so badly that many of them -- long-time citizens of Prince Edward -- simply moved away to avoid the treatment they continue to receive, and to ensure their children an education.

Four Years of Educational Drought

In 1963,  U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy said at an Emancipation Proclamation celebration: The only places on earth not to provide free public education are Communist China, North Vietnam, Sarawak, Singapore, British Honduras—and Prince Edward County, Virginia.

In 1964, another law suit filed on behalf of Prince Edward blacks was agreed to by the Supreme Court, which ruled that Prince Edward County had violated the students' right to an education and ordered that the schools be reopened.  In the opinion of the Court: The time for mere 'deliberate speed' has run out, and that phrase can no longer justify denying these Prince Edward County school children their constitutional rights to an education equal to that afforded by the public schools in the other parts of Virginia. 

Schools in Prince Edward reopened in September 1964.  Segregation in Virginia had come to an end. 

Ironies

The uncle to whom Barbara's parents sent her to finish her education was Dr. Vernon Johns, who received his seminary degree at Oberlin Seminary in Oberlin, Ohio.  Vernon Johns was considered a trouble-making minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church over which he officiated.  The deacons were unhappy at his insistence in making civil rights a part of his ministry, wishing him to save souls, not push for more black rights.  When he was fired, his successor turned out to be Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although there is no indication that they knew each other, remember that Montgomery, Alabama was the city in which Rosa Parks sat down almost five years later.

The R. R. Moton School for Negroes that was built in 1953 is now the R. R. Moton Museum.  


End Note

Memorial to Barbara Rose Johns, in Richmond, dedicated July 2008

Barbara Johns received her higher education at Spelman College near Atlanta, became a librarian, married a minister, and raised a family.   After succeeding  so fully in her quest for a better school for Negroes in Prince Edward County, her activist days were over.

In September 2010, the official portrait of Barbara Rose Johns Powell was unveiled and hung in the Virginia Capitol.

Barbara's daughter and sister, Terri Powell Harrison, left, 
 and Joan Johns Cobbs, at the unveiling of her portrait in September 2010

Barbara never saw the memorial or her now-famous portrait; she died in 1991.  

What a shame.

Resources 

For those interested in more information on the struggle to end segregation in Virginia and the entire South, these are excellent sources of information:

Books


The Moderates' Dilemma:  Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia by Matthew D. Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis.

They Closed Their Schools, by Bob Smith.

Movies

The Rosa Parks Story, with Angela Bassett playing Rosa Parks.  This is the true story of her life, and exposes the erroneous belief that she was nothing more than a woman caught in a bad situation.  

In fact, Rosa Parks had married an active member of the local NAACP in 1932 and had herself been a member of the local NAACP for twelve years when the bus incident occurred.  The movie also details the humiliation she encountered when trying to register to vote.  (Spoiler: she outsmarted them.)  It's an excellent portrayal of the real Rosa Parks.

Separate But Equal, with Sidney Poitier playing Thurgood Marshall, is a comprehensive look at the role the NAACP had in bringing about the end of segregation in America.  It also exposes the schism in black communities over whether complete desegregation was the best solution.

In his last role, Burt Lancaster plays John W. Davis, Marshall's opponent in the Court, arguing for the rights of states to allow them to handle their own public school situations.

The Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story, with James Earl Jones brilliantly playing Vernon Johns.

The first indication that Dr. Vernon Johns just might not be the pastor the deacons thought he was came on the day he was to be introduced and preach his first sermon to the Dexter Avenue's upper-middle-class black congregation.  As the elderly Deacon Wilkes droned on during his introduction about their new minister's brilliance, Johns leaned forward in his pew and whispered to Deacon Hill, What does a white man call a black man with a doctorate?  Deacon Hill shook his head, indicating he didn't know, and Johns said, He calls him Nigger.

James Earl Jones called playing Vernon Johns his favorite role.

False Equivalency, Insulting Analogies and the Right Wing

By Ebbtide

Just as an introduction: an apple is NOT an orange—nor is it a Porterhouse steak or a pork chop.

OK—now that we have established that fact, we can proceed with a look at some of the truly ridiculous (and often despicable) comparisons the Right Wing has been using lately to illustrate their often specious claims. I’m going to start with the least offensive and build to the most offensive.

IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN

Incorrectly using terms is a minor offense, but would somebody PLEASE tell Paul Ryan that a “straw man” is:

A straw man or straw person… is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.  To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Now right wingers are famous for invoking straw man arguments on everything from the War on Christmas to Abortion, but Paul Ryan apparently can’t even get the concept of what a straw man is, utilizing the reverse-double-flip-I’m-rubber-you’re-glue accusation format, which makes as much sense as most of his political ramblings.

When Ryan addressed the Values Voters Summit in 2012, he said:

President Obama frames the debate this way because, here again, it’s the only kind of debate he can win – against straw-man arguments.

Ryan then went on to explain his point by—you guessed it, setting up a straw man argument.

The President is given to lectures on all that we owe to government, as if anyone who opposes his reckless expansion of federal power is guilty of ingratitude and rank individualism.

Fast-forward to Ryan’s poutrage after the President’s inaugural address.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) accused President Obama of attacking “straw men” on the issue of entitlements in his second inaugural address. “No one is suggesting that what we call our earned entitlements — entitlements you pay for, like payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security — are putting you in a ‘taker’ category,” Ryan said in an interview. He added: “It’s kind of a convenient twist of terms to try and shadowbox a straw man in order to win an argument by default.”

AH—Thank you, Jon Stewart, for explaining to the Zombie Eyed Granny Starver what the term straw man means:

Will Ryan get the message? It's doubtful.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO CUKOO—CUKOO

Who said, "There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed." (Three guesses—first two don’t count.)

I will continue to incorporate this photo into any

post where I can possibly find a connection

because I just love it

Former NRA president Marion Hammer chimed in,  "Banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago," Hammer said. "But here they are again. The color of a gun. The way it looks. It's just bad politics."         

Yes, those poor gun-owning wingnuts are so totally oppressed, so thoroughly discriminated against. They face so many of the same obstacles that those involved in the battle for civil rights faced. It’s such an apt comparison.

NO, IT’S NOT.

John Fugelsang provided an excellent comparison of Nugent and Rosa Parks, ending with, “Because Rosa Parks refused to budge when asked to give up her seat. And Ted Nugent refuses to budge when asked to give up his ignorance.”

The wingers also invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. in their defence of gun insanity, like Larry Ward, Chairman of Gun Appreciation Day, who not only claimed that King would have been “honored” by the event, but went so far as to posit that

“I think Martin Luther King would agree with me, if he were alive today, that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.”

Forgive me, but I still believe this man looks like the

love-child of Scott Walker and Sean Hannity.

Right wing “historian,” David Barton, who pretty much makes up history to suit whatever his current viewpoint might be (Think 1984—We have always been at war with Eastasia) went full metal wingnut with his “fact” that the National Rifle Association (NRA) was formed to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan.

CHRISTIANS ARE THE NEW BLACKS.

A subset of the “gun-nuts are the civil rights workers” is the “poor, put-upon, discriminated against Christians, particularly white male Christians” are the true sufferers today.

Fischer’s mother-ship parent organization, The American Family Association sees things just getting worse and worse for Christians, predicting in a new email that by 2060:

• Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

• Cities with a name from the Bible such as St. Petersburg, Bethlehem, etc. will be forced to change their name due to separation of church and state.

And according to Cal Thomas, “The real "war" in this country is not only against the supposed civil right of non-traditional marriage. It is a war against conservative Christians and a denial of the same rights the LGBT community claims for itself.”

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION, WINGNUTS

You are NOT Rosa Parks. You are NOT Martin Luther King, Jr. You are NOT being lynched. You are NOT having fire hoses turned on you for having the audacity to want to go to school. You are NOT having your head bashed in for walking on a bridge. You are NOT being set upon by attack dogs for peacefully marching. Nor are you being kidnapped and murdered for advancing your ideas.

Your gun fetishes and hate-mongering fundamentalists bear no resemblance to the struggle of people who were (and, in many cases still are) fighting to be treated as equal human beings. Your “suffering” from the fear that you will not be able to stockpile rocket launchers is NOT comparable to what Emmett Till suffered for admiring a white woman.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVITCH  A TRUE POLITICAL PRISONER OF TWITTER GULAG

I want to first establish that I am not a tweeter (although, I have, at some points in my life, been called a twit.) I understand that Twitter can be an effective means of communication and expression, but from where I sit, I think that about 80% of everything I’ve seen in the Twitterverse would be more at home in a junior high school cafeteria. No offense meant to Politicalgates Tweeters—It’s just that I have seen many politicians and others hoisted by their own Tweetards, (Grassley, Brown)  and it seems there is so much mindless twattle being tweeted that it often can do more harm than good.

Which leads me to TWITTER GULAG!!!! I won’t go into much depth about this (extremely shallow) phenomenon. From what I can gather, it began with a bunch of right wing tweeters spamming other peoples’ Twitter accounts, in violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service, and having their accounts temporarily blocked.

That’s right, Twitter—a private enterprise offering a free service, exercised their ability to make users follow the rules. Period.

Enter Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy (could she be any more melodramatic?)

"The Left wants to wear down conservatives until they crawl away defeated, tails between their battered and bloody legs. Silencing the Right is not enough; they want conservatives to disappear from the public sphere. We hope these Twitter vigilantes aren’t holding their breath—conservatives don’t retreat, we reload." (Hmmm, where have we heard THAT before?)

Suddenly, this became the biggest infringement on human rights the world had ever known. Suddenly, right wing tweeters were being persecuted and tortured beyond anything previously known to man.

Twitter Gulag prompted dramatic tweets like:

Free @mark85nh from #twittergulag . A Great Conservative that is targeted by the twitter nazis.

and

Inside the most extreme #Gulag in the #TwitterGulag where not freedom of expression applies, is our @twitter friend @BranceLong #TGDN10 #Evil

And of course, messages such as:

In honor of #truth warrior just taken down to #twittergulag @charlewar YES OBAMA IS A #MUSLIM LIAR! There, reply on record.

They even have a website devoted to addressing the horrors suffered by Twitter Gulag residents, that features, I kid you not, this graphic:

They seem to mostly blame Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (they “gathered intel” and everything!) for this dastardly plot, although it appears to me that Charles spends most of his time laughing at them. Some of the comments at that site:

Mutual Assured Destruction kept the peace in the Cold War; it will work in the Twitter Wars.

I'm back in the Gulag! I sent a couple of sarcastic tweets toward @Toure, Now I'm in Siberia.

I was just speaking with another about how we might begin to play by their rules--draw first blood, implement first strike

They have a Twitter Gulag Daily website, which I will not even honor with a link…

And then came #TGDN—The TWITTER GULAG DEFENCE NETWORK. Started by slick operative, Todd Kincannon, a former South Carolina (of course) Republican Party Executive Director, who had famously posted such humorous tweets as:

@ToddKincannon: “The Crabby Cunt from the California Coast”? #NancyPelosi

@ToddKincannon: Or how about “The Botox Bitch from Buggeryland”? That seems to work for Nancy Pelosi too.

@ToddKincannon: Would you prefer Nancy the Crooked Whore? More accurate, but also more words.

 Kincannon and his band of merry madmen decided to fight hashtags with hashtags (or some such nonsense) by following each other in mass numbers to avoid the Twitter Gulag. (I confess, I don’t understand half of what these people say or do, so forgive me if my explanations are not quite on the mark.)

This TGDN nonsense goes on and on at a frenzied pace, and now Kincannon is soliciting funds to hire an assistant because it has become impossible for him to keep up with all the work. (I request that someone in comments please explain to me what costs are involved in having a hashtag—I truly don’t understand.)

There’s a “counter group” now called #uniteblue. By now, it’s all so hyperbolic that I can only shake my head and say, “People—it’s TWITTER, for crying out loud. It’s a means of expressing your deepest thoughts in 140 characters or less—similar to passing notes during gym class in the 8^th grade.”

Being temporarily unable to convey banal comments and snarky insults is NOT tantamount to being a prisoner in a forced labor camp under Stalin, and is an insult to those who were.

According to a 1993 study of archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953 However, taking into account that it was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or on the point of death, the actual Gulag death toll was somewhat higher, amounting to 1,258,537 in 1934-53, or 1.6 million deaths during the whole period from 1929 to 1953. Some estimates for total number deaths in the Gulag go beyond 10 million.

So just stop it, please.

The Holocaust is NOT Analogous with Gun Control…

Nor with Freedom of Choice (and Obama is NOT Hitler)

There have been Hitler analogies around for a long time. Yes, even some on the left used them when talking about Bush. But the explosion of Nazi references from the right, particularly in relationship to Obama’s rather (in my mind, anyway) temperate and sane ideas about reforming gun laws is so ridiculously over the top, it would be funny if it were not so very sad.

It seems Barry & minions are akin w/ Nazis. EX. using children as props, hatred of Jews, disarming of citizens. #TGDN @gayla415 @glennbeck

Former Major League pitcher John Rocker wrote on WorldNetDaily.com  (NOTE FROM ME: What a great pairing, Doofus John Rocker and WND—it’s like peanut butter and jelly) about what he described as "...the undeniable fact that the Holocaust would never have taken place had the Jewish citizenry of Hitler's Germany had the right to bear arms and defend themselves with those arms" (Jan. 15).

During an interview on the Fox News Channel, Lars Larson suggested that, "...if the president does it that way, everybody in America will be required to go in and give fingerprints....  It will be 'your papers, please' like Nazi Germany" (Jan. 9).

Fox News' Dr. Keith Ablow insisted history's filled with examples of leaders who confiscated guns as a precursor to "catastrophic abuses" of power: "One need look no further than Nazi Germany." Fox's Judge Andrew Napolitano made the same connection, while a Kentucky radio host compared firearm regulations to Nazi "yellow star" laws.

And brain-trusts like Bradlee Dean (he’s Michele--one l-- Bachmann’s little loony buddy) wrote on Wingnut Daily

When the "fire" is started, these government gun banners are right there to strip away your rights in an attempt to gain control under the guise of "putting out the fire."

Adolf Hitler was responsible for attacking his own Reichstag to start a world war. Hitler was also responsible for sending his brownshirts to incite the people so he could play the role of solving their problems. No one believed Hitler was guilty of these crimes until after the fact.

Then it was too late.

NO—Just NO.

Trying to come up with methods to decrease gun carnage is NOT analogous with Hitler and the Nazis. First of all, most of the quotes, statistics and stories cited by the right wing are historically inaccurate, and second of all, it is horribly insensitive to even bring it up as a comparison.

The Anti-Defamation League explains it thusly, “"The idea that supporters of gun control are doing something akin to what Hitler's Germany did to strip citizens of guns in the run-up to the Second World War is historically inaccurate and offensive, especially to Holocaust survivors and their families."

Oh, and about comparing abortion to the Holocaust?

New York, NY, November 9, 2011 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today derided as "cynical and perverse" a movie that unequivocally compares the murder of millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust to women having abortions in the United States, calling the film "one of the most offensive and outrageous abuses of the memory of the Holocaust we have seen in years."

That Is All...(except for this)

UPDATE

Apparently Todd Kincannon’s need for an assistant didn’t prompt sufficient contributions. He now claims that someone has gone to the Columbia, SC police department to try to have him arrested and that they “swatted” his old office address or something. So he’s NOW looking for donations to his legal defense fund—sound familiar?

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon

The Left is trying to have me arrested over#TGDN. I cannot represent myself. Please contribute to #TGDN legal defense: http://is.gd/1Hrpgj