Black Box Report

Fun Fact! It was 105 years ago today that segregationist icon Sen. Strom Thurmond was born. It was Thurmond's original Southern Strategy of splintering the Dixiecrats off from the Democratic Party - and his eventual defection to the GOP in 1964 - that was most emblematic of the shift in the racial attitudes of the two national parties, thus forever making the GOP's nickname, "the party of Lincoln" an ironic joke. And while "celebrate" is not a word that comes to mind when acknowledging the birthday of a racist like Thurmond, it's important to recognize that while HE may be dead, the racism he represented lives on in today's conservative movement.

Take Pat Buchanan, for example, claiming that diversity - specifically Teh Hispanics - is destroying American culture:

Buchanan made it clear that it’s not just illegal immigration he believes is a threat to this country, it’s the Hispanic element. “You’ve got a wholesale invasion, the greatest invasion in human history, coming across your southern border, changing the composition and character of your country,”

Guardians Against ¡Reconquista!, to your posts! Pat is pining away for those early halcyon days of American history when we were all white, European Christians - after we took care of all the redskin savages, of course. So what Pat is lamenting the loss of is not American culture per se, but the top-dog status of HIS culture:

What can Americans say is uniquely our own? Maybe NASCAR and obesity, but not much else. But Mr. Buchanan must mean...WASP culture.

It is views like Mr. Buchanan's that caused the fracturing of societies across the globe. Should Jews have to stop being Jews because they majority of Americans are Christian? Should we ban Muslims from building mosques? Should we burn books because they challenge the idea of the WASP ideal? It is not a far jump to go from xenophobia to racism to hatred to genocide. Americans committed genocide once against the Native Americans because they were different; are we so deluded that we think this can't happen again?

I'd say Pat's that delusional, but I don't think he'd have a problem if some enterprising Americans started passing out smallpox-infected blankets in "Sanctuary Cities." Of course, it's not just the Mexicans. Muslims have brown-hued skin as well, AND worship a different God (!!!), so you know rightwing radio host Michael Savage doesn't like them. He's called the Koran a book of hate, called for the building of mosques to be outlawed and advocated the killing of 100 million muslims. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is now calling on advertisers to drop his show:

CAIR went after his advertisers and has launched a netroots campaign...designed to rip out his intestines and feed it to him. Advertisers are sent the audio feed of his commentary and then asked if they would like to continue supporting him, and of course, who would want to support the above audio sounds bites?

Needless to say, he’s already lost some big advertisers - he’s lost Citrix Systems (you may not know who they are, but in the IT world, trust me, they’re pretty big), and he’s just lost OfficeMax*. More advertisers are on their way out...Like all other hosts, once the money starts walking, his bosses will muzzle him. They don’t care about his views, after all. They simply care about the money his rants bring in, and when they stop bringing in money, his rants are no longer needed.

(*UPDATE: Add AutoZone, TrustedID, JC Penny, Wal-Mart and AT&T to the list.)

But despite Buchanan and Savage's following, they are but small fish in the scum-lined pond of American racism. Tom Tancredo, on the other hand, is a US Representative and presidential candidate, and his new ad doesn't just warn of the threat to white American culture, but that illegal immigrants are coming to sell drugs to your children, rape them, kill them AND DESTROY YOUR LIVES!!!

Think I'm exaggerating?

Tom Tancredo is a barking loon...And I say that only because someone needs to say it. Even Michelle Malkin's money-losing media venture (a.k.a. Hot Air) thinks it's too much:

He turns the issue into a hamfisted "red scare"-era newsreel about barbarians coming to burn and/or pillage America...Gang violence is a component of having open borders. But it's only a component, and the more he tries to inflate it the more sensationalistic and less convincing it becomes.

Even money says his next ad is about illegals importing exotic diseases.

Can't imagine why the Tanc is only polling at 1%.

I have an idea. Let's set aside a nice desert island for Tancredo, Savage, Buchanan and all their paranoid racist followers and deport THEM, so they can live their lives in WASP-y, lilly-white peace and quiet.

The rest of us will get along just fine without them.