If You Support LGBTs Then Don’t Spend Money That Will Be Used To Hurt Them

image of Eat more chikin and hate gays

There has been a lot of ink and electrons spent about the controversy over Chick-fil-A and its CEO supporting anti-gay groups and causes. I’ve known for a couple of years that Chick-fil-A was not a friend of the LGBT community and have chosen not to spend my money at any of their stores. There has been the typical conservative backlash. My feeling is if you support LGBTs then don’t spend money that will be used to hurt them.

The controversy got started earlier in the month when owner Dan Cathy made public statements against gay marriage which also brought out the fact that the company donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups. The public relations dust up caused the Jim Henson company to pull out of a kids meal promotion and the outrage overflowed onto many articles in print and on the Internet from the LGBT community and its allies.

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Hurry Up, Or You’ll Miss The Herman Cain Bandwagon?

One of my conservative friends is on the Herman Cain bandwagon. He posts articles focused on Cain and has said that Cain should be the next President. Of course he ignores his own complaints about Obama in 2008 being unqualified for office and making some comments about Obama’s race. Republicans like my friend SAY they like Cain but they won’t put him up for nomination and part of it is Cain’s policies. By primary time his bandwagon will be in the ditch just like Sarah Palin’s.

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Honoring the correct history of the 4th of July

Fireworks

This is just in case Dave Barton, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and other thick heads need a refresher on American History. I recommend the entire School House Rock series. Those short videos helped me through school at times. Lucky for us these were made before the fans of anti-intellectualism got a chance to rewrite history. Happy 4th of July!

School House Rock – Shot Heard ‘Round the World (America Rock)

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Both sides DON’T Do it

The US had one of those tragic moments on Saturday January 8th that causes deep sadness and reevaluation of ourselves. When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others were shot six of whom were killed including a 9 year old girl, we have to step back and naturally find out why this happened and can it be prevented from happening. A larger picture also has to be to examine if the air of our political debates was poisoned by violent imagery and rhetoric that came mostly from the right. I believe it’s poisoned and they need to tone it down.

Right now I don’t care if the Tucson shooter was a Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin fan or not. What I do know is those on the right like Beck and Palin who freely use violent imagery and rhetoric in their public speeches may not have pulled the trigger but they spilled a can of gasoline in an enclosed room just waiting for a spark.

You really have to examine yourself if you think violent talk is a good way to discuss politics especially with our history of political violence and assassinations.

How did that become okay?

The corporate media is complicit in creating and allowing that kind of talk to take root. They should have jumped on it and nipped in the bud but instead they stayed on the sideline counting their advertising dollars.

The right and the media have been quick to get defensive and claim “Both sides do it…” but that is a big lie meant to distract us from seeing the blood on their hands. Both sides DON’T do it. Right now the poison is coming from the right and their defensiveness – like a debutante getting the vapors – is telling.

And if Sarah Palin feels bad for being made a scapegoat for her stupid cross-hairs graphic and “lock and load” tweet when it was posted, then there are some Muslims who know exactly how she feels. She should find out how they coped with it after the Fort Hood shooting.

And no I am not calling for censorship – just think about how you say things. Most people don’t use curse words in every day speech and no one complains about censorship. Personally I think anyone who has to use violent imagery and rhetoric for political discussions come off as big douchebags.

As uber nerd Wil Wheaton says “Don’t be a dick”. You can still get your point across – about how much you hate Democrats and President Obama – without using violent words and images to do it. We will all understand.

Hey Tea Party and Sarah Palin – racism doesn’t mean just using the N-word

Members of the tea parties and Governor quitter Sarah Palin complained about the NAACP calling out the Tea party people for being racist. As pointed out by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, being racist isn’t just about using racist language or simply being in a majority white group.

Professor Harris-Lacewell was on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and she said something profound that will help me explain in the future how you can be racist and not use the N-word or join the Klan and why many white people claim not to see racism, or claim it doesn’t exist, unless it is overt like that.

[I]f you regularly support public policy which will have a disparate impact, creating greater inequality for people of color, that that is racially biased.

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Transcript of specific segment:

OLBERMANN: I was going to ask you about this sincerity of misperception. I`ve always wondered if we`re dealing with the kind of mental euphemism that in previous — when there have been previous backlashes against advances in relations between races, they were still in a time when it was OK to come out and campaign on the “we`ve done enough for them” platform, which was essentially done in 1966 by the Republicans. They won a boat load of seats in the House running on those platforms after the Civil Rights Acts. You can`t say something like that anymore in almost any aspect of society. The fringes, obviously, but not anywhere in the mainstream. Is this inability to see racism and to need to provide a euphemism for it internal? They need to believe there`s no racism, and therefore they don`t see it?

HARRIS-LACEWELL: Maybe, but it could also be simply that we`ve done a really bad job in this country talking about what racism is. So many may feel that if they don`t use the ” N” word or if they don`t actively keep a black person from getting a job or spit on a black person when they see them, then they`re not racist. And we haven`t done a very good job of talking about the fact that if you regularly support public policy which will have a disparate impact, creating greater inequality for people of color, that that is racially biased. And we haven`t talked about, for example, privilege, or we haven`t talked very well in the public about privilege. So that many white Americans feel like, well, I have a difficult circumstance; I`m losing my job; bad things are happening to me. So why should we be talking about race and racism? And we haven`t talking about, for example, how white privilege operates in the context of even, you know, an economic downturn. So it could be, in part, just sort of our fault in terms of a collective incapacity to talk about what racism really is.