Posts tagged: Politicians

Forgive And Forget

By , July 8, 2010 1:22 am

When public figures break the law or do something very bad, forgiving and forgetting can be two very different things.

Two weekends ago, Chris Brown tried to resurrect his career and redeem himself in the eyes of the public with a tribute to Michael Jackson at the BET Awards. The performance was almost a year to the day since Brown pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. The first half of Brown’s performance was a dance tribute to Jackson. The second half was Brown weeping to Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.” He was supposed to sing the song, but Brown appeared as if he couldn’t hold back his tears. I say “appeared” because there are allegations that the tears weren’t real.

Another redemption story came to an end a few hours after Brown’s performance. Robert Byrd – the longest serving U.S Senator in history – died that Monday morning at age 92. Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940′s, voted against Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court and filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Then in the late 1960′s, Byrd had a turnaround on race. He supported the creation of the Martin Luther King National Holiday and endorsed Barack Obama for president. How’s that for a switch? A former Klan member endorsing the man who would become the first black president.

Also that same weekend, the world mourned (again) over Michael Jackson’s death. One year after he died, the media and some of the public rehashed the King of Pop’s life, death and money. Though he was never convicted of anything, the allegations of child molestation followed him for over a decade. Those allegations along with the years of strange behavior  - we all know he did, so I won’t list the incidents here – made the Michael Jackson who died into someone different from the one who made hit records. There was one Michael Jackson who was a megastar performer in the 1970s and 1980s and became one of the most famous performers on the planet. Then from about 1993 until his death, he was another Michael Jackson: the guy who once a megastar, but did a lot of weird things and was accused of molesting kids.

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Rand Paul, Businesses and Equality

By , May 30, 2010 6:13 pm

I watched Rand Paul’s infamous interview with Rachel Maddow in which he doesn’t give his complete support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was painful watching the newly-nominated Republican U.S. Senate from Kentucky dance around a direct answer to the question of whether businesses should be able to discriminate on the basis of race. Paul said he is personally against institutional racism, discrimination and segregation, and against those things in the public sphere. He just couldn’t bring himself to say the government has the right to tell private businesses that they’re not allowed to discriminate.

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Everything from banks and corporations to restaurants and bowling alleys would be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, in his view. From his statement about people in wheelchairs working in two-story buildings, it sounds like businesses would be able to treat disabled people differently, too. And, I’ll go out on a limb and say that in Paul’s worldview, they would be able to discriminate on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.

So, according to Paul, prejudice and discrimination is bad, but it would be allowed for private businesses. If he were to be elected as senator, it doesn’t appear he wouldn’t do anything in that capacity to stop it.

I don’t think these views make Rand Paul racist. Nor do I think that the Libertarian or small government movements are racist either. But their antipathy toward the federal government has blinded them so much that they would allow private businesses to discriminate without any legal recourse. If Paul and his supporters put a business’s desire to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or disability above the need for all citizens to be treated equally, then the movement is flawed.

The Old South Isn’t Folksy or Elegant

By , May 1, 2010 12:41 am

Two states just wrapped up a month that they dedicated to Confederate history or “heritage.”

Movie Poster For 'Gone With The Wind'

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Confederacy is celebrated in some states when the it and the Confederate flag get away with little or no criticism in popular culture. It’s because those other representations of the antebellum South are romanticized as if straight out of Gone With The Wind. That film begins with the following on the screen:

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…

What’s incredible is that the quote includes slavery as part of the pretty world of the film’s “Old South.”

Flash forward to today. For some, the Old South is still that pretty world. For them, it’s either country and folksy or, just the opposite, elegant and aristocratic. There are films like Sweet Home Alabama where the parents of Reese Witherspoon’s character have sofa pillows with the Conferderate Flag on them. And I like watching fast cars jumping over things as much as the next guy. When The Dukes of Hazzard movie came out, though, with the General Lee and the Confederate flag on top of it, I couldn’t go see the film. Then there is the country-pop act Lady Antebellum. The story behind their name is that the band thought they looked good in pre-Civil War style photo shoot. Ok, but is that the only name they could think of? Didn’t anyone think it might be a problem for a country band from the South to be called a name that references and glamorizes (that would be the “Lady” part) the pre-Civil War era?
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Confederate History Month

By , April 19, 2010 9:20 pm

If you know me, you know that I love history and that I truly believe having a complete understanding of history is important so we’re not doomed to repeat it (as the saying goes). Understanding and celebrating history, though, are two different things. So, the fact that several states are currently having Confederate History Month boggles my mind.

Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Bob McDonnell Holds Women's Rally

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell came under fire earlier this month for leaving slavery out of his declaration of April as Confederate History Month. He apologized, put slavery in the new declaration and the story died shortly after that. I don’t think the controversy should have been about why was slavery left out of the Virginia declaration. The controversy should have been why is Virginia, as well as Georgia and Alabama, having Confederate History Month at all?

The Civil War wasn’t a noble struggle for states’ rights. The only state “right” the Confederacy defended was slavery. The Civil War was only about slavery. Defending slavery wasn’t just about perpetuating a the slave labor system (which, even if Lincoln hadn’t ended it, probably wouldn’t have been able to sustain itself anyway). It was about having a population that boosted slave states’ representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Even though slaves couldn’t vote, they counted towards 3/5 of person toward representation in Congress. Not only did that influence the passage of laws, it influenced the Electoral College which elects the president. Southern states seceded because they saw their voting power and economic way of life being threatened by abolitionists and the balance of power toward the free states in North. The balance of free and slave states was maintained by the Compromises of 1820 and 1850 and helped keep the Union together. But numerous events in the 1850s began to shake this fragile balance. One event was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act which empowered the federal government to capture, try and return escaped slaves to their masters, even in free states. Slave-holding states didn’t care about “states’ rights” when it came to getting their slaves back.

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Average And Elite Politicians

By , February 16, 2010 4:04 pm
Palin addresses the Tea Party

Sarah Palin’s and Barack Obama’s very different styles and appeal illustrate the contradiction Americans have about our leaders. Some people like Joe the Plumbers. Others like elites. Others like the two wrapped up into one.

Palin, who has said she’s thinking about running for president in 2012, blew away the Tea Party Convention crowd in Nashville for a price of $100,000. What unique brand of folksy does the Tea Party get for 100-grand? She delivers lines like, “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for ya?” and writes on her hand. (You’d think with all that money, she could just remember the four concepts she scribbled on her palm.)

On the other hand (pun intended), Obama’s State of the Union speech last month was just the opposite of Palin’s folksy speech. There were the customary two introductions of the president and 91 ovations, including 58 that brought Congress – at least some of them – to their feet. Kings, queens and dictators get that type of adulation.

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Business As Usual

By , December 27, 2009 10:09 pm

This is why Americans have such a low opinion of politicians.

CNN filed a report about the back room deals needed to get Democrats to pass a filibuster-proof health care bill in the Senate. Take Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He was the last senator to agree to vote for the bill. What did this Democrat get for his state? The Federal Government will pay 100% of Nebraska’s share of Medicaid funding for all low-income Americans.. indefinitely!

Senate moves forward on health care reform bill in Washington

The CNN story goes into detail about several deals like this. When pressed on the issue of back room dealing, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said about the bill, “If they don’t have something in it important to them, then it’s — [it] doesn’t speak well of them.”

It doesn’t? It doesn’t speak well of our representatives to vote for the bill solely because they believe in reforming healthcare? I’m definitely not a part of the Tea Party movement, but their line about corruption in Washington begins to ring true when the Senate Majority Leader says this at press conference. 

Government handouts to states or districts in exchange for votes shouldn’t be business as usual.

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