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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by willravel
So, Host, you're saying it's partisanship, not homophobia?......
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....no, I'm not saying that the target audience of Thompson's "queer baiting" are not homophobic, I'm saying that Thompson is not motivated by his own homophobia, anymore than Lee Atwater was by his own racism, when he said:
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Southern_strategy
...In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the focus of the Republican party on winning U.S. Presidential elections by securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states.
The phrase Southern strategy was coined by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips.[1] In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, he touched on its essence:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner <b>the Negrophobe</b> whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."[2]....
In this opinion piece:
Bob Herbert expounded on what was contained in this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=eqf...fFTWc#PPA61,M1 (lower page 61 to upper page 62:
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http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/1...king-the-code/
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964 . . . and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster . . .
Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps . . . ?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'....
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....and more from the same link:
Quote:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/1...king-the-code/
....This convenient conflation of "traditional" southern culture and family, of course, ignores the fact that slave families were ruthlessly broken up. And anyway the slaves had a mental defect that made them want to run away. But, no matter. You can see how easily the neoconfederates have incorporated this "family values" rhetoric and substituted their overt racism with overt homophobia.
The neoconfederates are a marginal group. Even most conservative southerners aren’t members of such organizations as League of the South. But, as David Niewert explained last week, this language makes its way into the mainstream through the right wing noise machine until it becomes mainstream. The codes are still understood by those at whom they are aimed and the rhetoric itself becomes a normal part of the discourse. While not everyone who hates gays is also racist, you can probably feel fairly comfortable in assuming that if somebody is talking about their Christian, southern antebellum heritage and they hate gays — it’s code. For gays, sure. But also for blacks, for Mexicans, the whole kaleidoscope of colors and cultures they hate.
It is no surprise then that loaded terms such as "the homosexual agenda" have emanated from the usual racist rightwing suspects. As Jack Balkin explained:
<i>There has been considerable discussion about Justice Scalia’s accusation that the Lawrence majority had signed on to "the so-called homosexual agenda." I believe what has irked some people is that the expression "the homosexual agenda" has a history. It is a form of code often used by Jesse Helms and other social conservative politicians to whip up resentment against moderates and liberals who support gay rights. The use of the term "homosexual agenda" has been a shrewd way of intimating without overtly stating that people who supported gay rights were somehow disloyal to the country (like the hidden communist agenda) because they were assisting in the destruction of America by destroying its moral fibre, or extremist, because they supported a deeper, hidden agenda whose real goals cannot be openly announced and are instead disguised in the plausible sounding garb of equal rights.
Here’s a representative quote from Sen. Helms in support of a bill he introduced to roll back President Clinton’s executive order prohibiting discrimination against gays in federal employment:
" Mr. President, for many years the homosexual community has engaged in a well-organized, concerted campaign to force Americans to accept, and even legitimize, an immoral lifestyle. This bill is designed to prevent President Clinton from advancing the homosexual agenda at the expense of both the proper legislative role and the free speech rights of Federal workers."
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And, of course, it’s a matter of states’ rights, don’t you know.
<b>The Mighty Rightwing Wurlitzer and its little volume pedal, the bigotsphere, are continuing the long tradition of American intolerance. The good news is that they are largely forced to find ways other than overt racist language to convey their hatred and intolerance. The bad news is that they manage to do it so very well.</b> In case anyone has missed their latest brilliant rhetorical twist, here it is: if you call them on their racism, you are a racist. It’s one of the more successful applications of the GOP epistemic relativism of the "I know you are but what am I" variety. It’s quite frustrating, just as the Orwellian "losing means winning" rhetoric is. But don’t mistake it for anything but what it is. It’s not just a lame riposte. It’s not a defense. It’s code to others who think as they do. Racists.
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