Recently the Republican-owned New York Post ran a scurrilous racist cartoon comparing Obama to the Connecticut chimpanzee that was shot dead by the police. The headline read, “Who’s going to write the stimulus package now?”, a more than a sub-textual suggestion that assassinating President Obama is an option to those who disagree with him. I think that is against the law.
This week the newly elected first Black chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele, proclaimed, what should have been obvious, that he, not radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh, was the head of the GOP. Steele called Limbaugh an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary and ugly.”
Limbaugh who apparently does think he is now the party’s head went on a tirade against Steele telling him to “go behind the scenes and do your job instead of trying to be some kind of “media star.” Was this not a typical racist act: telling a Black person who thinks he’s a leader to “stay in your place?”
And as if to confirm that relationship, the next day, Steele made an embarrassing apology. This has happened before. When Washington Post columnist William Raspberry criticized Limbaugh for “gay bashing and his racial putdowns” and called Limbaugh a bigot, eleven days later he apologized too. In Republican circles, Blacks dare not criticize racism.
Steele and Raspberry told the truth. Limbaugh is a racist. He is the radio personality that said that Martin Luther King’s assassin James Earl Ray should get the Medal of Honor! He criticized the Democrats for standing behind Nelson Mandela and getting rid of the “white government of South Africa”. He calls Feminists “Feminazis” and once told a Black women caller to “take the bone out of your nose and call me back.” And of course it was on his show that aired the racist song “Barack the Magic Negro.” For many years now he has been blurting out this poison while under the influence of illegally gotten prescription drugs.
Limbaugh’s long record of vile racism, anti-women, and anti-gay bigotry is undeniable. Apparently now his voice is more powerful then the chairman of the Republican Party. That a voice of racism and hatred is now dominating the GOP is apparently ok with them.
Of course this is all done using humor – but it’s not funny. Racism is not funny. Racism, male chauvinism and homophobia are virulent and deadly ideologies.
It’s important to note that the extreme right has for too long used bigotry to rationalize its disastrous policies in defense of neo-con capitalism and imperialist policies.
The voters have spoken. The Republicans refused to listen. They would rather see the country go down the tubes than see Obama’s agenda succeed. Imagine: not one vote in the House for the stimulus package! The Democrats need to keep pushing and push harder and stronger.
In today’s political climate as opposed to before 2006, the Republican Party is headed down the road to oblivion. And I say good riddance.
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