David Frum was on the ironically named "Reliable Sources" on CNN hosted by Howard Kurtz and Frum called the Daily Kos anti-Semitic twice this morning.
And if we're going to talk about anti-Semitism on the campaign trail in 2006, I think people should be reading the comment section at the Daily Kos, where you will see it rich and bold and vivid. LINK
Of course, the discussion was about George Allen's response to the debate question this week regarding Allen's Jewish lineage where he attacked the reporter who asked by accusing her of casting "aspersions" on him. In my little world, recognizing that someone is Jewish is not an aspersion. In Allen's ever shrinking world he understands it to be an "aspersion" because he knows what I know.
As a lily white girl from the South, I can tell you definitively that David Frum doesn't know how to pick reliable allies and he clearly has trouble identifying the real threats to him and the Jewish people.
Again I find myself in the very uncomfortable position of airing the dirtiest laundry of certain portions of the white Christian community in this country. David Frum may be a nationally read reporter, but he does not have the access that I have to the real story of racism and bigotry here. He NEVER will either. He can go to all the WASPY DC cocktail parties in the world, but he will never be an insider like I am. George Allen knows that and that is why the revelation that he is a descendant of a Jew is so threatening to him. You see Allen has up until now been on the inside and he knows what I know.
Where Allen and I diverge in philosophy is that he thought all this racist and bigoted shit was "neato keen" and I have always found it repulsive and disgusting.
I am going to be really blunt here. David Frum may not be the first person these racits bigots would put on the train if they had their way, but he would not EVER be spared. Neither would Allen now that his heritage is exposed and he knows that as well as I do.
Allen said, "now it is personal".
Oh yeah it is, Mr. Allen. We know just how personal it is don't we? You and I know just how personal it is with people like your friends at the Council of Conservative Christians, or for the devotes at the Ku Klux Klan and all of the other groups that adhere to white supremacist ideology. You and I both know, Mr. Allen how sick and mean this crowd really is because we have seen it from the inside. The difference is that you enjoyed it and it repulsed me.
Of course, it is important to note that Mr. Allen sought these people out. He got himself some cowboy boots (not sure why he thought that was a symbol of white supremacy but whatever it shows how much of an alien to the Southern culture he really is), a Confederate Flad, a noose, and wrapped himself in the all American flag and his Daddy's football legacy. From California he traveled to Virginia to make the connections with racist bigots he desperately desired.
I, on the other hand, was born into a Southern family and while my family was generally deviod of racist and bigoted sentiments, I was exposed to white supremacists and christian dominionists with some regularity. Not only was I taught in no uncertain terms that their philosophy was morally repugnant, I had a natural and viscereal negative reaction to these people and their ideology. In other words, no one really had to tell me that it was wrong because that seemed obvious to me. I recognized the inequities that black folks suffered even as a child and I thought they were wrong. I really thought everybody did. I remember attending birthday parties when I was very young in the summers I spent with my Grandmother in the small Alabama town my father grew up in. Little did I know that some of the other kids that attended these parties when we were three, four, five etc. would grow up to be members of the KKK and or the CCC. Most of them did not, but some did.
I found out at a Christmas party at the Country Club when I was 17 that some of my contemporaries were white supremacists when one was bold enough to express his thoughts about sending all black people back to Africa. David Frum would not have been allowed at this party at the Country Club. Up until recently George Allen would have been. It is important to keep that fact top of mind in reading the story I am sharing here. It is a story I don't much like telling because it is true and it is dark and sad really. I was a guest at the club because I was not a local.
My family lived in several different cities after leaving Alabama when I was four. My exposure to my Southern roots occured generally at Christmas and during a month or so most summers of my life. Well that and growing up with my Southern Father who taught me everything I know about equality, egalitarianism and democracy for all. We are not contrary to popular belief all racist bigots in the South, but we definitely have them as the world is rediscovering now as George Allen's story becomes more and more public. We in the South are very good at identifying the racist bigots though. They find each other and we see them for what they are and we need little time to identify them. My father taught me how to spot a racist bigot from a mile away and he made damn sure that I didn't develop even a remote sympathy or minor positive thought about their ideology. It was wrong, bad, unacceptable and the lowest form of TRASH. Allen was easy to spot as far back as his stint as governor.
But back to the Country Club Christmas party that David Frum would have been excluded from because he is Jewish - to make it very clear for Mr. Frum, we at dKos think that exclusion based on religion is a BAD thing. This guy who I had grown up with started with his anti-Black commentary all smiles expecting me to agree with him. I smiled (we do that in the South even when we are enraged) and told him that if his great granddaddy had slaves he'd likely be deporting his own relatives. It got really quiet and I am not kidding when I say that the people in the room divided themselves into my side and his side.
On a side note: I was all the rage because I was visiting from our home in San Francisco, wearing the very lastest in "Paris styles" and being an oddity people were listening to me. It was a bit surprising really at the time. He had his equally racist then girlfriend (and now wife) standing behind him along with two other guys. The rest of the room had gathered behind me. To be honest, the dynmic of the divide was really weird - it was like movie something out of a movie how the crowd parted. Anyhow, even though I knew the danger of challenging the KKK types, my family's stature and the fact that I was a girl, made me immune to potential payback. This guy's family made money off of mine and hence knew his place in the pecking order. Going against us wasn't going to be in his best interest. I rarely took advantage of my power in that regard, but in a case like this one I felt that the hierarchy was being used for good and not evil.
A heated debate ensued. It never got "ugly" as we say, but I had "my team" laughing at my opponent and cheering me on in the end after they caught their breath. In the South, that is a win. That is what George Allen thought he had with Sidarth and that crowd. When you can sufficiently undermine someone's credibility whilst laughing and smiling all the way through, you have won in our culture. Now, unlike Allen, I didn't call my opponent names at all. We refrain from that sort of lowly debate tactic - a temptation that Allen clearly can't resist. I simply pointed out that his world view was insane and wrong using facts, logic and principles of democracy. The good news is that the vast majority agreed with my point of view. That night has become something of a legend. There are snickers about my then opponent's subsequent endeavor in the employ of the KKK, that eventually forced him to run back to this small town in fear of his life. I won't go into detail, but the conflict had something to do with money.
His white supremacist views haven't changed though. That was not something I would have been able to accomplish at a Christmas (not "holiday") party at the Country Club more than 20 years ago. He home schools his children and complains about paying taxes for education. He keeps his kids at home because he doesn't want them exposed to black people. He told me recently that since I have land and don't live in the state, I should join his fight against public schools because part of my taxes are going to schools I don't use. Now I have a hell of a lot of land by most people's standards and I am not even going to tell you how much I pay in taxes, but it ain't much and if it goes to schools I am happy. Frankly, I can't figure out how they keep the schools open when they collect so little revenue. I countered by saying that I thought he should send his kids to the public school to get more for his tax money and suggested that he stop isolating his kids from the world.
He doesn't like Jews either. If some Jewish people showed up and built themselves a nice temple in town, I assure you that he would be very unhappy. Just moving into town would be a problem in his mind. That view might go back to that Bible class we were both in one summer as teenagers where they brought in these hippie-looking people who played the most god-awful Christian rock music and told us that the Jews killed Jesus; they presented the most disgusting descriptions and pictures of the torture Jesus endured on the cross at the hands of people they characterized as "evil Jews"; and they made no mention of the Romans.
The Bible class as it turned out was a hate meeting which prompted me to tell my Grandmother that I would never go to one of those things again. She was actually embarassed that these people had come to her church to spread hate. She never made me go with her to church again. My Father read her the riot act for exposing me to them, but I knew that she was just as surprised and disappointed as I was. But my opponent liked it. He grooved on it. Like George Allen, he was always attracted to ideology and rationalizations that would in his mind put him in a superior category to others on earth. These are people who thrive in a world centered around "us v. them".
I have yet to check with my opponent on his views on the Hispanic population that has grown of late in the region, but knowing him he'd probably take a dim view of them too unless they were painting his house real cheap in which case they'd be fine at least for the duration of the project. Knowing his pattern of attaching himself to any "us v. them" cause, he has likely latched onto the most vile position represented in the anti-immigration crusade.
David Frum is, has and always has been "them" to the people like my opponent who adhere to white Christian supremacy. George Allen is now entering that murky world of not belonging - George Allen is now "them". No matter how hard he tries, now that his heritage has been revealed he is a permanent outsider. The difference between Allen and me is that he wants to be an insider and I do not. I have no choice but to endure these people's commentary because they think I am one of them. I find it disturbing and disgusting to witness the darkest of hearts spew their hateful views of people they don't even know. I find it depressing and sad to know first hand that level of hatred. That is partly why I reject racism and bigotry so vehemently in my posts on Daily Kos and in my life. I just can't handle that much hate in my life. I hang around Daily Kos because racism and bigotry is NOT acceptable here. Those of us devoted to equality and fairness are in the resounding majority here.
We at Daily Kos do not cast aspersions on people because of race or religion.
I hang around Daily Kos because it helps me to believe that people like my opponent, George Allen and other racist bigots - who for instance call people monkeys because of the color of their skin and gain some delusional sense of power from the act - are in the minority and can be overcome. I hang around Daily Kos because it gives me hope that the racists and bigots will not win; and counters the sadness I carry from just knowing first hand what dark and evil thoughts and plans the white supremacists have in mind. David Frum has thrown the word "evil" at a lot of people in his career. It might even be considered his signature term. Interestingly, he is surrounded by evil within his own conservative movement and seems to have no clue at all. None.
To David Frum, I'd like to say that what you don't know won't hurt you, but I'd be lying. The reality is that when and if your usefulness to their crusade has run its course, you will be thrown under the bus. You think you are an insider, but trust me darlin' you are not.
You may never come over to the light, Mr. Frum, but millions of Americans are going to keep the home fires burning in the netroots, the grassroots and in the Liberal movement by contiually striving to form a more perfect union, establish (and preserve) justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Many of those you defend, Mr. Frum, with your baseless attacks against us, are working very hard to achieve the opposite of those ideals listed above. All I can say is that I pity you and George Allen for so desperately wanting to be insiders with that crowd.