Not This Time Pat Buchanan
Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 03:49:10 PM PDT
A friend of mine e-mailed me a copy of Pat Buchanan's racist screed from March 21ST today. I'm not sure if it is going around via email or she just thought I should read it. My first response was this:
There are no words strong enough to show how offensive Pat Buchanan is. His facts are wrong , his rhetoric fit for the KKK. Hopefully this will put the end to his being all over TV spewing his racist rants. He has a right to free speech, but we also have a resposibility to call it what it is. Pat Buchanan chooses to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Hopefully the majority of Americans will choose to be part of the solution
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I then added a link and quotes from Obama's speech.link
But as the day wore on, I couldn't help thinking about it, and how offensive Buchanan is. It's not just recently either. His 1992 speech at the Republican national convention was one of the most hateful things I've ever seen on TV.
So I wrote my friend again:
Sorry Pat not this time.
Patrick Buchanan has been one of the Republicans' most ardent bigots for years. For years he's been trying to tell us we should fear people who aren't "like us." That the "Others" whether they be liberals, blacks, Muslims, or the convenient foil of the day is the reason the "regular " guy can't get ahead.
We aren't falling for it anymore. The reason the "regular" guy can't get ahead is not because of some "other" group taking our jobs and changing our culture. The reason we aren't getting ahead is because too many of us have been listening to people like Pat Buchanan for the last 30 years.
Small government and lower taxes sounds great when you are talking about taking away benefits for some "Welfare Queen", because we will never be in that position. We regular folks are self reliant after all. But it starts to not look so smart when you have to wonder if the toys you are buying for your children are filled with lead, the food on your table contains toxic bacteria, and even the pet food makes them sick. It doesn't look so smart when there's arsenic in the water, or Mad cow in the meat.
"Let the market work" sounds like the right, conservative thing to do, until half the homes in your neighborhood are suddenly in foreclosure and your house is worth less than your mortgage. "Let the market work" sounds great until "the market" is on the verge of collapsing.
Lower taxes sound good until you realize that our great grandchildren are going to be paying for our irresponsibility. Deficits DO matter. Who knew?
It's not the liberals, African Americans, illegal aliens or Muslims that are causing problems for the middle class. It's Republican policies that cater to the large corporations at the expense of the consumer, or the worker. It's policies that give tax breaks to companies to send our jobs to India or China. It's policies that give billions of dollars in tax credits to oil companies making record profits, while any suggestion that tax credits go to alternative sources of energy are derided as needless subsidies. It's policies that strip us of our freedoms while pretending to make us safer. It's politics that put short term gain for the party ahead of what's good for the country. It's politics that turns neighbor against neighbor and appeals to the worst in ourselves.
What Barack Obama offers us, is different. It is a politics that seeks to unite us as a country. That appeals to what is best in us. The same things that got us through a civil war, WW1, the great depression, and WW2. The work ethic, innovation, and sheer determination of the American people are legendary. We can do that again, with the right leadership.
Not this time Pat, we're onto you.
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