Shirley Sherrod: You and I can't yield – not now, not ever

The following is the text of an e-mail to NAACP supporters on August 17, 2010:

Back in March, I delivered a speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in my home state of Georgia. I drew on my personal life story to urge poor people, white and black, to pull together and overcome racial divisions. We have to understand that our struggle is against poverty and against those who are blocking our path out of poverty.

Unless we figure this out, I warned, our communities won't thrive and our children won't prosper.

As you know, a Tea Party blogger named Andrew Breitbart released an intentionally deceptive, heavily edited clip from that speech to make it look as if I was delivering exactly the opposite message. Then Fox News blasted that false message across America's airwaves, creating a firestorm that led to my ouster as the USDA State Director here in Georgia.

Not long ago, I sat here in my living room in Albany, Georgia for an afternoon of deep conversation with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. As he has done in public, Ben movingly apologized for the fact that the NAACP was initially hoodwinked by Breitbart and Fox into supporting my removal. I told him what I want to tell you.

That's behind us, and the last thing I want to see happen is for my situation to weaken support for the NAACP. Too many people confronted by racism and poverty count on the NAACP to be there for them, especially those in rural areas who often have nowhere else to turn.

People ask me, "Shirley, how are you getting through all of this?" I tell them that, if they knew what I have lived through, they'd understand that these current challenges aren't about to throw me off course.

When I was 17 years old, my father was murdered by a white man in Baker County, Georgia. There were three witnesses, but the grand jury refused to indict the person responsible. I knew I had to do something in answer to my father's death.

That very night, I made a commitment that I would stay in the South and fight for change.

I have lived true to that commitment for 45 years. I didn't yield when, just months after my father was killed, they came in the middle of the night to burn a cross in front of our house with my mother, four sisters, and the baby brother my father never got to see still inside.

And I'm surely not going to yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out.

I learned a lot of lessons from my parents growing up, but one of the most important ones is what my mother taught her children after our father was killed. She told us we mustn't try to live with hate in our hearts.

My mother led by example. Just 11 years after that cross-burning incident, she became the first black elected official in Baker County, and she's still serving, still working to bring people together.

You and I have to keep working as well. Change has to start with us. I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support I have received over these last few weeks. It means so much to me and my family.

But you and I have to make sure that people all across the country who wage a daily struggle against poverty and racism have support networks as well. And that's why your personal involvement in sustaining the NAACP is so critical.

The NAACP confronts the virulent racism that my family and so many other families have had to endure. But it is also leading the way in breaking down the structural barriers that block so many people's paths out of poverty.

In our struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots," they want to keep the poor divided - and we have to insist, by our words and our actions, that there is no difference between us.

As we move forward together, I urge you to remember this: Life is a grindstone. But whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.

Thank you for all you are doing to challenge poverty and racism. I look forward to working and struggling right by your side.

Sincerely,

Shirley Sherrod

Teabagger myths about health reform debunked

From FactCheck.org

We’ve seldom seen a piece of legislation so widely misrepresented, and misunderstood, as the new health care law. We stopped counting the number of articles and items we turned out on the subject after the total reached 100.

Some of that is understandable. The debate went on for more than a year, while the different House and Senate bills changed their shape constantly. The final law was the product of an awkward two-step legislative dance that first enacted the Senate’s version, then quickly amended it with a reconciliation "fix." No wonder people are confused.

And even now the misrepresentations continue. The new law is no longer a moving target, but some opponents persist in making false or exaggerated claims about it. Our inboxes are filled with messages asking about assertions that the new law:

* Requires patients to be implanted with microchips. (No, it doesn’t.)
* Cuts benefits for military families and retirees. (No. The TRICARE program isn’t affected.)
* Exempts Muslims from the requirement to obtain coverage. (Not specifically. It does have a religious exemption, but that is intended for Old Order Amish.)
* Allows insurance companies to continue denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. (Insurance companies have agreed not to exploit a loophole that might have allowed this.)
* Will require 16,500 armed IRS agents to enforce. (No. Criminal penalties are waived.)
* Gives President Obama a Nazi-like "private army." (No. It provides a reserve corps of doctors and other health workers for emergencies.)
* "Exempts" House and Senate members. (No. Their coverage may not be as good as before, in fact.)
* Covers erectile-dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. (Just as it was before the new law, those no longer in jail can buy any insurance plan they choose.)
* Provides federal funding for abortions. (Not directly. But neither side in the abortion debate is happy with the law.)

Read the rest here...

The Struggle for Equality

Notes from Jarvis Tyner's report to the CPUSA convention

Hits on the importance of Americans electing an African American president and at the same time defeating a thirty year GOP stranglehold on the government.

Tyner noted the transformative effect of the campaign and the victory in terms of the struggle for civil rights and human rights since.

A new racist counter-offensive has emerged, "it is a major threat to everything we've won or could win in this period."

The Republicans assumed the party of "no" and proceeded to sabotage every reform needed to bring the country out of economic crisis.

Structural racism remains a fundamental part of U.S. capitalism, but since the election we've have seen a number of changes that have weakened that structure.

The racist threat from the Republicans has made the fight against racism a key feature of today's struggles.

Every time Sarah Palin speaks she says the Tea Party isn't racist. She has to, because everyone thinks they are. Palin downplays the racism of her movement and claims they are just "angry" and resentful of Obama givign to much to minorities. And now in response they want to take it back.

These ideas and claims and goals are pure racism, Tyner said.

Rand Paul, for example, who won the GOP nomination in Kentucky. He admitted that he was opposed to civil rights enforcement when it comes to private companies. It violates their first amendment rights. But, Tyner pointed out, that Paul really wants to eliminate government altogether, and that means any enforcement of civil rights protections.

Paul's claim that African Americans would have been just fine without the civil rights act represents the kind of mentality we're dealing with.

The tea party is behind the racist anti-immigration laws in Arizona.

Paul also tried to shift the burden of responsibility for the Gulf oil spill away from BP.

"If you don't smell the scent of fascism, you might need some aroma therapy," Tyner responded.

WE can now talk about a Marshall Plan for recovering the economy, and supporting the Steelworkers call for launching a new civil rights movement around economic recovery.

Tyner lauded AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's consistent call to fight racism during the election campaign and since. Tyner quote Trumka:

There are forces in our country that are working hard to convert justifiable anger about an economy that only seems to work for a few of us into racist and homophobic hate and violence directed at our President and heroes like Congressman John Lewis. Most of all, those forces of hate seek to divide working people – to turn our anger against each other.

So I also want to talk to you tonight about what I believe is the only way to fight the forces of hatred—with a strong progressive tradition that includes working people in action, organizing unions and organizing to elect public officials committed to bold action to address economic suffering. That progressive tradition has drawn its strength from an alliance of the poor and the middle class—everyone who works for a living.

Tyner also called for a jobs program that uses affirmative action policies to ensure that African American and Latino workers are not left out, because they face the worst effects of the crisis.

Youth are increasingly developing a pro-socialist attitude and should be apart of the Young Communist League.

The fight against racism against the Tea Party fanatics has to be our highest priority. And white communists have a special role in leading that charge.

What if Fox News threw a tea party and nobody came?

From MediaMatters.org:

While millions of people were scrambling to make it to the post office by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, far, far fewer showed up at Fox News' Tax Day Tea Parties. Media Matters for America extensively documented the incessant promotion of the tea parties by Fox News and its anchors and contributors. In fact, in the 10 days leading up to the protests, Fox News aired 107 ads promoting them. And in addition to encouraging its viewers to attend the protests, Fox News announced that viewers who couldn't attend could attend "a virtual tax day tea party" at TheFoxNation.com.

Well, tax day arrived, and Fox News didn't disappoint. Reporting from a protest in Boston, Fox Business Network anchor Cody Willard stated, "I'm on your side. I'm trying to take down the Fed." He also asked, "Guys, when are we going to wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?" At a protest in front of the Alamo, Glenn Beck hosted unofficial NRA head Ted Nugent, who played guitar while Beck interviewed Joe Horn, who was identified by a Fox News graphic as having "shot 2 illegals burglarizing home." Of course, Beck wasn't covering the protest so much as leading it. Meanwhile, John Gibson expressed his "hope[]" that "millions of people" would participate in the protests, while Neil Cavuto appeared to inflate the numbers at the rally he was attending in Sacramento. Cavuto stated of the Sacramento tea party: "They were expecting 5,000 here, it's got to be easily double, if not triple that." However, moments earlier, before Cavuto went on the air, a microphone caught Cavuto stating to a producer "There's gotta be 5,000" -- not "double, if not triple" that number.

Geraldo Rivera was not impressed, asserting, "The grand total of all of the tea party demonstrators" was less than the number "at that immigration rally in 2006 in the city of Chicago alone." Rivera added that the immigration rally was a "truly spontaneous demonstration," while the tea parties "may have had aspects of spontaneity."

While Bill O'Reilly was defending Fox News' coverage of the tea parties, calling it "vastly superior to anything else around," other networks were calling out Fox News for its support of the protests. On CNN, reporter Susan Roesgen grilled a Chicago protester who referred to President Obama as a "fascist" and said the protests were "highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox." On the CBS Evening News, reporter Dean Reynolds cited Beck and Cavuto as among the "rightward-leaning commentators" who "embraced the cause." On ABC's World News, reporter Dan Harris said the protests were "cheered on by Fox News and talk radio." And CNN's Howard Kurtz asserted: "I don't think I've ever seen a news network throw its weight behind a protest like we are seeing in the past few weeks with Fox and these tea parties."

But Stephen Colbert summed it up best: "I would like to throw my support behind this grassroots effort by Fox News Corporation."