Saturday, November 25, 2006

Why Aren’t Conservatives Being Required to Condemn Buchanan?

Posted by olvlzl.

Now that Michael Richards, who I'd never heard of until last week, is in trouble for making racist comments, maybe it's time to ask this quesiton again. This is from September.

W
hen Louis Farrakhan made some anti-Semitic remarks years back it was required of just about everyone who was black that they answer for it in some way. Many, many people of African ancestry who were interviewed in the following months were required to condemn or defend him, no matter if they had never met him, spoken about him or even acknowledged his existence before. The same thing has happened when other black leaders said things that were able to be construed as bigoted. Even years after, those are the rules for black people.

Pat Buchanan is a racist of decades long standing who has continually said vicious things about many different races and nationalities. Bigotry is his mother tongue. For the entire time he has made racist and veiled anti-Semitic remarks he has been a fixture in the media, in Republican and right wing politics and, for Pete’s sake, a member of Republican administrations. Louis Farrakhan was never any of those things, he has never been a part of a party establishment, the corporate media or an actual, governing, adminstration, for Pete’s sake. His campaign manager, proxy representative and sister doesn’t get to gas on about national and international issues at CNN every afternoon.

Why isn’t Bay Buchanan required to distance herself from her brother, her one-time candidate for President of the United States when he continues to gush racism? Why isn't she forced to defend his racism? Why isn’t St. Martin’s Press- Thomas Dunne Books, his publisher, made to answer for publishing it and various media outlets for airing it? Why aren’t the members of the Republican establishment who have hired him and made common cause with him required to condemn him whenever they appear on PBS or NPR or any other alleged news venue? Why isn’t every Republican or conservative or, for that matter, white person required to deal with this fountain of fascism in their bosom? His position in the media and in politics makes him much more of an issue than the never more than fringe character, Louis Farrakhan.

The continual absence of condemnation for Pat Buchanan’s racism on at least the same level as that meted out to black people who have said evil or even just plain stupid things on only ONE occasion constitutes more than acceptance of Buchanan’s racism. We have every reason to see it as an endorsement of it. His racism isn't a one or even two time thing, it's been going on for decades.

Yes, I do mean those nice media people are panderers for racism. They are the genteel face of Buchananism.