Rep. John Lewis: Then and Now

From Sugar and Spice, Sugar’s comments on John Lewis’s recent race-baiting remarks directed at the McCain campaign:

I’m pretty much at a loss for words regarding the news that Georgia Congressman, and civil rights icon John Lewis said this about John McCain:

“What I am seeing reminds me of too much of another destructive period in American history,” Lewis said in a statement released to FOX News. “Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.”

“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights,” Lewis added. “Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

I’m so sad about this. So very sad. Some months ago, I wrote about how the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was being pimped for Obama’s sake and now this. Lewis lived through the George Wallace era. He knows what that was like and he knows damn well that the issues of today where race relations are concerned can not compare to the hell minorities were living in back then. Why in God’s name would he say something so absolutely ridiculous?

I’m just. I’m flabbergasted by all of this, and my decision to not utter “yeah Congressman Lewis!” after hearing this news makes me a sellout? No, that makes me sane. I haven’t heard McCain or Palin once urge anybody to not vote. The idiocy of this all is just shocking and forgive me the disrespect, but John Lewis is a fool for pimping himself out like this after the way the Obama goons railroaded him into switching his support from Hillary to Obama.

Video of Rep. John Lewis on the PBS News Hour, January 14, 2008.

Video of Rep. John Lewis after he was pressured into switching his support to Obama after he was threatened with losing his seat in the House.

Video of Rep. John Lewis comparing John McCain with George Wallace

Unbelievable. Funny, I don’t remember this kind of media outrage when Barack Obama gave Hillary Clinton the finger. Or when Obama supporters yelled, “iron my shirt!” Or any of the too numerous to count episodes of misogyny that took place during the primaries. I don’t see the slightest effort to point out the sexism against Sarah Palin either. Yes people are angry, and unfortunately they are going to get angrier if the press insists on forcing their chosen candidate down our throats. It has gotten so heavy handed at this point that I dread what will happen when the votes are counted–regardless of which candidate wins, it looks like it could be very ugly.

Columbus Day a.k.a. Día de la Raza a.k.a. end of Native peoples in the Americas

Here we go again, another Columbus Day, another manufactured holiday.   A long time ago when I lived in Massachusetts, a well-intentioned Caucasian female high school friend wished me a “Happy Columbus Day.”  My response to her was that I don’t celebrate genocide, to which expanded into a detailed conversation and then she asked “so why do they celebrate it then?”   At the time, I didn’t know the answer to that question.  

(UPDATE:  I now have a reason to celebrate October 12, I am now the proud aunt of a baby boy born 20 minutes ago!)

I did realize that October is considered “Hispanic Heritage Month” for the last 40 years or so and she was kind enough to assume that this was something that I actually celebrated, being of Hispanic/Latino descent.  LBJ enacted a week to celebrate Hispanic/Latino Americans and Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month.  True, there are many important and significant holidays that are celebrated in some countries in Latin America that coincidentally fall on “Hispanic Heritage Month” but Columbus Day is considered the highlight of the entire period.  I never felt compelled to celebrate Columbus Day or feel a sense of pride because it commemorates an event that meant death and destruction for Native peoples across the Americas, as well as the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade.  The Spanish Wikipedia entry is far more detailed here, but well explained by Wikipedia English here:  

Saturday Night Open Thread

The old one kept crashing my browser, and I don’t want to go to bed yet.

What’s on your mind tonight?

(graphic courtesy of Despair.com)