So, while going through Salon's coverage of CPAC, the theme I really detected this year was gut-punching, overt racism. One of the most astounding examples---besides everything that falls out of Andrew Breitbart's mouth---is one of the groups that manned a booth at CPAC, Youth for Western Civilization. And by "Western civilization", what they mean is "people who are currently considered white people in modern America". I know this, because his group vociferously opposes immigration, especially when it comes to people from South and Central America, and definitely from Mexico---if you're speaking Spanish, they're against it. Going to their blog confirms this; most of it is ranting about the evils of immigration reform that would make life easier on mostly-Hispanic immigrants who've come here illegally.
Here's what I would like to point out to Kevin DeAnna and his friends in the art of defending "Western civilization": Latin America is Western civilization. Or, if you're going to say that the United States is, you have to include Latin America. DeAnna is quoted at Salon as describing Western civilization as, "a cultural compound of Christian, classical, and the folk traditions of Europe." Well, I have to point out that Spain is not only European, but it's more European than England, which gave us our language, being on the actual continent and all. Sure, former colonies all have unique cultures from the European nations that originally colonized them, but that's equally true of the United States as anywhere else. Using "Western civilization" as a cover to bash immigrants, but Mexican immigrants especially is not only racist, but fucking stupid beyond all belief.
Let's play a game I like to call "guess who's the Klan?" I've pulled mission-statement-type language off the website for YWC and the KKK. See if you can guess who is who? Answers at the bottom of the post, so you can guess first.*
The hatred for our children and their future is growing and is being fueled every single day. Stay firm in your convictions. Keep loving your heritage and keep witnessing to others that there is a better way than a war torn, violent, wicked, socialist, new world order. That way is the Christian way - law and order - love of family - love of nation. These are the principles of western Christian civilization.
And:
Instead, [multiculturalism] is about learning politically correct slogans that are designed to denigrate Western heritage in general and American heritage in particular. Multiculturalism is really about destroying and dispossessing the people and culture of the West, not about an appropriate education about other peoples......
There is no reason to believe that the advances of modernity and the political freedoms we enjoy will endure with the extinction of the civilization that allowed them to exist. Western Civilization is our civilization and despite the bigotry and hatred of the radical left, we have no wish to see our civilization be sent to the graveyard of history.
I suppose, on one level, this is shooting fish in a barrel. But on the other hand, it's not like people like Andrew Breitbart aren't mainstreamed in the conservative movement and therefore have a baffling pull on the mainstream media. You know, even though Breitbart is a proven and known liar, who is probably going to be on the hook for a whole lot of money for it if there's a sliver of justice in the world. YWC and Breitbart both are part of what Salon dubbed the Tom Tancredo wing of the Republican party. Breitbart's self-proclaimed newest obsession is trying to stifle a legal settlement that all people that aren't crazy-racist see as basic justice in its most mundane form, which is Congress taking action to make sure that black farmers who won a large and settled class action lawsuit regarding years of discrimination at the hands of the Department of Agriculture get the money they're owed. Breitbart heard that some black people are going to get some money, shit his pants, and tuned out the rest of the world to do everything in his power to make sure it doesn't happen, using his usual tools of accusing everyone in sight of corruption and fraud. (When you're an immoral liar, I guess you think everyone else is, too.) He's managed to get a single black farmer who the court didn't give money he thought was his due as cover, but I think that's a pretty transparent move to everyone but the dopiest conservatives, especially since the slams against the Pigford settlement from conservative corners are all about "slavery reparations" (which it's not) and "milking the system" and the usual accusations of widespread fraud that crop up every time conservatives discover that black people can get Treasury checks mailed to them just like white people. For instance, take the woman who held the press conference with Breitbart, Michele Bachmann. Like the people they're denouncing who got money from this lawsuit, Bachmann has gotten federal money for agriculture. I guess it's not "fraud" or "milking the system" when you're her.
*The first quote is from the KKK. The second is from the Youth for Western Civilization.
