Growing up as a gay teenager in the 1990's Jesse Helms typified the kind of racist, homophobic evil that is still being vomited up on upon our great country every day.  The kind of evil that instilled feelings of self-loathing in my friends which drove so many of them to drug abuse, alcoholism and attempted/successful suicide.

I've seen a number of diaries on here today about Jesse Helms' death today.  However, few have recounted the precise instances of hatred and evil he spewed over the decades he was alive.

If he truly held Christian beliefs, I suspect that Helms will find his new home in the afterlife to be a bit warm.  If the hell he believed in really is a place where you are tormented by your sins for eternity, let's just say that some strapping male African demons will be, ahem, "having their way" with him for a very long time.

... Read below the fold for Jesse Helms' legacy to our country ...

I have been extremely proud of my country over this past year because of Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency. In 40 years, we went from the slayings of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers to having Barack Obama heading full steam towards the White House. It is a mark of extreme progress, yet sometimes I'm reminded of the latent racism that pops up to rear its ugly head during these times. Today, the day before our day of national pride, I received one more reminder that we've come a long way, but still have far to go. Today, I got home to see this on my younger brother's back windshield:

During campaign season, most of us receive emails that make us fighting mad. When I receive an email trashing Obama (or prior to that trashing Hillary...oddly I never got any trashing Edwards) I just correct the factual errors and broken logic chains and reply to all.  That has significantly reduced the amount of smear emails I receive.

But the email I just got tonight had nothing to do with the campaign.  It's from a long-time friend with whom I completely disagree about all things political. He calls himself an independent, but he's libertarian with regard to dismantling the government and Republican with regard to social issues.  The only saving grace is that he is by all other accounts, extremely intelligent, and not likely to pass on bad information. So usually we avoid discussions of politics and discuss other things.

So I have to confess, when I received his weekend joke update, I was shocked and saddened to see this commentary at the top preceding the jokes.  I don't know if he formulated this opinion on his own or if he is parroting some talking head, but I am shocked and I am saddened.  Read over the fold for my reply to one man's comparison and contrast between Katrina and the Midwest flooding.

For those of you unfamiliar with Jared Taylor he represents the new face of white supremacy. He is the mainstream voice of a movement that has a large following among academic and financial circles.

Today John McCain's campaign decided that it could not advertise on some of the PUMA like web sites-- the ones that promote Hillary Clinton and which are maliciously anti-Obama.

John McCain's campaign will stop advertising on several pro-Hillary Clinton Web sites that have attacked Barack Obama for being unpatriotic and, in one case, compared the Democratic nominee-in-waiting to Adolf Hitler.

This is really nasty stuff.

McCain's ads have also shown up on a pro-Clinton Web site named "Obama WTF" that accuses Obama of being "spineless," having "communist influences," "courting Jew haters" and being "in the pocket of America haters."

SavagePolitics.com, another anti-Obama site that has been targeted with McCain ads, has called Obama a "bold faced liar, a thief, a sexist and a racist."

This is more of a musing than a diary based in fact, but I felt it was necessary to address a fundamental disaster the Iraq War has instilled in American civil structure. Check it out after the jump...

Originally posted on Citizen Orange.

"I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of
reasons," said [Leroy] Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. "I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me."

Eli Saslow - Washington Post (30 June 2008)

We can fight about the fine points of what Barack Obama needs to do to make all Democrats happy and still get the votes from the "too busy for information" middle that he needs to win the election.  But while we are verbally sparing with that, the right-wing hate just keeps coming.  

Now I will admit I’m a white woman; my skin’s so pale it’s scary without makeup.  So I can’t begin to fully catch on to all the subtleties of racism, I haven’t experienced that.  But I know how to read, even between the lines.

We are used to the very direct anti-Obama email foolishness.  But there is a more subtle approach taking root.  I got an email this morning that didn’t take much mental facility to read the screaming racism that poured out onto my computer screen.  Even to my, sometimes malfunctioning, mind the message against African American people was quite clear.

Update from the Milwaukee Bigot for those who do not believe the e-mails exist:
Come on liberal cockroach, respond to anything that I said, but like a typical liberal cockroach, when confronted directly with their lies and slander, they scurry back under the rock from which they came.  Devoid of ANY original thought, unless given to them from moveon.org.

Failure to challenge racists and assorted bigots is not my way.
The following text (in two e-mails) below was received from timkisting@aol.com, commenting on a brief analysis (SC Decision Striking Down Gun Control Is Fine with This Progressive) on the Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), that was picked up in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday.

You ever have one of those moments where you come to the realization that there is a real injustice occurring and that it is necessary to finally stand up and say something about it? Well Brenda Diggs, an English teacher at South High Community School in Worcester did and finally expressed the words that so many students in urban high schools have wanted to say for years. She wrote this letter to the Telegram and Gazette and finally outed the media for its discriminatory practices:

I challenge our leaders of color to stand up to John McCain's history of disturbing racial politics.

In the last year, West Virginia has taken quite a few hits in the media. A journalist friend described it as a "target-rich environment."

The hits I'm thinking about now are images hurtling through the Web and airwaves portraying us as racist and xenophobic. Obviously, West Virginia, like other places, has its share of racists and bigots - and quite a few of them wound up talking to the press.

But I get upset when people paint the whole state and its history with that brush. West Virginia has a pretty interesting past in terms of race relations. Even before statehood, there were tensions between western mountaineers and the slaveholding elite that dominated Virginia politics.

Barack Obama has been and will be the target of much racism, but it is dangerous to be too vigilant in calling out some of the racism.  Excessive diligence about racism towards Obama could be harmful to his chances.  Calling out racism is dangerous because (1) it makes the race about race in too many voters' minds, (2) it allows Obama to be portrayed and viewed as crying wolf, (3) it potentially justifies racial voting in many people's minds, and (4) it potentially stifles necessary speech on race issues.

Even though the comments of Obama supporters should not be attributed to Obama, I hope everyone realizes that the actions of supporters and candidates are frequently conflated.  Every Obama supporter should consider themselves an ambassador of Obama.

"Kerry with a tan."

So, I am having a Unite For Change Party in Birmingham, AL http://my.barackobama.com/...tomorrow. Last night a friend came over to help me spruce up the yard a little with his manly power. He prides himself on being a "progressive", "dyed in the wool" liberal. But....and this is what got me...

"I'm all for Obama, but his wife is too African, too black for Barack to ever win in the South."

I am still trying to understand what the hell he meant by that statement!

   Every once in awhile I see mass media blasted for being inattentive or sloppy or exhibiting a pack mentality (or exhibiting no mentality at all), and I recoil, just as you might if somebody trashed the entirety of your field.
   And then something happens that makes me think the criticism isn't merely justified - it's understated.
   Did anybody notice that Grover Norquist walked into the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times yesterday and dismissed Obama as "John Kerry with a tan?"

I come not to bury John McCain, but to encourage him to stay his course.

In the last 72 hours, McCain and his strategists have yet again demonstrated that they are strategically adrift, resorting to both outright lies and crypto-racist framing -- all on the single and seemingly benign topic of energy.

but I don't care right now.

I just received one of those awful Republican & racist themed crappy chain emails from a person that I love & cherish dearly, my favorite aunt. This email was also sent to several family members, friends & strangers to me.

After I had read it and the steam stopped coming out of my ears, I hastily fingered out (I admit it ... I can't type, but I could compete in the world's fastest one finger typist competition) response & then hit the "reply all" button.