GOP Launches Race War to Boost the 1 Percent

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gop-launches-race-war-boost-1-percent



The recent vote of House Republicans to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program reflects a deep-seated and insidious racial resentment toward Americans of color. This racial resentment rears its ugly head within the provisions for the bill that demand that non-employed participants in the program get a job, job training or do community service activities. Though the bill in its current form will most likely die in the Senate, the fact that Republicans would even pass it should concern us.

Conservatives continue to lead under the aegis of a deliberate and willful ignorance about the long-term existence of a group known as the working poor, people who work long hours in low-wage paying menial labor jobs, and therefore cannot make ends meet. Moreover, there is a refusal to accept that the economic downturn in 2008 created conditions of long-term unemployment, such that people simply cannot go out and “get a job” just because they will it to be so.

I often wonder if government officials actually talk to real human beings about these policies, because if they did, they would find many people with a deep desire to work, but a struggle to find well-paying jobs. Some of those people would gladly take jobs that pay far less, but are frequently told that their education and years of work experience make them over-qualified.

This is not a race-based problem. The American middle class itself is shrinking dramatically each year in relation to a poor economy, an insistence on austerity measures from the right, and a capitulation to these measures on the left. However, the complete irrationality and utter severity of the legislation, and the total lack of empathy and identification that inform contemporary Republican social advocacy is tied to a narrative about lazy black people and thieving “illegal” brown people.

[Downwinder]

1. Not a Race war, a Class war.

SNAP recipients are diverse with regards to race
-ethnicity – 35 percent are White, 23 percent are
African-American, and 15 percent are Hispanic (
21 percent are classified as “race unknown”).

http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SNAPstrategies.pdf

[coldmountain]

2. It's a race war for propaganda purposes

In the little almost all white southern town I spent last year in all they could talk about for a week was Neal Boortz blasting the black woman in Atlanta who had her Loius Vuitton purse stolen that also had a EBT card. Over and over again, misuse of EBT cars was the biggest outrage in society, not Wall Street or the "London Whale" but black people misusing EBT cards.

It's almost a defintion of Southern white republicans that they would rather go without if they could make blacks starve.

http://www.mrctv.org/audio/neal-boortz-woman-has-400-purse-and-200-wallet-800-it-stolen-including-her-ebt-food-stamp-cards

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. I Agree With You 100% - It Has Been A Race War For Over 30 Years.

Race resentment has been the core of the GOP strategy all along. It all comes down to the meme that "I don't want an "Ni---rs or S--cs to get a penny of my money". Deep in these dark souls they express their hate using the very prohibited words that we cannot use. And you are right the hate is so deep that these bastards would starve to deny minorities anything.

I am beginning to think our country is lost.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. It's still a class war. Ultimately, the framing of the issue........

as racial is merely part of what the owners have ALWAYS done, frame it in racial terms to divide the working class. Unfortunately, it works quite well for a certain segment of the population, notably the lower information working class white voters who harbor personal racial biases. But make no mistake, the OWNERS themselves don't really care what race they exploit. They exploit ALL races.

[TheMastersNemesis]

8. If The Working Class Who Is Being Tricked By The Racial Meme Ever Work UP GOP Would Be In Trouble.

I agree what your post. They are using race to exploit resentment and get votes for them. They view these white voters as "poor white trash" no different than minorities. Even though white these poor whites would go through the back door of the country club just like the minorities. Too bad they don't yet understand that.

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Of course they would have to use the servants entrance.......

It's an unfortunate part of the human psyche that's vulnerable to hatred of "other" and, as I said above, it's low information people who have been indoctrinated, mostly, by their personal biases learned as children from equally biased families. They are the ones that are most at fault for this.

They are a minority though, albeit a noisy one. At 62 I got the advantage of recent southern history to learn from and I KNOW that the white working class down here aren't anywhere near as bad as they were when I was a young child in the 50s. In fact, I would venture a proposition that the reason they are so vocal now is because they are losing influence.

[brush]

4. The $400 purse story sounds like bs to me

An updated version of the "Cadillac" driving welfare queens story from back in the day.

I even went to the link and still there was no proof that this was even true.

[coldmountain]

7. Doesn't matter if it's true, it's great propaganda

These people have no honor, a lie is just as good a truth to them, in fact a lie might have more utility. I agree the story has issues,

[newfie11]

5. Hungry people fight back

Repugs will regret this. It could very well be the catalyst to revolt.

[JaneyVee]

10. It's class war that the GOP uses with innuendos of race to rile their ignorant base.