Published July 12, 2010
| FoxNews.com
Now, faced with unequivocally racist antics by members of the New Black Panther Party, the progressive establishment seems devoid of passion to root out hatred.
This apparently selective outrage exposes what’s seemingly propelling progressives. Politics rather than morality appears to be the motivation behind the progressive crusade against Tea Party reformers.
Slandering Tea Party activists is apparently a politically expedient necessity because they pack the punch to change the political landscape and knock down President Obama’s progressive agenda.
Dealing the race card has always been a central element of the progressive strategy. By claiming that Tea Party opposition to President Obama’s agenda is motivated by anger over a black president, progressives hope to transform the debate from one about policy to race, thus marginalizing the Tea Party’s effectiveness.
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, for instance, said Tea Partiers are “a bunch of guys who are just looking for a reason to yell at the black president.”
During the Obamacare debate, Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) claimed that “bias” and “prejudice” against President Obama are the reasons why there was so much opposition to his health care proposal.
Helping spread the lie that Tea Parties are a solely white affair, Rangel added: “You don’t see any black folks in these groups. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.” Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) piled on, saying Tea
Party rally participants “are kind of without robes and hoods” and are “against any type of diversity.”
Janeane Garofalo, a left-wing activist and some-time actress, called Tea Partiers “rednecks” and claimed, “It’s about hating a black man in the White House.”
These Herculean efforts on the part of the progressive media-politician-Hollywood complex to slime the Tea Parties, however, are long on claims and short on proof. As a result, the race card failed to tarnish the image or effectiveness of Tea Party activism.
Tea Party-backed candidates are winning primaries, and polls find that the movement enjoys broad-based support. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found Tea Party supporters tended to be “wealthier and more well-educated than the general public” and “married and over 45.”
And it doesn’t help when progressives turn a blind eye to radicalism in their own ranks. When confronted with videotaped evidence of the morally abhorrent behavior by members of the New Black Panther Party, progressives are noticeably silent.
Videos vividly show New Black Panthers’ political and racial extremism. One video, taken at a polling station in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008 clearly shows Panther activists dressed in paramilitary uniforms and one carrying a menacing nightstick. This led to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of voter harassment.
Another video, taken for a National Geographic documentary, shows the nightstick-wielding Panther from Election Day delivering a hateful racial rant targeting whites — specifically white children — for murder.
Besides video evidence, the New Black Panther Party’s political platform found on its website radically calls for reparations for slavery because “this wicked racist government has robbed us.” It conspiratorially demands an “end to the trafficking of drugs and to the biological and chemical warfare targeted at our people.” Furthermore, they say “as our political objective, we want NATIONAL LIBERATION in a separate state or territory of our own.”
In contrast, the mission and goals of the Tea Party movement — as expressed by the Contract from America — peacefully defines broad-based principals of limited government and free enterprise and a ten-point policy agenda for Congress.
But, despite their morally reprehensible behavior, criticizing the New Black Panther Party seems to yield few political points for progressives. Even allegedly blocking people from voting seems to not ruffle progressive feathers, as the Obama Justice Department dismissed the voting rights case against the Panthers for allegedly political reasons.
It’s long past time for someone on the left to rise above the political fray and make a strong statement against black hate speech. It’s time to view this as a matter of right or wrong, not left or right.
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