Pat Buchanan Is A Racist Asshole

As long as Buchanan is penning racist screeds like this current one at Townhall, I just have to ask that eternal, perpetual question: how much longer will NBC and MSNBC continue to shred their credibility as legitimate news organizations by using him as an expert?

What’s particularly galling about Buchanan’s current Townhall column is that he actually quotes Steve Sailer and Dr. Robert Weissberg, both contributors to the anti-immigrant VDARE.com (identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center). Both men promote in their writings the idea that Hispanics and African Americans are by virtue of their very DNA less intelligent than whites and Asians; Weissberg devoted an entire book (Bad Students, Not Bad Schools) to that idea. I don’t know about you, but where I come from that’s pretty blatantly racist.

Yet Buchanan quotes generously from both men, without bothering to mention the controversial and racist nature of their writings. Indeed, he quotes these racist assholes as legitimate scholars. For example:

"America's educational woes reflect our demographic mix of students. Today's schools are filled with millions of youngsters, many of whom are Hispanic immigrants struggling with English plus millions of others of mediocre intellectual ability disdaining academic achievement."

In the public and parochial schools of the 1940s and 1950s, kids were pushed to the limits of their ability, then pushed harder. And when they stopped learning, they were pushed out the door.

Writes Weissberg: "To be grossly politically incorrect, most of America's educational woes vanish if these indifferent, troublesome students left when they had absorbed as much as they were going to learn and were replaced by learning-hungry students from Korea, Japan, India, Russia, Africa and the Caribbean."

”Politically incorrect?” That’s not politically incorrect. It’s racist, bigoted and wrong. It ignores economic disparities, disparities between urban inner city schools and white suburban schools, and institutional roadblocks which oppress the poor and economically disadvantaged. It ignores the achievement of tens of thousands of people of color who have reached the highest levels of American society, despite insurmountable odds -- including, let me point out, the sitting president of the United States and some notable Supreme Court justices.

There’s this thing conservatives have about “political correctness” as if it’s some kind liberal plot designed to trip them up; conservatives just want to hew to some basic facts about the world, which we dirty libs are in deep denial about. The conservatives I know rail against “political correctness” with a missionary zeal. But this isn’t about political correctness, it’s about your facts just being wrong. Blacks and Hispanics are not less intelligent than whites, no matter how you may wish it were so. No, things weren't so much awesomer in the 1940s and 1950s, when "those people" knew their place, no matter how much Pat Buchanan thinks it's so. And no matter how many columns Pat Buchanan pens saying if only we kicked the brown people out of our schools America’s test scores would soar it won’t change the basic fact that test scores are the way they are because of institutional and systemic reasons, not biological or genetic. You know, those same institutional and systemic barriers which were firmly in place in the storied 1940s and 1950s which Buchanan and his ilk look back upon with such nostalgia.

I'm just really sick of this shit. I'm sick of conservatives kicking immigrants in the shins, over and over again. Just fucking stop it already. And I'm sick of powerful news networks like NBC and MSNBC promoting the racist assholes who are doing the kicking. Cut it out. Enough.

We’ve all known Pat Buchanan is a racist asshole. We’ve all wondered why NBC and MSNBC continue to promote him as some kind of “reasonable” conservative. This latest column is just another in a long stream of bigoted screeds from NBC’s go-to conservative voice. I get that. But honestly, how much longer are we going to be saddled with this crap? When are we going to stand up and say, America is better than this?

Buchanan is peddling racism and intolerance and he’s using crackpot junk science from known bigots to support his views. No legitimate news outfit would ever make Lyndon Larouche a regular pundit, yet Pat Buchanan spouts the same hateful views and he’s on both networks regularly. It's just not cute anymore. We're heading into 2011, folks -- you've still got some old crank on your network spouting 18th century ideas? I'm just really fucking tired of it.

Hate is not okay. Bigotry is not okay. Racism is not okay. And as long as MSNBC and NBC pay Pat Buchanan to appear on their news shows, they are promoting this intolerance.

Really, it’s appalling. Time to say: no more.

A REAL Feel Good--And Look Good--Friday

I have to confess, NBC’s The Biggest Loser is perhaps my biggest guilty pleasure where TV is concerned. I have a love-hate relationship with the show: I love the workouts and watching people struggle to get healthy, dealing with their issues and eventually falling in love with their new selves. I love watching the transformations.

But I absolutely hate the super-cheesy product placement ads dropped like giant turds through each episode: Trainer Bob telling his house that, “research shows if you chew Wrigley’s Extra SugarFree Gum it can curb your cravings for sweets!” or Jillian recommending a BRITA water filter instead of bottled or tap water.

It’s really bad, NBC. I just have to say, you guys could be a tad more subtle. Fortunately through the miracle of TiVo, I record each episode and fast-forward past all the sponsorship crap.

But anyway, I just learned that TBL will hold a casting call here in Nashville on February 28 at the Wildhorse Saloon, from 10 am-5 pm. First come, first-served. They are looking for guest trainers as well as contestants.

The show only deals with the truly obese -- anyone who needs to lose 20 or even 50 pounds won’t make the cut. But if you or a loved one fit in the former category and would like to get healthy on national television, with a shot at winning some money, check it out. You can download an application and find out all the details here.

Why I Can’t Watch The Olympics

No, it has nothing to do with Darfur, or China’s human rights record, or their treatment of Buddhist monks in TIbet.

I simply can’t stay up that late. And I’m trying, trust me. I fell asleep, remote control in hand, trying to catch Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson Thursday night. Somewhere between the vault and uneven bars I succumbed. I think it was around 11 pm.

It really kind of ticks me off. It’s a freaking school night, for crying out loud! NBC: why did I have to watch an hour of swimming preliminaries? I could care less about preliminaries. Unless you’re an avid follower of the sport, or something really unusual happens, no one cares about preliminaries.

So, prime time is filled with coverage of preliminary heats that no one cares about, while big-viewership events like women’s gymnastics are on at midnight. What idiot at NBC thought that was a good idea?

And yes, apparently all of this is NBC’s fault. In a story about Michael Phelps in today’s New York Times, I learned this:

For the first time, the Olympic finals have been contested between 10 a.m. and noon instead of at night. NBC, which owns the broadcasting rights to the Games in the United States, wanted it that way so that Phelps’s pursuit of Spitz could be shown in prime time.

Oh, wow. So it really is all about American TV viewers? Great. I want to see Phelps win his medals, too. But I’m interested in some other events, as well. And frankly, I’m not so much of an enthusiast that I have to see it live.

I remember the whole broadcast-time thing being an issue when the summer games were held in South Korea and Australia, too. And it seems to me that the traditional way of broadcasting the games just doesn’t work anymore. There needs to be some kind of on-demand thing offered, where folks can subscribe to those events they care about watching. At least tell us what time these events come on so we can set the TiVo, for crying out loud.

NBC is holding on to its Olympics broadcast rights with both hands, but the result is that I’m watching less Olympics coverage than ever before. I really don’t care about volleyball or preliminary heats in swimming and track and field. I’m never told exactly when those events I do want to see will be broadcast. So we end up flipping around the channels, watching other stuff and only by the luck of the draw catching an event of interest. It’s frustrating and at this point I’m ready to give up.

I’ll just read about it in the paper the next day.

Welcoming Our Corporate Overlords, Part 2

As if network television weren’t crappy enough already, someone at NBC has come up with this lame idea:

At a presentation on Wednesday afternoon, senior executives of NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, will describe how they are seeking to make advertisers into long-term partners rather than just sell them 30-second commercials.

One example is a new deal with the Liberty Mutual Group insurance company that is centered on a pair of two-hour TV movies to be broadcast under the banner of the company — “Liberty Mutual Presents,” for example.

The movie plots are intended to complement a campaign for Liberty Mutual that was introduced in 2006 by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, which carries the theme, “Responsibility. What’s your policy?” The scripts, which Liberty Mutual will help develop, will discuss subjects like taking responsibility for one’s actions and deciding how to do the right thing.

Oh great, just what I need: to take my moral cues from a freaking insurance company.

This all worked so well in the 1950s, didn’t it? I’m sure the fact that Phillip Morris sponsored I Love Lucy had nothing to do with the fact that Lucy, Ethel and Ricky smoked like chimneys on the program.

Let me be clear, as a “content creator” (i.e., a writer) I absolutely detest this idea. I find it abhorrent to allow anyone--government or corporation--to have control over the creative process. I know newspapers and magazines do it all the time with advertising inserts and “special sections,” and I don’t like that, either.

The Times article quotes Michael Pilot, president for sales and marketing at NBC Universal:

advertisers “are not asking us to be programmers,” Mr. Pilot said, but rather “they want to be more connected to the programming; they want a seat at the table.”

Excuse me, I thought programming was a network's job, and who said advertisers should be involved in programming anyway? Who said that’s in the best interest of TV viewers? They're hawking products at us, why should they have a seat at the table?

I’ve voiced my distaste for being marketed to several times. I realize that this dislike of advertising is why corporations are forced to get more creative with their sales pitch to begin with. But it’s getting downright predatory. It’s like there’s some phantom lurking in my home reaching out to sell me shit I don’t want at every turn. Ads on supermarket shopping baskets, in the movie theater, on television, in my mailbox, and now even snuck into the content of my entertainment. I’m sick of it

Here’s a novel idea to Liberty Mutual: how about making a better product? Yeah, I used to have your insurance and I cancelled it because your premiums got way too high and you didn’t offer the same bells and whistles that other insurance companies did. How about just providing a product people want, and trust the “free hand of the market” to do its job?

Anyway, the NBC/Liberty Mutual partnership will debut in September with “Kings,” which Liberty Mutual’s PR guy described as

a “fast-paced, contemporary drama, kind of like ‘The West Wing’ set in a kingdom,” and inspired by the biblical story of David.

Good luck with that.