YOU DON'T NEED WHITE HOODS IF YOU'VE GOT WEB SERVERS

Representative Hank Johnson is fighting the last war, or maybe the war before the last war:

Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst last week is drawing new recriminations from his colleagues, with a member of the Congressional Black Caucus suggesting that a failure to rebuke the South Carolina Republican is tantamount to supporting the most blatant form of organized racism in American history.

In an obvious reference to the Ku Klux Klan, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Tuesday that people will be putting on "white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked....

Who needs to terrorize anyone face to face? Who needs to burn a cross? That's so old school.

Much easier to start a race war remotely, from TV studios and Web site headquarters, which is what the Republican noise machine clearly decided to do in the middle of this past summer, an effort that's getting its second wind now, with Fox and Beck's fixation on Van Jones and ACORN, and with the noise machine's calculated efforts to stir up white-on-black anger whenever possible -- as was obvious last night when Drudge gave a huge banner headline to this story:

Belleville West High School student was beaten aboard a bus on the way to school Monday, and a police spokesman said the beating could be racially motivated.

The 17-year-old victim was white and the teen assailants were black. Police released a video of the beating, which shows the victim being punched repeatedly while other students on the bus gather to watch, some cheering.

The noise machine is gunning for the president. Van Jones worked for the White House and ACORN has been affiliated with Barack Obama -- but this has absolutely nothing to do with the White House. Except that it has everything to do with the White House.

The noise machine, obviously, wants to make white people angry at black people. Any story that offers that opportunity is fair game.

I watched the tape:



I don't know if this was racially motivated. To me it looks like every white-on-white or black-on-black fight I ever saw (or assault I was at the wrong end of) when I was in school, including the reactions (cheers from some kids, a refusal to get involved on the part of other kids, and utter indifference from supposedly responsible adults; I never once saw an adult in a school break up a fight, so the bus driver's failure to act doesn't surprise me at all). The police chief said at first that he thought this was racially motivated, then backtracked and said that he's not sure and that he can't see any supporting evidence. He's right that there's no supporting evidence apart from the race of the fighters and victim -- which is enough to arouse suspicions, but isn't enough to prove motive.

The school superintendent says, "I have no reason to go either way on that until I see the reports from the interviews." Exactly right.

The assailants have been suspended. People are investigating. So where's the official reverse racism? Where's the injustice aimed at the poor, beleaguered white race? You punish the kids, you make a good faith effort to get to the bottom of things -- what else can be demanded here?

But the noise machine won't let this one rest -- or the next "racial incident" it can trump up, or the next one. That's the plan until at least November 2010, if not November 2012. And if it ratchets up America's racism and people get seriously hurt, well, you can't make a GOP-restoration omelet without breaking a few eggs, can you?

You can't blame them -- 1988 was a very good year for them, wasn't it?



*****

UPDATE: Wingnuttia is appalled at the fact that ABC's Charlie Gibson isn't following the ACORN story. Here, let me explain, folks: Gibson knows that ACORN doesn't run the freaking government. Unlike you people, who've deluded yourselves into thinking that it does.