In my debut post for Time Magazine’s website, I defend the honor of a great man that Andrew Breitbart is attempting to drag through the mud from his grave.
Derrick Bell, a professor of mine at NYU School of Law, was our nation’s foremost legal scholar on the persistence of racial discrimination in our economic, political and social institutions. The smear?
In 1991, students at Harvard Law School organized rallies to support Derrick Bell, an African American professor who was taking an unpaid leave of absence to protest the absence of any women of color on the law school faculty. A young Barack Obama spoke at one such rally, calling on his fellow students to “open up your hearts and your minds” to Derrick Bell.
Now conservatives are trying to smear Professor Bell as an anti-American, anti-white radical — hoping to smear President Obama by association. I respond:
It is absurd to suggest that just because President Obama once hugged Derrick Bell or assigned one of his legal essays for coursework, the President therefore embraces everything Professor Bell ever said or did. When the Founding Fathers enshrined free speech and freedom of association in our Constitution, they wanted to prevent us all for being pilloried for anything we might say but certainly for anything said by those with whom we’re loosely associated.
But at worst, these attacks create a dangerous chilling effect for scholarship that raises uncomfortable questions about our society, the sort of questions we should be facing head on, not hiding from.
Please read the entire essay here and help fight back against this ugly attack.
Me, Derrick Bell and Maria Hinojosa - April 2011
Politico has a story about Right wing activists complaining that Fox News is moving to the left. Apparently, my hire is evidence:
The grumblers were picking up on a strategy that has been under way for some time — a “course correction,” as Fox chief Roger Ailes put it last fall — with the network distancing itself from the tea party cheerleading that characterized the first two years of President Barack Obama’s presidency. Lately, Fox has increasingly promoted its straight-news talent in the press and conducted some of the toughest interviews and debates of the Republican primary season. Just last week, it hired the openly gay liberal activist Sally Kohn as a contributor.
You can read the full piece here.
With the news that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma) will not seek re-election, can more Democrats be expected to bail? My response for Politico’s Arena:
More sensible leaders of both political stripes can be expected to leave politics as Washington is increasingly held hostage by intransigent conservative extremists. Barney Frank’s retirement isn’t just unfortunate news for Democrats, it’s unfortunate news for a nation founded on the ideals of democratic deliberation.
Go “LIKE” my post on Politico, will ya?
Kindly click, read, and then “LIKE” via Twitter and Facebook buttons on Politico’s page (if you’re so inclined).
For a small but merry band of conspiracy theorists, Stephen Lerner is the lynchpin of the rising “red army” of anti-capitalist radicals in America. For everyone else — those struggling to make ends meet in an economic system that we know is rigged against ordinary Americans – Stephen Lerner is a hero.”
http://fxn.ws/uToC7N
During a recent Republican presidential debate, the conservative audience cheered the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has presided over 234 executions, the “vast majority” of which he assured involved guilty offenders. Meanwhile, conservatives are up in arms that the federal government, through a loan initiated by the Bush Administration, backed Solyndra, a clean energy company that just filed for bankruptcy.
On the one hand, conservatives are attacking the role of government in stimulating jobs and new industry. On the other hand, conservatives are praising the role of government in executing its citizens. WTF?
Yes, people, government can make mistakes. I’m a liberal and even I can admit that. But let’s compare…
In 2009, the Department of Energy made a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra. In 2010, analysts suggested Solyndra might be losing its competitive edge in the market, but subsequently the company still raised an additional $175 million from private investors. Incidentally, Solyndra’s backers include George Kaiser, a donor and bundler for Obama, but also the Walton family behind Wal-Mart, big-time Republican donors. Solyndra’s CEO is a Republican as well.
The Solyndra investment is 1.3% of the $38 billion to be disbursed through this particular loan program, which in turn is only a fraction of government stimulus investments. Moreover, when the dust settles, the federal government will recoup at least a portion of its investment. About 1,100 Solyndra workers lost their jobs.
Still, the DOE loan program has created or saved over 65,000 American jobs. The government will get some of our money back after the claims of employees and certain investors are settled. Is it possible that, in the case of this one loan, the Obama Administration rushed to judgment for the sake of a photo op? Sure, it’s possible. But what’s certain is that China’s government invests 30 times more funding in new energy technology and jobs than we do — which is why Solyndra couldn’t compete. The path to a robust 21st century American economy isn’t exactly laid out on a stone tablet somewhere. In trying to get there, the public sector and private sector will both make mistakes. Using the misstep of Solyndra as an excuse to cut all government investment in the green jobs of the future will not only kill the jobs that have been created but will kill the chance of American competitiveness going forward.
Conservatives, however, seem quite comfortable killing things — whether jobs or people.
According to the Innocence Project, an organization that uses new DNA technology to re-examine the cases of death row inmates:
Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. They were convicted in 11 states and served a combined 209 years in prison – including 187 years on death row – for crimes they didn’t commit.
In 2004, Texas — under Governor Rick Perry — executed Cameron Todd Willingham who was accused of setting a fire that killed his three children. Willingham consistently plead his innocence and independent analysts agree there were extraordinary flaws in the evidence used to convict him. After Willingham was executed, a state forensics commission on the verge of examining the case and surfacing evidence of Willingham’s innocence was gutted by Gov. Perry and replaced by partisan cronies.
Compelling evidence now suggests that the state of Texas wrongly executed a grieving father. Do we put a price on that mistake? Is Cameron Todd Willingham worth more or less than $535 million? Maybe Willingham counts a bit more because he’s white while many conservatives accept the fact that the government executes innocent people believing most of them are black and must have done something wrong. Here I could point out that most death row inmates are, in fact, white — or I could point out that it really shouldn’t matter.
Of course this is a racialized debate. We have a black president who finalized a loan to support green jobs, a concept pioneered by underemployed communities of color and famously championed by Obama’s black green jobs czar Van Jones. Last night, a popular conservative provocateur on Twitter unfortunately had his home broken into. He tweeted:
This is a more explicit version of implicit conservative logic that “rationalizes” attacking government investment while endorsing state-sponsored execution: If government is wasteful and black people are dangerous, than black people running government is dangerously wasteful — but government wasting black people is A-OK.
Just once, I’d like conservatives to be skeptical of government abuse of power where it really matters — not just dollars and political scandals but the loss of innocent human life.
Former Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell isn’t the smartest witch in the coven. But apparently, even she was wise enough to know that bloviating against same-sex marriage on primetime television wouldn’t win her any fans.
My copy of O’Donnell’s book hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure looking forward to it. Meanwhile, though, I’ll trust sources that say she writes about her opposition to gay marriage in the book. But undoubtedly, in the jurassic book publishing world, she wrote those words at least a year ago. To paraphrase the ol’ saying, change is slow except when it’s fast. The tide on marriage equality has changed quickly over the last year — almost as quickly, I’d say, as the tide of public opinion has shifted against the Tea Party. Could it be that O’Donnell, who now wants to sell books not win office, is smarter than we think — realizing that if she aims for mainstream appeal, she’ll have to stop spouting such fringe viewpoints?
Perhaps. Though since most of mainstream America, including us gays, can actually read, O’Donnell’s true feelings on the matter aren’t likely to stay hidden….
Meanwhile, the interview below is an interesting microcosm of the evolving ideological opportunism of the Right — sensing that, at least for voters outside of Iowa, social conservativism is out and fiscal conservativism is in. But while Americans may be dumb enough to buy Christine O’Donnell’s book (I already bought mine!) we’re not dumb enough to buy the wolves of Bible thumping, moralizing yesterday disguised as anti-government sheep today.
My take on the continuing default crisis, Elizabeth Warren and the CFPB, and James O’Keefe’s latest disaster >> If you want to receive my adVantage Points every weekday morning in your inbox, email info@movementvision.org
Republicans Retreat To Right - story
Republicans are not only holding our nation’s entire future hostage, but they’ve hijacked basic common sense and political decency. The Tea Party will go down in history as the movement that threw America overboard.
James O’Keefe At It Again – video
James O’Keefe notoriously brought down the community organization ACORN through falsifying videos that undermined the organization’s reputation. Before anyone believes O’Keefe’s attack on Medicaid in Ohio, we need to see (a) proof that the clips shown do not included edited-in voice-overs, and (b) unedited footage of all discussions with Medicaid workers. Given O’Keefe’s track record, we should take this latest video with a grain of assault.
Cordray, Not Warren, To Head CFPB - story
Obama could have done worse with this nomination, but he could have done much better. Warren was by far the best choice for the job and favored by progressive voters. Why is the President so inclined to throw bones to the far Right on spending cuts and deportations, but can’t make the most basic of gestures to his base?
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