Your Neighbor's Admirer
THE BRAIN
An activist in this city - a man who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor and to whom I have occasionally referred to as The-Brain-Who-Ate-Costa-Mesa - has exercised his influence over several past and current members of the City Council and their appointed surrogates on the Planning and Parks and Recreation Commissions. Much of what he has espoused from the speaker's podium and in correspondence in the local media and on his blog have a central theme - the expulsion of the Latino population from our city. Of course, he and his acolytes have denied this many times, but actions speak louder than words.
LESSER INTELLECTS
I pay attention to his postings on various white supremacist web sites, painful as they are to read. This guy has frequently spouted that the essays in question are not racist, and that only those of small minds (he professes to be a MENSA member) would think that. We lesser beings lack the mental horsepower to really understand the depth of his message. Yep, I guess that's right - I don't understand that his mantra of racial purity is not really racism. I don't understand that his denigration of "lesser races" is not really racism.
THE ADMIRER
Imagine my surprise (tongue in cheek) when I found, on the official web site of David Duke - former head of the Ku Klux Klan - this link, which carries the most recent of Your Neighbor's essays entitled "White Buck Shoes and the North American Union". The text of this essay refers, once again, to the "blending" of the American populace - the homogenization of the races through interracial marriage. Apparently Duke, long the poster boy for racism in this country, thinks Your Neighbor's views are just dandy - so much so to feature them on his official web site.
INFLUENCE
So, as you read that essay and consider it's source, I hope you'll contemplate
the influence this man has had on your elected leaders and their appointees and what this means to the future of this city. Consider whether you really want the future of our city guided by the hand of such a man. I hope you'll consider how the radical right has taken over our city, as witnessed by the gushing support provided during the campaign to our young jailer/mayor and his barnacle, Wendy Leece, by Jim Gilchrist, Grand Pooba of the Minutemen and his frothing band of Minuteman Mob supporters. I hope you'll consider these facts when you think about the amount of out-of-town money that flowed into the mayor's campaign war chest and dribbled over into Ms. Leece's campaign, too. Some observers have said I give Your Neighbor too much credit for things that happen in our city - that he's really a smart, yet pathetic guy who has not found a positive way to direct his prodigious intellect. Well, maybe - but from where I sit (with my tin foil hat, tuna cans on my ears in my grungy skivvys, according to him), the trail is clear and his influence is obvious.
THE FUTURE?
Mansoor and Leece rode to victory on the backs of the brown-skinned residents of our city, through the campaign contributions provided by outsiders and the support of those on the radical right. They've aimed our city down the road of intolerance, with Your Neighbor's hand firmly on the steering wheel. Eric Bever and perhaps others with similar views are poised to perpetuate this direction as they seek seats on the City Council next year. It's not too early to consider just what the perpetuation of this direction means to the city.
An activist in this city - a man who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor and to whom I have occasionally referred to as The-Brain-Who-Ate-Costa-Mesa - has exercised his influence over several past and current members of the City Council and their appointed surrogates on the Planning and Parks and Recreation Commissions. Much of what he has espoused from the speaker's podium and in correspondence in the local media and on his blog have a central theme - the expulsion of the Latino population from our city. Of course, he and his acolytes have denied this many times, but actions speak louder than words.
LESSER INTELLECTS
I pay attention to his postings on various white supremacist web sites, painful as they are to read. This guy has frequently spouted that the essays in question are not racist, and that only those of small minds (he professes to be a MENSA member) would think that. We lesser beings lack the mental horsepower to really understand the depth of his message. Yep, I guess that's right - I don't understand that his mantra of racial purity is not really racism. I don't understand that his denigration of "lesser races" is not really racism.
THE ADMIRER
Imagine my surprise (tongue in cheek) when I found, on the official web site of David Duke - former head of the Ku Klux Klan - this link, which carries the most recent of Your Neighbor's essays entitled "White Buck Shoes and the North American Union". The text of this essay refers, once again, to the "blending" of the American populace - the homogenization of the races through interracial marriage. Apparently Duke, long the poster boy for racism in this country, thinks Your Neighbor's views are just dandy - so much so to feature them on his official web site.
INFLUENCE
So, as you read that essay and consider it's source, I hope you'll contemplate
the influence this man has had on your elected leaders and their appointees and what this means to the future of this city. Consider whether you really want the future of our city guided by the hand of such a man. I hope you'll consider how the radical right has taken over our city, as witnessed by the gushing support provided during the campaign to our young jailer/mayor and his barnacle, Wendy Leece, by Jim Gilchrist, Grand Pooba of the Minutemen and his frothing band of Minuteman Mob supporters. I hope you'll consider these facts when you think about the amount of out-of-town money that flowed into the mayor's campaign war chest and dribbled over into Ms. Leece's campaign, too. Some observers have said I give Your Neighbor too much credit for things that happen in our city - that he's really a smart, yet pathetic guy who has not found a positive way to direct his prodigious intellect. Well, maybe - but from where I sit (with my tin foil hat, tuna cans on my ears in my grungy skivvys, according to him), the trail is clear and his influence is obvious.THE FUTURE?
Mansoor and Leece rode to victory on the backs of the brown-skinned residents of our city, through the campaign contributions provided by outsiders and the support of those on the radical right. They've aimed our city down the road of intolerance, with Your Neighbor's hand firmly on the steering wheel. Eric Bever and perhaps others with similar views are poised to perpetuate this direction as they seek seats on the City Council next year. It's not too early to consider just what the perpetuation of this direction means to the city.
Labels: David Duke, influence, Your Neighbor
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 8/24/2007 04:44:00 PM
4 Comments:
once again, wonderful use of graphics to illustrate the point. we're seeing Birth of a Notion, it appears, and what a nasty notion it is.
A lurker here, coming out to add a few comments. I feel the need to defend Wendy Leece against many of your implications. My family has known her for many years. She is not in the least racist. And not in Millard's disgusting, word-twisting way. She doesn't subscribe to his racist views, but she does oppose illegal immigration. So? It’s really not the race (a word I hate) or the immigration that matters, it’s the illegal part. She’s not opposed to Latinos or anyone else on the basis of their skin color. Simply because someone agrees on an issue with another does not mean that they agree on everything, or that they lack independence. Through your writings, I visualize her sitting in an office, semi-hypnotized by Millard's vocal opinions, dashing them off as city policy, with her brain and independence bundled away in a desk drawer. But I know her. Nothing could be further from the truth. In lumping them together, you’re incorrectly assuming that the worst is representative of the whole.
Rachel, thanks for your comment. I've never said Ms. Leece was a racist. I've said she and her pals on the council are guided by one. Ms. Leece seems like a nice woman who may, in fact, decide to find her own path on the council. I saw a glimmer of that when she recently held her own against the guys. I've written to her and told her as much. I'm not for illegal immigration, either. I also think the federal government is the responsible body to fix what needs fixin' - not the city of Costa Mesa. I'm OK with an ICE agent in the jail, doing screenings of suspected illegal immigrant criminals. If that removes them from our streets, then I'm all for it. I am not for Costa Mesa cops becoming immigration screeners, performing a job that will take them away from the other important crime fighting responsibilities. Again, I appreciate your comments and will welcome them anytime you feel like writing.
True, I don't believe you've referred to her as a racist exactly, but the impression is certainly there. "They've aimed our city down the road of intolerance, with Your Neighbor's hand firmly on the steering wheel," is what you wrote, and *that* implies one of two things: ignorance, or racism. I'm happy to say that neither apply. You'll probably disagree on the former, but thank you for listening anyhow. :)
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