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Pat Buchanan's Latest Racist Rant: "Traditional Americans Are Losing Their Nation"

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 4:40 AM on October 21, 2009.


And by "traditional," he means "white."
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Liliana Segura is an AlterNet Staff Writer and Editor of Rights & Liberties Special Coverage.

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Wowsers.

MSNBC's resident racist, Pat Buchanan, has a new column out and it's a doozy.

It's titled "Traditional Americans are losing their nation."

And by "traditional," he means "white."

The tea-baggers, birthers, and, most recently, "Oath Keepers," are not racist, Pat argues. No. They, like him, are angry.

Why are they so angry?

Well:

"In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

Note to Hollywood: Stop making those damn movies and TV programs that so viciously mock Christians and "traditional Americans." We need to go back to the Golden era of flim, the era of such classics as, I dunno, Birth of a Nation.

(Also, what the hell, U.S. school system? Who do you think you are purging religion from public schools like that? John Adams?)

Pat goes on:

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on -- then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

In Pat Buchanan's mind, all of this is happening, in that order -- regular conquistadors, those "illegals" -- and to add insult to injury, it's all being televised. Not only have they marched in to snatch all those things that rightfully belong to the original native REAL Americans, they have brought on the plague of reality television!

Finally, there's this:

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

There you have it: In Buchanan-land, Barack and Michelle Obama built their successes on the backs of hardworking "traditional Americans." (Just like that other "affirmative action pick," Sonia Sotomayor.) Sort of like that White House they live in, which was built by slaves.

The sad thing about this utterly twisted column, aside from the fact that reading it feels like witnessing the inevitable nervous breakdown of an aging bigot who fears his own irrelevance, is that the economic factors driving many Americans to madness and despair are, of course, very real. But they are hardly the sole province of white, Christian America. And Buchanan is a master hypocrite, a millionaire and former Nixon adviser who has been comfortably entrenched in Washington for so long, bloviating on cable news shows and dining in high-end beltway restaurants where those immigrants he hates so much wash his dishes.

Yet one almost sees Pat's veins about to pop as he delivers his last line about the siege of white America:

"America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right."

No, Pat. You are losing it. And it's getting ugly.

(h/t @sluggahjells via Twitter)

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Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and World Special Coverage.


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cept that he is right, sort of
Posted by: Drclaw on Oct 21, 2009 5:07 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Although he cast it in race-centered terms (and I dislike the religious centered stuff too), his underlying point is that people ARE mad that the backs got bailed out, but they are left to struggle. They ARE mad that they feel the government is no supporting them. It's quite shortsighted to not make this observation: people's anger is legitimate even if it is not expressed appropriately.

I don't like Buch, or his ilk, but careless things like this piece simply obscure rather than illuminate.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: cept that he is right, sort of Posted by: Liliana Segura
» agreed Posted by: Drclaw
» you're right too Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: Half Right creates Worse Posted by: kettleblack
Well thank God "Traditional Americans" are losing their nation....
Posted by: corey on Oct 21, 2009 5:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Well thank God "Traditional Americans" are losing their nation, because the Founding Fathers were NOT traditionalists and this country was not meant to be built under such dogma!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Traditional americans already lot their nation...
Posted by: JoshuaLudd on Oct 21, 2009 6:25 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... when the white men killed them and drove them from their lands into reservations.

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Boo F*cking Hoo
Posted by: Stell on Oct 21, 2009 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good riddance.

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Oh ...
Posted by: madmac10 on Oct 21, 2009 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Let me try to extrapolate this a little bit:

Real Americans are losing their land now, in a most undignified and inconvenient way. This has happened several times before. Are the ones who lost the land before these current tenants (i.e., Real Americans) somehow undeserving of retaining this great expanse? Were they weak, corrupt, gullible, stupid, or otherwise inferior?

Therefore, if "Real Americans" are losing their land, aren't they, too, as undeserving as the indigenous, the colonial-imperialist, the dispossessed? I wonder what Pat would say to justify their birthright over those who have lost before. I wonder exactly why their extinction should be mourned more than, say, the Iroquois.

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oh no! someone used the L word
Posted by: Sister_Lauren on Oct 21, 2009 8:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Let me give you three hints who it is,

She's loud.
She's ignorant.
I will let you guess what color she is...

'Political Lynching'

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"Traditional" Americans?? You mean...
Posted by: Dak on Oct 21, 2009 8:24 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the Sioux, Navajo, Pawnee, Ogallala (sp), Blackfoot, etc., etc.? As a white person, I myself think Buchanan should be scalped!!! Traditional Americans being white...my a$$!

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Love this part
Posted by: DynamicDriveler on Oct 21, 2009 8:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on

So Pat - let me get this straight - those spic and wetback families - (because we know that's what you really wanted to call them instead of illegal aliens)- can live in America on that pay but Americans can't. So you're saying American families are too incompetent and stupid to be able to live within their means? Well if they are anything like you I won't disagree

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Tom Watson rides again
Posted by: jebpgh on Oct 21, 2009 9:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the spirit of Tom Watson, Buchanan has two threads which weave together in his mind but which disregard the origins. Economic turmoil and the exporting of jobs is not some liberal plot to destroy America. The force and power in those is the very capitalist system Buchanan seeks to protect. American populist ideology has its roots in the oppression of working class people but it vears to the right as it gets closer to having confront the source of the problem - monopoly capitalism. Instead, the victims attack the victims - it's poor immigrants who drive down wages - not the powers that be. It's socialist government that taxes jobs out of the country - not greedy profit-hungry corporations that seek to maximize profits at the expense of the sustainability of the system that supports them. It's bank regulators who destroy banks - not the banks themselves.

Populism rises when the system fails but the genius of the system is to get those who are angry to turn on themselves and not focus on the very structure that created the injustice in the first place - namely the distribution of capital and wealth.

That private wealth and capitalism exists inside a democracy has always been a true tension in our system. The unequal distrubition of power and wealth rubbing up against a representative government.

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» really nice post n/t Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: Tom Watson rides again Posted by: Cntrygrl
buchanan is a right wing flack
Posted by: luzmejor on Oct 21, 2009 9:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He has talked out of both sides of his mouth for many years and I always have wondered why anyone hands him a microphone because the same comments come out every time.

He is a professional critic for the wealthy and against those who are constantly robbed..

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REAL Americans?
Posted by: shd1230 on Oct 21, 2009 2:07 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Traditonal" Americans?

Of what tradition? The only REAL Americans are those who were here before "traditional" English, Irish, German, Dutch, French, and Spanish people stole their country. Native Americans, whom the Europeans called "Indian" in their ignorance. Now all of these invaders had their own tradtions and one of them was --guess what? SLAVERY! So they proceeded to bring thousands of captured Africans into the country as slaves to work for them.

Incidentally, the current President of the United States did not descend from American slaves.

Pat Buchanan thinks of himself as a "traditional American." The last time I looked at it, the US Constitution prohibited laws promoting any particular religion, and also protected the free exercise thereof. For that reason schools are no longer allowed to observe Christian holidays, nor Jewish ones, nor Muslim ones.

Times have changed in brother Pat's lifetime, and in mine. I applaud many of those changes and deplore others. But change is inevitable; each generation makes this country its own, and Pat Buchanan's "traditional" time is long gone.

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I hope I live long enough
Posted by: luther6 on Oct 21, 2009 3:09 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As an historian, I have read statements like Mr. Buchanan's many times. I find the tone of the responses amusing. Whatever your group, you will be in the same position as "white European Americans" soon enough. It happens to everyone. Unless of course we have the consummate irony of the Hispanics closing immigration to Africans and Asians.
As a side note, before I am flamed, despite the evidence of the name, I am of neither German nor African ancestry.

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» RE: I hope I live long enough Posted by: Longdream
» RE: I hope I live long enough Posted by: Longdream
» RE: I hope I live long enough Posted by: Longdream
Huh.
Posted by: Longdream on Oct 21, 2009 4:52 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Losing a nation is NOTHING compared to what Pat Buchanan is losing these days.

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» RE: Huh. Posted by: Quannah
» RE: Huh. Posted by: Longdream
» RE: Huh. Posted by: Quannah
Wromg Again Buchanan
Posted by: hadashito on Oct 21, 2009 5:14 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Define "Traditional Americans".
The AfroAmerican slave and black "freemen" population just before the civil war was about ONE THIRD (!) of the American population.
And not all of the slaves were "living" below the Mason Dixon line, by any means. Every state in the pre-revolutionary period, except for maybe Massachusettes and possibly two other New England states, had slave owners. PA and NY were definitely slave states, although the slave owners had only a fraction of those in the southern plantation states.
We all know, of course, except maybe Pat Buchanan, that Thomas Jefferson had more than 100 slaves whom he never sold even after his death. And George Washington had a least that many slaves whom he freed not until shortly before his death.
And just to top off the pile of facts, slaves helped build some of the first buildings on Wall Street In NY and the nation's capital,
Washington D.C., was built MAINLY by slave labor.
So how's that for "traditional. Americans" ? How "traditional" can you get ?
Buchanan's got a big mouth, but he dosn't allow any knowledge of the true history of the Negro in America stand in the way of his bigotry.

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Traditional Americans?
Posted by: Dr T on Oct 21, 2009 8:16 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"If the white people never looked beyond the lie, to see that theirs was a nation built on stolen land, then they would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery; they would never know that they were still being manipulated by those who knew how to stir the ingredients together: white thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white."

Leslie Marmon Silko
1977

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Hit the nail on the head:
Posted by: EducatedRants on Oct 21, 2009 9:02 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"...aside from the fact that reading it feels like witnessing the inevitable nervous breakdown of an aging bigot who fears his own irrelevance..."

Fantastic post

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The Problems of Poor White Men...
Posted by: jimmyaj on Oct 22, 2009 1:22 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
do not orginate with minorities, black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim or anything else.

The problems facing poor whites today are caused by rich whites, who are the source of everyone's problems.

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If Buchanan Is A Bigot Then What About This Article?
Posted by: Priam1 on Oct 22, 2009 2:09 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Demographically, according to the 2000 Census 67% of the population listing themselves as "white," and 12% Black Americans and 12% Hispanics. Occording to best estimates, there are 11-20 million illegal aliens. Culturally we have always been a pluralistic nation, but even so, our foundations are predicated on a Christian faith. Seems to me that Pat is right on target on a lot of these things. Last I looked, we live in a Democratic Republic. That means the indigenous people--otherwise known as "current majority" are allowed to set the rules. Remember Cinco de Mayo? Tens of thousands of Hispanics--showed their muscle and demanded "their constitutional rights" by carrying Mexican Flags and playing the Mexican National Anthem all the while boasting that they will take Texas back to their rightful owners--Mexico? So let me get this straight ...you sneak into a neighbor's house (don't like your house),demand family rights--you're not family--demand that house feeds you, clothes you and makes sure that you are healthy and when you are not, you demand that you be attended to on their money. And when you have no money, you demand they give you free money so you can live as comfortably as they can. And when they don't you hit the streets with all your friends and say that you are going to "take over the house" because it was really yours all along because your great great grandfather actually owned the land the house is on. Oh and by the way, the house you lived at before, would not allow anybody ("but your kind") or someone that looks just like you to even own property let alone live there?--but you're claiming racism and bigotry? This is exactly what Buchanan is talking about--the unmitigated gaul of arrogant self absorbed racists(and that is what they truly are) that think that they can hide behind the cloak of "Constitutional Rights" in order to muscle an advantage. I remember about six years ago when the Gay community tried this very same tactic. They attempted to muscle the American People with the threat of lawsuits. What did the American People do? They passed Defense of Marriage Laws. It works like this: when a dog bites the hand of the man that feeds him, the man has every right to kill the dog. There is nothing wrong with negotiating on the settlement of this real problem which was actually caused by Americans. Hispanics truly are blameless. But this insulting attitude that you "demand" has just gotten out of hand. The majority of legal Americans are fed up with being muscled by the minorities. The GLBT community at most represents less than 5% of Americans. A four year old cannot continue to smack a 10 year old around for ever. Pretty soon that 10 year old is going to get pissed. And when that happens, right or wrong, not all the "Constitutional" guarantees ever written will save that four year old's ass. Had the gay community not pushed so arrogantly and as hard as they did, Middle America would not have reacted as aggressively. The same goes for many of these issues. The average "white american" is the 900lb gorilla in the room--if you are a minority, it would be very good for your health not to get him pissed. The constitution can be changed by the will of the majority. The more people you insult and alienate, the easier it will be to change that constitution.

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thanks
Posted by: Medelasymphony on Oct 22, 2009 8:36 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good work, i appreciate you are sparing time for this.
Medela symphony

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