On Jan 10, 2012, at 9:28 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> Patricia Rose on Ron Paul's racism, paraphrase:
>
> Paul doesn't have to say heinous, obviously racist things any more to blow a dog whistle to his white supporters. He jsut has to say things like, "our freedom has eroded in the last 100 years." The only people for whom that even seems to make sense are white upper middle, professional-managerial class men. Freedom has expanded for white women, men and women of color, LGBTQ people, those who aren't Christians, etc. in the past 100 years.
>
> This is a very good example of the way structural oppression operates in the rhetoric of presidential candidates. As the press (and others) freak out over bigoted statements in Paul's newsletter, the more insidious racializing aspects of his rhetoric goes unnoticed.
I'm no fan of Ron Paul, and I mostly agree with this, but to be fair to him, he's also talking about surveillance and mass incarceration (including the War on Drugs), whose targets are mostly not "white upper middle, professional-managerial class men."
Doug