Showing posts with label Homophobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homophobia. Show all posts

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Proposition 8 - The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die


Where were all these people before the election? As a Massachusetts resident I've been through more than one political campaign involving gay marriage. Our local groups besieged us with messages from both sides, (yea MassEquality! boo several religious groups). I can't believe that LGBT groups in California got outworked and out-organized (no pun intended) on such an important issue.

Here are the credits to figure out who's who in the cast:

Conceived and Written (six weeks later than he shoulda) by Marc Shaiman
Directed and Staged by: Adam Shankman
Produced by Adam Shankman, Marc Shaiman and Mike Farah
Edited by Bradly Schulz and Drew Antzis
Cast (in order of appearance) California Gays and The People That Love Them
Jordan Ballard,
Margaret Cho,
Barrett Foa,
J.B. Ghuman,
John Hill,
Andy Richter,
Maya Rudolph,
Rashad Naylor,
Nicole Parker Proposition 8'ers and The People That Follow Them
Prop 8 Leader- John C. Reilly
Prop 8 Leader's #1 Wife- Allison Janney
Prop 8 Leader's #2 Wife- Kathy Najimy
Riffing Prop 8'er-Jenifer Lewis
A Preacher- Craig Robinson
Scary Catholic School Girls From Hell-Rashida Jones, Lake Bell, Sarah Chalke
The Frightened Villagers Katharine "Kooks" Leonard, Seth Morris, Denise "Esi!" Piane, Lucian Piane, Richard Read, Seth Redford, Quinton Strack, Tate Taylor, Brunson Green
Jesus Christ Jack Black
A Very Smart Fellow Neil Patrick Harris
Piano Player Marc "Marc" Shaiman ----
Co-Choreographer: Anne "Mama" Fletcher
Recorded and Mixed by Frank Wolfe & Greg Hayes
Director of Photography: Michael Barrett
Camera Operators: Jake Szymanski, Bradly Schulz and Drew Antzis
Production designer: Nelson Coates
Costume designer: Shanna Knecht
Costume assistants: Leslie Schilling, Annalisa Adams, Elizabeth Abate
Hair: Laura Sanchez
Make-up: Shauna O'Toole, Atticuss Sharp
Production sound: Bradford Craig
Music editor: Lisa Jaime
Music assistant: Brian Naguit Snacky: "Snacky"
Special Thanks to Adam McKay for the nudge

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

MSNBC Allowing Racist Hatemonger Pat Buchanan To Attack Obama


Why is the man who gave the most hateful and racist speech in modern political life on MSNBC telling me that Barack Obama went to a hateful church? How come not one purported journalist who appears with him on MSNBC appears to be aware of his well-earned reputation as a racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic anti-Semite? Why does the crawl under his name read "MSNBC Political Analyst" rather than "Conservative Republican standardholder, Nixon speechwriter, Reagan communications director, complete and utter partisan"? If he's an analyst I'm the fucking Pope.

Here's what Pat Buchanan has added to our national discourse (all are taken from this Jake Tapper profile of Buchanan in salon.com):

- once called Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko "the porch-nigger of the Politburo,"

- labeled the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, in which 67 blacks were killed, "whites mistreating a couple of blacks"

- on the subject of immigration policy, proclaimed, "Jose, we ain't gonna let you in again!"

"Rail as they will against 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism ... The momma bird builds the nest. So it was, so it ever shall be. Ronald Reagan is not responsible for this; God is"

"the poor homosexuals -- they have declared war on nature and now nature is exacting its retribution"

once praised no less than Adolf Hitler, calling him "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him"

- Buchanan insinuated that Jews were roping America into the Gulf War

- "David Duke is busy stealing from me," Buchanan said in 1991. "I have a mind to go down there and sue that dude for intellectual property theft."

- he blamed the farm crisis on "New York bankers" and "the money boys up in New York."

- in a radio interview, [] Buchanan justified his anti-immigration policies by insinuating that the character of Mexicans was generally criminal -- "60,000 of them are in our prisons." The "railroad killer" is the kind of person we're going to have more of unless we build up the border patrol, he said.

- he promised that, if he were elected, he'd open up China for U.S. trade -- or else China will have sold its "last pair of chopsticks in any mall in the United States of America."

- After Nixon was reelected, Buchanan warned his boss not to "fritter away his present high support in the nation for an ill-advised governmental effort to forcibly integrate races."

- In 1990, Buchanan spewed out another hate-filled sound bite: "With 80,000 dead of AIDS, 3,000 more buried each month, our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide."

- Even Richard Nixon found the views of his former speech writer, Buchanan, too extreme on the segregation issue. According to a John Ehrlichman memo referenced in Nicholas Lemann's "The Promised Land," Nixon characterized Buchanan's views as "segregation forever." After Nixon was reelected, Buchanan warned his boss not to "fritter away his present high support in the nation for an ill-advised governmental effort to forcibly integrate races."

And this man is lecturing the country about hate? He's the modern equivalent of George Wallace, Orval Faubus and Lester Maddox. That's why he's so offended by Jeremiah Wright's sermons. Because as the man who believes his white culture is under attack by almost anyone who's not a white male like him, he's personally offended by Wright's sermon. And he is making that the media narrative with the hours and hours of platform he gets to spew his views on MSNBC. When he screws up his face and says hateful, Afro-centric, etc., that's coming from deep down inside him. He feels attacked.

Of course, there are no actual journalists on MSNBC anymore. The closest we have is Keith Olbermann, a sportswriter who is the lonely outpost of semi-liberal news and views, but whose show is more infotainment than journalism. Don't expect Keith Olbermann to take on Pat Buchanan's insane rants against Obama. He's part of the MSNBC club and wants to stay there.

I hope that Obama survives this media attack, but it is clear that he is being Swiftboated; the conservative media are out in full force trying to take him down. And Pat Buchanan is gleefully leading the charge.

Here's what Pat Buchanan said during his 1992 convention speech, a dog whistle to racists about the blacks rioting in the streets of Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. When he says take back our culture at the end of the speech, he's saying take back our white culture. And you know what? That ignores the history of America. We really are a melting pot. There is no white culture. Pat Buchanan really would like to go back to the days of segregation. He just can't say it outright anymore, so he says it in code, like this:

[]
And there were the brave people of Koreatown who took the worst of the LA riots, but still live the family values we treasure, and who still believe deeply in the American dream.

Friends, in those wonderful 25 weeks, the saddest days were the days of the bloody riot in LA, the worst in our history. But even out of that awful tragedy can come a message of hope.

Hours after the violence ended I visited the Army compound in south LA, where an officer of the 18th Cavalry, that had come to rescue the city, introduced me to two of his troopers. They could not have been 20 years old. He told them to recount their story.

They had come into LA late on the 2nd day, and they walked up a dark street, where the mob had looted and burned every building but one, a convalescent home for the aged. The mob was heading in, to ransack and loot the apartments of the terrified old men and women. When the troopers arrived, M-16s at the ready, the mob threatened and cursed, but the mob retreated. It had met the one thing that could stop it: force, rooted in justice, backed by courage.

Greater love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friend. Here were 19-year-old boys ready to lay down their lives to stop a mob from molesting old people they did not even know. And as they took back the streets of LA, block by block, so we must take back our cities, and take back our culture, and take back our country.