they know

Bob Herbert joins the chorus of those disgusted by the Shirley Sherrod case, but barely misses the main point why both the Oborg NeoLibs the Faux News paleocons were so eager to throw her under the bus.

It ain't just about race, baby.

Here's what she said that really drew the lightning:

... The point that Ms. Sherrod was making as she talked in her speech about the white farmer who had come to her for help was that we are all being sold a tragic bill of goods by the powerful forces that insist on pitting blacks, whites and other ethnic groups against one another.

Ms. Sherrod came to the realization, as she witnessed the plight of poverty-stricken white farmers in the South more than two decades ago, that the essential issue in this country “is really about those who have versus those who don’t.”

She explained how the wealthier classes have benefited from whites and blacks constantly being at each other’s throats, and how rampant racism has insidiously kept so many struggling whites from recognizing those many things they and their families have in common with economically struggling blacks, Hispanics and so on.

“It’s sad that we don’t have a roomful of whites and blacks here tonight,” she said, “because we have to overcome the divisions that we have.”

There is no way we’ll overcome those divisions if people who should know better keep bowing before and kowtowing to the toxic agenda of those on the right whose overriding goal is to foment hostility and hate.

Mr. Herbert I'd like to submit that her recognition of the real class war in our society, between the robber privateers and everyone else, is what really led Murdoch's machine to grind her up, and the Chicago School NeoLibs in our government to spit her out.

Race was just an excuse.