[22:00]   audio here

THOM HARTMANN:  Welcome back.  There's a  — an amazing piece of this whole health-care drama, really the Republican/Democratic drama, the Hard Right vs. the rest of America drama, the racists vs. the rest of us drama, that's being played out beneath the radar.  And I want to lay it out for you.  Because I think it's just a cryin' shame that America is not talking about this. 

You will recall — well, actually, let me get to that in just a second.  First of all, the amping up of racist rhetoric in the United States has been steadily going ever since President Obama was nominated to be the — by the Democratic Party to be their nominee for president.  All the dog-whistle stuff, all the coded language, it's been flying fast and furious.  Some of it has been quite explicit.  James Clyburn yesterday was talking, African-American, uh, the, the — House Majority Whip, one of the most powerful and influential men in the House of Representatives, was talking about how he's receiving faxes that have things like nooses on them.  We had African-American members of Congress on Sunday walking in to vote being called the n-word and one was spat upon by these so-called Conservatives, these so-called Republicans — [laughs] well, maybe they — I shouldn't say "so-called" Republicans — by the Tea-Partiers.  Here's what Clyburn had to say:

AUDIO OF CONGRESSMAN CLYBURN: "If you look at some of the faxes that I got today, racial slurs, nooses on the  — um, on gallows, and I'm telling you, some very vicious language.  This stuff is not all that isolated.  It's pretty widespread.  I hope it's not too deep."

THOM HARTMANN:  Yeah.  And here's what I want to — here's the thing:  Everybody has been focusing on the word Waterloo in Senator Jim DeMint's statement.  Everybody has been focusing on the Waterloo.  There was a whole  — entire segments yesterday in the news were devoted to the use of the word Waterloo.  I was most fascinated by his use of the word "breaking" in reference to President Obama.  Listen to this clip: this is Senator Jim DeMint talking about how the Republican strategy  was to stop President Obama's healthcare legislation from being successful.  Here he is:

SENATOR DEMINT:  "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo.  It will break him."

THOM HARTMANN:  "break him"

SENATOR DEMINT:  "It will show that we can, along with the American people, begin to push those Freedom Solutions that work in every area of our society."

THOM HARTMANN:  "It will break him."  Now what the hell does that mean?  This is a congressman [sic] from South Carolina, a state where for over two hundred years there was an industry, an industry, known as slave breaking.  From the Columbian (Missouri) newspaper, Sept. 26, 1935.  It's the story about a 115-year old cabin being restored that had been lived in by a slave family, freed slaves, and Uncle Jim, this elderly African-American, who lived in this cabin — I'm quoting from the newspaper story, he says, "Massa Dave — Marse Dave, m-a-r-s-e Dave — never had his slaves whipped like some folks did, and he never sent them to the slave breaker."

Now quoting from this 1935 newspaper, the slave-breaker, the boogie-man of the Negro people, has retained a vivid spot in Uncle Jim's memory.  And then they quote Uncle Jim, former slave.  He was a big brawny man, and he was mean.  He had a place here in town, I guess it's about where the Chincsales [aud.] Garage is now, and whenever a slave became too unruly, his master took him to the slave breaker, who didn't often fail to beat the rebellion out of him.  The slave breaker had a pen with a log fence about ten or twelve feet high, he'd put the bad" (n-word) "in there, and beat him several times a day."  End of quote.

We have, you know, Glenn Beck talking about Barack Obama having a deep-seated hatred of white people.  And "the white culture", in quotes.  Bill O'Reilly saying, "the Left sees white men as a problem."  So Jim DeMint — how could a senator from South Carolina refer to "breaking" the first African-American President of the United States, and mean anything other than dog-whistle language to his constituents?  What alerted me to this, frankly, was an email I got from an African-American res — I've gotten several actually — from people who live in South Carolina, saying "How come the national media is not talking about the fact that Jim DeMint used the word 'breaking', or 'it would break him' in reference to Obama?"

Frederick Douglass was when he was sixteen years old, a slave.  And his owner sent him to a professional slave breaker, a fellow by the name of Edward Covey.  And he writes about this in his autobiography.  This is from his autobiography, written in 1845, it's called — it's from a chapter called "Cowardice Departed, Bold Defiance Took Its Place". 

"If at any one time in my life, more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with this man Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot, nor too cold; it could never rain, blow, snow, nor hail too hard to prevent us from working in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable at the first, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me — I was broken in body, soul, and spirit.

"On one of the hottest days of the month of August, 1833, Bill Smith, William Hughes, a slave named Eli, and myself" — this is Frederick Douglass writing — "were engaged in fanning wheat. …  The work was simple, requiring strength rather than intellect; yet, to one entirely unused to such work [as me] it came very hard. About three" — keep in mind, he's sixteen years old — "About three o'clock of that day, I broke down; my strength failed me; I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness; I trembled in every limb. … Mr. Covey was at the house, about one hundred yards from the treading-yard where we were fanning [the wheat]. On hearing the fan stop, he left immediately, and came to the spot where we were. He hastily inquired what the matter was. Bill answered that I was sick, and there was no one to bring wheat to the fan. I had by this time crawled away under the side of the post and rail-fence by which the yard was enclosed, hoping to find relief by getting out of the sun. He then asked where I was. He was told by one of the hands. He came to the spot, and after looking at me awhile, asked me what was the matter. I told him as well as I could, for I scarce had strength to speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, and told me to get up. I tried to do so, but fell back in the attempt. He gave me another kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded in gaining my feet; but, stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell. While down in this situation, Mr. Covey took up the hickory slat with which Hughes had been striking off the half-bushel measure, and with it gave me a heavy blow upon the head, making a large wound, and the blood ran freely; and with this again told me to get up."

That's slave breaking.  Senator Jim DeMint.  Play that clip real quickly if you've got it, Jacob.   

SENATOR DEMINT:  "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo.  It will break him." [theme music]

THOM HARTMANN:  Stop.  Right there.  "It will break him."  What the hell is goin' on in this country?  These caricatures of the President of the United States, this racist subtext, this use of race by the Republican Party, Pat Buchanan coming out and saying the Democrats shouldn't have passed Civil Rights in the 60's, what the hell is goin' on in this country?

[BREAK][27:47]

THOM HARTMANN:  Up next, why are Republicans calling for a return to "slave breaking"?  And your calls.

[bumper music]

THOM HARTMANN:  Welcome back to your media support group for We The People — of the civilized world.  [laughs]  Is civilization breaking down?  I would think that given the history of slave breaking in South Carolina that if Jim DeMint did not mean that as a dog-whistle phrase, when he said "this will be his Waterloo, this will break him", if he did not mean that in the racial context, or in the historic context of the state that he grew up in, and that I can't imagine that he didn't know, that if he did not mean that he would have issued an apology.     And I have not yet heard an apology from Jim DeMint for using that phrase in reference to the first African-American President of the United States. So, your thoughts on this — 866-987-THOM.  And, of course, today, just two hours ago, hour and a half ago, two hours ago now, I guess, the President of the United States signed into law the Senate bill, this change, it’s really changes around the edges.  There's some very important changes, but this is not — y'know, the Republicans and the Democrats both I think for their own particular partisan purposes are exaggerating the significance and importance of this legislation.  It's a good thing.  It's a good first step.  But it's — this is not Single Payer healthcare, this is not a Public Option.  This is not gonna put the health insurance companies out of business.  In fact in this morning's Financial Times, page 3, the headline, "Shares Rise After Health Vote Ends Uncertainty."  Andrew Jack in London: 

"Shares in many US healthcare companies rose on Monday following the passage of healthcare reforms, with investors seeing the benefits of greater certainty and increased demand offsetting potential price controls."  Industry likes it.  They go on to point out how the pharmaceutical industry likes it even better.  So, yeah, and as I've said before, I think the most important thing of this whole thing, is that President Obama now has a major legislative victory, or at least what is perceived as one, and — oh, well, frankly it is one, and it increases the probability that Democrats will hold the House and Senate in 2010, and increases the probability that he will be elected in 2012, and that's a very important thing because the President of the United States is the guy who nominates members of the United States Supreme Court.  And on the Supreme Court you've got Scalia who's 74 years old, Kennedy who's 73 years old, and tip of the hat to Sue in our chatroom for organizing this, Alito is 59, Breyer is  — well, the conservatives, most of them are pretty young.  Roberts is only 55 years old.  He's a kid.  Alito's 59 years old.  Thomas is only 61.  But there are two, Scalia and Kennedy.  If these guys retire, it's probably going to be in the second Obama term, as they're pushing up against 80.  And it's because the Supreme Court is the most powerful of the three branches of government, it's really important that we have a Democrat in that office. 

[29:17]

THOM HARTMANN:  Mike in San Francisco, listening on Green 960.  Hey, Mike — what's up?

CALLER:  Hey, how you doin, Thom?  Man, what you just said in reference to his using Waterloo and the term "break", I literally jumped out of my chair when I heard you say that, because ever since I heard that, I couldn't believe that — well honestly, I wasn't familiar with the term "Waterloo" with the reference, but the term "break him", that stood out, and there is no means, uh, there is no way that is by any stretch of the imagination was that a coincidence — a man from South Carolina, using that term.

Have you read the book, which I highly recommend to anybody, or, the letter — the Willie Lynch letter, from 1712, the speech that he gave to all the slavemasters, because they were having problems with negroes that were "too restless", to use the word for them, the "other n-word", but, um, the term "break him", taking the largest, the most restless, the most mean, the most feared, well, I guess just whoever they deemed the most threat, they would take them and break them on an auction block in front of their families, in front of their children, in front of the women.  And that is to create, obviously, well, they send a message.  And the term "break him" was very instrumental in that.  Naturally —

THOM HARTMANN:  yep

CALLER:   — if you read that, you'd see that he talked about how if you do this correctly, it will itself, uh, refuel itself, and perpetuate, where eventually, you won't have to do it anymore. 

THOM HARTMANN:  Yeh, W. E. B. DuBois writes about, y'know, slave breaking.  Frederick Douglass writes about his experience being sent to a slave breaker.  There's a long history.  Most people are familiar with breaking horses.

CALLER:  Right.

THOM HARTMANN:  The philosophy was similar.  Y'know —

CALLER:  Well that's where it came from.

THOM HARTMANN:   — break their will.  Yeah, exactly.  That's where it came from.  And I'm guessing that a lot — I've received a number of emails from people who live in the South, and several from South Carolinians, saying "those of us who grew up in the South" — and I'm not one.  I grew up in Michigan, and frankly I was not familiar with the phrase.  But "those of us" — these people have been saying to me, "those of us who grew up in the South", and particularly African Americans who grew up in the South know exactly what Jim DeMint was talking about when he was talking about "breaking" the first African-American President of the United States. 

CALLER:  Exactly.  By no stretch of the imagination could he be unfamiliar with that term, being from where he's from.  I'm from Georgia, and I never came across that term until I read the Willie Lynch letter in college quite some time ago.  But when I heard it, it was really like I was in one of those Twilight Zone episodes where I heard something totally different, like "Didn't you hear that?", and everyone else is talking about the reference —

THOM HARTMANN:  Waterloo, which — which —

CALLER:   — of Waterloo —

THOM HARTMANN:   — which all the white folks who had to study European history, they're all going "Oh, Waterloo.  Let's talk about Waterloo."  And they're not gettin' that Jim DeMint's talking about breaking an African-  —

CALLER:   — breaking —

THOM HARTMANN:   — -American president.

CALLER:  Breaking a man, not to mention the first African-American president, but breaking a black man, and this from a man in South Carolina.

THOM HARTMANN:  Yeah.

CALLER:  It was unbelievable.  And when you said that, this is why you're one of the best, I have to say —[theme music] I've said it before, but it's unequivocal now, so —

THOM HARTMANN:  Thank you, Mike.

CALLER:   — I, I really appreciate you bringing up that point, and just lastly I'd like to say, read the Willie Lynch letter, anybody who gets time.  It's only twenty pages but it's — it's an emotional ride —

THOM HARTMANN:  I'll check it out.

CALLER:   — pretty hard to get through.

THOM HARTMANN:  I'll check it out, and, uh, thank you very much for the call.  We'll be right back.

[30:55]