The Buchaca factor

Maybe you’re bracing for rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto, but I’d say the really foul weather is coming from an even more depressing tropical depression — Methane Storm Pat Buchanan, whose promotional rounds for his odious new anti-immigration book State of Emergency have already caused levels of bigotry to reach flood levels in the Garden State.

Following on the muddy footsteps of the Delaware Valley towns of Riverside, N.J., and Hazelton, Pa., the Sussex County burg of Newton may decree that immigrants must present themselves at the town hall with their visas, green cards and working papers if they want to work or live in the community. Landlords or businesses caught accepting rent or labor from unacceptably brown-skinned people will face hefty fines.

No doubt they want to share in the benefits a similar ordinance brought to Riverside: terrible publicity, street rallies dominated by howling anti-immigrant Neanderthals and a devastating impact on local businesses that already need all the help they can get. Be sure to scroll down and check out the last photo with that Courier-Post story:three local residents chilling out and staring at an empty storefront. If they’re on board with the proposed ordinance, no doubt  they’re happy in their wingnuttery that even if the entire downtown goes dark, there won’t be any of those confounded immigrants making money in ‘em.

An awful lot of Republicans have been letting their white sheets show when they talk about race and immigration, most notoriously George Allen as his witty use of the term “macaca” — a type of monkey — to describe a dark-skinned spectator at one of his speeches. It all blends seemlessly with Buchanan’s fond reminisences of the days when his beloved United States of Merka was mostly white: “What I would like is — I’d like the country I grew up in,” he told Alan Colmes. “It was a good country. I lived in Washington, D.C., 400,000 black folks, 400,000 white folks, in a country 89 or 90 percent white. I like that country.” Cross “Buchanan” with “macaca” and you get Buchaca, a handy all-purpose term for the bilious outpourings of these creeps. Perhaps it should be spelled “Bukkaka,” to get the proper number of Ks into the mix.

I’m sure it was only that damned liberal PC we hear so much about that kept Buchanan from adding that the country really went to hell after those pesky anti-lynching laws went into effect.

But the volk in Riverside, Newton and Hazelton sure got the message, and I think we can expect to see many more knuckle-draggers waving Confederate flags and whooping against immigrants as the national GOP makes its kamikaze run for the polls.