A virtual friend of mine on our local V.I. discussion board just brought this St. Croix Source OpEd by one Frank Schneiger to my divisive right-wing attention.

It's a fine example of leftist pots calling right-wing kettles...errrr...black haters...among other things.

Take a look at some of the convolution:

"For the last quarter century, American politics and the national government have been dominated by the reactionary right. This domination was only partially interrupted by the Clinton years. Born as the "white backlash" of the 1960s, the reactionary movement has become a powerful force for reversing the social gains made by blacks, women, homosexuals, certain immigrants and the poor, and in also seeking to wipe out the country's core social programs going back to the Great Depression and New Deal of the 1930s.

The principal tools that the right uses are vast amounts of money, conservative "think tanks" that give its ideas legitimacy, organization, technology and social division, particularly the hostility of the Republican Party's "base" to the "others," mostly the groups mentioned above"

~snip~
"...They have produced the highest rates of imprisonment in the world, the shredding of the country's social safety net, the abandonment of even a pretense of equal opportunity, and the isolation of millions of people in entrenched poverty in decaying central cities."

Eight years of Donk prestigiation?
...out the window of their ill-tempered glass home.

This is rich stuff seeing as it's volk on the political left who use terms such as "uncle tom" and "brown sugar" and Nazi and Zionist Jew in their attempts to belittle - among "others" - the two most powerful people of color on the planet who happen to be Republicans. You know, the party of Abraham Lincoln...

Anyway, next is where he writhes to explain to us mindless proles how it's the 'class warfare' politics of the American right which is really to blame for "The 'us' against 'them' game" that local Democrat pols use to maintain power.

"What does any of this have to do with the Virgin Islands? While reactionary politics and fostering inter-group hostility is typically seen as the province of the political right, there are also reactionaries of the left who are willing to play the game."

~snip~
"Largely because of the politics of divisiveness, the Virgin Islands, once a bastion of tolerance, has become a far less tolerant place in the past 30 years. Instead of trying to roll back social change, Virgin Islands reactionaries seek to hold onto privileged positions by pitting group against group."

~snip~
"The resurgence of "born here" is indicative of both decline and growing intolerance. The "others" are those not "born here," most of whom are white, just as most, but hardly all, of those "born here" are black. "Born here" is the Virgin Islands mirror of the mainland Republican version of "the American People." a group that excludes anyone who is not white, rich, suburban or a fundamentalist Christian. The message is the same: "We" don't want you."

~snip~
"the recent specter raised of a return to "colonialism" if a federal chief financial officer is appointed to oversee the territory's finances is another form of what used to be known as "waving the bloody shirt." While the real message is "God help us if they come in here and see how we have screwed up the finances," using "colonialism" as a political club puts the issue into a racial context that is rooted in a long history of legitimate grievances. The message: Whites are going to retake control of the only thing we have, the government."

Onward to divisiveness...

"The Virgin Islands has become less accepting and less welcoming, a condition that is both a cause and an effect of its social and economic decline. When political figures ask rhetorically, "Are you saying that we don't have enough talent here to fill these top jobs?" there is a natural inclination to go along with the program, if only to avoid being called a racist. But the correct answer to the question is "no." The territory has a talent deficit in most managerial, professional and leadership areas, and its failing schools and other institutions make the problem worse every year. It does need outside talent, just like every place else, but even more.

And finally, like the politics of reaction and division on the mainland and elsewhere, the Virgin Islands variety can produce no vision of hope, but instead only a future marked by more division, greater mistrust and intensified competition for pieces of an inevitably shrinking pie.

When inter-group mistrust is high and the politics of division are in the saddle, the worst elements in society rise to the top and "good people" are marginalized and silenced -- or, more likely, they just leave. When that happens, all bets are off.

In the worst-case scenarios -- of which there are many, as we have seen with people as diverse as Arafat, various generals in Latin America, African dictators and various ex-Yugoslav war criminals -- we are often surprised by what these people are capable of doing. We should not be since, in most cases, they have been talking about it for years."

Typical...A zero sum, 'us' or 'them' grasp of economics...

Notice that those Third World Dictators he mentioned are all products of the class warfare enamored left.

Anyway, in summary:
Although I can somewhat respect his attempt to shake up the status-quo of local Democrat controlled socio-economic malaise, I can't tolerate the sort of shallow intellectual cowardice displayed in his misguided opening thesis portraying the GOP as the root of all that is bad.

In so doing he obviously acts as an entrenched creature of the left shielding himself from a fragging by his patrons and peers of the VI's Democrat establishment - who just so happened to have paid his bill$ for many years.

The meat of this "reactionary" screed reminds me of Al Gore's 2002 NYT OpEd Broken Promises and Political Deception, only expanded and slathered in common Socialist class-warfare tropes - wrapped around that favorite leftist numbnut word "reactionary" wherein he attempts to equate the local Democrat's apparently learned divisiveness to the supposed continuing legacy of the big bad originators on the continental American right.

Reactionary...

That's a curious yet illuminating choice of adjective seeing as it's popular usage was established by someone called Karl Marx; who used it to more conveniently describe us evil snorting Yankee Capitalist pig-ghost...running dog class-oppressors on the "reactionary right"...oh yeah...who oppose Communism.

In fact it's still a universally popular word amongst the progressive Stalinist anti-war set which seems to be the most vocal special-interest component of the National [socialist] Democrat's current political 'base' (Qa'ida) which lacks any hint of color that is not dedicated to the 'us' versus 'them' divisiveness that remains the Democrat party's Grand keagle pandering political currency of choice.

Needless to say, he won't be managing to consult for anything I'm ever involved with...especially given what his apparent consultations have contributed toward the dismal state of "our" Virgin Islands government since 1975.

Which is, I might add...Over a Billion buck$ in debt with nothing to show for it but cultural decline punctuated by rising crime, failing public education, decayed infrastructure, rising taxation, and an overregulated weakening of hope .