more on the rhetoric of class politics: "I'm not concerned with the very poor," says Romney.

Mitt Romney indicates in a February 1, 2012 interview with CNN, the Americans he would not be concerned with helping should he become president (see top clip). Newt Gingrich seizes the moment later that day and declares he is "fed-up" with  Romney, and other politicians, such as Obama, "dividing Americans against each other" (see middle clip). Two days later, Romney retracts his statements, claiming he "misspoke."  Note: In the Republican debate during the New Hampshire primary in early January, 2012, Rick Santorum denies the existence of social class in the U.S. altogether, actually declaring "There are no classes in America" (see bottom clip).

btw, just WHO IS Saul Alinsky?

Thanks to the currrent Republican primaries, and particularly Newt Gingrich, the name of a man who has been dead for over 40 years is re-entering national discussion (see YouTube clip and Real Time with Bill Maher). While the intent seems to be to malign Obama through such association, inspection of Saul Alinsky's biography, as in this Christian Science Monitor piece, suggests that this tactic may not gain traction among voters.

racist code-speak

In this Sociological Images post, Jason Eastman provides an example of Bonilla-Silva's contention that overt racist speech is no longer socially acceptable in public discourse, and therefore racist ideas are now generally expressed in coded terms.  In this segment from John Stewart's Daily Show, guest Larry Wilmore uses a mashup of Newt Gingrich public pronouncements about the poor and poverty to suggest that they are indeed racially targeted.

An abbreviated version is cross-posted at The Sociological Cinema.