Skeptic - John - I believe that you have done as much to de-fuse friend Mav than anyone in this forum, and for that I'm grateful. He defeats himself when he raves, but beneath his buffoonery there are some dangerous ideas disguised with a veneer of logic. Your patient refutations and counter-arguments have de-pantsed the guy completely, in my opinion, but there is enough substance in his statements to make them appealing to less critical thinkers.

Friend Mav -
You don't have to be an Uncle Tom to get played; young Bush has a lot of "advisers" who are expert at dis-empowering minorities through "passive acceptance". I include here a piece of an article I clipped out of The Nation that I think expresses this quite well.

"With Rice's nomination, the point may be that a black can be just as staunch in spouting conservative foreign policy as the next wonk. With Paige, the point is that a black can promote the sort of educational policies that help some black folk while potentially harming a larger segment of the community. It is clear that such a state of affairs does not constitute racial progress. The irony is that Powell, Paige and Rice were chosen in part to prove an inclusiveness that is meaningless if their very presence comes at the expense of representing the interests of the majority of black folk, especially those poor and working-class folk who are vulnerable and largely invisible. The lesson the Republicans would have us learn is that not all blacks think alike, that we are no ideological monolith in liberal captivity. The real lesson may be that a black face does not translate into a progressive political presence that aids the bulk of black folk. Especially when that face must put a smile on repressive policies that hurt not just most blacks but those Americans committed to radical democracy. If that counts as racial progress, we need an immediate recount."