Apologies to anyone who tried to access the site over the last 24 and were told they needed permission. I was trying to do some experimental stuff with the template and didn't want everyone to see Too Sense in its underwear. We're back on now.
Peace,
dnA
Sunday, May 25, 2008
My Bad
Friday, May 23, 2008
Your Nagging Mother Disapproves of the "Dream Ticket" Idea
All of this incessant buzz and chatter about an Obama/Clinton ticket . . . could we stop, maybe? Is that too much to ask? What, you think it would be a "dream ticket"? You and your fancy "dream tickets" . . . you don't know from dreams. Dreams, I could show you. This is no dream. This is a nightmare. An abomination, I tell you. Your father, rest his soul, would be mortified at the thought of this "dream ticket."
What's not to like about Obama and Clinton running together, you ask? Oh, who am I to object, right? I'm just your mother. Maybe I should go sit in that broken chair in the basement, and wait to die, instead of bothering you with an old lady's opinions. You're busy, I understand, you have no time for all of my ramblings. I only gave you life and nursed you at my breast, it's nothing much. You don't need to listen to me.
Okay, well, if you insist, I'll tell you why this "dream" of yours would have both sets of your grandparents spinning in their graves: because you shouldn't reward Hillary Clinton for all of her bad behavior. If you give her a place on the ticket, you're telling everyone that it's fine and dandy to try to split up the Democratic Party along racial lines, that nobody minds if a candidate tries to win a nomination by changing the rules when she doesn't like the outcome. You want that your daughters should grow up to behave like that? Or your sons? This is the kind of lesson you want handed down to your children?
I understand, she's an historic candidate, the first woman to come close to being nominated for President by a major party. Last year, I was okay with that argument. It wasn't enough for me, mind you, but I wasn't offended. But she's thrown all of that out the window by being the first Democratic candidate to not only benefit from racial prejudice but to brag about it, too. It's one thing if her voters should pick her for bad reasons. She can't stop them from doing that. But it's another thing to encourage them to do so. And you know that's what she's done. Oh, she's smart, that Clinton, she doesn't tell her audiences that they don't want to vote for some black guy, but she doesn't have to say that. All she has to do is talk about those "hard working white Americans" and they know exactly what she means. Like I said, smart.
Listen, you should want that your presidential candidate be strong, and independent. For him to look weak going into November, this would not be a good thing. And how could he help but look weak if he picks her as his running mate? After all of the things she's said, after her supporters have threatened to withold their funds from the Party if she does not get the Vice Presidential nod, how would selecting her amount to anything less than giving in to blackmail? If Obama can't handle Hillary Clinton, you expect voters to believe he'd be able to handle Kim Jong Il?
And what about Obama's reason for running in the first place? He comes into this thing declaring that he wants to break from the past, to do things in a new way. If he chooses Clinton, how would that be "new" politics? It would be more of the "old" politics that put us in this mess in the first place!
Dreams are nice. Dreams are good. But this Obama/Clinton thing you're so impressed with? This is no dream. Listen to your mother for a change!
And eat something! You're too thin . . .
What's not to like about Obama and Clinton running together, you ask? Oh, who am I to object, right? I'm just your mother. Maybe I should go sit in that broken chair in the basement, and wait to die, instead of bothering you with an old lady's opinions. You're busy, I understand, you have no time for all of my ramblings. I only gave you life and nursed you at my breast, it's nothing much. You don't need to listen to me.
Okay, well, if you insist, I'll tell you why this "dream" of yours would have both sets of your grandparents spinning in their graves: because you shouldn't reward Hillary Clinton for all of her bad behavior. If you give her a place on the ticket, you're telling everyone that it's fine and dandy to try to split up the Democratic Party along racial lines, that nobody minds if a candidate tries to win a nomination by changing the rules when she doesn't like the outcome. You want that your daughters should grow up to behave like that? Or your sons? This is the kind of lesson you want handed down to your children?
I understand, she's an historic candidate, the first woman to come close to being nominated for President by a major party. Last year, I was okay with that argument. It wasn't enough for me, mind you, but I wasn't offended. But she's thrown all of that out the window by being the first Democratic candidate to not only benefit from racial prejudice but to brag about it, too. It's one thing if her voters should pick her for bad reasons. She can't stop them from doing that. But it's another thing to encourage them to do so. And you know that's what she's done. Oh, she's smart, that Clinton, she doesn't tell her audiences that they don't want to vote for some black guy, but she doesn't have to say that. All she has to do is talk about those "hard working white Americans" and they know exactly what she means. Like I said, smart.
Listen, you should want that your presidential candidate be strong, and independent. For him to look weak going into November, this would not be a good thing. And how could he help but look weak if he picks her as his running mate? After all of the things she's said, after her supporters have threatened to withold their funds from the Party if she does not get the Vice Presidential nod, how would selecting her amount to anything less than giving in to blackmail? If Obama can't handle Hillary Clinton, you expect voters to believe he'd be able to handle Kim Jong Il?
And what about Obama's reason for running in the first place? He comes into this thing declaring that he wants to break from the past, to do things in a new way. If he chooses Clinton, how would that be "new" politics? It would be more of the "old" politics that put us in this mess in the first place!
Dreams are nice. Dreams are good. But this Obama/Clinton thing you're so impressed with? This is no dream. Listen to your mother for a change!
And eat something! You're too thin . . .
She Really Said It.
Oh you're gonna love this one.
At this point, prior comparisons to the Sopranos are beginning to take on a staggering lack of irony. Must be part of those tough veep negotiations we're hearing so much about.Sen. Hillary Clinton referred Friday to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 Democratic campaign as a reason she should continue to campaign despite increasingly long odds.
Clinton was responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race.
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.
Clinton said she didn't understand why, given this history, some Democrats were calling for her to quit.
Her remark about an assassination during a primary campaign drew a quick response from rival Barack Obama's campaign.
"Sen. Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
In all seriousness...Has she lost her natural mind?
Those Exotic, Suicidal Muslims
This column that Jeffrey Goldberg finds so compelling is, despite its caveats, a transparently nasty way of using the phenomenon of suicide bombing to define the Muslim world as a whole. Two of the examples listed as "proof" that Muslims are suicidal were strict authoritarian regimes and their citizens didn't have much choice in any of the decisions made. Meanwhile, the United States is a representative democracy, and we elected George W. Bush to office twice, so who's really suicidal?
Al Jazeera In Ohio
What does it say that Al Jazeera treats Americans with more dignity, respect and love than our own broadcast media? There's no condescension, no voyeurism in this report on the economic conditions in Dayton. Even stylistically, there's no cardboard narrator condensing weeks or months of a job search into a soundbite; the story is told entirely in the words of those living it. I'm well aware of Al Jazeera's bias and perspective; this piece definitely lacks balance. But it has something our media often doesn't: a respect for the people whose stories it aims to tell.
My Reason for Supporting Obama in a Nutshell:
The main reason I support Obama, and believe in the potential represented not just by his campaign but by the movement that is building up behind his campaign, is summed up nicely in the following speech given recently by Obama in Florida:
"We all have a piece of each other." No candidate in American history has ever talked about the ways in which we are all intermingled and interconnected. That interconnectedness is the deepest and truest argument against the doctrines of racism. Taken to its logical extremes, that interconnectedness is a profound argument against just about any "ism" you might care to name.
We've never seen this before in American politics. If we don't capitalize on this moment, who knows when or if we'll ever see it again?
"We all have a piece of each other." No candidate in American history has ever talked about the ways in which we are all intermingled and interconnected. That interconnectedness is the deepest and truest argument against the doctrines of racism. Taken to its logical extremes, that interconnectedness is a profound argument against just about any "ism" you might care to name.
We've never seen this before in American politics. If we don't capitalize on this moment, who knows when or if we'll ever see it again?
The GI Bill
It is very good news that Congress has passed a GI Bill with a veto-proof majority. The previous GI Bill played a significant role in the creation not just of the middle class in general, but in the black community as well. The new GI Bill will fulfill what has been up till now an empty promise to whites and minorities regarding their educational and financial futures. There's no way the bill will have the impact the WWII era bill had, given that there is a smaller percentage of the U.S. population in the military, but that just undercuts arguments that the bill is "too expensive".
Despite dropping recruitment rates of African-Americans we still make up about twenty percent of the military. It's only right that those who risk their lives actually get what they've been promised.
Why Terence?
You kinda knew Terence Howard had that gully "I'd murder my daughter's boyfriend" vibe about him. But it's still kind of embarrassing that he's telling everyone.
And yes, his children are Blewish. What's great about this whole more interracial marriages between blacks and Jews thing is that now when we have music careers we'll be able to manage them properly.
UPDATE: So Terence Howard's wife is actually a Jehovah's Witness, which makes my not so funny joke even LESS funny.
McCain Calls Obama Young'un
McCain on Obama the whippersnapper:
Guess it's time for McCain to book a room at the Holiday Inn Express: "I'm not an economist, but don't worry . . ."
"I admire and respect Senator Obama . . . For a young man with very little experience, he’s done very well . . . For his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, he’s been very successful. So don’t get me wrong.I admire and respect Senator Obama, but he does not have the knowledge background or judgment to lead this nation in these difficult and challenging times and I do, and I can keep this nation prosperous and secure."You can keep this nation prosperous, John? Aren't you the same guy who admitted to your own lack of knowledge about the economy? So, you'd have, what's that thing called, a learning curve? Kind of like Obama might have a learning curve on military issues? Coincidentally, John, what exactly were you doing during your last two decades as a Senator, if you weren't learning about something as enormous and important as the economy? Surely you could have taken the occasional break from your Being a Maverick shtick to read a book or two?
Guess it's time for McCain to book a room at the Holiday Inn Express: "I'm not an economist, but don't worry . . ."
And Another One
McCain dumps Pastor Rod "abortion is genocide against black people" and "America was founded to destroy Islam" Parsley.
McCain's association with these men, despite courting them for their political influence, was never going to be as much of an issue as Reverend Wright is for Obama. The fact is people can understand McCain as an individual separate from Parsley and Hagee because he's white, but Reverend Wright's association with Obama threatens to make him the sum of all of white people's fears about black people. Namely that we are all lying in wait to take revenge for slavery by getting Barack Obama elected, after which he will declare himself ultimate ruler of America and will demand the right to sleep with your daughters.
If You Know People Are Out to Get You . . .
. . . why help them do it?
Following up on my earlier post arguing that Bill Clinton caused Bush the Lesser to be elected, one of our commenters mentioned that America's "ridiculous puritanical hang-ups about sex" had something to do with Clinton being impeached (my argument being that the impeachment scandal forced Gore to distance himself from the successes of the Clinton administration and gave GWB the opening he needed). That's a fair point, but I don't think it lets Bill Clinton off the hook.
Why? Because those puritanical hang-ups weren't some new development in the American psyche. We've had them since, oh, Plymouth Rock. And Clinton, an educated man, had to have been fully aware of them. Then you have to add the fact that there was a well-financed network of people that were obsessed with bringing down the Clinton administration. Clinton was clearly aware of that fact as well.
If you know that people are out to get you, the last thing you should do is help them. Without the Lewinsky affair, and the Paula Jones matter, there would have been no impeachment. Clinton sexually harassed Paula Jones (by now I think even Bill's remaining supporters would concede that there was something underlying Jones' claims, even if his conduct was not as bad as what was alleged), leading to her suit. He had an affair with Lewinsky and then lied to conceal said affair during a sworn deposition, leading to the perjury charge. The perjury charge was the heart of the impeachment.
Clinton's sexual behavior gave a tremendous opportunity to his foes. Without the Jones/Lewinsky matter, Ken Starr would have come up snake-eyes. He spent years digging into Whitewater and (I believe) the Rose Law Firm billing issue, and never obtained sufficient evidence to get any kind of indictments against the Clintons. It would have seriously undermined the right's entire argument against Clinton if Starr had had nothing to show for his years of efforts.
The point of the whole sordid mess is not whether or not American views on infidelity are puritanical. Be those views good, bad, or indifferent, they are and were a known quantity. Clinton should have acted accordingly. He failed to do so, and Clinton'e enemies acted as it was always clear they would act if they had the chance.
If you see a rabid dog on a chain, and you put your hand out for the dog to bite, who's at fault, you or the dog?
Following up on my earlier post arguing that Bill Clinton caused Bush the Lesser to be elected, one of our commenters mentioned that America's "ridiculous puritanical hang-ups about sex" had something to do with Clinton being impeached (my argument being that the impeachment scandal forced Gore to distance himself from the successes of the Clinton administration and gave GWB the opening he needed). That's a fair point, but I don't think it lets Bill Clinton off the hook.
Why? Because those puritanical hang-ups weren't some new development in the American psyche. We've had them since, oh, Plymouth Rock. And Clinton, an educated man, had to have been fully aware of them. Then you have to add the fact that there was a well-financed network of people that were obsessed with bringing down the Clinton administration. Clinton was clearly aware of that fact as well.
If you know that people are out to get you, the last thing you should do is help them. Without the Lewinsky affair, and the Paula Jones matter, there would have been no impeachment. Clinton sexually harassed Paula Jones (by now I think even Bill's remaining supporters would concede that there was something underlying Jones' claims, even if his conduct was not as bad as what was alleged), leading to her suit. He had an affair with Lewinsky and then lied to conceal said affair during a sworn deposition, leading to the perjury charge. The perjury charge was the heart of the impeachment.
Clinton's sexual behavior gave a tremendous opportunity to his foes. Without the Jones/Lewinsky matter, Ken Starr would have come up snake-eyes. He spent years digging into Whitewater and (I believe) the Rose Law Firm billing issue, and never obtained sufficient evidence to get any kind of indictments against the Clintons. It would have seriously undermined the right's entire argument against Clinton if Starr had had nothing to show for his years of efforts.
The point of the whole sordid mess is not whether or not American views on infidelity are puritanical. Be those views good, bad, or indifferent, they are and were a known quantity. Clinton should have acted accordingly. He failed to do so, and Clinton'e enemies acted as it was always clear they would act if they had the chance.
If you see a rabid dog on a chain, and you put your hand out for the dog to bite, who's at fault, you or the dog?
Hagee Loves Israel...To Death
Jewish folks are often real paranoid that we are on the brink of extinction, so it's worth noting that Catholic outrage wasn't enough to get Hagee pushed out of the McCain camp, but his comments about Hitler and Jews were. That's not to say we aren't hated, it's just to note that we're not marginalized players in American politics, by any means.
Most interesting in this whole fiasco is the role of Abraham Foxman, who is quickly becoming the Jewish version of Bill Donahue. Foxman, while criticizing Barack Obama's association with his former Pastor, has nonetheless defended Pastor Hagee. Wright is on record saying Israel had a right to exist and has a right to defend itself, he failed to buy indulgences from Foxman in the form of fundraising for Israeli charities.
One wonders when someone will ask Joe Lieberman and Abraham Foxman whether they also believe that the Holocaust was the will of God. From a Jewish point of view, this wouldn't be theologically salient, but they obviously believe it is an appropriate observation, since they defended Hagee on multiple occasions. Personally, I'd rather someone be critical of the Jewish state than support it with the ultimate goal of the holy genocide of the Jewish people in mind, but that's just me.
Foxman has in mind not the best interests of American Jews, but a right wing political agenda. What the Hagee mess made clear is that he should not be considered a voice of the Jewish community, he should be considered a voice of Right wing Jews, whose views continue to be overrepresented.
What most disgusts me about Foxman and Lieberman trying to defend someone who holds such anti-Semitic views it that I think many people agree with Hagee. For Christians who believe God has a hand in every single human decision, no matter how small, how else would a person of faith rationalize the near-destruction of the Jews? If the level of controversy is directly related to the number of people who share a certain view, than Hagee really isn't that controversial to many Americans.
His views are controversial to an influential minority, namely Jews. Unfortunately, we have had two of the most visible members of the Jewish community running around giving their tacit approval to Hagee's most ugly beliefs, which only means that more people will think there's nothing wrong with rationalizing the Holocaust as divine will.
Heckuva job, guys.
The Always Classy New York Post
From their Wednesday edition. Why didn't they just put Nelson from the Simpsons on the cover?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Shorter Hillary on Michigan:
"Yes, I fucked him, but it was his choice to bend over and grab his ankles . . ."
Spike Tells It
This is terrible copy from AP, but you get the idea.
Lee _ whose next film is this fall's "Miracle at St. Anna," the story of an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during the war _ said Eastwood's 2006 movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" were whites-only affairs.
"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was a judge in an online short-film competition.
"Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version," Lee said.
I'm almost positive, since there is no quote of Spike Lee saying "whites only affairs" about two movies, one of which takes place entirely from the perspective of the Japanese, that Spike didn't actually say that and the reporter paraphrased poorly.
The invisibility of black Americans in historical Hollywood epics is something we've discussed here at Too Sense before, but it really is staggering that there has never been a Hollywood film made about say, black jockeys at the turn of the century, or the black migration in the early Twentieth Century, black veterans in World War II. Mostly what we get is Remember the Titans style feel good integrationist drivel that only serves to reinforce the idea that black people have no world of their own beyond our interaction with white people.
And Cool Runnings.
UPDATE: In case it's not obvious, I should add that I don't have a problem with the concept of integration...the way it was carried out, that's a different story. I DO have a problem with the Disneyfication of integration, which I feel also reinforces the idea that everything should have been solved with the Civil Rights Act.
Via Matt Yglesias, this pretty good story from Al Jazeera on Kentucky voters.
This is better than most American coverage. But even this piece doesn't talk about the history of coal mining in the region. After emancipation, coal mining companies sought an advantage over unions by hiring former slaves as scabs since, the unions were racist, wouldn't allow blacks as members. The companies didn't have to fulfill many obligations to this new, unorganized labor force, and a lot of white miners lost their jobs. So it actually makes sense that people would see race relations as a question of pure exploitation; with one side dominating the other. That's the history of the region.
Exploiting racial tensions helped the coal companies make a buck. And that story was repeated in urban and rural areas all over the country for years. So who exactly benefited from all this racial tension? It wasn't coal miners or factory workers.
Who Caused Bush to be Elected? Bill Clinton!
One of the weirdest spectacles of this campaign season has been Bill Clinton's thin-skinned response to the merest suggestion that his Presidency was anything less than an amazing, un-alloyed success. I don't think Bill got personally steamed at Obama until Obama gave a speech where he lumped together the administrations of Clinton and of Bush the Lesser.
Well, Bill, here's the thing: yes, we did have the largest peacetime economic expansion on record while you were President. You deserve kudos for that. But do you want to know who is really to blame for the last 7 years of political apocalypse? You, Bill. You.
How so? It all goes back to the zipper problem. Because you were incapable of actually keeping Little Bill safely confined in your trousers, you gave the Republicans the opening they needed to win the White House. Think about it: Al Gore was the sitting Vice President during a time of economic prosperity without any live wars going on. By any historical measure, he should have easily won the 2000 election. And he would have, except for you and Little Bill with all of your various hijinks.
Your lack of self control (and common sense) led to the impeachment crisis of 1998/99. That in turn allowed Bush the Lesser to campaign on the premise of restoring "honor and dignity" to the White House, making his pitch, essentially "Vote for me, I won't fuck the interns." You gave him that campaign issue on a silver platter.
Your Wang Derangement Syndrome is also what prompted Gore to try to distance himself from you as much as he could. What should have been one of his greatest political advantages, working with a President who had achieved great things with the economy, had to be cast aside. Gore couldn't stand to be associated with you and Little Bill. So he ran a campaign that failed to capitalize on any of your achievements, endlessly shifting arguments to try to come up with some rationale for people to vote for him that was not connected to you.
So, Bill, even though it is true that your administration did a lot more things correctly than the Bush administration has done, even though you probably rank in the top 20 of American Presidents, as opposed to the bottom 5 like Bush the Lesser, the slow-motion clusterfuck of the Bush administration was brought about, at least initially, by your own incessant appetites. Stop being offended when people compare you to Bush the Lesser. You helped to put him where he is today.
Well, Bill, here's the thing: yes, we did have the largest peacetime economic expansion on record while you were President. You deserve kudos for that. But do you want to know who is really to blame for the last 7 years of political apocalypse? You, Bill. You.
How so? It all goes back to the zipper problem. Because you were incapable of actually keeping Little Bill safely confined in your trousers, you gave the Republicans the opening they needed to win the White House. Think about it: Al Gore was the sitting Vice President during a time of economic prosperity without any live wars going on. By any historical measure, he should have easily won the 2000 election. And he would have, except for you and Little Bill with all of your various hijinks.
Your lack of self control (and common sense) led to the impeachment crisis of 1998/99. That in turn allowed Bush the Lesser to campaign on the premise of restoring "honor and dignity" to the White House, making his pitch, essentially "Vote for me, I won't fuck the interns." You gave him that campaign issue on a silver platter.
Your Wang Derangement Syndrome is also what prompted Gore to try to distance himself from you as much as he could. What should have been one of his greatest political advantages, working with a President who had achieved great things with the economy, had to be cast aside. Gore couldn't stand to be associated with you and Little Bill. So he ran a campaign that failed to capitalize on any of your achievements, endlessly shifting arguments to try to come up with some rationale for people to vote for him that was not connected to you.
So, Bill, even though it is true that your administration did a lot more things correctly than the Bush administration has done, even though you probably rank in the top 20 of American Presidents, as opposed to the bottom 5 like Bush the Lesser, the slow-motion clusterfuck of the Bush administration was brought about, at least initially, by your own incessant appetites. Stop being offended when people compare you to Bush the Lesser. You helped to put him where he is today.
Hillary Clinton is Smearing White People, Too
I've been offended by the Clinton camp's crypto-racist tactics since January. As their level of deperation has increased, so has the degree to which they've been willing to openly make racially-charged arguments. Their intensity has gone up, and so has my degree of anger. But lately I've been trying to figure out why I've gotten this angry. I am literally to the point where I have more of a problem with her than with George W. Bush. Much as her willingness to veer into racist territory has been loathesome and revolting, I've been surprised at my own level of animosity.
I think I finally hit on something this morning. It's not just that she is making claims that are offensive to black people and harmful to race relations. She is also dragging the reputation of the white community down into the mud with her. It all goes back to her "authenticity" arguments: the real Americans, e.g. the authentic white people, aren't the educated, latte-sipping, upper-income caucasians on the coasts. No, the real white folks, by her definition, are ignorant, and poor, and openly unwilling to support a black man for President.
Clinton is describing and defining my community in terms that are heartbreaking in their vileness. By her logic, white people haven't made any progress at all since the Civil Rights Movement. We still have the same racial neuroses that defined us 40 and 50 years ago. We still have the same limited outlook, the same small, selfish hearts. That is what she's saying about us.
Of course, she's not overt about it. But she has now had at least 3 primary victories in which racial animus was a significant factor. And she has willingly embraced that fact, giving shout-outs to the "hard working white Americans." She talks about Obama not having the support of working-class white people, a statement that is not true, statistically. Minesotta, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, all of those states are majority-white, with a large working-class population, and all of them went for Obama. So Hillary can't say that it's white people overall. She can only point to one specific, narrow sub-group within the white community.
The thing is, she is taking that one sub-group, impoverished, under-educated Appalachian whites, and trying to make it seem as if that group is representative of working-class whites across the country. Me, I'm a working-class guy with a white-collar job (I just can't see how going to school for a few more years and getting a different type of career has changed my social class), so I fall into the class of people she's trying to define. I take this stuff personally.
How dare she presume to smear the name and reputation of my community? And why aren't more people from my community taking public offense to her tactics? Why...are...we...putting...up...with...this...shit?!?
I think I finally hit on something this morning. It's not just that she is making claims that are offensive to black people and harmful to race relations. She is also dragging the reputation of the white community down into the mud with her. It all goes back to her "authenticity" arguments: the real Americans, e.g. the authentic white people, aren't the educated, latte-sipping, upper-income caucasians on the coasts. No, the real white folks, by her definition, are ignorant, and poor, and openly unwilling to support a black man for President.
Clinton is describing and defining my community in terms that are heartbreaking in their vileness. By her logic, white people haven't made any progress at all since the Civil Rights Movement. We still have the same racial neuroses that defined us 40 and 50 years ago. We still have the same limited outlook, the same small, selfish hearts. That is what she's saying about us.
Of course, she's not overt about it. But she has now had at least 3 primary victories in which racial animus was a significant factor. And she has willingly embraced that fact, giving shout-outs to the "hard working white Americans." She talks about Obama not having the support of working-class white people, a statement that is not true, statistically. Minesotta, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, all of those states are majority-white, with a large working-class population, and all of them went for Obama. So Hillary can't say that it's white people overall. She can only point to one specific, narrow sub-group within the white community.
The thing is, she is taking that one sub-group, impoverished, under-educated Appalachian whites, and trying to make it seem as if that group is representative of working-class whites across the country. Me, I'm a working-class guy with a white-collar job (I just can't see how going to school for a few more years and getting a different type of career has changed my social class), so I fall into the class of people she's trying to define. I take this stuff personally.
How dare she presume to smear the name and reputation of my community? And why aren't more people from my community taking public offense to her tactics? Why...are...we...putting...up...with...this...shit?!?
Ferraro Mania
Michael Calderone has this video of Geraldine Ferraro claiming black journalists, (and I assume she means black male journalists) of being surrogates for Obama and ignoring sexism on the trail.
Ta-Nehisi Coates points to this Jezebel post noting that Bob Herbert devoted a whole column to the subject, but they didn't provide what I thought was the money quote:
Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.
I suppose it's safe to say that Geraldine Ferraro doesn't read Bob Herbert, probably because she thinks that he only got his job at the New York Times because he's black. And we know for a fact that Geraldine Ferraro really just doesn't like black men. And it's significant that asked to name an instance of sexism, all she could mention was conference calls with journalists that all candidates have.
But let's take a look at what some other black columnists have had to say.
Eugene Robinson acknowledge a sexist bias in the media against Hillary months ago. Roland Martin said "I’ve heard men blow off comments about Sen. Hillary Clinton that are clearly sexist, and we do well to recognize that." Earl Ofari Hutchinson has spent the past year shilling mercilessly for Hillary.
But you know what the key word in Ferraro's diatribe is? It's not even black, it's "all."
"All the black journalists".
There actually aren't very many of us in the news business, even in commentary, which seems to have a pretty low threshold for white Republican men. There are too many of us perhaps, for Geraldine Ferraro, who probably would have been hard pressed to name another black columnist.
What Ferraro is trying to do, and what Fox News is helping her do, is turn give "sexism" the subtextual meaning of "anti-white," much the way folks on the Right who attack department stores for maybe, possibly including Hannukah but more likely referring to New Years when they put up banners saying "Happy Holidays" get incensed about "anti-Semitism" when the target is Amiri Baraka. So now instead of calling the Obama campaign "racist" by which they mean anti-white, they can just call it sexist and we'll all know what it means.
Hush That Fuss
Some folks on this hilarious Balloon Juice thread (example: Florida and Michigan is like the destruction of Alderaan) are scoffing at a possible comparison of Hillary Clinton and Rosa Parks.
The truth is, I think history will see Hillary Clinton as a pretty transformative and influential figure. I think comparing people to civil rights icons is usually a mistake, but what she accomplished is impressive despite the crazy things she keeps saying.
She's White And She's Proud
Now Florida and Michigan are Zimbabwe. Can a Burma comparison be far behind? Both McCain and Hillary camps are approaching a level of self-caricature that may be unprecedented. On the one hand, you have the liberal comparing her effort to resolve a Party dispute in the way most advantageous to herself to the great civil rights struggles in world history, and on the other hand you have McCain's conservative backers comparing him to Jesus.
UPDATE: I swear I was not biting this Balloon Juice post. Great minds...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
All I Gotta Say Is
There is no greater way to express a complete lack of understanding about an instance of historical oppression than to exploit it through an inappropriate analogy. Grover Norquist and Hillary Clinton should share tales of their monumentally difficult lives over Jager bombs. Maybe Elie Wiesel and the Juan Williams of 1986 can show up and explain what concentration camps and grandfather clauses are.
And Here I Was Gonna Write Something Nice About Hillary
I was all set. I had the basic theme, I was in the right frame of mind. I was going to try to cool things down a bit, take the high road, pick your metaphorical cliche . . . But she had to go and give a speech like this.
It is one thing for a group of loons like the Hillaryis44.com crowd, or for a formerly-respected Democratic blogger like Jerome "Crack: It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore" Armstrong to make asinine arguments like the one I'm going to quote below. Campaign surrogates have a roll to play in making the loony claims that the candidate herself (or himself) would be hesitant to make (as in, should be too ashamed to make in public). But when the Big-Bang-scale stupidity is actually coming from the candidate, you simply cannot write it off to over-enthusiasm or Deranged Blogger Syndrome.
I have banged my head against this issue over and over again, ad nauseum. This argument is like one of those horror movie villains that just won't die: shoot it, stab it, burn it, decapitate it, hack it into little bitty bloody chunks and throw it into a blender set on "frappe," it still keeps going.
Just for old-times' sake, I'll briefly recap
1) Hillary publicly agreed that the Michigan primary votes were "not going to count for anything";
2) Hillary's own senior adviser, Harold Ickes voted in favor of the DNC decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates; and
3) Hillary's spokeswoman stated that Hillary was going to honor her pledge not to participate in the Michigan primary.
This is not about Obama having chosen to give up on competing in Michigan and now having to face the consequences. One could argue that he did just that in Kentucky, and lost that primary by a wide margin as a result. But Michigan was a non-primary, a ghost, a phantom. Clinton herself said as much, until it became clear that her candidacy was doomed without the advantage she would gain from having the Michigan primary suddenly matter.
She wants the Democratic party to give her the nomination based upon a primary in which her opponent's name was absent from the ballot, said absence being the result of Obama having actually kept his word (unlike Hillary) and complied with the wishes of the DNC. Essentially, she wants to play the part of Lucy to Obama's Charlie Brown, yanking the Michigan football away after promising to let him kick it. Except that Obama wasn't trying to kick the ball, and he wasn't naively falling for some ruse of Hillary's. He was believing in his own party's leadership, taking the DNC at face value when they said that the Michigan primary would not count. Hillary wants the DNC to break faith with Obama, to change what it had always told him was a non-event into a binding and significant occurrence.
Look, I make my living by coming up with new and inventive ways to call "bullshit!" on things. I like to think I have a decent-sized toolbox of rhetorical tricks and pithy metaphors with which to achieve my goals. But I have to admit, I am officially out of imagery. I've run out of words. There is nothing more I can say about how galactically asinine, how inhumanly dishonest, how low and craven Hillary has become with this whole Michigan gambit. Not her campaign, not her advisers. Her, individually. She put her personal stamp on a work of bullshit that will last through the ages. If bullshit could be one of the Eight Wonders of the World, this bullshit would be the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Okay, maybe I did have a few left . . .
It is one thing for a group of loons like the Hillaryis44.com crowd, or for a formerly-respected Democratic blogger like Jerome "Crack: It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore" Armstrong to make asinine arguments like the one I'm going to quote below. Campaign surrogates have a roll to play in making the loony claims that the candidate herself (or himself) would be hesitant to make (as in, should be too ashamed to make in public). But when the Big-Bang-scale stupidity is actually coming from the candidate, you simply cannot write it off to over-enthusiasm or Deranged Blogger Syndrome.
Now, I know that Senator Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan, and that was his right. But his choice does not negate the votes of all those who turned out to cast their ballots, and we should not let our process rob them and all of you of your voices. To do so would undermine the very purpose of the nominating process. To ensure that as many Democrats as possible can cast their votes. To ensure that the party selects a nominee who truly represents the will of the voters and to ensure that the Democrats take back the White House to rebuild America.Ye Gods, people. The entire Clinton campaign has effectively reduced itself to a Perpetual Bullshit Machine, a close cousin of the perpetual motion machine, except this one actually, you know, exists.
I have banged my head against this issue over and over again, ad nauseum. This argument is like one of those horror movie villains that just won't die: shoot it, stab it, burn it, decapitate it, hack it into little bitty bloody chunks and throw it into a blender set on "frappe," it still keeps going.
Just for old-times' sake, I'll briefly recap
1) Hillary publicly agreed that the Michigan primary votes were "not going to count for anything";
2) Hillary's own senior adviser, Harold Ickes voted in favor of the DNC decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates; and
3) Hillary's spokeswoman stated that Hillary was going to honor her pledge not to participate in the Michigan primary.
This is not about Obama having chosen to give up on competing in Michigan and now having to face the consequences. One could argue that he did just that in Kentucky, and lost that primary by a wide margin as a result. But Michigan was a non-primary, a ghost, a phantom. Clinton herself said as much, until it became clear that her candidacy was doomed without the advantage she would gain from having the Michigan primary suddenly matter.
She wants the Democratic party to give her the nomination based upon a primary in which her opponent's name was absent from the ballot, said absence being the result of Obama having actually kept his word (unlike Hillary) and complied with the wishes of the DNC. Essentially, she wants to play the part of Lucy to Obama's Charlie Brown, yanking the Michigan football away after promising to let him kick it. Except that Obama wasn't trying to kick the ball, and he wasn't naively falling for some ruse of Hillary's. He was believing in his own party's leadership, taking the DNC at face value when they said that the Michigan primary would not count. Hillary wants the DNC to break faith with Obama, to change what it had always told him was a non-event into a binding and significant occurrence.
Look, I make my living by coming up with new and inventive ways to call "bullshit!" on things. I like to think I have a decent-sized toolbox of rhetorical tricks and pithy metaphors with which to achieve my goals. But I have to admit, I am officially out of imagery. I've run out of words. There is nothing more I can say about how galactically asinine, how inhumanly dishonest, how low and craven Hillary has become with this whole Michigan gambit. Not her campaign, not her advisers. Her, individually. She put her personal stamp on a work of bullshit that will last through the ages. If bullshit could be one of the Eight Wonders of the World, this bullshit would be the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Okay, maybe I did have a few left . . .
Department of "No Shit, Sherlock"
Let me get this straight: lower-class, less-educated, rural, Scotch-Irish white people in Appalachia have refused to support a black man for President of the United States?
And we're surprised why, exactly?
And we're surprised why, exactly?
Stepping Out of the Shadow of History
By now, it is all but certain that Barack Obama will be chosen as the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States. As of last night, he has secured the majority of the pledged delegates, and he has already won more primaries and caucuses, and a greater share of the popular vote, than his opponent, Hillary Clinton. I realize that there are some arcane forumulae under which Hillary could be said to have won the popular vote, but they do not merit discussion here.
For over 200 years, the office of President of the United States has been held exclusively by one group, white men. If history could fortell the future, there would be no possibility of Obama winning the election in November. No black man has ever held the office before, therefore the pattern of history suggests that the next President will be John McCain, the 44th white male to ascend to that position.
History, however, is a poor guide for the future. Reading a history book in 1900, one could easily have been convinced that it was impossible for a man to take flight in a machine, much less take such a flying machine all the way to the Moon. Obviously, both things happened, even though they had no historical precedent. A cursory study of history in the 1950s could have given one the belief that no Irish Catholic would ever become President, that no major party would pick a woman as its nominee for Vice President, and that no black man would ever be President. The first two of those have already been proven wrong. The last is on the brink of falling now.
What has come before us does not define what may yet come to pass. We are blessed with and burdened by free will. The choice is ours, whether to accept the limits of yesterday and allow them to confine us today and tomorrow, or to break free of those limits and strike out towards a new and different horizon. The easy path is clear to us already: stay with what we know, remain in the boxes that have been built around us through years of accumulated tradition. The harder path is the path that remains uncertain, the one that could lead us to some unforeseen disaster, or could lead us to better things in the days ahead. Standing here today, we cannot know that if we choose the un-trod path we will be rewarded for our risk.
What we can know, what is already certain, is that we have done things the old way, the safe way, time and time again. That choice has brought us great things before, but it has also brought us disaster. Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan were both white men, and they gave us vastly different results. The same can be said of Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush. Continually voting for white male Presidents has not given us consistent outcomes, it has not provided any magic cloak of safety. Triumphs and tragedies have come our way time and again, and selecting white men to lead us has neither caused the former nor prevented the latter.
The moment we are fast approaching is a singular one, unforeseen by the backwards-gazing eyes of history. No longer is there any guidance to be found in what has happened in the past. We have never truly been locked into repeating the choices of the past, but that lack of confinement has been revealed more clearly in this election cycle than at any other point in American history. It is one thing to be free to make your own choices in this world. It is quite another to be aware of that freedom, and to put that freedom to use.
Our time is now. Over our shoulders, we can see the past, receding behind us. Up ahead, just over the Eastern horizon, is a new day. Still hidden from view, still mysterious, thrilling and frightening at the same time.
Brothers and sisters, something is happening that has never happened before . . .
For over 200 years, the office of President of the United States has been held exclusively by one group, white men. If history could fortell the future, there would be no possibility of Obama winning the election in November. No black man has ever held the office before, therefore the pattern of history suggests that the next President will be John McCain, the 44th white male to ascend to that position.
History, however, is a poor guide for the future. Reading a history book in 1900, one could easily have been convinced that it was impossible for a man to take flight in a machine, much less take such a flying machine all the way to the Moon. Obviously, both things happened, even though they had no historical precedent. A cursory study of history in the 1950s could have given one the belief that no Irish Catholic would ever become President, that no major party would pick a woman as its nominee for Vice President, and that no black man would ever be President. The first two of those have already been proven wrong. The last is on the brink of falling now.
What has come before us does not define what may yet come to pass. We are blessed with and burdened by free will. The choice is ours, whether to accept the limits of yesterday and allow them to confine us today and tomorrow, or to break free of those limits and strike out towards a new and different horizon. The easy path is clear to us already: stay with what we know, remain in the boxes that have been built around us through years of accumulated tradition. The harder path is the path that remains uncertain, the one that could lead us to some unforeseen disaster, or could lead us to better things in the days ahead. Standing here today, we cannot know that if we choose the un-trod path we will be rewarded for our risk.
What we can know, what is already certain, is that we have done things the old way, the safe way, time and time again. That choice has brought us great things before, but it has also brought us disaster. Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan were both white men, and they gave us vastly different results. The same can be said of Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush. Continually voting for white male Presidents has not given us consistent outcomes, it has not provided any magic cloak of safety. Triumphs and tragedies have come our way time and again, and selecting white men to lead us has neither caused the former nor prevented the latter.
The moment we are fast approaching is a singular one, unforeseen by the backwards-gazing eyes of history. No longer is there any guidance to be found in what has happened in the past. We have never truly been locked into repeating the choices of the past, but that lack of confinement has been revealed more clearly in this election cycle than at any other point in American history. It is one thing to be free to make your own choices in this world. It is quite another to be aware of that freedom, and to put that freedom to use.
Our time is now. Over our shoulders, we can see the past, receding behind us. Up ahead, just over the Eastern horizon, is a new day. Still hidden from view, still mysterious, thrilling and frightening at the same time.
Brothers and sisters, something is happening that has never happened before . . .
Hardball Shuffling
Via Balloon Juice, Michelle Bernard uses her "authority" as a black woman to assure viewers of Hardball that the savage Negroes will be rioting in the streets if the superdelegates pick Hillary Clinton.
Transcript:
BERNARD: Hillary Clinton is going to become the Ron Paul of the Democratic party. There’s no way the super delegates can take this away from Barack Obama. There will be race riots in the streets if he wins enough super delegates—
The objective of this wild futurism is simply to invoke black pathology where there is none, as a method of reinforcing racist ideas. In fact, Bernard's statement isn't so much a prediction of riots as a wish for them. Bernard is a member of the "Independent Women's Forum"--this august institution employs Charlotte Allen, who in March published an Op-Ed explaining that all women are idiots.
A month ago, Bernard wrote an Op-Ed in the Philadelphia Daily News decrying Hip-hop for using words like "nigger". As you can tell, complaining about other black people is the quickest way for a black person to get attention in America. It was pretty classic, especially this moment where Lady Crabalade can't even make her point without first dogging Alex Haley:
Despite the controversy over the authenticity of Alex Haley's work and genealogy, I couldn't help but wonder what the African slave Kunta Kinte would think of being called a "n----h" by other African-Americans?
My closest friends call me nigga all the time and it's never offended me. But Bernard just called us all niggers on TV, and she didn't even have to use the word.
Officers In Sean Bell Case Face Departmental Charges
They could lose pay, or be suspended or fired.
The department said that the officers violated the internal policy manual — its Patrol Guide — in a variety of ways, including improperly firing their guns and failing to process the crime scene after Mr. Bell was killed and his two friends injured in a storm of 50 bullets.
The three detectives who stood trial in the case — Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper — were charged with “discharging their firearms outside of departmental guidelines,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. Detective Isnora was also charged with taking enforcement action while working as an undercover officer instead of letting officers who were present — and not working undercover — take control.
Naturally the police unions are taking the officer's sides, but that's really their job. But Sharpton points to Philly police commissioner Charles Ramsey's quick disciplining of police officers in the wake of that beating that was caught on tape.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been a spokesman for the Bell family and has protested the acquittals, called the charges “a step in the right direction.” But he drew a parallel between the Bell shooting and the recent beatings of three suspects by the police in Philadelphia, which was caught on videotape. He urged Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly “to follow the lead of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who fired four police yesterday, demoted one sergeant, and disciplined others, without going through a long internal procedure.”
Sharpton and others are still seeking federal charges against the officers for violating Bell's civil rights. My sense is that the longer the Department takes to discpline the officers in the Bell shooting, the more likely the Federal charges are. The acquittal was bad enough, but if it looks like they're dragging their feet on the Administrative charges, people will start to see the Feds as their only recourse for some kind of justice. On the other hand, if they're all fired or demoted, public opinion might sway in the direction of "okay, they've had enough."
Not that I think that would satisfy parents who have to raise their kids in a city where the lives of their children are threatened by the poor judgment of the NYPD in determining who is actually dangerous, and who isn't. We give police a great deal of power to protect us. Not to get all Spider-man, but part of the responsibility that has to come with that power is accountability.
Post Primary Thoughts
Obama lost white voters making under 50,000 in Kentucky but won them in Oregon. How long before the media stops lumping all white voters of a certain class together and takes into account regional and cultural differences?
We know that some voters are making their decisions based on race, but for some reason we can't say that. The media either clumsily attributes such behavior to working class whites as a national voting bloc when evidence points to a regional influence, particularly in Appalachia.
The press is double handicapped by poor language and political correctness; voters who make their selections based on race are referred to through a series of patronizing euphemisms. Worse, it's gotten to the point where we can't even discuss making judgments based on race as racist, because people take offense.
The worst part is that everyone makes them. Few admit so openly, and many who do are set in their ways. It's hardly the sum of them as a person, but we're hamstrung from even discussing how race and racism function casually in people's lives because being called a racist is actually worse than doing something racist.
Since this "conversation" on race started, the only person who has actually been designated as racist is Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The rest of us are simply floating through Dr. King's dream exactly as he had it.
New Rule
States with less than 50,000 voters who will vote against a candidate based on the color of his or her skin don't count.
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