We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!
A ten-minute diversion for a Saturday night…
Of course it’s not “realistic” to pretend someone could learn Gaelic in six months from a textbook, but realism is not an essential element of the motion-picture art, is it?
(H/t James Fallows at the Atlantic)
Digby on Shirley Sherrod, whose father was murdered in 1965 by a white man who wasn’t indicted:
Far too many people are acting as if this woman wasn’t a living witness to the horrors of Jim Crow and the fallout of 200 years of racist history and instead believe that she’s nursing ancient grievances. Her life is treated as the forgotten detritus on the trash heap of history, as if it’s all over, a museum exhibit.
It’s critical that 1965 become ancient history for a party that owes its current existence to a strategy of embracing those who were on the wrong side of the civil rights struggle. Similarly, it’s critical for them that a discussion of the fuckups of the last decade becomes a taboo subject. When your past is shameful, the faster it’s forgotten, the better.
The Obama administration’s promise to not dig into the past was politically smart in the short term, because the sound and fury that would accompany a careful investigation of the many follies of the last few years would be a diversion, and plenty of Democrats were complicit with the stupidity of the Iraq War and the financial meltdown. But it’s not good for the country, because it encourages revisionist history and the minimization of the authentic tragedies of people like Shirley Sherrod.
Also, too, this is a damn good question:
Here’s a little thought experiment: just imagine how this would have gone down if the white farmer and his wife hadn’t emerged to give testimony.
(via)
One of you recommended this radio documentary on the Kanawha County text book riots of 1974. I just finished listening to it and found it very interesting, despite its public radio “shape of earth, views differ” viewpoint (which isn’t inappropriate throughout but certainly is when it equates “condescension” with school bombings).
If you’ve got time and haven’t listened to it before, I recommend it. There’s a lot there—the origins of contemporary curriculum fights (which we see now reaching their horrible conclusion in Texas), the birth of the Heritage Foundation, and other fun stuff.
One thing I’m always struck by when reading news from this era is the amount of right-wing terrorism that went on. I don’t know why the Joe Kleins of the world remember the Weathermen so well when they’ve forgotten all about Bombingham.
Off to a baby shower, of all things (I know- living the vida loca, aren’t I?). Here’s a picture of Tunch doing what he does best to hold you over:
He’s found his way into the spare bedroom again.
Via FrumForum, I found this interesting blog called Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. Here, the blog reprints the famous Winston tunnel scene —the deaths-by-suffocation of several passengers on a train. Rand strongly implies that the passengers deserve to die because of their political opinions:
It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.
The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.
The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion ‘for a good cause’
.....
And so on for another 2-3 pages.
I normally wouldn’t bring up something so grim this close to the cocktail hour, but the wooden writing and cardboard (at best) character sketches make it more comical than disturbing.
A good primer on what may be the next racial issue we’ll be hearing about, but not actually dealing with in any substantive or helpful way:
Another public conversation about race may be the last thing the Obama administration wants, but thanks to the Supreme Court, one is very likely on the way. It has been nearly three months since the court “invited” — that is to say, ordered — Solicitor General Elena Kagan to “express the views of the United States” on whether laws that take away the right to vote from people in prison or on parole can be challenged under the Voting Rights Act as racially discriminatory.
Congressional elections in my area this fall figure to be a snooze, but I decided to check in with people from NY-25, the district just to the east of me which stretches from Syracuse to the eastern suburbs of Rochester. It’s a classic Rockefeller Republican area, +3 Democratic Cook PVI but with a Republican representative (Jim Walsh) from 1988—2008, now with a Democratic representative (Dan Maffei)—and a roughly equal number of Republicans and Democrats in terms of registration numbers. David Broder would like it if he visited—successful politicians in the area invariably portray themselves as centrist.
The Republican candidate for the district is a Sarah Palin-endorsed teatard who once carried a blackened fetus around in front of a local Planned Parenthood office; she’s never held office or done anything professionally. The race was probably a lost cause for Republicans because the Democratic incumbent raises a lot of money and generally strikes the right tone for the district. On the other hand, it’s the kind of “sleeper race” that the out-of-power party should try to make a contest out of in a “wave election”—freshman incumbent, Cook PVI under 5.
The obvious way to make a race like this competitive is to find a ostensibly non-ideological local businessman or office-holder and have him or her wank about creating jobs, the way Democrats did in the special elections in NY-20 and NY-23. Teahadism won’t cut it.
I don’t know how many possible outside chances Republicans like this are leaving on the table nationwide, but just about everywhere I look, I see one.
Another failed shopping adventure. Looked around and could not find anything I liked. Ended up getting some boxers, some kitchen utensils, and some towels for the spare bathroom, then just said to hell with it and got a pedicure. And you can joke all you want about the pedicure, I don’t give a shit. Best thirty bucks I’ve spent in a helluva long time. Especially since I damned near ruined my feet wearing cleats and then army boots for all those years. Although I alway feel sorry for the poor bastard at the salon that draws the short straw and has to handle my Fred Flintstone feet.
Farmer’s marketand a bunch of other stuff, then I have to go shopping for clothes, something I detest more than root canals. At any rate, TattooSydney sent this along- a little story he wrote:
The fat man, the fat cat and the barky dog.There once was a fat man, who lived with a fat cat and a barky dog.
Well, the man said he was fat, and because many of the man’s friends had never seen him, they all had to take him at his word about that (and about the naked mopping).
They had seen photos of the cat. It was indeed fat – a big white ball with orange ears, an orange tail and an appetite. It had a special talent for contemptuous glances.
They had seen photos of the dog. It was indeed barky – a sweet and tiny orange thing, perched on the edge of the couch to repel any bird who came near. It had a special talent for barking.
The fat cat and the barky dog weren’t sure what the fat man’s special talent was. He spent a lot of time staring out the window. It was true they all – man, cat, dog – spent a lot of time staring out the window. There were all sorts of exciting things out the window to bark at, or to subject to a disdainful sneer.
However, the cat and the dog did feel that the man was wasting a lot of time, which he could use for, respectively, feeding and walking them, just staring out the window.
Humans were strange.
Although I guess now it is barky dogs.
Richard Posner has some good insights:
The report is, in fact, a disappointment. It is descriptive rather than analytic, and the description is based entirely on two types of data, neither of which contributes to an understanding of the nature and problems of the nation’s intelligence system. The two types are statistics indicating the size and organizational complexity of national security intelligence, and expressions of exasperation at that size and complexity by former or current insiders.
The statistics are not broken down by each of the principal domains of national security intelligence, and so the reader is given no sense of the actual structure of the intelligence system. [...]
Merely counting the number of people, parking spaces, square feet of building space, and other countables lovingly recited in the Post‘s report conveys no useful information and will impress only naïve readers who have somehow failed to realize that the U.S. government and its major components are huge. [...]
I don’t agree with much of what Posner writes in general, but his basic point that numbers without context are meaningless is well taken here. It’s easy to charge “apathy” on the part of readers, but if they’re supposed to care, they need context to know why they should care.
Perhaps my give-a-shitter is irreparably damaged, but I can’t manage much enthusiasm for a MoveOn.org petition drive to put NPR in Helen Thomas’ old seat in the White House briefing room. As far as I’m concerned, they can put a well-trained circus dog, a wax replica of the corpse of Chester A. Arthur, or a small bag of human feces in that chair, and it would make as much difference as putting NPR there. Why pick a battle that draws attention to one of the most self-important institutions in Washington?
Note: The “self-important institution” that I’m talking about is the White House Press Corpse, not NPR.
So, what we do we know about stoves? Seems my ancient electric stove is about to completely shut down, having two burners that do not work. Going to buy a gas one (I have an outlet). Any suggestions, as this is something I’ve never even thought about buying before? And I’m not made of money, so think quality but thrifty.
What is the difference between open and sealed burners on a gas stove? And when they say 30” stove, they are referring to the width, correct? Not the depth…
And he keeps on digging:
If Sherrod wanted to meet with you, what would you tell her?I’d have a long discussion with her, and I’d tell her that I’m not one of these people in this country that thinks racism doesn’t exist. And that I’m not one of these people who says that she hasn’t suffered from racism. And that the scars of her racism aren’t warranted. But I’d also tell her that my passion in life and my political trajectory from left to right was born from watching the Clarence Thomas hearings. I didn’t understand how he NAACP sat on its hands while privileged white gentlemen hammered him mercilessly and humiliated him and the media and the NAACP allowed for it to happen.
Just so we’re clear, Sherrod was scarred by the murder of her father and subsequent failure to prosecute the murderers in the Jim Crow south, and Breitbart was scarred when Clarence Thomas was beaten to death on live television in the well of the Senate by Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden while the NAACP stood by and did nothing asked some questions before being promoted to a lifetime position in the highest court of the land. See- they’ve both been traumatized!
Two thoughts:
1.) Crazy people honestly have no idea how insane they sound, do they?
2.) After the Jeffrey Lord outburst this week, I’ve concluded the lunatic fringe of the right finds “high-tech lynchings” far more awful than, you know, actual lynchings.
Dan Froomkin on the mythical 2011 withdrawal from Afghanistan:
“All of these benchmarks are designed to pacify onlookers on the Hill, help to justify our presence in the country, and set unrealistic goals that everyone knows are not going to be met,” said retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a respected military strategist and author. “You’re never going to achieve them. None of this is aimed at extricating American power and forces from anywhere.”So, asked for an exit strategy, the administration instead offered up guidelines for an endless occupation.
And then last week, in a nearly unnoticed development at an international conference in Kabul, world leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed their “support for the President of Afghanistan’s objective that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) should lead and conduct military operations in all provinces by the end of 2014.”
That’s right: The end of 2014.
“I was kind of struck that the 2014 didn’t get more critical attention than it did,” said Paul R. Pillar, formerly the CIA’s top Middle East analysis and now a Georgetown University professor. “The war will have gone on 13 years at that point.”
Awesome. The added bonus is that not only will we not be withdrawing, but the Republicans can still pretend we are withdrawing in 2011 and call Democrats defeatocrats or troop-haters or whatever it is they like to say these days.
In fairness, we do need to figure out how to feed the military-industrial complex until we can gin up a war in China or Iran, so I guess at least we save on transportation if we just stick in Afghanistan forever.
Hard to argue with anything in this Greenwald rundown. I know that this will now cause two distinct flame wars- Greenwald lovers versus Greenwald haters and also those who fail to see team Obama doing anything wrong versus those who refuse to acknowledge team Obama does anything right. Le sigh.
This ACLU report is distressing, too. I just sent them another 50 bucks. You should too.
