Amazingly, this is from a Politico Ideas piece:
Imagine that Joe Lieberman had been inaugurated this past January, as an independent with a neocon foreign policy that infuriated Democrats and a domestic health care plan that enraged Republicans.
[…..]But the mainstream leadership of both parties would immediately react to even subtle appeals to anti-Jewish sentiment. One reason Pat Buchanan ended his long career in Republican politics as an obscure third-party candidate was his consistent tendency to cozy up to neo-Nazis, former Nazis and other anti-Semites. When former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and those closest to her spouted anti-Semitic rhetoric, mainstream Democrats largely abandoned her.
The same ostracism just doesn’t happen with a lot of anti-black rhetoric. Mark Williams, the organizer of the national tea party movement, called Obama, on national television, a “welfare thug,” while marchers at a recent rally carried pictures of Obama as an African witch doctor. I think that’s pretty close to calling a Jewish president a “cheating landlord” or “kike banker” while carrying signs depicting Lieberman in a yarmulke running the world’s media. But there has been no outcry among Republicans, no pledges to avoid Williams and his movement.
Maybe I’m going too far here, but it’s hard for me not to think that race is by far the most important issue in American politics. In several southern states (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi), over 80% of the white vote went to McCain; in all confederate states, at least 60% of the white vote went to McCain. And, of course, in those same states, over 90% of the black vote went to Obama.
What’s more, this pattern began to emerge almost immediately after the civil rights movement. I suppose David Brooks’ explanation is that southern whites just started hearing Burkean bells in 1965, by chance.
Can’t we just admit that we have an idiotic political system that revolves primarily around class and racial resentment and not much around competence and issues? And I don’t mean to single the United States out here — hating people you perceive as ethnically different is just how homo sapiens roll.
But it nauseates me that we have to pretend that Reagan wasn’t dog whistling when he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, that pictures of Obama in white face aren’t racially motivated, and that Sam’s Club conservatism is a viable alternative to catering to bigots.
thomas Levenson
But, but, but — we know race can’t be involved. Michael Steele tells me so….
Zifnab
What? And run away from all those votes? Hell no! Better to just talk out of both sides of your mouth while stuffing your pockets with all that sweet, sweet K-Street mullah.
Mike
I’m still pretty puzzled over what exactly they’re getting at with the Obama as Joker signs. I mean, if the slogan was somthing like “Do I really look like a guy with a plan?” rather than SOCIALISM, at least I’d give them points for being clever.
MikeJ
Who hacked politico and posted something sane? I can’t imagine they’ll leave this up.
bobbo
Isn’t it also true that if Joe Lieberman were President, the hypothetical anti-Semitic vitriol that Politico describes would not come to pass, or at least not anything close to the extent that anti-black vitriol has surfaced against Obama?
General Winfield Stuck
Absolutely not Dougj. I’ve always thought so, though at times certain issues become radioactive and temporarily take center stage. It’s tied to socioeconomics and is the great battleground between the two parties and their ideologies. Race isn’t necessarily the prevalent watchword for these battles, but it is omnipresent and talked about thru layers of code and proxy posturing.
And now we have an actual black president and the battle is the same, only 10 times more intense emotionally, and it’s going to get worse, cause this brother has the fire in his belly though it is controlled and filtered through a giant intellect.
And for my own troll protection a pre-rebuttal for those who say he’s wishy washy. You just don’t get it.
JK
David Brooks once got into a pissing contest with Paul Krugman because Krugman argued that Reagan was dog whistling with his speech in Philadelphia. I recall reading somewhere that their editor evetually told them to knock it off.
I sure as Hell wish Buchanan’s tendencies would be sufficient to end his career at MSNBC.
Comrade Nikolita
But it nauseates me that we have to pretend that Reagan wasn’t dog whistling when he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, that pictures of Obama in white face aren’t racially motivated, and that Sam’s Club conservatism is a viable alternative to catering to bigots.
Same here, and I’m not even American. Watching the 2008 election campaign was like wanting to bash my head through a wall every time I turned on the TV. And things are no better now, if not worse.
smiley
And yet, criticizing Israel is anti Semitic but criticizing Palestinians is not.
JK
Doug,
It’s never going to fucking end:
Roy Blunt Tells Racism-Tinged Monkey Joke at DC Conference
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/roy-blunt-r-mo-tells-raci_b_292260.html
JK
@bobbo:
Oh yes it would. In about 5 nanoseconds.
Zifnab
@smiley: Criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic because we sell them billions of dollars in guns, planes, and bombs. The moment they stop buying all our military hardware, I can guarantee it will be open season on those swarthy kikes.
As for the Palestinians – well – I’m pretty sure I saw a video of some lady clapping her hands and dancing in the street right after 9/11, so why wouldn’t we happily approve of genocide in the region?
The Bearded Blogger
@ smiley, 9
In public discourse, racial hatred of jews is conflated with criticism of Israel’s policies and actions. So, you can’t critize a pretty violent and intransigent regime without coming off as a racist.
Conversely, racism and criticism of Barack Obama’s policies are conflated so that racist outbursts against him are perceived as political opposition. No racism against him is considered as such, it is seen as political opposition.
Funny, that.
The Moar You Know
I’ll admit it. Class and race are the two engines that have driven American politics into a ditch.
The Bearded Blogger
@ 11
See my post at no. 12. The purpose of Israel goes beyond being a market for weapons. Israel, wedge shaped, is meant to divide the arab countries and serve as a western enclave in a strategically important region.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Zifnab: Of course. And look at the awful price Christianists like Pat Robertson had to pay for saying that 9/11 was Gods punishment on us all for condoning homosexuality and abortion. It was down right draconian what happened to him. I think somebody actually rolled their eyes at him.
The Bearded Blogger
It’s the elephant in the room… of course, the most important political events of the 19th and 20th centuries were the civil war and the civil rights movement. And reaganism was fueled by a desire for the government not to help niggers and spics.
I do think it is possible that in the next ten or so years politics will move beyond race in a significant way. The Obama presidency is a sort of trauma for racist america that will have an important impact on the collective, um… dealy-o. Also, the US is becoming browner every day.
The Bearded Blogger
It’s the elephant in the room… of course, the most important political events of the 19th and 20th centuries were the civil war and the civil rights movement. And reaganism was fueled by a desire for the government not to help niggers and spics.
I do think it is possible that in the next ten or so years politics will move beyond race in a significant way. The Obama presidency is a sort of trauma for racist america that will have an important impact on the collective, um… dealy-o. Also, the US is becoming browner every day.
John
And yet, criticizing Israel is anti Semitic but criticizing Palestinians is not.
Perhaps because “Anti-semitic” was a term coined by German anti-semites in the nineteenth century to mean “anti-Jewish”, and it has never applied to non-Jewish Semites?
smiley
@The Bearded Blogger: FYI, check out the little left-pointing gray arrow to the left of the time stamp on any comment. Click on it and you’ll be amazed by what it does. Maybe this should go into the new Balloon Juice FAQ.
General Winfield Stuck
Right now the right wing intelligentia is on full apologist setting for what we’ve been seeing the mob venting the overloads of racial emotion. They, or their handlers are giving some effort (with l lot of exceptions) to keep it in line with traditional disagreements on ideology grounds.
For we who follow this stuff closely, it is obvious the level of hatred has splashed out of the bowl/ But for most out there, I’m guessing a tolerance level more than it should be, that hasn’t been egregiously violated –Yet/
But as time goes on, it will be harder and harder to repress and explain away. And unfortunately won’t hit the average non racist (though likely predisposed to racially anxiety) white voter until some act or acts of significant violence. Don’t know when that will happen, or if it will happen,, but recent events and the level of vitriol so far lends suspect to it occurring at some point, and 3 to 8 years is a long time.
Johnny B
Race has consistently been the most important aspect of our national politics throughout our history. In the modern era, it has reduced Presidential elections to “cultural wars” rather than serious debates about the direction of our country. It is the reason why this country does not have universal health care. Every previous attempt to provide it has been answered with the query: “Do you want to pay for health care for those people?”
The last election was no exception, although the recession sobered the American public sufficiently to listen to an appeal that was more compelling than “fear the brown people.” But, even the current economic crisis was not severe enough to stop white southerners from engaging in racial tribalism. That was clear in the election results and clear today.
Just look at the crosstabs of the Research 2000 poll on Obama’s approval ratings. His approval numbers are solid in the northeast, midwest, and west. They are 82, 62, and 59 percent, respectively. But his approval number in the south is 27 percent, and his disapproval number is 67 percent. Clearly, the dog whistle of race is heard much more loudly south of the Mason-Dixon line than it is anywhere else.
For some reason, however, it is considered beyond the pale to suggest that the south is the least common denominator in American politics–even though progressive politics in the 20th century almost always has involved a struggle with the more conservative southern region of this country. This fact about our country is so obvious that I’m surprised that anyone even finds it interesting anymore.
The Bearded Blogger
@smiley: Thank you.
smiley
@smiley: Um, that would be to the right of the time stamp.
The Bearded Blogger
@Johnny B: Actually, for traditional media, the south is mainstream opinion, and the moderately progressive views of the country are shrill.
Sometimes I wish texas would secede, and take OK, LA, MS an AL with them.
The Bearded Blogger
@smiley: Or the left, from the time stamp’s perspective…
Makewi
Every time you call someone who disagrees with policy a racist, they are that much less likely to listen to you when you point out actual racism. The majority in this county understand the true purpose of this tactic, which is to get dissenters to shut up because they will shy away from being labeled a racist.
Mike E
I dunno — it’s a lot harder to photoshop a keppe onto Joe Lieberman than what they’re doing to Obama’s image. Whatever works easiest, that’s what they’ll do.
Besides, rabbis don’t just walk into a bar, ya know what I mean?
Jay B.
@Makewi:
Right, because clearly Obama IS a witch doctor who wears a bone through his nose.
smiley
@The Bearded Blogger: You’re welcomed – actually to go OT for a bit but is it “You’re welcome” or You’re welcomed?” I get sidetracked by shit like this sometimes….
gwangung
@Makewi:
Don’t try to pass that bullshit off. It’s dishonest.
Ann B. Nonymous
@The Bearded Blogger: Washington is a Southern border town, or it was until very recently. The Washington-based media still acts like the average American is a white guy in Falls Church or Stafford.
lamh31
This is so off topic, but after reading this, any sympathy I had for David Patterson has since evaporated.
Okay,
As if I didn’t already want to give Patterson and com the “stink-eye” for the leaks recently, and the Caroline Kenendy leaks, now this:
“Paterson blames weak Obama record for friction”
“Well, this is going to make David Paterson a lot of friends in the White House, as he tries to put himself in the president’s shoes:
If you look at it from their perspective, they haven’t exactly been able to govern in the first year of their administration in the way that other administrations have, where you would have, theoretically, a period in which the new administration is allowed to pass the needed pieces of legislation.
One of the things that has made the White House angriest at Paterson is his linking his woes to the president’s. The last time was about race, of course, which made it worse.”
EvolutionaryDesign
@The Bearded Blogger: Don’t forget FL and SC
Makewi
@Jay B.:
I’m not saying you won’t find any actual racism, or even imagery which can be construed as racist even if that was not the intent. As I have said, I merely disagree with the premise that it is race that is a primary motivating force in our national disagreements.
The Bearded Blogger
@smiley: It’s “you’re welcome”… no idea why. In spanish and french, the normal way of saying it roughly translates to “it’s nothing”.
@Makewi: So, references to monkeys, witch doctors and so on… are metaphorical ways to express policy disagreements?
Also, I don’t know which “county” you live in, but a lot of people know racism when they see it. Also, these majorities you always seem to cite… where were they election day 2008?
Brachiator
Over 90% of the black vote always goes to a Democrat. There is a bit of a false equivalence here.
But otherwise, I take your point.
CaptMaggie
I listened to Limbaugh today for a few minutes. It’s like roadkill, gruesome, yet I cannot turn away. I realized his entire career has been built on “Listen folks, they *this* but when they’re saying *this* they really mean *that*” You can apply that to any rightwing talker or media outlet. And the same folks who slavishly rely on these interpretations of what it all *really* means refuse to acknowledge anything less than calling Obama a dirty ‘n’ isn’t racism.
Makewi
@gwangung:
How is it dishonest? Are you not familiar with the tale of the boy who cried wolf?
MelodyMaker
the election was really ugly. I needed to be reminded of that. But I think the Prez (intentionally) missed the point with Letterman. It’s not about him.
The Bearded Blogger
@Ann B. Nonymous: Also, the premise that there is an “average american guy” is problematic in itself… first of all, why a guy?, second, why should there be an average, representative, real american?
@Makewi: You know that beeping sound trucks make when they go in reverse? That’s what I’m hearing from you right now…
MattF
Limbaugh’s recent suggestion that buses should be racially segregated seems to me to be a sort of baseline test for conservatives. So far, David Brooks and Charles Johnson have passed. Anyone else?
Makewi
@The Bearded Blogger:
You make my point for me. This country elected an african-american man POTUS, so they know it isn’t 1945. Trying to pass off images which you assume to be racist as examples of all dissenters is a tactic that isn’t selling.
As an aside, I’m familiar with the politcal cartoon brouhaha re: the monkey, is there another example? Also, I am aware of the “white face” imagery of the Obama/Joker, but is there another one?
aimai
Shorter Makewi:
“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!” or “Oh, just ignore those boys shouting “whore” at you! That’ll stop ’em.”
Race is the last psychotic break of a tiny minority, a rump region. The rest of the country is so over this shit that in one more generation the doddering white southern chickenshit party is going to be nearly incomprehensible to the rest of us. We’ll have moved on.
But what is funny to me is how deeply insulted people like Makewi are to be called on this stuff. Look, if you want to hate and fear Obama because he’s transparently *not one of us*–not born here, not really white or black, not american, not christian, whatever obvious excuse for racial fear and hysteria you are using go for it. Really: no one is stopping you. Tell your monkey jokes, and explain that you think that islam is some kind of blood trait and christianity needs a birth certificate. Warn grandma that the black welfare queens are coming to get her medicare money. Frighten schoolchildren with images of hitler/obama taking forcing them into a demokratikajugend in which they are asked to stay in school and do homework. But own it, already. Sure, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes populist hysteria is just randomly stupid shit that really badly educated, frightened, sheeplike people have drunk with their Beckian cheeto fix. But sometimes racism is just the language that people speak because its very comforting and historically important to them. Because whiteness and its opposition to blackness is comforting and historically important–that’s what the lost cause is. We fought a war over it. Pretending that we didn’t, or that the white losers got up, shook hands, and said “well played, chaps…” instead of fighting their way right through reconstruction and straight on to today to preserve white priviliges (such as they pathetically are) is just disingenous. And its insulting to the real, out racists among us who at least have the balls to collect money and run candidates on their own platform (Haley Barbour, CCC, David Duke, etc…ad nauseum) instead of just whispering the stuff to get votes.
aimai
MelodyMaker
@MelodyMaker: Not about him anymore. Are we supposed to have edit today?
gocart mozart
This is interesting. http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/
The Socialist Workers party beat the Boston Tea Party party, but alas the Pacifists came in dead last. Not sure what this means.
kay
I’m sticking to my original premise.
It’s the regular right wing insane spit-flecked rage after they lose an election PLUS the racists in the ranks who usually don’t bother showing up.
Worst losers in the history of the world, conservatives. No contest. The racism is just an ugly sideshow, really.
gwangung
@Makewi: Bullshit. Don’t play that game.
DougJ
Every time you call someone who disagrees with policy a racist, they are that much less likely to listen to you when you point out actual racism.
I’ll start taking political advice from you when you guys control at least one branch of the federal government again, ok?
Jay B.
@Makewi:
As I have said, I merely disagree with the premise that it is race that is a primary motivating force in our national disagreements.
No, there are other ones too. Like hating gays, women and Latinos.
Sure, there’s the generic “I hate government, therefore I want insurance companies to rule my life” belief system, but basically the conservative movement exists for and is animated by fear, resentment and the idea that someone who doesn’t look like them is getting something they aren’t.
Give me any single issue that defines the GOP/Conservatism — like terrorism: absolutely a racial component. Immigration: ditto. Welfare: yep. Government programs: see Welfare. And look how you support government — when it’s to torture the shit out of people, kill them in an electric chair, spy on fellow citizens or taze crippled men in wheelchairs, government can’t overreach far enough for conservatives — but when government wants to provide a check to rampant collusion and inefficiencies in the insurance industry we start hearing about death panels, fascist commies and the president as a witch doctor.
Since the current existence of the GOP owes it soul to the devil and Nixon’s Southern Strategy — was was explicitly race-based — it’s very difficult, impossible even, to underestimate the role race-baiting plays in the GOP coalition. To deny this seems impossible. But I welcome your attempt!
Zifnab
@Makewi:
Damn those crafty liberals. Always trying to badger racists into shutting up.
Honestly, it’s a free country Makewi. There’s really nothing to prevent a person from espousing segregated busing (like Limbaugh did) or repealing the Voter Rights Act (like the Senators from Georgia attempt to do periodically) or opposing mixed marriages (like Pat Buchanan does).
Who has suffered for being called a racist? Has Glenn Beck lost his audience? Has Mitch McConnell been ousted from his leadership position? Which right wing organizations were defunded? What right wing business has shuttered its doors? Why does anyone fear the label racist anymore?
Now, getting labeled a communist or a peace-nik or a secret muslim sympathizer… I could list a host of folks tarred with those monikers (rightly or falsely) who ended up on the unemployment line.
gwangung
Again, bullshit. Don’t play that.
The opposition is ALLOWING racist images and vocabulary to circulate among their efforts. They’re not disavowing them.
If you don’t want to be seen as racist, DON’T USE RACIST LANGUAGE.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
One of the biggest reasons we’re so fucked up about race is that our racial perceptions are tied firmly in with our class prejudices. White people (and, generally, Asians) are assumed to be middle class. Black people and Latinos are assumed to be working class and/or poor. When Spike Lee went to NYU, people were constantly assuming he was from the ghetto even though he grew up middle-class in Brooklyn his grandparents went to college. Hell, that’s more than I can say and half of my family has been here since colonial times.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!
Betsy
But otherwise white people might get their delicate feelings hurt, and we can’t have that. (Makewi makes my point for me, methinks.) If it hurts so much to have your actions pointed out as racist, then maybe you should step back and think about why it is that they would be interpreted that way.
Coates has a relevant post today on this subject:
gocart mozart
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/
Fun informative map for every presidential election. Did you know that Kennedy carried the deep south in a close election in 1960, but interestingly, LBJ carried every state but the deep south and Arizona dduring the biggest landslide in history. Goldwater got 87% of the vote in Mississippi. Hmm, I wonder what big event happened shortly before the ’64 election. Any thoughts anyone.
BFR
I’m going to call it a tie between race and population density.
MelodyMaker
@Jay B.:
Yes
Makewi
@DougJ:
Come on, no you won’t. You won’t take my advice because you don’t believe it to be true and/or useful. We disagree.
I also don’t have a party, so “my guys” aren’t going to be winning anything any time soon.
Grim
So what’s the point of using racial code words? Does it help you somehow? Do your arguments work better if you use racist statements?
KG
Andrew Johnson ended reconstruction a decade or three earlier than it should have been ended. I can’t really blame him, when you are replacing a guy that left office with a hole in his head that wasn’t there when he started. But the facts are the facts.
Racism is about power. It’s about controlling the masses, both white and black, and little more. It’s really feudal in nature, keep the peasants arguing with each other so they don’t think of storming the castle walls. It is also poisonous to the Republic because it fosters the belief that we are not all created equal, that we are not all entitled to the equal protection of the law or to due process.
@Jay B.: the conservative movement wasn’t always about fear and resentment. There was a time when it was principally guided by the idea of a limited federal government based on constitutional principles like enumerated powers. Much of the true intellectual core of the conservative movement still appeals to me, like the idea that power corrupts and that government should not be inherently trusted, that people should be able to reap the rewards of their labor. But what it has become is a sick and perverted version of those ideas. I suppose that is what happens when you try to appeal to the masses, you succumb to the lowest common denominator.
Makewi
@gwangung:
Sure, sure, but “you guys” call racism at the drop of the hat, even when the intent wasn’t racism. The Obama/Joker “white face” wasn’t a racist play, and it wasn’t even created by a right winger – but many on the left ran with that like it was the second coming of the KKK. IMO, it’s a mistake to do so because you lose credibility on the issue.
The Bearded Blogger
@Makewi: to say that a part of the american population is racist does not negate the fact that the majority are not. For some folks, it’s still 1945…
General Winfield Stuck
So we’re in concern troll mode tonight/ noted.
Mike E
@Betsy:
For some reason (actually, it’s narcissism) racists hate being called racist. It’s the reflexive nature of the disorder, something they can’t (or don’t want to) control. Personally, I welcome this strain a lot more than the coded variety.
Makewi
Now, getting labeled a communist or a peace-nik or a secret muslim sympathizer…
Yeah, getting labeled those things will only not prevent you from being elected POTUS.
JK
@gocart mozart:
I’m thinking it over
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXGhvoekY44
gocart mozart
24.67% in Mississippi for Nixon in 1960 vs.
87.14% in Mississippi for Goldwater in 1964.
What does that tell you Makewi?
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Sure Scarlett, You’re just a innocent bystander setting we libtard dweebs straight on teh facts.
gwangung
@Makewi: So, basically, you’re ignoring the signs of actual racism and aren’t concerned with them.
That damages YOUR credibility, ya know.
General Winfield Stuck
@gocart mozart:
I like this stat better.
Alabama – 10% Obama in 2008
43% Clinton 1992 – 96
Mississippi about the same for white votes. similar for rest of south.
Demo Woman
@General Winfield Stuck: lol! I think I love you or at least love your comments.
TX Expat
@Mnemosyne:
Same here. Most of my family came over here as indentured servants.
But more to the point. dday had a good post up over at digby’s place today.
Key grafs from the article linked to:
Americans’ views of political issues and their partisan attachments are being increasingly shaped by gut-level worldviews. On one side of many issues are those who see the world in terms of hierarchy, think about problems in black and white terms, and struggle to tolerate difference. On the other are those who favor independence over hierarchy, shades of gray over black-white distinctions, and diversity over sameness.
We call this dividing line an authoritarian one, and we find that what side of the line people fall on explains their positions on a wide ranging set of issues, including race, immigration, gay rights, civil liberties, and terrorism. This is because what lies behind these preferences is a larger difference in worldview, where people understand reality in starkly different ways. This, in turn, leads to rancorous and irreconcilable-seeming political conflicts.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Uh-huh. Because when they put the word “Socialist” on the poster, they’re actually debating the origins of Marxism/Leninism and contrasting it to Trotskyism. It certainly has nothing to do with common smears against civil rights leaders or anything.
I realize that you’re completely ignorant of recent American history, but it’s getting really embarrassing that we have to spoon-feed you the facts about every event of the past 50 years because you don’t seem to realize that, for example, people running around calling Obama a “socialist” aren’t talking about his political beliefs.
Makewi
@gocart mozart:
That you have a time machine? That you don’t realize 1960 and 1964 were 49 and 45 years ago?
kay
It’s not just Obama, and it began well before the teabaggers took center stage.
I know very few watched the Sotomayor hearings, because they were a. incredibly boring, and b. a done deal.
However. I did, because I am interested in the Court and thrilled we were getting a liberal justice. Maybe liberal.
Anyway.
They were a horrendous spectacle. Not for Justice Sotomayor, who is tough and wanted the job and has been through more challenging hearings than THAT, but for the rest of us.
It was blatant race-war pandering to the lowest common denominator on the Right.
It was so clumsy and heavy-handed I was shocked. Pleased, I believe they struck out, totally, but still shocked.
This stuff is going to have a cumulative effect.
Jay B.
@KG:
There was a time when it was principally guided by the idea of a limited federal government based on constitutional principles like enumerated powers
When was that incidentally? When Buckley was writing about the ungovernable Negro, or was it when or when Constitutional scholar Jefferson Davis expounded on states rights? Maybe it was back when Goldwater was voting against the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts or willing to go to any lengths for the government to protect “freedom”, possibly by even nuking the whole goddamn planet to prove how free men live.
Are/were there principled conservatives? Probably. But more often than not, they spouted fiction about “limited government” in service to something else at the expense of those for whom government could help. It was a front, a con.
Demo Woman
@kay: It’s nice that she will throw out the first pitch this weekend for the Yankees in the series against the Red Sox. Go Sox!
General Winfield Stuck
A link showing map of white voters for Obama in deep south and elsewhere.
I heard the Clinton numbers on teevee the other day, but too hard to sift thru googled clinton stuff
Something Fabulous
Just after WWII, Sartre wrote Anti semite and Jew, and his whole thesis was that the fact that even the most virulent racist usually knew at least one “good one” from the hated group actually served to insulate the person from examining their own racism rather than prompting them to examine it.
The specifics of our history are of course different than France’s, but the “I can’t be a__/some of my best friends are__” defense has been around for a long time. Seemingly, it is how we roll, unfortunately.
General Winfield Stuck
@General Winfield Stuck:
A mitigation. It is true that Kerry and Gore did worse than Clinton in getting southern white votes in deep south states, but still more than Obama. And still a lot less white votes than the rest of the country.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, the sooper sekrit code word argument for racism. Good job.
Wakefield Tolbert
Why, of COURSE it’s all about race.
Which is convenient, since to add the race card into any conversation is like throwing the light switch off, and making sure everyone leaves the room. The party is over. Go home. Don’t like the fact there are wide variances in the statements over whether or not, say, government-mandated health care will eventually devolve into “single payer” crappola or not, vs. the newfound Adam Smithian/libertiarian/Randian take Obama has come up with about “a little market competition” in health care?
Well, that’s damn tough.
Disagree with any of the plans on the table, or, say, mention that even the NYT has buried on page A-28 that 85% of us like our current coverage…… or that the much ballyhooted figure of “47 million without health coverage” is a burrito of some really odd and overlapping numbers that includes the rich and the illegal immigrants (which, so we are told, no longer qualify!! WOW–that’s a hell of a note!!) and then point out that all socialized meds came about incrementally and almost nothing was ever done in one fell swoop, and point out the hundreds of statements from this administration’s busybodies about the advocacy of “single payer” systems, only to now deny this, and you are a……a……RACIST!
________________________
Just as with the old timey Marxists still feeling the fire in the belly, you couldn’t say “good morning” without that implying something economic or political.
A more interesting question to pose might be, however, what these days is NOT about race, or race relations?
mcd
@aimai:
That is simply one of the best written things I’ve read today. Cheers.
JK
@Demo Woman:
I can give Sotomayor a pass for the wise Latina comment, but throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium is a bridge too far for me.
kay
@Demo Woman:
I’m ridiculous with her. I check to see what she’s wearing. She wears bright colors, and at the lofty legal levels she travels in, that’s radical.
I completely identified with her in those hearings. I had purely emotional gut-level sympathy when they were playing the video of her dancing last week.
I don’t want her shown dancing! It’s very personal! Where is the DEFERENCE? :)
She has a sense of humor, and she has to suppress a smile a lot, and she has actually been a litigator, so that forum and those particular (ahem!) “adversaries” wouldn’t frighten her.
They didn’t. Anyway, fun for me.
stickler
KG:
Andrew Johnson ended reconstruction a decade or three earlier than it should have been ended. I can’t really blame him, when you are replacing a guy that left office with a hole in his head that wasn’t there when he started. But the facts are the facts.
Well, if the facts are the facts, you ought to get them right. Andrew Johnson didn’t end Reconstruction, though he wanted to, because the Radical Republicans passed (among other things) the Reconstruction Act over his veto and damned near impeached him too. Reconstruction only ended in 1877, though it had been crippled since the Crash of 1873 and Northern enthusiasm for it had faded.
The business wing of the GOP got the upper hand over the Abolitionist wing, essentially. What a shocker!
Jay B.
@Wakefield Tolbert:
That or you could go to a town hall, carry a gun, bitch about “Obamacare” next to some guy holding a sign with Obama as Hitler or Obama as a witch doctor, scream at your U.S. Rep that we’re turning into a communist country while vocally citing a guy who says the President is the real racist.
Conservatives chose their own path in this debate. Too bad you can’t seem to accept that.
Cain
A nigerian friend of mine saw the witch doctor thing and laughed his ass off. We didn’t really think it was racism but it seems natural that you would find african “evil” folks. A witch doctor is probably fair game but white face probably not. We shouldn’t be so sensitive about race.
cain
John S.
KlausMakewi is a moron who believes only what he reads in the New York Post.Jay B.
Thank God we have principled Republicans who are surely able to look beyond race in order to
screwhelp people in need (from Washington Monthly):The one vote Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is most proud of is rejecting aid to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
That’s touching.
Makewi
Racism!
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Yep, so sooper secret that it’s been in use since J. Edgar Hoover’s day. Again, you don’t do history so well, do you?
Mnemosyne
@Wakefield Tolbert:
That’s right, every other country in the world has terrible health care and we’re the only ones who do it right. We’re number 37! We’re number 37! USA! USA! USA!
Ignore that woman dying on the floor of the emergency room. She was probably illegal anyway.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
It. is. to. laugh. You need this cheap argument because without it you’d have to actually argue positions. Of course, the super obvious point you are working hard to avoid is that people actually are making arguments that Obama has soc-ial-istic tendencies.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
From the article you link to it seems the people getting sued are the ones claiming it’s a racial issue. The folks filing the suit base it on an official environmental report that says socioeconomic impacts will occur, Or poor folks in general. And that there is evidence the idea will actually increase pollution. Read your own link Scarlett.
Jay B.
there’s another way to look at this of course. one could simply ask those who have endured actual racism in this country. i mean just because you, white man, thinks that racism has ended and the GOP attacks ideas on merits alone — there must be SOME reason that the Republicans are getting a robust 3% or so of the black vote.
That or you could pretend it’s their problem.
Oh, here’s another tip, you might actually try and push back against all the ACORN bashing because, really to the communities they actually help, it’s about a step away from burning crosses at their doorstep. Again, simply a helpful hint.
The Other Steve
You know… It may be about race.
But I don’t think it’s helpful to mention that.
Gotta go with the Big Guy on this one. Obama has the approach right.
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
You have reading comprehension issues.
Makewi
Those last 2 bits should have been quoted too.
Makewi
@Jay B.:
Got it, pointing out the corrupt practices of an agency that supposedly helps the poor is the same as burning crosses. I’m convinced, this argument has nothing to do with an inability to argue the issues.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
In other words, it benefits wealthy white people.
So they are making the argument that it does benefit mostly white people and hurts minorities that are more likely to be poor/ Sounds like it does to me. And what would you call that? The lawyers didn’t call it “racism” that’s a term the article authors assigned it/ The law suit just laid out the facts of what they thought the consequences would be. Maybe they should have left out the racial components of rich/poor although everyone knows what it is in socioeconomic terms.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Uh-huh. I invite you to define the word “soc-ial-ist,” because I can guarantee you that your definition bears zero resemblance to any of Obama’s policies.
Which then brings us back to, why would a bunch of people who don’t actually know what the word means insist on applying it to his policies? Hmm, could it be because they think the word means something different than it actually does? Or are they just parroting the word back because they heard Beck and Limbaugh say it and never stopped to realize that it does have an actual definition other than “Obama policy”?
General Winfield Stuck
@General Winfield Stuck:
I suppose it matters how one defines racism, I tend to define it as an action intended to harm one racial class or another, that can, but not necessarily has to, lifts another race in the process.
Just stating that a government action does this in practical effect is not enough to label it racist. There needs to be intent to do so, and nowhere in the actions of those suing the city is that accusation present. They just simply laid out who would be harmed in their opinion, and the term racism was brought on by those getting sued and the article authors, and of course, our Scarlett.
Jason
@Mike: Basically they are saying that all that money rightfully belonged to the gangsters and corrupt murderers of Gotham City and the Joker wrongfully took that money away from them, like, um, defunding Blackwater? Something like that.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
As long as you keep shifting your argument you will be safe. Because you see it isn’t for me to define soc-ial-ism, nor is it even important that the critics be accurate. It’s enough for them to find similarities, and to want to make the comparison. You seem to think this is code word activity for racism.
In any case, the creator of that image wasn’t even a right winger.
@General Winfield Stuck:
As I’ve told you before, stay away from the woods, because the bears have your number.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
As I’ve told you before, stay away from the woods, because the bears have your number.
Shorter Makewi — I got nuthin’
Wakefield Tolbert
JB
golly gee willikens, brother.
Would you feel better that one of the more common pics being circulated around of yet another TownHall Terrorist toting a gun is a actually a black guy?
A little digging was requisite here to find that out, but still….
Wakefield Tolbert
Mnemosyne
You’re right.
Instead, we should have people die right there in the HALLWAYS of the ER, as opposed to the FLOOR of the ER–as is common in some of these blissfully highlighted European nations of which I have not the slightest inclination to emigrate to…..
I’ve seen those exposes and examples also.
Take the improvements where you find them, I guess.
..and are you not a refugee from Paddy wagon, or Panda wagon, or pandagon. Whatever? Or just making the rounds here too, eh?
Anyhow, Yes–it does seem at least theoretically possible, though not pragmatic by any streeeeeetch, that by spending several trillion buckaroos, we could have everybody on board, and in addition to guaranteeing your granny a winning lottery ticket in the Powerball Lotto, we could include illegal aliens (though we’re now told that’s off the table–golly, now we get to enforce that one with all the zeal the other law is enforced….like all 20 million of them not being here in the first place..) and close the 37th place life gap and shore things up by 6 months on life expectancy.
Sure. We’ll ignore for the moment that the United States is NOT Britain, or Sweden, or any of these mostly homogenous places where genes are the operative word in health once you get the handle of child mortality and the big whoppers. They also don’t have gangland shootouts in Britain and most of these other places, and those stats show up in the mix of life expectancy actuarial tables as well.
http://www.theatheistconservative.com/2009/07/29/nationalizing-your-body/
But then, by necessity, the very attempt would violate what we’re now being told will be the actual outcome of all this, or rather, the claim that we’re not marching to that kind of overwhelming “crowd out” phenom in the first place.
Now, I realize that previously Obama got thundering ovations from his tenderhearted flock when he pitched the notion that his actions would take a while to “push out” private insurance. But let’s table that contradiction to his current claims for the moment, and whisk it away from the mind’s eye. Let’s take the liars at their own numbers they effortlessly breeze past on a daily basis.
Where to begin? Damn long list of problems here.
For one, you cannot even look at the half-good/half-frowsy performance of others and extrapolate good tidings from having a system that allegedly covers only 250 million and make that number 300 million without rationing the care. No single nation in Europe attempts this. We do so only at our peril, and further and more importantly, the eventual removal of most decisions that as adults we have to make on a daily basis.
No sooner than I’m told that it is pure myth that grandma’s fate might be on the morphine drip equivalent of just hitting the old bat on the back of the head to make room for healthier subjects or to improve the health stats, or that this is not really about egalitarianism and such, then lo and behold I pick up Newsweek’s latest on the shelf (on sale!) and see an article by Evan Thomas entitled “The Case for Killing Granny”:
The reasoning (rationing, in the end), being exactly what I said. In the same issue is the wonderful TR Reid, now doing a world tour of the WashPost and other willing kiss ass outlets, this time explaining that while it’s often necessary to wait 10 MONTHS for a follow-up MRI in Canada, by God, at least the rich have to do the same, and wait as long as the poor. That’s at the end of his rather long article. You have to..ya know…read the whole thing…
(God save the Chilly Dominion)
This is the equivalent of thumbing your nose at those with any condition for which 10 ***damned months is 10 months too long to wait for such a referral.
I got one in…..15 MINUTES after a pulmonary specialist recommended it. Hmmm. Interesting. Not months, not days, not hours….but FIFTEEN minutes. Tell the Fait Du Canada types to top that one, and then I’ll also refer this specialist’s number to the NHS for analysis that this most certainly must be a hoax from Fox News!
Of course, Reid’s real missive here is not about health care at all. It is about vengeance, and equalitarianism. Akin to the old Russian proverb where the poor man kills the rich man’s cow and leaves it uneaten.
He’s later asked “did killing HIS cow give you a new cow for your own?”
“No”, he answers, “but at least he’s now as hungry as I am and is without a cow too!”
And this reminds me of something else in the late unpleasantry of pitchmeister politicking:
Much has been said of the late Duke of Chappaquiddick’s desire (and certainly the wish of many around and close to him) for a “legacy” of settling the “health care” (RE: Control of People) debate once and for all, with some kind of frowsy “public option” slated the masses. Question: In Kennedy’s waning days of diagnosis and what treatment might have been available, was the Lion of the Senate shipped off to Cuba, Canada, or the UK for the “expert care” available to people in his condition under the mighty auspices of socialized meds’ vastly superior availability, quality, care, and compassion?
No. He was not. Apparently, some legion of greedy Dr. Frankensteinesque butchers and med school rejects right here in the primitive, cud-chewin’, country-fried, Hickville, “US-of-A” was just dandy.
So–let’s do the “legacy” bit here some justice to the memory of the Lion of the Senate, whose mighty fangs and paws were deemed no less than yours or mine: In realistic memory of Ted Kennedy, DON’T do the socialized meds gig. Unless, by this, the proponents of socialized medicine mean to say the rest of us little people qualify for the elite Senatorial care levels of quality. No exceptions–if you don’t mind too terribly.
How’s that for a “legacy”–armed with some actual consistency?
Excellent. Glad you agree. Find a way to pay for it and make good on it, and we’ll talk.
Of course, that’s fantasy. From the same government that gives us frowsy service at the post office, the atrocious public schools that evolved in the days of having the quotidian masses work the bakery lines and still has that mentality, all the way to the fact that the local DMV can’t seem to understand the concept of address correction, we’re NOT going to be getting Kennedy Care when our time comes to languish in nursing homes. And the powers-that be-will NOT be forking over 20,000 smackers a month for nursing care, as happened to my grandmother (yet her insurance paid!) when the time comes to say goodbye to earthly tidings and you want to live long enough to say sayonara to the kids.
Not a chance. We can force everyone on the Animal Farm to be equal–except the pig politicians. Not even the mighty TR Reid can field that problem.
There ARE some problems with private health coverage.
One is, they’ve evolved to cover everything. Bad move.
Let me explain.
Private insurance evolved out of the FDR days and WWII, when government mandates prevented most employers from raising salaries or wages. In lieu of wage hikes, the one thing companies were allowed to do to make an end-run around this prohibition, and so did, was to offer more comprehensive “packages” to those few prospective employees hired during those dark, lean years.
As part of this Faustian pact with the Devil, we have now (most of us) become accustomed to having employers big and small offer such and expect that birthing a baby or getting cancer treatment is a few hundred bucks at most.
One solution is to remove these largesse and grandiose expectations and at least meet some of these absurd demands halfway. As the late William Henry III said, quite often you do more by attempting less. Forget about the 10 dollar co-pay for 5 week hospitalization and taking the kids to the doctor. Not realistic. Be willing to fork over some cash or arrange payments. The issue of Parkinson’s or cancer treatment or auto injury IS thorny, and could be taken into account with higher deductibles and sacrifice and the willingness to have only the Catastrophic version of health care coverage.
One solution: A way to hold down costs–emphasize the coverage of catastrophic issues over the regular and routine. The regular and routine has not shown to improve health stats nationwide. Pay for this out of pocket, and doctors will have incomes of merely a few hundred thousands a year rather than landed estates and horses:
We don’t ask car insurers to pay for new DVDs, CDs, alloy wheels, gasoline, oil changes, bling bling fuzzy dice, routine tire rotation, new tires, etc, etc, etc.
Do we? I sure as hell don’t expect that kind of thing.
Imagine how expensive car insurance would be if that were standard fare for cars and our expectations? Same problem with health insurance. It all too well fits a nation of hypochondria–precisely as it’s overkill. Literally.
If you want to really hold down costs, you pare down what is expected. This is our real problem in the so-called “health care” crisis–and a glance at a solution.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Ah, projection. Because, of course, I’m the one insisting that Obama’s critics are saying that his policies are soc-ial-ist and have no racial motives, so therefore I should have to back up my assertions. Gotcha.
So words don’t actually have to mean anything anymore? If I declare tomorrow that the word “lunch” has been replaced by “dinosaur,” everyone has to adopt the new meaning and start talking about how they’re going to dinosaur at 12:30 because all words are fungible anyway so it doesn’t matter what words we use?
How very postmodern of you.
The fact that you can’t actually define “soc-ial-ism” but are absolutely convinced it means all of the bad things that you totally know Obama is going to do is pretty much proof positive that it’s trying to cover for racism.
The image, no. But it wasn’t the creator of the image who put the word “Soc-ial-ism” under it. It was your pals the teabaggers. Which leads one to believe that that image triggered something in their brains that made them associate Obama, whiteface, and soc-ial-ism. Hmm, what could it be? It’s a total mystery, as long as you ignore history, language and common sense.
Johnny B
@General Winfield Stuck:
I leave this discussion, and surprise, surprise I find this thread has devolved into yet again a meaningless argument about whose the “racist.” Conservatives love it when the discussion gets into the niceties of who is a “racist” or what is “racism.”
Quite frankly, the word “racist” has pretty much lost any meaning in white America. It’s been narrowed to mean people who murder or physically assault African Americans because in their heart of hearts they harbor intense hatred towards black Americans. If you don’t fall into that narrow parameter, then conveniently you aren’t a “racist.”
Pointing out that southerners have a predilection towards disapproval of Obama that ranges between 30 to 55 percentage points higher as compared to other regions of the country is not the same as saying that southerners are “racist.”
I don’t know, or quite frankly care, whether white southerners are motivated in their disapproval of Obama by “racism.”
But, even if it isn’t “racism,” race and racial attitudes are strongly impacting the south’s reaction towards the President. Based on the demographics of the south, and political polling of the region, most southern whites disapprove of him and most southern minorities approve of him. What a coincidence!
So if the tender sensibilities of white southerners are hurt when they perceive someone calling them “racist,” fine. You’re not “racist.” But that doesn’t undermine the conclusion that race and racial attitudes in white southerners are impacting perceptions of Obama in ways that aren’t as operative in whites in other parts of the country.
And let’s just say I’m glad that I live in a region of the country where they have the least impact.
Mnemosyne
Oh. My. God. You are, very possibly, the least informed person I’ve ever seen on the internet. There’s no gang violence in Britain or Sweden? Really?
That is interesting. I’m assuming you were in the emergency room. Either that, or your specialist just happens to have his very own MRI machine inside his office. Otherwise, it would have taken you at least 15 minutes just to drive to where an MRI machine was.
You have to admit, it’s pretty funny for someone who’s supposedly so worried about keeping costs in check recommending we all go to doctors who can afford to buy MRIs for their offices.
You mean the exact system we have now, where people can’t get coverage for their insulin to keep their diabetes under control but we’re happy to amputate their foot when they experience the inevitable complications?
Deamonte Driver’s mother couldn’t afford to pay $80 to have his tooth extracted, so instead taxpayers picked up the bill for $250,000 to try and save his life after he got a brain infection from the abscessed tooth.
Please explain why it’s more cost-effective to pay $250,000 for critical care than it is to pay $80 to prevent the need for that critical care.
ominira
@Makewi: In your opinion, why’d Ivan Marte, the former GOP chairman from Rhode Island quit the GOP after hearing Joe Wilson’s outburst? I know what he said about the behavior being “shameful” and “uncivilized” but do you think there’s any more to it than that? Have you noticed that quite a few Hispanic GOP leaders have left the GOP recently?
DougJ
You won’t take my advice because you don’t believe it to be true and/or useful.
No, I read most of what you say with an eye towards possibly being bested/corrected if you have a point.
General Winfield Stuck
@Johnny B:
Oh, I don’t think it’s meaningless. You’re doing it. The issue of race isn’t talked about much in the open, or hasn’t been until Obama became president. I think this is a good thing overall, though often painful and often with the optics of navel gazing over one thing or another and whether it’s racist per one persons definition, or anothers/ It is the effort that counts most when there has been none.
And I don’t think in the end, that all the blather on the topic affects the nature of peoples understanding of what racism is. Because in everyones heart of heart they know what racism is in themselves and others, if they have the capacity for self honesty, though obviously some don’t IMHO>
Wingers and southern conservatives are throwing up all sorts of straw men, and some liberals are looking for it under every rock, but this is how collectively a nation with such deep and painful racial history goes about it. Lurching and defending and accusing, until the truth finally shakes out. For many, if not most, I think this will be an educational experience in the end although tumultuous in the short term, but there are those who will never learn and don’t want to, and must be watched for taking their bigotry to far and into violence.
And as far as voting patterns of whites in the south, it was high for Clinton, but lower for Kerry and Gore, and lowest for Obama but only 10 to 15 percent. So it is largely an ideological struggle with an added racial component this time around.@General Winfield Stuck:
Ed Marshall
I’ve been dicking around arguing on the internet since bbs discussion groups and something I’ve discovered is that I’m less interested in what people say than what motivated them to pick up the keyboard and start typing.
Makewi doesn’t give a shit about damn near anything except defending the honor of the GOP and it’s disciples against accusations of racism. Call the GOP anything else and you won’t find him. Something pisses him off about this, and in real life if you are talking at a bar with this person after a few drinks they will quit this and start telling you why the critics are right and that it’s common sense to hate blacks. They went to school with them and one of them mugged him and all the rest.
I watch these bullshit internet arguments and they are so divorced from what I *know* from talking to real people. He isn’t going to start bitching about niggers because it’s anonymous but not, so he’s stuck bitching about people who think he’s a racist asshole.
General Winfield Stuck
@Wakefield Tolbert:
Your rant is impressive, and, of course, completely insane.
MelodyMaker
too bad Dr. Horrible is such a fuckup.
Mnemosyne
Digby has a very interesting post that ties a few of these things together and talks about how what’s going on right now encompasses racism but isn’t limited to it by any means.
LanceThruster
I don’t think it would be any more improper to point out hypothetical (thank dog!) Pres. Lieberman’s fealty to Zionist Israel than it was to point out Shrubya’s fealty to giving his rich buddies tax cuts while they were commiting crimes at the same time. In fact, considering ongoing Zionist crimes, it would be most appropriate indeed. People would learn to ignore Zionist apologists the same way they did with Bill Kristol when he apologized for things other than Zionist crimes.
Little Dreamer
@General Winfield Stuck:
Or we could just ignore them, fund those who create sane campaigns/ideas and wait for the population to brown itself up enough (and let’s not forget Republicans are embarrassing themselves into oblivion at the same time) that we don’t see these jokers as even a blip on the screen anymore. Eventually this insanity will stop.
Aspasia
“race is by far the most important issue in American politics.”
More: race is by far the most important issue in American history. The issue of slavery dominated arguments at the constitutional convention, about westward expansion, and of course, initiated the Civil War. Questions about race governed efforts at reconstruction and resistance to those by the Klan and other groups. Worries about race fomented the immigration wars of the late nineteenth-century and the progressive movement of the early-twentieth. The civil rights movement. The rise of rightist rhetoric and governance since the 1970s. Etc.
aimai
Ed Marshall’s point is perfect, and perfectly correct.
Its something I was trying to get at way upthread, but in a slightly more foulmouthed way, and also something that I think is lost on most of us: this is all situational. There isn’t a “right way” and a “wrong way” to “talk about Race” and Obama isn’t “Right” (as someone said upthread) to refuse to talk about it. Some people are talking about race, and using racism, to score political points and balkanize the electorate to prevent populist economic and social reforms. That’s just the fact. Some of them are true believers, some of them are cynical bastards, some of them have a horror of “the savage other in our midst” some of them see only the color of money. They talk differently amongst themselves than they do out in public. And their objectives are different in each venue.
Who knows or cares what Makewi really things–as far as I can see from reading him he’s like a performance artist of stupid misdirection. He’s not a magician, he’s just the guy hired to blow smoke and ring gongs while the real misdirection is handled at a higher level. When the rubes accost him and ask him “hey, was that a smoke machine” he acts startled and says “no, no! My master, the Marquis of Carrabas, is the world’s greatest magician. He authentically does magic without any help from me!”
As for the Democrats and Obama, I wish they would grasp that this is a multi-level playing game. At the top *of course* Obama has to laugh, shrug it off, and pretend to be above it.
Of course he has to say
Then there should be a second, and a third tier of commentators from Jimmy Carter to top religious figures who come out to say publicly over and over again that Racist language is ugly and uncivil and is being used to get people to forget common principles of democratic participation and to knock it off. We need people to marginalize and humiliate the fringe, racist, violent edge groups. Because we know that a fair number of authoritarian followers score high on *conventionality* and they don’t like to feel like outliers–they don’t like to do stuff that is socially embarrassing. That, in fact, is Makewi’s whole shtick. He’s not arguing whether or not Obama with a bone through his nose or Michelle as a Gorilla is “racist”–he’s trying to argue that we better not call it that *because he knows it shocks even the other racists on the far right*. Its embarrassing for them, still.
If outright racist language and clear code words become too heavily associated with angry, ugly, fringe behavior the religious right and the conventional authoritarians will be forced to abandon the public association. And that’s all we want. Either the teabaggers *or* the religious right, but not both in alliance.
aimai
Stefan
in all confederate states, at least 60% of the white vote went to McCain.
Confederate states? I prefer “the traitor states”, myself…..
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
I’m referring to the line “hating people you perceive as ethnically different is just how homo sapiens roll.” With all due respect to DougJ, this is b.s. of the purest ray serene.
If this has already been addressed upthread, I apologize for the redundancy, but I’m at work and having to comment on the run.
I’m sick of hearing this particular piece of historically inaccurate b.s. from people who can’t be bothered to do even the most basic homework before pronouncing their judgments about how racism is somehow inherent in the species. It isn’t. Not even close.
Racism is a historical phenomenon with easily traceable roots and a developmental story. It’s the product of European expansion throughout Africa and the New World. It doesn’t exist in world literature and history prior to that point.
Xenophobia, hating someone because they’re different, is universal in one form or another among human beings, but it’s just as likely to express itself over eye-color, clothing choices, linguistic patterns or religious preferences as it is to be about race. It does NOT inevitably express itself as racism, and there is nothing inevitable about ethnic hatred. The experience of Africans and their descendants among Native American societies throughout the “colonial” period of American history is ample refutation of the idiotic notion that ethnic prejudice is somehow hard-wired into the species. Other examples would include Rome, Persia, the early Islamic Caliphate, etc. Racism is learned behavior. Period. Anyone who claims otherwise is historically illiterate.
Robert
This whole race card play has gotten so over the top that I now have colleagues at work jokingly accusing each other of “racism” every time they disagree with each other over something, anything.
“I want pepperoni on the pizza.”
“I don’t like pepperoni, let’s get sausage instead.”
“Racist!!”
The card no longer holds any value. It’s been played to death. Good riddance.
The Operative
amai: “Some people are talking about race, and using racism, to score political points and balkanize the electorate to prevent populist economic and social reforms.”
And some people – like yourself and DougJ – are using racism to score political points and balkanize the electorate to influence populist economic and social reforms.
The inclination to paint the majority of the Republican party as racist based on nothing but the pathetically menial 370,000 that took place in the April 15 Tea Party protests and the 9/12 march, is so preposterous, ignorant and disingenuous that it’s a wonder that it’s become a meme amongst much of the liberal blogosphere.
There is something uniquely sickening about this topic. And somewhere between all of the digressive false equivalences, the shockingly broad generalizations based on minimal swathes of the electorate, and the insulting proclivity to project racism to anything that isn’t uniform support or purely-policy-based disagreement – I’m seeing not just a distraction from the issues that could actually help black people, I’m seeing a wish to preemptively malign and shut down dissent with a series of speciously moralistic character attacks instead of actual arguments.
If your qualm is with the Republican presentation of healthcare, then argue against them on that point. If your qualm is with the contradictions between their spending and their attempts at painting Obama as a high spender, then argue that. But don’t try and pretend like you’re describing some broader endemic based on a pitifully small – but over-reported and vocal – sect of the electorate. Because it’s absolutely no different than what Republican’s do/did to Democrats when they described them as “traitors” “unamerican” “unpatriotic” “socialist” “communist”, etc. It doesn’t produce a debate. It doesn’t contribute to a debate. It uses ad hominem in an effort to shut one down.
The nature of the commentary here suggests that if Obama were subject to the same attacks as Bush that the reaction wouldn’t be to prove the attacker wrong, or to ask x person for evidence of stupidity. The reaction would be to say that he’s using the canard of “idiot” to call Obama an uneducated slave, or a low-performing ghetto rat at a black high school or implying that what’s being said is that black people can’t be intelligent at all. It’s clearly impossible for people to think Obama is an idiot, or, you know, wrong.
Does anyone else here see the problem with this kind of absurd projection? It’s not grounded in a wish to progress policy, it’s grounded in a generalized distaste for Republican’s and a desire to have negative preconceptions justified by whatever examples you can conjure. It’s banking off of the civil rights movement – and the strides on racism it made – to commit preemptive political assassination. And it’s a tactic that’s not at all different from the Republican’s usage of the religious right.
Guess who won the majority of the white vote in 04? Bush. Does that mean that the people who voted against Kerry are racist, or does it mean that they, you know. Disagreed on policy. People are forgetting that not only was Obama presented as inexperienced for the office, but he was presented as incredibly liberal. Why wouldn’t the generally conservative south vote against him? And how is it in any way indicative of a “racist” mindset that predominately Republican states – gasp – voted for the Republican!
My advice? All of you should drop this topic immediately and get back ON topic. There are 60 million people who voted for McCain and there are just as many Republican’s in the party. Painting the entirety or even a majority of the right based on the .5% of the conservatives that protested is not only inaccurate, it’s cowardly. If you disagree with them, by all means, disagree with them, but what many of you are doing here is the most indefensibly inane kind of slander.
By the way, pretending as though it’s unreasonable to be afraid of Government running healthcare isn’t nearly as “crazy” as many of you who enjoy caricaturing the right make it out to be. This is the same government that’s incapable of protecting citizens rights (Patriot Act, FISA), incapable of conducting or even offering basic oversight for wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and they tend to make wonderful healthcare bills with policies like this (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/the_baucus_bill_the_worst_poli.html). You would have a better case if you tried to engage these arguments than you have in trying to take the fringe of the fringe and call the majority of the conservative right racist. Unless stuff like this makes the collective left murderers (http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html).
For those who’d agree with that comparison, I’d at least admire your argumentative consistency.
(a preemptive apology for my HTML ignorance)
aimai
Dear Operative:
You protest way too much. No one on the left is “using” racism to “balkanize” the country and to defame the “real” populist program of the 9/12 ‘ers. Racial language and racist hysteria about Obama existed long before the Health Care Reform crisis and it will persist long after it. We aren’t judging the far right for it, or smearing them with it. We’re just observing, rather bemusedly, that this shit is what this shit is. Frankly, we don’t expect any better of you. But we aren’t criticizing you for it. Go with it.
If you think there is some other explanation for fat white people on medicare flying confederate flags and bitching about monkeys–perhaps they are trying to perform La Traviata in Japanese and they just missed the first installment of their Rosetta tapes?–you can certainly offer it.
But if you want to come on over to the fact based side of things I recommend this
The money quote if you don’t want to click on the link is this:
I’m really sorry that the inherent stupidity and vulgar racism of your own team disgusts you. But really, its not our problem. Take it up with your own crazy fringe. If you want people to respect you for your mind you might want to stop dressing like a stripper.
aimai
aimai
Sorry, everything above the last paragraph should be in that block quote thingy.
The last shot was, of course, me.
aimai
The Operative
What you seem to be incapable of grasping is that issue in question is not one of recognizing racism; the issue in question lies in understanding the concept of proportion and necessity in recklessly tossing out the accusation. What the rights “motives” are is irrelevant, what matters is whether their arguments are correct. If they aren’t – which is demonstratively true – then you attack those. Argumentative honesty doesn’t dictate that you point to racists and call them racists, it dictates that when your opponent offers an argument, you discredit the argument itself instead of dismissing the person.
No one on the right that I’ve seen is saying “I OPPOSE HEALTH CARE BECAUSE OBAMA IS BLACK!” They’re saying nonsense relating to death panels, government run healthcare, losing their doctors, spending more money than we have, etc. Those are their arguments, and they’re ripe for dismantling. Why they made those arguments and how they reached their conclusions is an inane and useless question, if only for the reason that they’re already provably wrong on the merits and the left “wins” by showing them how. Not by psychoanalyzing the rights motivation.
None of the echo-chamberish racial sympathy in this thread – or from you – is in the interest of discrediting an argument. It’s in the interest of maligning the motives of the debaters to make it easier to dismiss their claims without remotely addressing them. It’s not a requirement to be “one of them” to observe this. You simply have to observe the premise and tenure of the discussion and honestly assess the spurious nature of its foundation. Which is all I did.
And it should be noted that your link doesn’t conclusively “establish a fact”. Both Hetherington and Weiler presented their findings as “evidence” not “proof”. A distinction you would do well to understand before blithely calling something a “fact”.
I find it remarkable that you’re sensitive to the supposed racial prejudices on the right but you’re incapable of seeing the inherent prejudiced involved in a study by a pair of people who are willing to call their ideological opponents “authoritarian” – which is a psychological disorder. You don’t think it’s an indictment of their motives that they saw the need to project and insult their opposition instead of merely being content with disagreeing with it?
Likely not.
Many of you may genuinely care about racism, and many of you may even see it. But the trend I’m noticing so far hasn’t been to actually call out general instances of racism and to prove how it’s indicative of the whole (or even the majority), it’s been to assume it and then use those assumptions as a bludgeon and a tool. Calling it “the most important thing ever” isn’t an effort to scrutinize the general trends of racism, it’s an effort to make it a more effective attack when you wish to paint your opposition with the slander.
I “protest”, as you say, not because I have problems with this, but because I see the fundamental lack of necessity in pursuing this pitifully weak and marvelously specious digression when the merits of the argument are on your side. The racism that you seem to see your in opposition – as I outlined in my previous post – is not endemic. It’s little more than a media propelled panoply that augments the voices of a loud and shrill few.
At one point, I thought the liberal blogosophere was somewhat immune to being taken in by artificially conceived spectacle. When the truth of the matter lies in the fact that they’re easily taken in by spectacles that are perceivably favorable to them and their preconceptions. “Observing this for what this is” wouldn’t be imagining some grand racial conspiracy that permeates the entirety of the right. “Observing this for what this is” would be identifying this entire discussion as a logical and argumentative trap.