…it is about race.
Back in the late sixties the Democratic Party had broken their century long bond with the Confederate Party: those folks who believed (and still believe) that the cause of the South was just, that it was about State’s Rights and (on the hush-hush) that whites are the dominant race. Of these three beliefs the first two can always be uttered out loud but the last one must be said in code (damn those hippies and the NAACP!).
Richard Nixon thought he could bring this energy into the Republican Party and control it. For a while it worked. Reagan road this wave of bile to victory and with him came a generation of code talkers deeply skilled at spinning whenever the issue of race came up.
Today, these Confederate nostalgics control the Republican Party–lock, stock and barrel. Nixon and Reagan would both get the Arlen Specter treatment if they were still alive to see the product of their deal with the demons of our fears. It is a bitter cup of tea indeed.
Of course one must not speak of the racism at the core of the modern conservative/republican/teabagger movement. That would be rude. Instead, we are advised that we should allow them to play their games, like they did today when a highly edited clip got some poor bureaucrat fired and made the Obama Administration and the NAACP look like easy marks taken in by a quick hustle of three card monty on Houston Street.
Really? WTF! Rehire this women and fight back!. It really is past time to push back on these race-baiting fuckwads of hate. It is time to call them out and make them own their bile.
The dickless weasel who posted this clip is famous for race-baiting. It is all he does. His only gig is to promote fear of a black planet, a black President and a black or brown other hnding in the shadows to ‘Get Whitey’ . Regardless of his spin, everything he does is only about race. But he is not alone, he is just following the Confederate Party playbook.
The entire Republican Confederate campaign for 2010 is built on dog whistles to race-baiting. Old folks vote and the fools who voted for Reagan in 1980 are all eligible for AARP membership. These boomers grew up in an age where racism was celebrated. They hear the race baited whistles with clarity and it comforts them. It is important to call attention to this racism and disrupt the comfort of these baby boomers. It is important to smash the idealized black and white world of their collective neo-Confederate fantasies. Some may even turn away from this appeal to the demons of their fears. Others are just hopeless. Sure, they can cast a vote for the Confederate world view–it is their right–but they don’t get to pretend that race has nothing to do with it. Especially when race is why they embrace wingnutopia in the first place. It is time to make these cowards uncomfortable.
The Confederacy is dying. It will not survive much longer, but is is a dangerous philosophy of hate and it will not go quietly to the dustbin of history. The good news is that over time the hate they promote will fade. The sad news is that those boomers who feed on that hate will be around for some time to come and their ears are very turned to these dog whistles. As they play their games we must be ready to call them out.
Cheers
dengre
lamh32
Amen my brutha!!!
C Nelson Reilly
But….Michael Steele!!!
Dave C
If Brown does not get her job back along with a heart-felt apology (at the very least) from Tom Vilsack…well, to say that I would be unbelievably pissed off would be an understatement. And I’m one of those hopey-changey Obamabots that the DFH’s are always whining about!
Bella Q
I’m with you. We must not stand silent.
cat48
Ambinder says on “the twitters” that WH is reviewing the entire Sherrod case at this hour.
Give them time. The prez has been tied up w/Cameron all day. He may not get to it tonight.
Lolis
I agree. The WH needs to hire this woman back ASAP. No excuses.
Dennis G.
@C Nelson Reilly:
He may be one of the performers that Mark Williams was worried about the other day…
AuldBlackJack
WTF?
It was called the Civil Rights Movement.
Cause it’s all the baby boomer’s fault.
Really? It’s only 9:30, when did you start drinking? At Noon?
You Don't Say
@cat48: Oh, God, I hope you’re right.
patroclus
It’s really amazing the amount of blatant race-baiting we are seeing from the lying smearing Republicans. They just smeared a historic civil rights heroine out of her job through baldfaced falsehoods and they are endeavoring to legitimize race-baiting generally in our civil discourse. Their propaganda organs are at it, night and day, 24/7, 365/365.
Mary G
All the White House has to say is “what the NAACP said, we got snookered. She gets her job back and we’re so sorry.”
Maybe a little Johnnie Cochran – “Fox News lied and a good woman got fried.”
The end. Anything else is just so weak. Between Rand Paul, Mark Williams and Andrew Breitbart the right has brought this racist BS into the open. Kind of a golden opportunity for Democrats, actually.
freelancer
The full video of her speech is a must see. It is actually about overcoming racism to fight the class divide in this country, and to give all people the same opportunity to thrive. Her rhetoric on race vs. class sounds exactly like something we’ve heard from Obama several times by now. As TNC said, how do you fire an employee for sounding like the president?
Fuck this modern incarnation of the Confederacy, and fuck their corporate enablers even more.
Jilli
EXCELLENT post.
There’s a special place for the likes of Breitbart and his cheerleaders.
You Don't Say
I’ve read a few posts sympathetic to Fox News because Beck and others are saying she shouldn’t have been fired. Fox is playing this for all it’s worth. Last night everyone on the network was calling for Sherrod’s head. Then they saw the blowback the administration – read Obama – was getting for this so changed their tune because they saw how bad it was making the administration – read Obama – look. Their change of heart is not genuine. The network is milking this for all it’s worth.
eemom
they’re not even bothering with the “dog whistles” much anymore.
iriedc
Ah, nothing like a good Dennis G post to describe my outrage about these racists better than I can. BTW — NAACP described themselves as “snookered.” A friend suggested “bamboozled” which made me think of the turn of the century Spike Lee movie — which I don’t like much, but still it keeps coming to mind.
(In case my link doesn’t work, google ‘Bamboozled the movie’)
Of course, the Confederate Party members probably think this was a documentary and not satire.
frankdawg
You racist bastard! YOU are the real racist for saying this, not Dimbart. Just like pointing out that the Republicans are fucking working people for the enjoyment & enrichment of the wealthy are the real class war instigators.
frankdawg
@You Don’t Say:
you don’t say!
beltane
I don’t have a Twitter account, but Marc Ambinder allegedly has a new tweet saying the White House is currently reviewing Ms. Sherrod’s case and that we’ll hear more in the morning (per a comment at DKos).
I sincerely hope they have learned that anything emanating from Breitbart or the Fox clown posse is likely to be a hoax.
Reagan and Nixon were horrid, but they spoke in code and at least attempted to preserve the illusion of “one nation indivisible”. Today’s wingnuts sound like Charles Manson in their insane desire to spark a race war.
Jennifer
I still want to see her sue Breitfart and every media organization that played along with the slander.
There’s a case to be made here: against Breitfart, it’s a slam-dunk – the tape was edited to falsely portray this woman, who was NOT a public figure and so has every right to sue for slander. As for the media organizations, they ran with a tape from a guy who has already burned them by passing off edited tapes before. They knew who he was and how lacking in credibility he is. And instead of verifying that his clip wasn’t heavily edited by viewing the original unedited tape, which they could easily have done, they piled on and slandered this woman. Who again, was not a public figure.
I think a lawsuit out of all this would be the best possible outcome. Let Breitfart get a heavy fine slapped on his ass & better yet on Fox, CNN, and anyone else who bought into this info from a source they already knew was disreputable, and we’ll see a lot less of it.
The Modern Serf
“The Confederacy is dying. It will not survive much longer, but is is a dangerous philosophy of hate and it will not go quietly to the dustbin of history.”
I do believe this is correct, but fear that it will get uglier before it gets better.
freelancer
@Jennifer:
What are we, Mark Levin? Seriously. Call him the world’s biggest piece of shit. Say you want to use a shed full of AsiangrrlMN’s rusty pitchforks on him. Say he’s the most disingenuous, mentally-ill attention whore ever to grace the national stage, but for fuck’s sake, can we not sound like we’re in 3rd grade by modifying the cumsock’s fucking name?!
You Don't Say
@beltane: Ambinder just tweeted that the USDA is releasing “some sort of new comment on Sherrod case.”
Joseph Nobles
Normally Louie Gohmert on the House floor gets me all riled up, but he’s a positive tonic tonight. Gohmert’s going nowhere near this whole mess — and that should tell you something. Instead, he’s darkweaving a horrible picture of how the government is going to know your body mass index and enroll you in a diet if you dare buy too much bacon.
I kid you not. This is now in the Congressional Record.
Dennis G.
@frankdawg:
I am such a traitor to the white folks of the Confederacy. I fear that they’ll send me to Andersonville if’in they ever catch my white ass…
demo woman
@Jilli: The special place seems to be Fox News and CNN which gives him a forum.
WereBear
I’m charging up my crappy cell phone right now, because I plan to spend my lunch hour making calls. Though it is encouraging to hear about that tweet…
This is not Campaign Obama. Campaign Obama would let the race baiters make fools of themselves, and then step up to the podium and rip them a new one, with kosher salt.
Vilsack needs one of those chewings out that make the chewee leave their office door closed for the rest of the day; and the only sound heard behind the door is the crunching of Tums and some gentle sobbing.
After he gives Ms. Sherrod her job back and grovels like the spineless worm that he is.
Mnemosyne
And in the meantime, the unemployment benefits extension that we’ve all been screaming about gets cloture in the Senate with barely a whisper.
Almost like the media and the right wing wanted to distract the public from that news with a nice juicy race scandal, innit?
beltane
@Joseph Nobles: It’s hard to imagine that there are actual bipeds who vote for someone like Gohmert. They must have nitrate poisoning from the five pounds of bacon they eat every day.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When Boner talks about “the America I grew up in”, how can anyone think he’s doing anything else?/rhetorical
I will say I think the real villain here is Vilsack. Frankly I think it’s appalling enough that a cabinet secretary is so plugged in to FoxNews, much less responding in a panic. Did everybody see TRMS? FoxNews is asking if people are saying that the story is that the White House rail-roaded this woman. I have to say, maybe that’s enough to push them into staying on top of Wingnuttia.
matoko_chan
that was splendid.
tyvm Dennis.
we should fight.
if ……i could hurt them badly…..should i do it?
should i fight fire with fire?
caune
Thank you!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
You sir have been channeling the late Steve Gilliard. This is something he might have written.
What’s “good” about all of this is how it highlights the dog whistling and the underlying racism that is the modern Republican Party. I tell people this and they don’t believe me. They are fools.
Maybe this will help. Or not. Sigh.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I think you’re misremembering Campaign Obama, because the Rev. Wright thing percolated for at least a week or two before the campaign responded.
This story broke less than 24 hours ago. I am not surprised at all that there hasn’t been an official comment from the White House or from anyone in the administration other than Vilsack. I know we wanted it to happen NOW NOW NOW but that’s the artificial urgency created by blogging.
Joe Lisboa
@Mnemosyne: Holy shit. I am no conspiracy theorist, but you just got me thinking.
jeff
Ms. Sherrod is a better person than I’ll ever be. Watching her on AC360 just amazes me. I’d be so goddamned pissed off! I think she’s worthy of major promotion. Very major.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Well, that’s what I was getting at; I remember many (including me, at times) were all upset that he wasn’t leaping on every insult and smear, but NOT taking action until it suited him seemed to work for him.
To (at least what I heard and read) harass Ms. Sherrod on the phone and force her to resign before she even got to give her side of the story… that’s a screwup somewhere.
But I hope it was Vilsack’s.
cat48
I just checked Ambinder’s blog which has a lengthy post & ends like this:
John Bird
It’s true. The ghost of the Confederacy is losing its grip on my state, as North Carolina becomes browner, more left-wing, and bigger every day. The response has been the current actions of our capital county’s (politically split) school board, as the Republicans have tried to pass, by hook or by crook, de facto resegregation of the county’s public schools.
I’m serious; they’ve pursued such interesting parliamentary tactics as waiting for a Democratic board member to leave to use the bathroom to get their way on key votes.
If you want to read about why the NAACP is still around, by the way, click here for the story.
By the way:
. . . can you guess whether Keith Sutton is white or not?
The good news is that these people are behaving like this because they are losing North Carolina, like much of the Upper South, and are terrified.
jeff
Also want to note how very effective the “starsbars elephant” is as an emblem: you guys are doing an incredible job–and an important job, too. Thank you.
stuckinred
Sherrod lives here and Athens and while there are many ignorant redneck comments on the story in the local paper’s comments I’m also happy to report there are an equal number of people fighting back against this horseshit.
Johnny B
Your post is spot on except your reference to “boomers.” It is not Boomers who are falling into the grateful arms of the Confederate Party, but the generation born between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers.
According to the Census Bureau, Boomers constitute those born from 1946 to 1964. Thus, most Boomers are not senior citizens. The oldest aren’t even Medicare eligible.
I find this frame often in discussions about Social Security and Medicare. I’ve seen comments on blogs blaming Boomers for the alleged soaring costs of these programs. But most Boomers aren’t even receiving these benefits.
Quite frankly, what really irks me about the Teabaggers and their ilk, most of whom are senior citizens, is the fact that they carry around all this baggage about government spending and reckless deficits, but demand that we keep our hands off their Medicare and Social Security.
That crowd, for the most part, aren’t Boomers. They are people born between 1930 to 1945. They were too young to remember the worst of the Depression or serve in WWII. They saw the greatest economic expansion in the nation’s history. They voted for Reagan in droves. And now they demand that government slash all social spending except for those programs they now recieve. At the same time, they hold fervently to their cherished beliefs in their own racial superiority. They are the ultimate hypocrites in our country.
HRA
Very well done, Dennis. Thank you.
The Truffle
@freelancer: But I was having so much fun calling him Bratwurst!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Not so much dog whistles as megaphones. Because the dog whistles didn’t keep the scary brown guy out of the White House so it must be because people didn’t realize he’s a scary brown guy so maybe if they SHOUT A LITTLE LOUDER…
Redshift
Yes, yes, yes, make them as uncomfortable as possible. We rightly mock the occasional Republican attempts at “outreach” to African-Americans, but the reason they do it is not because they expect to ever get any significant support, but to retain white suburban Republicans who are uncomfortable associating with an openly racist party.
That weak link is our target, and that is why this story (and the Williams story and all the rest) need to be pushed from now until Election Day.
cat48
I would’nt be surprised to see their campaign slogan in 2012 be, “Tired of hearing about Race? Elect Bubba Doe for Pres”
Anton Sirius
I cling to the belief that what we’re living through are just the death throes of a very ugly part of out history. But it gets mighty hard, sometimes.
James Hare
April 12 of next year is 150 years since they started a treasonous war in support of slavery. They still haven’t learned the lesson.
Scott
I just hope someone’s monitoring Breitbart’s Twitter account. The coming ragegasm is going to be epic.
arguingwithsignposts
Just for some inspiration: MLK – If I had sneezed.
sven
What is wrong with the Washington Post?
This is what is wrong with the Washington Post.
Paragraph 1 contains:
Does it correct the story?
Yes, in paragraph 13.
New Black Panthers appear in paragraph 4…
Best line:
Notice how the word ‘blame’ is used. Nothing about selective editing, nothing about rush to judgment, and nothing about partisan manipulation.
I refused to pay the Mob for protection,
someone set my wife’s car on fire. I guess I’m partially to blame…
I hate to speak for Ms. Sherrod, but I think she might disagree with how her statement was characterized by the WP.
eemom
@Redshift:
See, e.g., Steele (“Why the fuck haven’t they fired him?”), Michael.
demo woman
@jeff: I don’t have cable. Please give a short recap.
Corner Stone
“Confederacy now, Confederacy tomorrow, Confederacy forever!”
Elisabeth
@Mnemosyne:
My hope is that, caught once acting too rashly, the administration is gathering all the facts before acting with all due haste to correc this situation. A phone call to Ms. Sherrod is appropriate, as well.
KRK
Apparently no one cares to get this right since the information has been out there about as long as this story has, but she had a political appointment not a USDA career position. Don’t demand that she be rehired. Demand that she be reappointed.
eemom
@Redshift:
See, e.g., Steele (“Why the fuck haven’t they fired him?”), Michael, Chairman RNC.
frosty
Dude. Can you please not tar my entire generation with the blame for Ronald Reagan? I voted against him for Governor, I voted against him for President, twice. I voted against Nixon. I voted against every Bush that ever ran for office, and I worked my ass off to try and keep George II out of office the second time.
I get that you don’t like my g-g-generation. I don’t give a s**t about that. Go blame those kids in their 40s for this mess, the ones who came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not us DFHs.
And get off my lawn. Also. Too.
Jager
I agree with much of what you said, but cut the bullshit of laying this on the baby boomers…what the hell do you think that ALL baby boomers think and vote alike, you are way the hell too smart to be painting with that broad of a brush. Cut the shit, okay?
lamh32
What funny, is that will all the talk of radical NBPP bs fox and conserv have been pushing lately, shit like this is how people become “radicalized”. It really pisses me off. this fool Beibart don’t even realize what he’s done, if before people were calling the NAACP antiquated and out of touch after this episode, even with the NAACP’s misstep, who wanna bet that NAACP membership increases in the next day for week. I know my friends and I are seriously contemplating joining my local chapter.
Not that this is a rightful comparison, but when King was assassinated, how many more people joined the original Black Panther Party, or joined their local NAACP and national NAACP.
Like I said, even with the NAACP’s misstep in this story, if shit like this don’t prove that org’s like NAACP are still needed, I don’t know what else would!!!
Spaghetti Lee
I think that Breitbart, angry over the Mark Williams fiasco, decided to go get a scalp so that he could even the score, so to speak. If this woman gets her job back, and if public opinion comes to her side (and it damn well should), the ensuing blow-up on Breitbart’s part is going to be the most epic thing I’ve ever seen.
Slide
I haven’t been this angry in a long time. Angry at that piece of shit Brietbart and his race-baiting shit. Angry that the media gets suckered by this time and time and time and time again. Angry that the Obama administration acted and fired this woman based on Fox and Brietbart’s reporting. Angry that the scum that inhabit the modern day Republican party are so willing to rile up race hatred for their purely political ends.
Get fired up people. Enough of this shit. Shove it down their racist faces. Don’t be quiet when you hear the comments about Obama. Don’t be quiet when someone praises Limbaugh. Get angry. Very angry.
Jody
Reagan would be fucking delighted that the bigots have finally taken control. That guy was a hateful old prick until his brain rotted out from under him. He was the only person I could not bring myself to pity when knowledge of his suffering was made public (the other being Cheney). In fact I was downright happy the evil prick got to feel a little of the misery he visited upon so many others.
Pardon my bitterness. But that guy sucked out loud.
SIA
@demo woman: Others could probably provide more information, but the clip I saw shows Ms Sherrod talking to Rick (Sanchez?) about what happened, and shows her listening while the lady in GA (Mrs Spooner) called in and said Sherrod was “a good friend” and credited her with saving their farm. Mrs Spooner also said that “they” [media, Breitbart etc] weren’t “doing her right” or something to that effect. Ms Sherrod looked absolutely exhausted but she was calm and explained her side of the story. It was pretty amazing.
Mr Screaming and I watched a clip of the Spooners on Countdown. They were so cute, and they were sticking up for her valiantly. It gave me chills.
Spaghetti Lee
And speaking as someone who was born during the Bush I years, I agree-can we cut this crap, here and elsewhere, about blaming Baby Boomers for absolutely everything? There are idiots, fools, and hateful bigots born in every generation, and judging people by the year they were born in is one of the stupidest classifications I can think of.
SIA
@lamh32: Did you see Julian Bond on MSNBC? He said it all perfectly.
ETA: I’m predicting (or wishing?) that Vilsack will come out in the morning with a full apology and offer Ms Sherrod her position back. The pres will be asked about it in the next couple days and will say something simple like, there was a misunderstanding and we hope it has been corrected. The onus will be on Vilsack as it probably should be based on what I know at this point.
Nick
@Slide:
you know, I do this and they laugh at me, mock me and tell me to “calm down little liberal”
If I get more angry, heads may literally roll.
I don’t know what to do anymore.
demo woman
@SIA: Thanks
cat48
If Dems don’t stampede in raging crowds to the polls in Oct after all this race baiting, I don’t want to hear any whining after the Confederate party takes over. This doesn’t have anything to do w/supporting Obama. It’s about who & what we are as a group.
Then, it might not bother some libs, Dems, prog or whatever.
frosty
@Johnny B: This!!
frosty +2 and aiming for +4
Mnemosyne
@Slide:
Angry doesn’t work with Limbaugh fans because they expect you to get angry. They count on it. It’s what they want you to do.
What works is to get stupid. Ask questions about everything. Make them explain everything. Saying, “You’re an asshole and so is Limbaugh!” will make their day. Saying, “I don’t get it. What does that mean? That doesn’t make sense,” will drive them up the frickin’ wall because it will suddenly make them question their own “cleverness” in repeating what Limbaugh says.
Tactics, people, tactics.
KG
I’m not sure that you can say that the cause of the South was just outside of the South. Having grown up in the West, the idea that the South’s cause was just was and is completely foreign to me. As a kid, I always learned the primary cause of the Civil War was: slavery.
I’ve heard the State’s rights line before but I never really heard it until college, and at that point it was clearly a code for slavery. Because really, what other state right was at issue other than the right to own other people?
Upper West
@Johnny B:
You’re right, Johnny B — it’s the “quiet generation” who came of age in the ’50s. But it’s also some of what I call the “Alex P. Keaton” generation, who came of age during Reagan, and thought it was cool to be “liberal on social issues, but conservative on economic issues,” meaning, fuck the poor, just let me have an abortion.
The more successful among this group, along with the quiet generation (and some boomers, of course) succumbed to the “Greed is good” appeal of the ’80s. The less successful succumbed to the “young bucks are taking my taxes” racist appeal of Reagan.
Coupled with with the war against unions, these factors caused these groups to forget (or take for granted) what the New Deal had done, and support the thieves who are trying to kill it.
hamletta
@frosty: You’re right there. I’m in my 40s, turned 18 a few months after that ratbastard Reagan was elected.
I was known to call some of my peers “Reagan Youth” back in the day.
KG
@Mnemosyne: This. A hundred billionty times: THIS!
Slide
I hear you and that is why a lot of liberals take the easier path and keep their mouths shut. And that is part of the problem. Enough with being on the defensive. Why do the Dems back down on things like the ACORN bullshit. Or the Van Jones bull shit? Or fold like a cheap suit on Brietebart stories? Have some fucking balls and stand up to these racists god damn it !
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I may be an optimist, but I’m starting to think that Vilsack’s dumb action may actually have worked without his meaning it to. There was a whole arc that was supposed to be built for this story from “There’s a racist working for Obama” to “Why haven’t they fired her?” to “Questions arise” to “Why did Obama fire this nice black lady for helping white people?”
Now you have Beck and Erickson racing to the finish line by defending Sherrod from the mean ol’ president and Breitbart and the Washington Examiner desperately trying to steer things back onto his preferred timeline where it’s supposed to linger for weeks — or at least days — on Sherrod being a horrible racist against white people before the Big Reveal that she was actually helping the white people.
The right wing message machine done sprung a leak here, folks. This may be why it hasn’t shown up in the NY Times yet — they can’t quite figure out whose thread they’re supposed to be following, Breitbart’s or Beck’s.
Nick
@Slide:
because it’s not going to change a damn thing, that’s why. There isn’t a strong enough backup force behind them to change anything. The main reason why I’ve become resigned to this is that when I had balls and stood up to them, it did nothing.
What do you think will happen if she gets her job back with an apology and Obama calls out Breitbart? In two days, the media will forget this ever happen and the next time Breitbart puts up an edited video, the media will jump all over it like it’s gospel. conviently ignoring his lying past…because scandal sells.
Janet Strange
@Johnny B: Thank you. And I would just like to add, that Gen X voted for Bush II in higher numbers than the Boomers. (See: Our illustrious bloghost. And check the 2000 and 2004 election demographics.)
But blaming entire generations for anything is stupid. How is it any different from characterizing an entire race in a certain way? Whenever one judges a huge group of people who have nothing in common except something they had no control over, like when they happened to born, or where, or what color, etc, you end up in the same place. And it’s not a good place.
I was a teenager when Medgar Evars was shot. When the little girls were bombed to death in their church. I saw Dr King speak in Dallas. This was the evening news when I was growing up. I’m a boomer, and that is what shaped my view of race in this country. There are a hell of a lot of boomers like me.
(eta: otherwise, awesome post, dengre)
And Another Thing...
@eemom: heh… Or alternatively, Michael “What the fuck does he have to do to get fired” Steele.
hamletta
@Mnemosyne: I’m with you. I’m enjoying the circular firing squad, so rare on the right, and this is the second one in the last week!
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
the problem I have is that the people who were saying this;
24 hours ago, are now saying this;
because they’re betting, correctly, that their viewers have forgotten that they were saying this;
24 hours ago.
and if she still had her job, I would bet a bundle nobody would have reported the video was false (much like what happened with ACORN) and this;
would still be the narrative.
It’s just another reason why, no matter what he does, Obama cannot win against a hostile media…ever.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mnemosyne:
Too many dimensions for this chess player. I also have trouble believing that Breitbart, Beck, and Erickson put together would be smart enough to do that.
Violet
I wonder what Hannity said about it today. I first hear of this story yesterday when I was in the car and heard a bit of his radio show in the afternoon. He played the clip and it was such poor quality I couldn’t understand a word Sherrod was saying. Hannity summarized it at the end, which seemed pretty shady in and of itself.
I wonder if he addressed the latest turn of events on his shows today or will tomorrow. He was frothing at the mouth yesterday about reverse racism. He also had someone on the radio show going on about how whites were being discriminated against.
jeff
@demo woman:
Anderson Cooper had on Ms. Sherrod as well as the elderly farmers she had assisted 30 years ago. It just could not be plainer to anyone who saw it that Ms. Sherrod is a wonderful advocate for farmers and that the supposed “victims” of her “racism” were still, after all these years, eager to assert her fairness–even though they’re in their 80s and it all happened so long ago.
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
Dennis, I’m a Boomer born in 1960. It was my generation and those before me who made up the contingent of blue collar “Reagan Democrats” that helped set us on this 30 year path of economic destruction, duped by glittering generalities and photo-ops by a B movie actor who told us we’d be “standing tall” while he gutted unions, drove up the deficit and sold guns to rebels right before their eyes. Reagan reinvented racial code, used it to appeal to the growing racial resentment fueled by the Civil Rights movement and the blue collar boomers swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Hell yes the boomers are part of the problem. Your post was spot-on, well done.
Restrung
2 snaps. and a jello shot. Cowards is the right word.
El Cid
For those who missed it, here is the original video of Shirley Sherrod addressing the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27th.
It’s a really, really impressive speech, by a woman who has been an absolute hero of this nation’s civil rights, voting, and economic justice struggles.
Instead she gets run out of a job with the very organization whose racism she helped defeat because some cheap fucking racist liar with a publicly proven record of lying put up a few seconds of a speech on a god-damned website, because, you know, fuck her — who gives a shit about some old lady who’s just been fighting for the downtrodden her whole life, and publicly alongside her husband since rural Georgia blacks were fighting to get their vote so as to help overturn segregation?
drag0n
Thanks Dengre
Racism is a cancer that will devour everything the United States claims to represent. We saw no better example than that SHIT we saw today.
freelancer (itouch)
@Mnemosyne:
This. This works.
Mark S.
Just out of curiosity, who could fire Michael Steele? Is there some board? I mean, he was voted in by delegates of some kind.
@jeff:
I saw her and the farmer on 360. Breitbart’s credibility is toast after this, though of course he shouldn’t have had any to begin with.
Mnemosyne
@Spaghetti Lee:
Just to be clear, I’m not saying the whole thing was planned or the proverbial 11th-dimensional chess. I think Vilsack did something stupid by firing Mrs. Sherrod in the first place, but I also think that Breitbart had a whole plan for how this was supposed to play out (because, remember, Breitbart had the whole tape) and now it’s blowing up in his face because (as You Don’t Say pointed out) his allies have spotted an opportunity to bash Obama by racing ahead to the ending and left him behind.
I’m saying that there was a plan by Breitbart but it’s all gone very, very wrong. And a huge part of the reason it went wrong is that he vastly underestimated his victim. He thought she was another dumb, uneducated ACORN worker that he could make look bad on TV, and he’s getting pwned by her right now.
For some reason, it’s reminding me of the original “Machete” trailer in Grindhouse: “They just fucked with the wrong Mexican!” (But substitute in “middle-aged civil rights worker.”)
Bender
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know this trick. We read our Journo-List.
So, tell me. Who’s “all about the racial?” Leftist journalists exhuming McCarthy, that’s who.
What’s sad is that for every time anyone uses “RAAAAAAACIST” accusations, it not only loses its power against those who are NOT racist, but you saps the power of the charge when it is used justifiable against real racists.
Funny thing is, like Krauthammer and Beck and others on the right, I think Breitbart’s point was very weak here (how ironic that the White House fired her without discussion because she’s “gonna be on Glenn Beck tonight,” but Beck actually denounced the firing). Sure, some of Sherrod’s language was unacceptable. “So I took him to a white lawyer — one of them” because “one of his own kind would take care of him.” And the rambling bit about (paraphrasing here) “folks with money created racism to keep poor people divided, but mostly to keep blacks down” isn’t exactly a history lesson.
But this was no “we have to kill some cracker babies.” I thought that overall, it was a speech founded in God, grades, and graft, and showed a woman who got into the business to help “blacks and blacks only,” but learned eventually that she couldn’t stand by while poor whites were in trouble. I’d be happy to have her speak at my church tomorrow.
If she wants her job back, she should have it. Obama should admit that the White House “acted stupidly.”
PanurgeATL
@Nick:
You’ve got to know how to do it. They’re like playground bullies–if they get you riled up, they’ve done their job. Unflappable, supercilious CONTEMPT, not anger, is the way to go!
Janet Strange
@Malron aka eclecticbrotha: Well, you know, that’s part of the problem with generation bashing. I was born in 1948. Technically you and I are part of the same (boomer) generation, but really our formative generational experiences were totally different.
How old were you during the march from Selma to Montgomery? When LBJ sent the Marines into Vietnam? I was in high school. Because I remembered those things, I despised Reagan. When I went to grad school in the ’80’s I was stunned to find young people who adored him. Clearly they belonged to a different generation than I did. But I was judging another generation, which was just as silly as them judging mine. There were a lot of young people at that time who had no more use for Reagan than I did.
But I reiterate – judging millions of people who just happened to be born within 20 years of each other is dumb and pointless. There are all kinds of people that fit any particular 20 year birth cohort. Let’s judge individuals, eh?
El Cid
So, another right wing crazy goes off on an attempted rampag to blow away leftists (and also cops, ’cause, they’s the gubmit) because Glenn Beck told him too, and also because he lost his job, and also because his Mom is also a crazy shit who stocked rifles for ‘the revolution’.
But, hey, let’s go make this lying right winger whose fraudulent, made-up, deceitful, criminally-based ‘story’ on ACORN caused a media and Congress festival of punishing that mostly black organization, and let’s let him lead the nation with another made up story attacking a black woman who fought against segregation and fought for the African Americans in “Real America”.
Oh — I forgot. You can be rural. You can be a farmer. You can even live in the rural South and be a farmer and have lived there all your life and have inherited land from your parents and/or grandparents, but you’re still not a Real American.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
The distraction was aided and abedded by some folks on 14th & Independence Avenue and also Pennsylvania Ave.
maya
@slide,
Instead of getting angry I ask them; When Rush calls you, his faithful followers, “Dittoheads”, do you actually believe that that is a compliment?
Then, before they can even answer I look them straight in the eye and laugh at them. Drives them to sputters.
SqueakyRat
Like Janet, I was born in 1948. By the time I was 15, Martin Luther King had led the March on Washington, and by the time I was 20 he’d been shot dead by a white supremacist. I don’t recall growing up in a time when “racism was celebrated.”
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
See what I mean? Even the Bender bot is having trouble keeping the narrative straight and trying to both maintain that Mrs. Sherrod is racist and that she’s a nice lady who could speak to his church, because he’s getting conflicting messages from Beck and Breitbart.
JGabriel
OT, but this is for real:
Dick Cheney has NO pulse.
Apparently his new heart-pumping device pumps continuously, leaving the people who have it without a pulse.
That’s convenient, isn’t it? “No, I’m not undead, it’s just that my pump is silent.”
Sure, Dick, sure.
.
Bender
@El Cid:
No, she says she got fired without a chance to defend herself because the White House and NAACP didn’t want her to be “on Glenn Beck tonight.” (Glenn Beck defended her.) OOPS!
Just more thump-thumps under Obama’s bus tires… But don’t worry. She’ll get something BIG out of this this week when Obama holds a contrite presser to explain that Teh Smartest Administration Ever was duped by a (“RAAAAAAACIST!”) blogger.
Mike in NC
I was naive enough to think that in 2008, Obama’s election was not such a big deal. But here we are in 2010: America – a (Neo-)Confederacy of Dunces, with the media fellating bigots like Armey, Gingrich, and the whole Teabagger movement. We have a lot of age 60+ retirees in our community and it doesn’t take more than one or two drinks to get them spouting off about the spicks and niggers. It’ll take another couple of generations to rid this sick country of the poison.
And Another Thing...
@Mark S.: IIRC it would take a super majority, like 2/3 of the Republican National Committee voting to fire him, or maybe of an executive board. IMO he’s probably safe until the election and then he’s toast. He’s probably got an employment contract that they’d have to pay off unless he were to get caught robbing a bank or something else felonious.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Don’t attack Limbaugh, attack them for listening to Limbaugh. Say something like “Jesus, I was listening to Limbaugh one morning and I couldn’t believe what a bunch of fags his callers are. I mean this one guy calls up and says ‘mega-dildos’ Rush and then spends like 10 minutes just giving him a blowjob and telling him how great he is. What a bunch of pathetic fucking queers.”
Nick
@PanurgeATL:
playground bullies you can ignore. Ignoring them always works, they hate that.
But you can’t ignore Rush Limbaugh or the tea party or Glenn Beck or the right wing media. You can’t just brush them off your shoulder. Lord knows Obama tried.
El Cid
@Bender: Fuck you, dumbass. Who gives a shit what spin your moron ass wants to put on it?
She was forced to resign from the USDA. The assholes at the USDA who forced her out did so because they became aware — somehow — of this lying racist Breitbart’s latest fraudulent anti-black pseudo-scandal.
And third, Jeebus fucking cripes but you’re dumb — other than spin, how is your characterization intended to be different than what I just said?
Go propagandize some site more to the strength of your arguments — Fisher Price toys blog, or something.
Nick
@Wile E. Quixote: dude, been there, done that
Dannie22
My fantasy is that Vilsack gets fired and Mrs. Sherrod gets named secretary of agriculture.
Mark S.
@Wile E. Quixote:
Ugh, there’s nothing worse than listening to Rush’s callers suck him off. That must be the only way to get past the screeners.
PanurgeATL
@Malron aka eclecticbrotha:
Dude, you can stop beating yourself up now. I mean, I’ve never seen a generation as SELF-EFFACING as the Boomers.
Here’s Andrew Breitbart, born in, um, 1969. He’s responsible for all this. And what does Dennis do in an otherwise fine post but go on about Boomers? Hell, I’m surprised I didn’t read more “Yep, we suck” replies, because I’m so used to them.
Stop and think, people: The narrative about Boomers was formulated within the trajectories I call PUNK and REAGAN, maybe for different reasons, but, well, maybe not. This is what’s wrong with PUNK–it dovetails with REAGAN so neatly and doesn’t even realize it because it’s too busy punching hippies. Just like REAGAN. PUNK has been, well, punked just like everyone else.
Mark S.
@Nick:
You’ve blown Limbaugh?
Mnemosyne
Rep. Jack Kimble got in some good tweets about it today:
(For the confused — yes, it’s a spoof. California only has 53 districts.)
Nick
@Mark S.: um…no.
JGabriel
@Bender:
Only Republicans and Conservatives take pride when one of their own is shown to be a vile, careless, slanderer of good people and their reputations, and show glee in blaming the consequences on those who believed the slander instead of those who generated it.
Stay classy, Bender.
.
Joseph Nobles
@Bender: “What’s sad is that for every time anyone uses “RAAAAAAACIST” accusations, it not only loses its power against those who are NOT racist, but you saps the power of the charge when it is used justifiable against real racists.”
Which is part of the reason Breitbart and the rightwingers shout reverse racism so much. It doesn’t matter who dilutes the brand. If people are tired of hearing “racism, racism, racism,” then the real racists have room to breathe.
Hell, the way it seems to work these days, calling someone a racist or their actions racist appear to give them permission in their own mind to be as racist as they want to be. They project racism onto their accusers and settle comfortably into their biases, all with Glenn “Goldline” Beck’s blessing.
Emma
Umm, what’s up with the comments about baby boomers? First, we are not all old. Second, we are not all racist Repub. morans. That’s all. Agreed with the rest of what you said.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Crap! Forgot the linky:
http://twitter.com/repjackkimble
Another good one:
Cacti
As an addendum to the thread title…
When someone says “I’m not racist, but…”, you can bet the house that some racist drivel will immediately follow.
Davis X. Machina
Look on the bright side, people — for once somebody (or somebodies — it takes two to name-drop, and ‘White House’ is a mass noun) in the middle reaches of the administration finally listened to us.
They were careful to not be passive, not be reactive. They got ahead of the news cycle. They refused to let the media seize and set the agenda, to let things build up till they appear scandalous, they were determined for once to not have the sun go down on the Fox version of things — to *act*, decisively and promptly.
Sometimes you get exactly what you ask for… and then don’t like it.
Hunter Gathers
@Mnemosyne: That’s some funny shit.
My favorite –
Gretchen D
Check out Jay Smooth – How to tell people they sound racist – we’re going to need this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
beltane
@Hunter Gathers: Hey, what’s wrong with George Thouroughgood Marshall? He’s b-b-bad. He’s bad to the bone.
El Cid
@Davis X. Machina: Even though it’s just sarcasm, I don’t really see how this wouldn’t be regarded as ‘reactive’ on the part of, at least, the USDA, and in particular Sherrod’s supervisor. It seems like pretty much the very image of ‘reactive’ — something appeared on the TV, there seemed to be a controversy, and the official without hesitation gave in to exactly what the fake video huckster was saying about what the video showed.
I don’t know what else ‘reactive’ might mean if not that.
Sure, sure, there are would-be administration advisors here and elsewhere to be mocked, but the attempt to twist this pathetic, reactive incident into a Shyamalan twist on ‘getting ahead of the story’ etc. is just a far greater stretch than seems likely to hold.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Davis X. Machina: Do you honestly think that anyone wants the O admin to “get ahead” of the story by immediately capitulating to Andrew Fucking Breitbart? Actually getting ahead of the story would have involved actually finding out the pertinent facts and then acting on THE FACTS, rather than flailing around in a panic and shit-canning whoever the known liar is trying to smear.
For fuck’s sake, if the source was anyone else I might buy this as an understandable overreaction, but it’s the guy who was behind the edited ACORN vids. Was nobody in the admin on the lookout for Breitbart’s next attack? They had to know he’d pull this shit again, yet they blundered straight into his trap. AGAIN. That’s not getting ahead of the story, that’s banging your head against the story.
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
I just realized something.
In his insane attempt to smear the NAACP, Andrew Breitbart is now making the rounds doubling down to defend his doctored footage that “proved” an elderly black woman was racist because she helped two elderly white people keep their farm.
How Bizarro world is that?
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: Nobody is going to listen to the “facts” coming from the administration because in the narrative, they’ll be on defense, defending the racist and what they say would be spun merely as a desperate act of defense, and oh, btw, the President’s black, so, you know, he agrees with her.
Obama wasn’t in a position to defend her, or to present the truth, because he’s black, it’s that simple.
Spaghetti Lee
Was nobody in the admin on the lookout for Breitbart’s next attack?
I would hope that the Obama administration has more important things to worry about than that lowlife.
TooManyJens
@Davis X. Machina:
No, they got caught up in the news cycle. Getting led around by the nose by Andrew Fucking Breitbart doesn’t constitute getting ahead of anything.
Mnemosyne
@Malron aka eclecticbrotha:
I think the Breitbart twitter meltdown begins tomorrow:
ETA: Like I keep saying, this whole thing was manufactured by Breitbart as revenge against the NAACP for the Mark Williams brouhaha. It’s not a coincidence that Mrs. Sherrod made her “controversial” comments at a NAACP event. That’s what he was looking for.
El Cid
@Nick:
Does this work for every person in the administration?
‘Cause, it sounds to me like an awesome plan to whittle the entire administration down to like, maybe, 6 or 7 people.
Maybe a right winger could fake a letter supposedly signed by several thousand administration officials accompanied by a burned CD of EVP voices, all of which declare that the signers hate whitey.
Obama will have no choice but to fire them all, because he’s black, it’s that simple.
Nick
@TooManyJens:
no, no they didn’t. That’s only true if you think this story would have just gone away if they didn’t fire her. IMO it would’ve been worse because the truth would never have come out like it did.
Davis X. Machina
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: Yes. They — probably all of two people, so yes, they is accurate –did exactly what we’ve been yelling at them for a year and a half to do.
dww44
@Dennis G.:
Ironic that you should mention Andersonville as it ‘s about 10 miles up the road from Americus, to which small city Mrs. Sherrod took Mr. Spooner to meet with the white lawyer back in 1986 or thereabouts. Andersonville, site of the infamous prison and now a beautiful National Military Cemetery, is northeast of Americus. Plains, home of Jimmy Carter, is like 10 miles due west of Americus. In fact, the designated Presidential highway goes right by Andersonville. Exit right off I-75 at Perry, south of Macon and in about 30 minutes you’ve arrived.
I would point out that this whole episode shouldn’t be used to tar Republicans or for that matter all conservatives. But, the best takedown of Fox’s preeminent role in all of this was Rachel Maddow’s piece tonight. The video she and her staff assembled of their various slams at the presumed racist villain is ended with the 180 degree aboutface (with no apologies apparently) to have a reporter or some such say that apparently the Obama administration threw this employee under the bus. Her whole segment with her commentary ought to be required viewing at the next 6 Obama cabinet meetings, with additional showings to all UnderSecretaries. Maybe they won’t get pwned again anytime soon.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Nick: You are a coward and a fool. A coward for constantly advocating capitulation to the right. A fool for jumping at every opportunity to attack the left.
It’s that simple.
Nick
@El Cid: Yeah, pretty much, unless the media, you know, DOES ITS FUCKING JOB. If the media did what we’re taught to do, they would have verified the authenticity of the tape, found out it was false, and the story never would’ve seen the light of day. Instead they ran a lie, forcing the administration to get ahead of it, because you can’t trust that a lie will be corrected nowadays. Luckilly this time, it did. In part, because she was fired and the media needed something else to criticize Obama on.
Yes, if some right wing nut decides to make up a letter signed by thousands of administration officials saying white people are inferior, yeah, it would absolutely bring down the administration, true or not, if the media doesn’t do it’s job.
Because it won’t matter what Obama or anyone else, when it’s Obama vs. Right Wing Nut, Obama loses.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne: You don’t think it began years ago?
beltane
@Mnemosyne: He’s going on Charlie Rose tomorrow? Has a guest ever had a meltdown on that show. I don’t think so, but there’s always a first time.
The NAACP has had bigger enemies than Andrew Breitbart before. Captain Ahab is not going to get his whale this time.
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: whatever dude. I’ve been fighting this bullshit media longer than you have, that I’m sure of
TooManyJens
@Nick:
What? They panicked and made a stupid move because they were afraid of a coming media shitstorm. I take issue with calling this “getting ahead of the news cycle” or, really, calling it anything other than both cowardly and fucking stupid.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Spaghetti Lee: I think the Obama admin could spare a few people to maybe try to defend against the constant attacks from the right-wing. Such people could maybe, I dunno, keep an eye out for the guy who bankrolled the video that destroyed an organization that’s was committed to getting Obama’s most loyal constituents to vote. He might pose some kinda threat, y’know, or something.
Or, y’know, they could just continue to blunder into every trap laid down by a jackass with a YouTube account. Whatever works!
@Nick Yes, and well done! Your brilliant “Give up at the first sign of the slightest adversity” strategy is really knockin’ ’em dead.
El Cid
@Nick:
We should probably call back the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and deploy them immediately onto the streets here, because obviously the Republic’s collapse is only being prevented by the failure of Andrew Breitbart to write a letter with enough forged signatures of Administration officials, and in addition, the media apparently now have far more votes than the electoral college anyway, so, there you go.
Nick
@TooManyJens:
and I take issue with calling this cowardly and stupid. This is how you avoid shitstorms. This administration does not want to get into race wars, they get burned when they do. They want to avoid it, so they did. You call it cowardly and stupid because you think they could win a fight against the right on this.
I don’t. Racial politics got wrong can destroy a black politician. You’re considered brave if you walk into a fire to save your child, you’re stupid if you walk into a fire to save your copy of People magazine.
Nick
@El Cid: I’m sorry, is this supposed to mean something?
Davis X. Machina
@Nick:
This.
A bunch of mid-level spear carriers (remember on The West Wing, the Secretary of Agriculture is the guy they have not-go to the State of the Union in case the Capitol blows up) on graveyard shift while everyone else is hob-nobbing with that nice (soul-sucking Tory shit) Mr. Cameron, thinking ‘Shit. Summer of Wright. Summer of Gates. Now Summer of Sherrod — and the last one we own.’
Flight-or-fight does the rest.
There’s way more stupid in the world than evil. When you have an administration that looks like America, a lot if it isn’t gonna be too sharp.
Mnemosyne
@TooManyJens:
There would have been a media shitstorm no matter what the administration’s response was, because the media loves Andrew Breitbart. He’s “controversial” and he brings them handy pre-edited tapes that they can look serious about.
I think there’s a case to be made that the adminstration’s response could have been better and caused less hassle for Mrs. Sherrod, but I seriously doubt there’s anything they could have done to avoid the shitstorm altogether. Breitbart was out for a few NAACP scalps after Mark Williams got fired and he was going to keep going until he got one.
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:
I’m not looking to knock anyone dead or impress anyone, and quite frankly, neither is Obama. He’s trying to, you know, get shit done and part of that requires not falling into the scandal trap.
El Cid
@Nick: No, I wouldn’t dare attempt to mean anything, because I do not have the ability to force the media to DO ITS JOB, so there is the chance I might say something meaningful and force the resignation of the entire Obama administration. None dare call it meaningful.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
Well, we already knew that after 2000. Will of the people? Bush loses election by 500,000 votes? Not if Fox News has anything to say about it!
TooManyJens
@Nick: I am struggling to understand this. You think that the rabid right has too much power over our country and over the media, so you are proposing that the Obama administration should give them even more power by jumping to do their bidding whenever they decide to make shit up?
Well, good thing they got this one totally right then.
Ruckus
@And Another Thing…:
We’ve had how many generations since the end of the civil war? And you think it’s only going to take a couple more to move this off the stove? I don’t think so. We may not be a nation full of racists but there are still an awful lot of them around. And as long as one of our political parties is using racism as a basis for it’s platform it will be around. Until the conservative party as it currently stands is changed or eliminated this will be an issue. I’m not holding my breath.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: Gore only lost by 1 vote. It was a ballot turned in very, very late by a dude wearing a long black robe.
GregB
Has the wild eyed, spittle flecked racist Andrew Breitbart posted any new unfounded smears against low level African-American bureaucrats and non profit workers?
Breitbart hates being called a racist because he is a racist.
Nick
@TooManyJens:
They can’t beat it. They just have to live with it and navigate through it.
The only people who can beat it are a wide coalition of people who just have had enough, stop watching Fox, stop listeinng to Limbaugh and force them from the air.
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid: And Bush received one hundred percent of the African-American vote, strangely enough for a Republican…
Comrade Mary
@WereBear:
Marry me! (I’m Canadian: we can really do this.)
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Nick: The O admin did fall into the scandal trap, so defending the firing in terms of avoiding scandal is nonsense. Now, instead of a story that hurts Obama with white racists, it’s a story that hurts Obama with pretty much everybody.
Except you, of course. We all know that as far as you’re concerned this admin is incapable of ever doing anything wrong.
Corner Stone
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:
You mean besides Nick and apparently Davis X.?
Yeah. ALL the people on the right side of the political aisle.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Ms. Sherrod could’ve made the case that someone bother listening to her for 20 minutes before they fired her.
That probably would’ve caused her less hassle.
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:
No, it doesn’t, it makes a few liberals angry, but they’re always angry. Nobody else gives a shit.
It’s precisely that they avoided the scandal that the media is so pissed right now. They thought they had the perfect story that would allow them to not have to talk about unemployment benefits, financial reform, and without the oil spill, there’s no “Obama in crisis” narrative. This would’ve been perfect, “Administration in crisis! White voters FLEEING!”
but they didn’t get it.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
Unsurprisingly, I have no idea what this analogy means.
Viva BrisVegas
Could this cost Vilsack his job?
If so, is there a talented, committed and conscientious unemployed black woman somewhere who could take over from him?
Corner Stone
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:
Hey! When am I going to get a little damn credit round here for being way ahead on this point?
Davis X. Machina
In six weeks you won’t be able to remember why you were so upset. Ms. Sherrod will get an apology, a job, and a place in history with Dr. Irving Peress, DDS.
Until then, you may want to canvass your options in primary candidates for 2012.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
And that would have made Breitbart twist his moustache and slink away saying, “Curses! Foiled again!” He certainly wouldn’t have gone on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Charlie Rose whining about how Obama wouldn’t even fire a stone-cold racist.
Administrative leave would probably have better achieved the goal of getting out in front of the story than firing her outright did, but it still wouldn’t have prevented Breitbart from getting massive media coverage of his “story.”
Jennifer
Re: getting to the Limbaugh listeners: reminds me of how back in 2004, anyone who talked about how they were voting for Bush, I would just say, “you know, I only have one litmus test for anyone I’m going to hire for anything – they have to be smarter or better than me at doing that thing. Otherwise, I’d be better off doing it myself. George W. Bush is not smarter than me, so I’m not voting for him. So, do you think he’s smarter than you, or do you just not think it matters whether or not the president is smart?”
Which left them with either having to admit that they were dumber than George W. Bush or that they were dumb enough to think it didn’t matter if he was smart or not.
Another one I pulled on a whole table of rightwingers at a business dinner, who were bitching about the “liberal media” and how only Fox was unbiased. I spoke up and said “I don’t think CNN is liberal” which of course caused much gnashing of teeth. I went on with “I don’t think they’re liberal – I think they’re just lousy. Like Fox is. They all do a crap job of informing anyone about anything. And as for Fox, they spend all day every day beating their chests about how patriotic they are and in the next breath, demonizing people who simply disagree with them on matters of political policy. And no one who cares about what’s best for the country would do that – so I have to conclude that their agenda has nothing to do with “patriotism” because if it did, they wouldn’t be trying to set everyone in the country at each other’s throats. No one who cares about the country would do that.”
Anyway, by the time I was done there was murmured assent around the table, but not one of those lousy motherf***ers would look me in the eye. And after dinner, I’m sure they all went back to their rooms and turned on O’Reilly.
So yes, they can be shamed, momentarily, by someone calmly explaining why they’re wrong either through questioning or direct statements. But in the long run, they always go back to where they’re comfortable – which is, in believing what they WANT to believe.
TuiMel
Others of my generation have been more eloquent and forgiving in their responses to this rubbish. I am just going to say what this makes me feel: Fuck you. This does not describe me and I don’t / won’t own this. Call out racists where you find them, but blaming racial strife on a single generation seriously undermines your credibility with this (Boomer) reader. And I say that as one who is often critical of the Boomer cohort.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Nick: Dude, the attacks on Obama over unjustly firing Sherrod are coming from the right! By your own craven standards (that right-wing anger is legitimate while left-wing anger is just silly children’s mewling) the firing is the scandal!
Yes, they’re being dishonest about it, and yes they’re being opportunistic about it. But come on, man, the story is turning into one about Obama wrongly firing a person. Every fucking working stiff in the country will empathize with the person wrongly fired, no special skin color required.
This could have been avoided with a few hours of due diligence. But since it’s OMG racial there can be no delay! We must fire a civil rights leader immediately without thinking or else or else or else I dunno we might lose a few more of the handful of racists that voted for Obama. We all know that one old white voter is worth like 1.66 black votes!
TBH, though, I think Obama will end up doing the right thing over the next couple days. Hell, I even have some hope that this will blowback on Breitbart and hopefully leave him out of commission at least through the elections. This doesn’t make the firing any less of a boneheaded move.
DTOzone
You know, I was wondering how liberals would find a way to blame Obama for this.
Of course it’s because he’s too chicken to get himself invovled in a race war. I mean it’s not like he hasn’t done that multiple times already with near fatal consequences.
I sometimes wonder, what country do you people live in? Is it the United States? The country where when a black kid is shot and killed by cops, the question is “Well, what crime was he committing?” The country where white people are genuinely surprised when a criminal isn’t a minority? And you want him to fight Fox News over race?!?!?!
What, did you think his election was some sort of epiphany? The man won the election with the biggest deficit of white voters ever for a winning Democratic candidate. He lost them double digits. He didn’t win because racism is no longer widespread. He won DESPITE racism being widespread, and in a week where they scored the biggest victories perhaps ever, the media is ready to drag them down into a race war and CNN needed an excuse to reuse those Race in America chryons they haven’t used in a while.
Should she have been forced to resign? In a perfect world, no, but we don’t live in a perfect world, we live in a far from perfect one and life isn’t fair, especially for minorities, we know that. Ms. Sherrod got screwed by a bloodsucking right wing prick and a scandal-horny media.
I hope she sues Breibart and I hope she sues every media outlets who broadcasted the tape, because they were wrong for not authenticizing it.
but I cannot, and will not, fault the administration who, when it comes to this subject, are placed in a Catch-22. After all, even the NAACP was quick to condemn her.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Corner Stone: You (hopefully) can’t see it, but I’m sending a thumbs-up your way. Picture Buddy Christ, it’s like that.
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: Um, are you watching and reading the same news I am?
It’s turning into a “Breitbard forced to defend himself from accusations of falsity” story.
TooManyJens
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, and not just because it would have been better for Ms. Sherrod. Firing her sends the message that you’ve decided the accusations against her are true. And that just makes the administration look like easily-rolled idiots when the slightest effort would have revealed that the accusations were bullshit.
Jennifer
I still hope she sues their asses.
Up in Canada
So one more time President Obama disappoints us. We get shoot from the hip and fire this woman without even a perfunctory investigation. We get two wars going and if the generals can engineer it, maybe a third. We get high unemployment, but cannot fund unemployment insurance because ideologues on the right despise it. We get a consumer protection agency, but are informed that the woman who could best run it is to controversial to be confirmed. And we get Homer Simpson to chair the commission whose mission is to find a way to dismantle Social Security.
I know that Obama inherited a tough job and a broken economy. But somehow he has to figure a way to break from the past mistakes and this means changes. He did say he would change things when campaigning. Let’s see some changes.
Mark S.
@Nick:
No, the Administration looks like pussies for capitulating immediately to the most retarded guy on the Internet. And they haven’t avoided a scandal because every news segment I saw tonight was “Why did they fire this nice black lady?”
Nick
@Mark S.:
and, what? the media doesn’t get to look stupid for parroting his talking points for 12 hours?
You know, if we liberals really wanted to take down the media, our response to this (which btw, I’ve only seen in like five minutes of coverage all night) would be “Oh, hey, this moring, didn’t you say he should fire that nice black lady? Do you admit you were wrong now? Why did you call for her to be fired so quickly yourself?”
Mnemosyne
@Up in Canada:
I think you missed some events from today.
And if you’re up in Canada, what’s with this “we,” kemo sabe?
Nick
@TooManyJens: Yes, when it involves race, a black President is going to be easily rolled. This is something we’re all going to have to accept and deal wtih.
and btw, what’s most interesting is that the great liberal Huffington Post was one of the media outlets who posted this video without question this morning
GregB
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: Um, are you watching and reading the same news I am?
It’s turning into a
“BreitbardNoted racist and leader of the Digital Lynch Mob Andrew Breitbart forced to defend himself from accusations of falsity” story.(Fixed it)
asiangrrlMN
@Anton Sirius: I agree with you most of the time. Sadly, I especially agree with the last part. It’s going to get much uglier than it already is.
I think Obama’s administration jumped the gun in firing Sherrod. I read one post by Benen and realized what a crock of shit this entire thing was. I understand the impulse to look decisive, but decisively doing the wrong thing and pandering to a vitriolic, vituperative, idiotic, drunken, rage-filled, hateful, spiteful, venomous asshat like Breitbart in the process sends the wrong message. Fire first, verifies facts later is not a pattern I want to see established. The excuse that a black president is going to be easily rolled on race (if it was Obama) is not acceptable.
@freelancer: Thanks for the shout-out. I am too dispirited to do much rusty pitchforking, though. This shit just fucking sucks.
dengr, another thought-provoking post as usual. I would agree, though, that it’s not the Baby Boomers’ fault. I actually think it’s the generation before theirs, but the rest of the post was spot-on.
P.S. If there is a front-pager who is still awake, please post an open thread. Thanks in advance.
Andy K
@TuiMel:
Does it describe you specifically? No. But the majority of your generation was born during the Eisenhower presidency, and tends to vote Republican. Your generation grew up in lily-white suburbs your parents moved to to escape the encroachment of others. The majority of you went to schools that were nearly completely white, and the majority of you never experienced busing. The majority of you had no idea, as children, what DWB meant, and I’d guess that the majority of your generation still don’t.
And racism was celebrated widely in your childhood, if not by a majority. Or do the names George Wallace and Orval Faubus not ring a bell?
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Nick, could you be any more full of shit than you already are? No, don’t bother answering that, it’s a rhetorical question. You write:
And then you write.
Tell me Nick, why do you think that the evil, dishonest racist cum-dumpsters you identify as the media in the first post would give a fuck about being called upon their bullshit as you advocate in the second post? What makes you think that a bunch of evil racist liars are going to give a fuck about being called on their lies, inconsistency and bullshit by a bunch of liberals, you know, liberals, the people you’re constantly shitting on.
Nick, with “liberals” like you who even needs racist conservatives? You’re so weak, impotent and spineless that you make Alan Colmes look like Alan Grayson.
valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
totally OT: thanks for y’all keeping me company while in Stockholm. I made it home, finally.
Jager
@Janet Strange:
From a fellow Boomer, Janet, Thank you very much!
asiangrrlMN
@valdivia: Yay! I’m glad you made it safely. Thanks for letting me know. Videos of you singing?
And, um, that should have been dengre in my earlier post, not dengr. Sorry!
TuiMel
@Andy K:
Judas Priest. Fuck you, too.
Jager
@Andy K:
What planet are you from? My generation (I was born in ’46 the cutting edge of the ‘Boomers”) you are deriding is just like your fucking generation, many different back grounds and points of view, I had a black girlfriend in college in the ’60’s I was told to lose her or give up my fraternity (I was a legacy) I walked rather than conced to the ass hats. You want to label the Baby Boom with a big fat brush…you can;t do it, don’t be what you profess not to be…in short don’t be an asshole!
matoko_chan
So…guyz.
Let’s say …umm….someone has a really solid weapon to use against them.
Something authentic, incontrovertable.
Not faked like Breitbarts shit.
Something that would take the heat off Obama for a while by setting a fire someplace else.
Can we beat them by becoming them?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@El Cid: All of us DFHs in the Bay Area have been following it. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is not getting more national play. This fucker wanted to be Timothy McVeigh Junior, and he could have succeeded if he weren’t such a bad driver.
Dennis G.
@frosty:
It is my generation as well.
Reagan was elected in 1980 and way too many from my generation supported him. 50 is the age that AARP uses for the start of membership. Only Boomers and older generations were responsible for electing Reagan. And yes, there were many who fought his election and policies who were also boomers and older generations, but we lost in 1980 and got smashed in 1984.
The aging Reagan voter is the backbone of the Tea Party and the GOP and most of the Reagan voters still alive were boomers. Getting these folks fired up and ready to go is why the racist dog whistles are being used.
I wish that all boomers were DFHs, but they were not.
Cheers
cat48
@Nick:
Unfortunately I agree with you.
Stories like this will/would/could destroy Obama. All 3 cable channels adore stories like this. An objective person could look at the way they handled gates/crowley & realize the man doesn’t have a chance in cases like this.
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Because he was only gunning for the ACLU. Duh.
@Dennis G.: What exactly is the Boomer generation? I think of it as the late forty-somethings/early fifty-somethings. I see the ‘baggers as late fifties/early sixties. Help me out here.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@matoko_chan: If you’ve got something let ‘er rip. If it’s authentic as you say then you wouldn’t be “becoming” like Breitbart. Revealing uncomfortable truths used to be called “journalism.”
So, what ya got?
Jager
@Dennis G.:
The Boomers I know who went for Reagan were the assholes in college who belonged to the Young (fucking) Republicans…they never changed. The same assholes were defending Nixon as he climbed on the helicopter to oblivion!
matoko_chan
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: let me ax you a question first Sgt. J.
Did you approve of what happened with the journolist emails?
El Cid
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
The true tragedy here is why our nation’s and our states’ traffic laws are so biased against hard working white Real Americans.
Jager
@asiangrrlMN:
The kids born when the Greatest Generation came home from WW2 and started hitting it with their hot and horny wives (my mom and dad) born in 46 to the mid 60’s. Oldest turn 65 next year…..
Andy K
@Jager:
And who told you you had to lose her? Old men?
Look, don’t take it personally. As someone pointed out up top, the majority of my generation, Gen X, voted for Bush II. I didn’t. But like you (and my mom, born in ’46 too; ), I was born during a Democratic administration (first year of my generation, ’65). We tend to vote for the party who was in the White House when we were born. The majority of boomers were born in the Eisenhower administration, the majority of Gen Xers during the Nixon and Reagan presidencies.
And while I know that there’s racism in people in my generation, I think the motivation to vote Bush II had a lot more to do with taxes and Roe v. Wade than it did with racism. I think racism still plays more of a roll with your generation, especially in the South and places in my home state of Michigan like Burtucky (Burton) and Ferntucky (Ferndale), the places where auto-workers with southern roots started to move to in the ’50s.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.
@Jager: Hm. OK. That helps me get a better handle on the whole generation thing, I think. Thanks!
Wile E. Quixote
@Andy K:
Would that be the Eisenhower who appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court. You know, Earl “Brown v. Board of Education” Warren. Would that also be the Eisenhower who sent federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the court’s desegregation decision?
No, actually white flight didn’t start taking place until the late 1960s. I’d also be willing to bet that the majority of members of Generation X didn’t know what DWB meant as children either. I certainly didn’t. Oh, and I’d be willing to bet that the majority of millennials, or Generation Y, or whatever they call the punks that came after Generation X didn’t know what DWB meant during their childhoods either since the phrase didn’t come into common usage until the late 1990s. Fuck. I must be a racist, and they all must be racists too. And any child these days who doesn’t know what DWB means is also a racist!
Yes, and we all know that the reason why Wallace and Faubus were so popular and won their electoral victories was because of the Baby Boomer tween racist vote. Tweens these days are into Twitter and Twilight, but back in the 1950s the Baby Boomers were all in the KKK Junior Auxiliary and grew up watching the Howdy Doody show which had Buffalo Bob and friendly Kleagle Ken. Yes, the late 1950s and early 1960s in America were terrifying, as the 10 to 15 year old members of the Baby Boom generational cohort roamed the land in packs searching for civil rights workers to lynch and black churches to bomb. More moderate boomers just joined the John Birch society and called for the impeachment of Earl Warren.
Andy, if you weren’t such a goddamned, lazy, ignorant, bigoted, know-nothing fuckstain you would know that the oldest Baby Boomers you’re shitting all over weren’t even eligible to vote until 1968, because back then the voting age was 21. You would also know that Orval Faubus left office in 1967. You might also know, if you weren’t a bigoted sack of crap that the ignorant fuckstain who started this controversy, an ignorant fuckstain you have a lot in common with, and not just a first name, was born in 1969, which plants him pretty squarely in Generation X. Oh, and if you weren’t a completely useless and ignorant shit golem you’d know that Barack Hussein Obama, the current occupant of the Oval Office, was born in 1961, which plants him at the tail end of the baby boom generation, which, depending upon which source you consult, either lasted from 1947 to 1962 or 1947 to 1964.
Kids these days, don’t know a goddamned thing about history.
roshan
I miss @LikeableInMyOwnWay and @Little Dreamer on this thread. Guys come back, there is a new thread to shit on.
They brought so much of it in the last one that the blog owner might have sprayed corexit on it.
Dr. Morpheus
I want to know why all this howling vitriol against Obama wasn’t directed at the NAACP who also were quick out of the gate to condemn Ms. Sherrod?
Yes, they have now extend an apology but I bet you when the Obama administration makes this right that the firebaggers here won’t let this go.
So, can someone explain to me why the NAACP gets to skate while Obama will undoubtedly be vilified for the rest of his stay in office over this issue?
valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
no video! and if there were, um, not making it public, that is blackmail material right there.
great post dengre.
ok now to sleep
asiangrrlMN
@Andy K: Sorry, I disagree. I am 39, and there is plenty of racism in my generation. I faced a lot of it growing up, and it still exists today. I don’t think people voted for W. out of racist reasons, but it certainly didn’t hurt that he was the person people ‘wanted to have a beer with’. There is a lot of unthinking (and thinking, as it were) racism in my generation. It’s the generation after mine and the one after that who are starting to let go of the cultural warfare that has been going on in this country since the beginning of time.
@Dr. Morpheus: Maybe because it was Obama’s administration who actually pressured this woman to leave her job? I think the NAACP was rash as well. They don’t get a pass from me.
@valdivia: Damn. Night!
Dr. Morpheus
@Wile E. Quixote: Amen!
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@matoko_chan: Nope. But then, I never thought that anything in the emails was remotely objectionable.
If you have some kind of dirt on Breitbart or his organization, I’d say now’s the time to release it, since they’re on the defensive now. Otherwise, if you have someone on the right saying something similar to what was said by Weigel, it will be ignored.
Jager
@Andy K:
Not old men, the ‘brothers” who were in charge of my frat were a few years older than me, that kind of bullshit still goes on. My greatest gen, parents were unreconstructed Roosevelt Dems. My first wife’s parents ( older than my parents) were “rock ribbed repubs” they hated Roosevelt, any Kennedy, Stevenson, Give em hell Harry and thought Ike was a commie dupe…nice people but totally fucked politically. My ex was cool but she was drawn to the conservative point of view…I loved her old man but he was very conservative, however by today’s standards he’d be too liberal for the repubs.
Andy K
@asiangrrlMN:
It’s the generation born between 1946, when birth rates rose back to pre-WWII levels, and 1964, when the birth rate dropped back to, then below, those pre-WWII levels.
The peak year, IIRC, was 1954, but the median was in, like ’56 (there was an early spike, then a dip right around the start of the Korean War).
I’m an Xer born so close to the end of the boom that I almost consider myself one. But I love Star Wars- and that’s kinda the beginning of Xer culture (yes, made by a war baby…just as most of the music, tv and film that are Boomer cultural touchstones were made by people of an earlier generation).
asiangrrlMN
@Andy K: Wait, so you have to love Star Wars to be a Gen Xer? Then, I don’t qualify for that, either! I am a generation unto myself.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: FWIW I like Star Wars but I respect those for whom it isn’t their taste. I’m not exactly in love with the series either. And if I can join your generation that would be schweet!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
And that would have made Breitbart twist his moustache and slink away saying, “Curses! Foiled again!” He certainly wouldn’t have gone on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Charlie Rose whining about how Obama wouldn’t even fire a stone-cold racist.
Admittedly, they shot themselves in the foot by firing her, but revoking press access for any journalist that ran with the story until they explain their lack of fact checking might make a nice rap across the knuckles.
AnotherBruce
@Dr. Morpheus: Because this isn’t the first time they’ve thrown someone under the bus because of the flying Monkeys from Fox. And I’ll bet it won’t be the last.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You want to be a Gen-Xer? Why? I HATED Star Wars when I saw it (the first one, or what is now the fourth one). I refused to watch the rest of them. How you be?
El Cid
@Wile E. Quixote: It’s also noteworthy that in the segregated South in the 1950s, it’s kind of difficult to counterpose just what type of non-Faubus-like creature someone might imagine being the gubernatorial candidate for Arkansas. He was, for example, the less red-baiting of the two Democratic nomination contestants.
Chuck Butcher
I guess I’m a bit, or more than a bit, tired of P*ssies running the WH. I never expected Pres O to be a leftie, secret or otherwise, but I did expect a little fucking nerve. Nobody over there noticed that Faux lies?
How the fuck am I supposed to create support with this to work with? I don’t know.
BTW, generational bashing is childish and stupid and inaccurate bullshit. But have fun.
freelancer (itouch)
@Dennis G.:
Sir, if you’re up, open thread? If not, Anne Laurie? Lord if a don’t feel like the oldest 28 year old on the planet. Oh, and fuck the generational divide, that shit only matters on things that don’t matter to millenials, like gay rights. Everything else is a cognitive gap.
Jager
@Andy K:
It was interesting to be in the Army in the late 60’s and see the honkys getting orders from black NCO’s. By that time we had almost two generations of military who lived and worked under the Truman desegregation order. For many of these guys (not just from the south) it was not pleasant or comfortable. You know what? They adjusted.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer (itouch): Get in line! I asked for an open thread hours ago.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
I think the plan was supposed to be this: “So you think it’s bad when a black government employee admits that she doesn’t give her all to address white complaints? Does it bother you that she was looking out for her ‘own kind’? Well, what if I told you that _Eric Holder was doing the same thing with the New Black Panthers_?!?” He wanted to tie up the Obama administration and the Democrats into explaining the case by saying something that could be twisted into meaning that when a black person doesn’t want to help a white person, that’s OK, because it’s different. Fox News and the right-wing infrastructure have been going balls-to-the-wall on white racial resentment for months.
And, as someone else pointed out either above or on another thread, the Republicans would love to run a campaign in 2012 that had as a subtext, “Tired of hearing a lot of fuss about who’s a racist? Get past the petty squabbles of the recent past by voting Republican!” Part of the Bush campaign was running to get past all the petty scandals of the Clinton years, so it would be wholly according to form.
Ruckus
@asiangrrlMN:
Dennis G. is right about a lot of the boomers. I should know, I am one. For the record 1949. I was of voting age in, lets see, 1970. Yes a lot of the people who voted for Raygun were of the greatest generation and the inbetweeners, but many were also boomers. How many of the greatest gen are still left? They are going to be 80 to 100. A number of the inbetweeners are and they would be 65-80 years old. So from polling I remember, a lot, maybe a majority of teabaggers are boomers, 1946-1960, 50-64, in my book. They are people who have seen a lot of change from when they were kids to now, and a lot of it does not jibe with what they were taught about life and people. Their parents generation fought and won a major war. Their generation lost a war. (Yea yea I know who ran the war, I also know where the blame was laid).
They lived through the military being desegregated. They lived through the civil rights era. And many of them thought their side lost those battles. And they haven’t forgotten or understood that. And now much of the media is playing with the twisted memories of a nation that didn’t think they won those battles, they think they lost them.
So those misguided souls are trying to find a way to reclaim what they see as their country. They just haven’t figured out what their country really is all about, because they see their heritage denigrated, not fulfilled.
How do we address that?
Andy K
@Wile E. Quixote:
Yeah, the one with the “-R” after his name on the ballots. It’s party identification. I’m talking about who the president is when someone is born. My mom, again, is an early boomer, but I’m sure if you’d asked her about Truman’s policies and appointments and what she remembered of them, she wouldn’t be able to answer. Likewise, ask most people my age, the earliest Gen Xers, about the Johnson administration, we wouldn’t be able to tell you anything that we hadn’t read in books (and, sorry, I’m looking but haven’t yet been able to find the paper that studied these trends…but I swear….).
Really? Levittown ring any bells? Macomb County, Michigan? It sped up in the late ’60s, but it started in the late ’40s.
Here, let me fix it for Dennnis:
Reads differently with stressed pronouns, doesn’t it? Dennis isn’t referring to you, dumbass. He’s referring to the fucking Know Nothing Party that’s made up of an assload of boomers.
Fuckstain that, Mr. Low-Reading-Comprehension.
asiangrrlMN
@Ruckus: Fascinating. So there is no generation between the so-called greatest generation and the Boomers?
I have no answer to your question because I agree that the people in the Tea Party see the advancements made as losses. I have no idea how to get them to think otherwise.
Jewish Steel
Great post, dengre.
Watch out for that Me Generation. I think they’re a little thin-skinned.
Ruckus
@Wile E. Quixote:
DWB as a saying may not have come into general usage until the 90’s but the concept was around Los Angeles when I was 17 and worked in a gas station, in the less than affluent part of town. Some of the cops called it penal code 69, being black while breathing.
drag0n
She is back
Yutsano
@Ruckus:
We don’t. After a certain point the last generation needs to get out of the way of the ones behind/ahead of it and just accept retirement. Teabaggers make the decisions they do because a lot of the hard choices that directly affect them are now already done, so they’re having a massive “GET OFF MY LAWN!!” moment. They also made hard choices themselves that directly affect me, now it’s our turn as Xers and Yers to affect the future of those who will come after us. The Boomers did their job, it’s time for us to take the reins and go into the future as we see fit. And if they don’t like that, well, remember how their elders reacted to the Summer of Love and the sexual revolution. They themselves were met with resentment and calls to stop their own changes. Didn’t work then, isn’t going to work now. So they have a choice: join us in making the future we want or get the fuck out of the way because it will happen regardless of what you do.
(apologies for tl;dr status there)
Andy K
@asiangrrlMN:
No, you don’t have to love it, the same way a boomer doesn’t have to love The Dick Van Dyke Show. But you have to admit that it’s pretty damned popular in our generation, and you know what someone’s talking about if they say, “Love your hair, Princess Leia.”
; )
Ruckus
@asiangrrlMN:
I’ve never heard of a title so I use inbetweeners. If I was 8 I’d say that sounds dirty.
drag0n
Thanks Dengre. We Won.
Next subject.
freelancer (itouch)
@asiangrrlMN:
I saw that. Just seconding your request. But I’m going to bed nonetheless. Night all. May each of us know justice and righteousness like what Shirley Sherrod is about to receive. I’m not sure about the social mores and such, but can a white Irish-Catholic atheist ‘merican born in the Midwest with a strong sense of social justice, honest history, and a ‘fuck you’ attitude towards liberal/white guilt join the NAACP?
As TNC said earlier today, [events/this/shit that has happened today] has been an education.
asiangrrlMN
@drag0n: Hopefully, she really is back.
@Yutsano: Ah, there is my optimistic side speaking for me again. My pessimistic nature is ruling right now, unfortunately. I just fear that things are going to get really really really ugly before they get better.
drag0n
Drop the race card guys. We WON. Next?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I was five years old when the first/fourth Star Wars came out. So I’m right at the border between X and Y. I think I just found the most logical explanation yet for why I’m gay!
Hi hon. I just made a grilled ham and cheese sandwich that probably hasn’t been made by anyone else and I was almost irritated enough at one of my supervisors today to just say fuck it and leave.
@drag0n: The really fascinating part is they have no idea how much has actually been won. Look at kids these days, they grow up in multicultural and multiethnic schools and look at their classmates as peers regardless of skin color. After Brown vs Board of Education, it was over. Integration did more to end racism than anything else. Same with homophobia, you’re much less likely to hate gays if you know and like someone who is. We have definitely won. They just refuse to recognize the sea change that has already happened.
drag0n
@asiangrrlMN:
Read the story… it is after 3 EST Wed and it is posted Wed. Someone whipped butt.
asiangrrlMN
@Andy K: Ummmmm, is that a quote from the movie? I mean, I know she had the cinnamon buns as hair….
/bad Gen Xer!
@Ruckus: Heh. I’m thirty-plus years that, and it sounds a bit dirty to me, too.
@freelancer (itouch): Yes, you can. Night.
asiangrrlMN
@drag0n: It said she was being reconsidered to be taken back. It did not say for sure. And, we are not the ones playing the race card, by the way. This shit needs to be exposed and thoroughly denounced.
Jager
@Ruckus:
You address it by getting the fuck over it. Life changes, 75-100 years ago, Italians, Poles, Slavs, and Irish were “lesser” beings and the discrimination was harsh. The good old U-S of A is going to be a very, very different place when my Grandsons are my age fifty years from now. Just as different from fifty years ago when I was a kid. I don’t know if my my car dealer father had gay employees, if he did nobody mentioned it. In my career I’ve had openly gay co-workers, blacks, hispanics, asians, you name it. My experience is very different than my dad’s, hopefully for my grandsons it will be even moreso. My wish is someday all Americans will be a nice creamy coffee color and nobody will even think about race, ever again!
drag0n
The Hammer got dropped. We WON.
USDA reconsiders employee ouster over race remarks
Andy K
@asiangrrlMN:
No.
My point exactly.
Good Xer. Now back to your apathy.
drag0n
@asiangrrlMN:
We Won! I did not see you in the trenches earlier today but there was quite a debate in an earlier thread about whether or not this would happen.
Of course she will be reinstated… I mean come on.
Vico
@AuldBlackJack: I’m glad you called dengre out on this bit of bitter revisionism early in the thread. I’m coming late to it, but it is one of the silliest statements I’ve read on BJ for some time.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Rhetorical. I actually know the answer. It’s the one you gave. Every previous generation has to let go, move on. get the fuck out of the way. The only thing I see bad here is, there is no great leader on the left and a whole lot of noise on the right. And a lot of my generation is not going to get out of the way peacefully.
asiangrrlMN
@Andy K: Whew. Glad to know I can go back to not giving a fuck about Star Wars.
@drag0n: Um, yeah. Read the first part you quoted. He will reconsider. That does not equate he will reverse said decision. I really hope so. I’m not as sanguine as you, but I truly hope you’re right.
sven
I agree that the Obama administration needs to make amends and deserves its share of criticism but it can’t be at the expense of nailing Breitbart.
Imagine two hypothetical (though plausible scenarios):
1:
The Obama admin is nailed to the wall. Sherrod is (deservedly) given her job back and Obama makes abundant apology. For several days the poor decision-making is the lead story. The incident becomes an eternal metaphor for political cowardice.
Breibart escapes more-or-less unscathed.
2:
Breitbart is nailed to the wall. Sherrod is (deservedly) given her job back and Breitbart makes abundant apology. For several days the malfeasance on Breitbart’s part is the lead story. The incident becomes an eternal metaphor for how independent political operatives game the system.
Vilsack et al. escape more-or-less unscathed.
My question is, under which scenario is it less likely that the Obama administration would throw the next victim under the bus?
I have been a little surprised at how many liberals answer #1. There is a reasonable argument that punishing Obama will lead his folks to show more backbone in the future. I think this ignores the question of why they lack backbone in the first place. It is simply the case that folks on the right like Breitbart have been very effective at controlling the media narrative. Politicians on the left are terrified of the crazies and #1 above does nothing to remove that fear. The notion that the Administration will be ‘more afraid of us than them’ seems wildly implausible.
The opposite is true if Breitbart himself becomes the victim of this story. Nailing Breitbart is the kind thing the left needs to be able to do if it wants to drain the puss from the right-wing media.
Vilsack et al. deserve every iota of criticism they have received but I promise you, if we don’t use this chance to absolutely pummel Breibart we will regret it over-and-over-and-over in the coming years.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@drag0n: I’ll join you in cheering our victory after Breitbart is disgraced, a laughing-stock, everything and everyone associated with him distrusted by the media, and never again invited to a TV show.
But, it does sound like Sherrod will get some justice, so good on Vilsack and Obama.
asiangrrlMN
@sven: I don’t see it as an either/or. Breitbart needs to be nailed for this, absolutely, but that doesn’t mean Vilsack should get a pass on the episode. I don’t think anyone on the administration needs to be vilified or publicly upbraided or anything like that, but they should at least acknowledge that they acted hastily. Breitbart will not apologize, by the way. He will double-down on the victim mentality. The only question is whether the traditional media will let him get away with it.
Yutsano
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos: I can’t be that optimistic. He’s pulled this trick twice and gotten away with it. Yet they still let the scuzzball on the MSM. But he’s entertaining and gets viewers and all that bullpuckey, so fuck the truth.
drag0n
@asiangrrlMN:
These are quotes from WEDNESDAY. It is not even four hours into WEDNESDAY EST. It is a done deal.
Andy K
@Wile E. Quixote:
I missed this, you condescending old fool:
Scan this. Don’t forget your trifocals.
drag0n
He will reconsider and reinstate.
Next subject :-))))))
Ruckus
@Jager:
Your life sounds like mine.
Racist grandfather. Not overtly mind you, no sheets, burning crosses and all but still.
Father who used racist words but employed anyone and paid them not only the same wages but good wages. And I never in 30+ years working with him saw or heard him denigrate a person to their face. Or behind their back in my presence. He also had a gay daughter, who didn’t hide in any closet.
Me. Growing up I heard and used some racist language. Because others around me did. I stopped at a young age because it just didn’t seem right. And because I knew people from many races other than mine.
So yes I see much difference in my short lifetime. I just hope that it gets better a whole lot faster.
Yutsano
@drag0n: I find the announcement of the reconsideration encouraging. I bet Obama had a nice long chat with Mr Vilsack there and possibly issued an ultimatum. But then again i r a Obot.
asiangrrlMN
@drag0n: Stop bogarting the optimism! I need a dose.
@Ruckus: It will get very ugly first.
Andy K
@Jager:
I’m sure they did, and probably much more easily than people who didn’t have to depend on the person next to them, regardless of race, to stay alive.
Mark S.
@sven:
Don’t hold your breath, but I could see a lot fewer TV appearances for the asshole.
And can we cut the stupid generational battles? There are idiots in every age group.
MikeJ
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
Andy K
@MikeJ:
Jesus rides beside me- he never buys any smokes.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: For some bizarre reason that reminded me of this.
sven
@asiangrrlMN: You’re absolutely right that in a properly functioning public discourse the best course would be to apportion blame deliberately (there is certainly enough to go around…). I just think this is a situation where nuance really hurts us. The MSM have every incentive to make this story about the Obama administration; to make it about Breitbart (or the media, god forbid) will take lots of luck and incessant hounding. The right understands this and it is part of why they are so good at controlling narrative. (Lots of money, their own network, and a total lack of scruples also help) I think part of why the right are able to ‘get scalps’ is because they actually try to ‘get scalps’.
If Breitbart is back with another ‘scoop’ in six months I’ll never stop asking myself how he got away when we had him dead to rights.
If Vilsack is around in six months at least I’ll have the pleasure to campaign against him for president someday.
Andy K
@Yutsano:
Gaaaaahhhhhhh….The Replacements and. Pat Benatar cannot be together in a single thought. Or sentence. So, so wrong…
sven
@Mark S.: Fair enough, I don’t really expect him to apologize either. While writing I was totally picturing one of those forced apologies state media air in totalitarian regimes. (Damn I wish the left was as coercive as Glenn Beck always claims)
Breitbart: Good day, I have always been enemy of fine people of United States. My government send me to undermine vital projects in Georgia Department of Agriculture Rural District. Fine officials from Democratic Party foiled plan. I apologize for my terrible action against lovely American people. Desire only quite time to make consideration of my crimes in
SiberiaWasilla, Alaska. Good Day.asiangrrlMN
@sven: Well, force my hand, and it’s Breitbart all the way. I do think the facts surrounding this particular video came out very swiftly (as opposed to the ACORN travesty) and that Breitbart has egg on his face. Whether that lasts or not is anyone’s guess.
Ruckus
@asiangrrlMN:
That’s exactly what I fear.
The ugly always comes before the better.
I used to say that my grandfather saw a dramatic change in his lifetime. (1890-1974). He crossed the country in a horse drawn wagon. The automobile, became something that a lot of people could afford and wanted and it gave him a good life. He was around for the first airplane flight and the first moon landing. Two world wars Korea and Vietnam. Civil rights, which he liked, racist speech and all. The depression, during which he always had a job that paid reasonably.
I’ve seen a number of those same sights or ones just like them. Civil rights. I worked at the edge of Watts in the summer of 1965. I lived 4 miles from where Rodney King was beaten. Wars, which seem way too numerous to mention, one of which I had to be involved in. Several recessions, the current one being the bestest so far.
So as I add up the public points of my life, I can’t say it has been a lot better than my grandfathers. I still see racism, war, rich getting ridiculously more so, political crap so stupid that if it wasn’t really happening no one could make it up, many people having a hard time just having a roof and food, let alone medical care.
I hope it gets better because it already is pretty ugly. I’m afraid you are right though, we are not at bottom yet.
Quiddity
@sven:
Not gonna happen. He’s already pivoting by saying that his REAL MISSION was to show NAACP folks cheering on bad behavior (i.e. Sherrod’s initial stance vis-a-vis the farmer).
Ruckus
hasta luego
beddy bye time
Yutsano
@Ruckus: Time to inject a little optimism.
The racism discussion we have today is actually light years of where we were in 1960 or even 1990. No one could have CONCEIVED of a black President then, and here we are now. We have conversations about racist behavior as something for the most part to be condemned instead of ignored or even encouraged. Domestic civil rights are so far advanced of where they were that we might just be on the edge of “race will exist, but it won’t matter” (to misquote Toni Morrison). Wars still happen because humans haven’t wrestled their violent demons down yet. Economic inequality may just start to swing back to equanimity, it didn’t happen overnight during the Great Depression, it won’t happen now, but we just took a big step forward. The Senate is in bad need of reform, but that will have to wait. We just passed the largest advance in health care since Medicare, and as with all laws of this nature, it will get improved over time. It is a long hard terrible slog but we’re getting there. We just need to stay focused and concentrate on the common vision for the future that will make life better for all Americans. Oh and VOTE, and get others to vote as well.
drag0n
@asiangrrlMN:
WE WON THE DAY! Next Subject….
bob h
Even Brooks acknowledges that the Republicans have only another decade before rendering themselves incapable of running a national campaign.
But given the crucial decisions that must be made in the near future, those ten years give them the opportunity to do major, perhaps irreversible damage to us.
Keith G
In her 17 paragraph story telling that Sherrod’s firing is under review, Karen Tumulty lists upfront the case against Sherrod. She gets to to exculpatory evidence in paragraph 14, after the online jump with no previous mention in those previous paragraphs that Sherrod might be innocent.
Great journalism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072101460.html
Bobby Thomson
Righteous.
However, rode, not road.
wilfred
You must have pretty acute hearing. Maybe you were listening during the primary season, when Hilary Clinton’s campaign even made the hard of hearing keen to whistles.
She became SOS. Public outcry? Or was it all just politics?
If you’re sincere about this you ahve to take the NAACP posture of zero tolerance, whatever the source, not pick your spots to satisfy righteous indignation.
Fair play’s a jewel.
PaulW
This was also posted on Ace of Spades, on a thread celebrating how Breitbart got Obama’s administration to jump at their own shadows:
“I seem to recall Dan Rather making a hasty and poorly researched report into George W. Bush’s service record with the Texas National Guard. When Rather’s team got caught with various holes in their reporting, Rather got forced out the door in disgrace.
Breitbart creates a hasty and poorly researched report into a woman’s internal conflict with her own racism THAT SHE OVERCOMES by the by. When Breitbart got caught pushing a selectively edited videotape, and failed to either hunt down the white farmers who DID get help from Sherrod or look for other witnesses to Sherrod’s speech to verify if any other interesting statements were said by her… YOU (Ace of Spades) want to give Breitbart a MEDAL?!
I’m sorry, but Breitbart f-cked up here as badly as Vilsack did. There needs to be accountability in the media and for this Breitbart needs to go. Get kicked out the door just like Rather was.
Everyone EXCEPT Sherrod and those farmers she helped were in the wrong here. Whoever gave Breitbart that edited video… Breitbart for failing basic rules of reporting (get more than one source! verify! interview as many people as you can!)… FOX News for quickly jumping on Breitbart’s story without doing THEIR own research… The NAACP for jumping too quickly themselves and attacking her, in an effort to position themselves after recently attacking the Tea Party for racism… Vilsack, the Obama Administration and probably Obama himself for jumping the gun and forcing an innocent woman out of her job…
SO far the NAACP is the only one to have openly apologized, I haven’t seen anybody else who screwed up to do so. Obama needs to apologize directly to Sherrod and re-instate her. Vilsack needs to apologize and offer his resignation to Obama (Obama can refuse it with a harsh reminder to Vilsack to watch his steps… or accept it and find a replacement). FOX News and any other news outfit that jumped on this story need to apologize for their rush to judgment and take good-faith efforts to fact-check their stories and hold people accountable something they haven’t been doing for years (like I keep saying, it looks like the last one who was held accountable was Rather, and that was 5-6 years ago).
And Breitbart needs to go. No f-cking awards for him.”
Dennis G.
@TuiMel:
It looks like my prose was a bit sloppy as several have decided that I’m saying all baby boomers are racist. As I am a boomer, that would be a difficult argument to make. In these posts I sometimes go for a shorthand of a thought in the prose and hope that folks will follow it.
Everybody who voted for Reagan is at least 44 years old today. Those who are 44 to 48 years old could have only voted for Reagan once. The vast majority of Reagan voters are now 49 and older. It is not a surprise that the vast majority of Teabaggers match the Reagan voter demographic.
The Reagan Boomers are now between 49 and 65. This is the biggest group of wingnutopia. There are some older folks and some younger folks, but these Reagan Boomers are the ones with the money and the ones driving the energy level.
I think by leaving out the word ‘Reagan’ some took it as painting all boomers with the same brush. I thought the distinction was clear, but many did not. The comments will help me to sharpen the prose in the future.
Cheers
The only nonBaby Boomer
Nick
@Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:
will never happen
Keith G
@Dennis G.:
But isn’t likely that we (BBers) are the largest politically active group of any stripe? I would check, but I am off a day of toil for little reward and do not have the time for Google fu right now.
Honus
@Andy K: Andy- you are pretty much dead ass wrong. Your stupidity is illustrated by your statement that the because the boomers were born and were infants during the Eisenhower administration (which by the way, was the most liberal republican administration since WWII and used the army to desegregate little rock high school) we are all republican racists.
The majority of boomers do not vote republican. Also, the boomers did not grow up in “lily white suburbs” In fact we were the first generation of Americans to be integrated. Thousands of schools, parks, swimming pools and clubs were integrated in the 1960s and 1970s. Many universities (alabama, Virginia, Kentucky and WVU come immediately to mind) saw their first black athletes and graduate students in the 1960s, and largely without incident or protest from the student body. The boomers were also the last generation of Americans to be drafted and forced to fight and die. And the Vietnam era was the first full integration of the U.S. armed forces.
Yes, many of our parents fought this tooth and nail, but it was the boomer children that played, fought and studied with other races for the first time in American history.
What racial progress has been made in this country is largely due the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. It wasn’t 20 somethings that elected reagan in 1980, it was a bunch of 40 and 50 year old blue collar racists.
The baby boomers were the first generation to whom open racism was not socially acceptable. Oh, and we largely didn’t vote for Reagan. That was our parents, unfortunately, who weren’t as accepting of the changing social order and were in their 40s and 50s in 1980.
Honus
@Dennis G.: nuts. Most of the boomers were in their 20s when Reagan was elected. Reagan’s constituency was white blue collar men in their 40s and 50s, who hated the hippies, who were … boomers.
Wile E. Quixote
@Andy K:
So you’re making shit up. Amazing how bigots named Andy like to make shit up. Face it Andy K. You’re as bigoted towards Boomers as Andy Breitbart is towards blacks. And of course you never responded to the point that the bigoted twat who made this shit up was born in 1969 which makes him a member of Generation X. Andrew Breitbart, ignorant and bigoted Generation X asshole, meet Andy K, ignorant and bigoted Generation X asshole.
Wile E. Quixote
@Andy K:
Hey, you finally learned how to use Google, good job bigot. Oh, and by the way, I’m younger than you are. I guess the reason that you’re such an ignorant bigot is that you were born closer to the Boomer generation than I was. Oh, and if you weren’t such an ignorant bigot you might also have read some of the articles that were in that Google search. If you had you’d find that there’s a difference between what is regarded culturally as the Baby Boom and what is regarded demographically as the Baby Boom. But hey, you’re not going to let facts get in the way of weaving your tapestry of bigotry any more than Andrew Breitbart is going to let facts get in the way of editing video footage to prove that Shirley Sherrod is a bigot.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Not with chickenshit wimps like you it won’t. Hell you’re probably applying for a job at Big Hollywood right now.
AuldBlackJack
@Dennis G.:
No. Not really. In fact it was everyone else.
AGE Carter Reagan Anderson
Under 30 years 47% 41% 11%
30-49 years 38% 52% 8%
50 years & older 41% 54% 4%
But then to someone who obviously understands the importance of enemies the facts would be beside the point.
Len
How is their race baiting any different from your generation baiting. “These baby boomers,” indeed. Just throw us all away in the same barrel, why don’t you?
Johnny B
@Dennis G.:
I am at loss why Boomers are everyone’s favorite generation to blame for all the nation’s ills.
The FOX News audience is overwhelmingly 65 and over. That means, with the exception of people aged 65 or 66, their audience consists largely of people born prior to the Boomer generation. (Remember when Keith Olbermann used to make jokes like: “FOX’s audience is dying off. Literally!”)
Election polling from the last two Presidential contests show that people 65 and over vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Presidential candidate. Again, that means, with the exception of people aged 65 or 66, voters for Republican Presidential candidates consists largely of people born prior to the Boomers.
In fact, I would argue that this demographic shift (of senior citizens voting Republican) is one of the most significant changes in the American electorate. For a long time, it was the reverse–with the elderly a nearly certain voting block for Democrats.
Despite these facts, I hear very little complaints from anyone about that generation born between 1930 to 1945. But the Republicans are heavily reliant on this group and those few who are older. They are a sizable voting block for conservatism. Not the Boomers.
That’s why Teabaggers hold signs saying “Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare” while they cheer speeches about ending socialism. It’s also why any Republican plan to address the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare rarely if ever involve any sacrifice on the part of those currently getting these programs.
One of the reasons that the Confederate Party is dying is because of the age of their most loyal voters. Unless this generation can convince a sufficient number of younger voters to buy into their world view, their days are numbered.
And by way of full disclosure, I was born at the tale end of the Boomer generation. I’ve voted Democratic since I got the vote, including in 1984–my first Presidential election.
Dennis G.
@Andy K:
Thanks for reading closely. Still it is clear that including the word ‘boomers’ to shorthand the demographic group making up the largest part of the teabaggers and the GOP. Some read ‘these boomers’ to mean ‘all boomers’.
I guess it is true what they say about my generation: that we are a little narcissistic.
Cheers
Davis X. Machina
@Dr Morpheus
The NAACP didn’t beat Obama in the primaries, or fail to deliver the public option….
Lawnguylander
I’ll never understand why people get their feelings hurt when someone says something mean about their generation. That’s some funny shit.
@Honus:
The majority of boomers don’t vote Republican but the majority of white boomers do. So do the majority of white Gen Xers.
Presidential election, 2008.
Nationwide House 2008.
It’s only the youngest group of white voters measured that’s turned away from the Confederate party.
Also, what evidence do you have that blue collar racists were particularly responsible for putting Reagan into the White House? Why would you put more blame on them than white collar racists? “What’s the Matter with Kansas” caused more confusion than anything is the conclusion I’ve drawn when I’ve looked into voter demographics over the last 30 years or so. Exit polls that I’ve seen from the 1980 and 1984 elections are not as detailed as they’ve been in more recent elections but looking at what is available will show you that white boomers and Gen Xers did indeed support Reagan heavily. Unless you think that it was the non-white boomers who provided him with his heavy majorities in those age groups.
Lawnguylander
@Len:
You shall overcome.
Dennis G.
@AuldBlackJack:
One has to merge groups to come up with that number and push a lot of older boomer Reagan voters out of their generation.
Still in 1980 44% of boombers 18-21 voted for Reagan. 45% voted for Carter and 11% voted for Anderson. For boomers 22-29 the split between Carter and Reagan was 44% each with Anderson still getting 11% of the vote. The next age group, which included older boomers born from 1944 through 1950, voted 38% for Carter and 55% for Reagan. Anderson got only 7% from this group. This was the largest voting block by age in 1980. By any measure it is pretty safe to say that over 45% of all Baby Boomers voted for Reagan in 1980.
In the 1984 election the numbers got worst (IMHO). Only 39% of boombers 18-24 voted for Mondale, Reagan took 61% of this group that made up the tale end of the boomers. For boomers 25-29 the story was a little better, Mondale 43% and Reagan 57%. The next age group, which included more of those older boomers born from 1944 through 1950 than the 1980 election, voted 42% for Mondale and 58% for Reagan. Once again, this was the largest voting block by age. When it came to the 1984 Election it is more than safe to say that a majority of Baby Boomers voted for Reagan. And by any measure it is pretty safe to say that without the Baby Boomers vote that Reagan would not have ever been President.
Now, Reagan didn’t get every boomer vote, but he did get almost half of them in 1980 and more than half in 1984. It is these boomers that I was citing in the post above. It is these boomers who make up the backbone of the conservative movement. And it is these boomers who hear dog whistles about race in ways that later generations do not.
In the 2010 election the Baby Boomers will make up the largest voting block. more than half of these voters were Reagan voters. They are very susceptible to race baiting and that is why they were cited by me.
Lawnguylander
Dennis, more data in my moderated comment if you would please release it. Thanks.
Dennis G.
@Dennis G.:
And just for fun I took a look at 2008. It seems that the same boomer trend has continued as folks born between 1944 and 1964 voted 50% for Obama and 49% for McCain. And once again the boomers were the largest voting block, as they will be this year.
Honus
@Dennis G.: So Reagan got about, maybe a little less than, half the boomer vote, and won by large majorities, especially in the 1984 election. That means everybody else voted more heavily for Reagan.
Even though a significant portion of the boomers supported Reagan they did so in smaller numbers than other demographic groups. Sort of belies your premise that the boomers were his constituency, and the fact that the older voters supported him overwhelmingly confirms my statement that it was the 40-50 year old hippie punchers that elected Reagan.
Lawnguylander
Dennis, you are looking at all races, right? Because in 2008 here are the numbers for just white voters in the presidential election:
White 18-29 (11% of total voters) 54% Obama, 44% McCain
White 30-44 (20% of total voters) 41% Obama, 57% McCain
White 45-64 (30% of total voters) 42% Obama, 56% McCain
White 65 and Older (13% of total voters) 40% Obama, 58% McCain
The source is in my moderated comment but I’m not linking to it here so as to avoid another trip to the penalty box.
Lawnguylander
@Honus:
My reply to your previous comment is in moderation but check the links that Dennis provided, they do not support your conclusions. No, Reagan did not get a little less than half the boomer vote in 1984.
18-24 (11% of total voters) 39% Mondale, 61% Reagan
25-29 (12% of total voters) 43% Mondale, 57% Reagan
30-49 (34% of total voters) 42% Mondale, 58% Reagan
50-64 (23% of total voters) 39% Mondale, 61% Reagan
65 & over (19% of total voters) 36% Mondale, 64% Reagan
Younger boomers, gen xers and hippie punchers did go for Reagan by higher %s but it’s not a huge difference. And that’s all voters, not broken down by race. There’s no way that white boomers didn’t vote for Reagan by huge majorities.
Lawnguylander
One more set of data, from 1980;
18–21 years old (6% of total voters) 44% Carter, 43% Reagan
22–29 years old (17% of total voters) 43% Carter, 43% Reagan
30–44 years old (31% of total voters) 37% Carter, 54% Reagan
45–59 years old (23% of total voters) 39% Carter, 55% Reagan
60 years or older (18%% of total voters) 40% Carter, 54% Reagan
White voters made up 88% of the electorate.
It seems that at least some % of boomers were smarter in 1980 than in 1984 but again, if data by age and race were available I’m confident it would show that a majority of white boomers were pretty stupid in 1980 too.
ETA: I see that my comment (#287) was released from moderation. See that comment for links to the data I’ve been posting and to say that I don’t know how to explain so many boomers going for Anderson in 1980.
Tax Analyst
@Wile E. Quixote:
Tee-hee. Thanks, Wile – this was absolutely the response that this dumb-ass little shithead deserved.
Now I’m not sure what Dennis G’s apparently permanent hard-on about Boomer’s is all about – this is not the first time he’s turned anotherwise fairly worthwhile post into a blanket insult of this particular age group. Wouldn’t it have been at least as effective (and actually probably more so) without the gratuitous smackdown of such a large and actually diverse part of the general population (not to mention of this blog site). I was prepared to shine the “Boomers-suck-it’s-all-their-greedy-racist-ass-fault-everything-is-still-so-fucked-up” portion of his screed, but everytime I was ready to completely set it aside the very next post I would read would be from some ignorant, uninformed punk-assed little dipward like this Andy putz throwing out his 82 cents worth of silly, stupid and totally wrong social history lesson with just the right jackhammer-like subtlety to push my irritation level right up through my dandruff.
Anyway, if Dennis had had some sort of traumatic experience with Boomerdom other than being ticked off that they all didn’t come around and end up thinking like him he really ought to seek out some professional help and spare us of all of the pointless, scattershot, generalized, and ultimately divisive accusations and recrimations that he for some reason thinks are germane or of some actual significance ask to how and why racism still exists and what to do about it.
As witness by many of the reply comments many of us were totally repulsed and appalled by racism and never voted for any candidate that we felt was pandering to it, and some of us thoroughly greedy, immoral bastards often voted for ballot measures that did not necessarily favor our personal financial circumstances…perhaps sometimes out of some weird guilt, but more often just because it seemed the just and right thing to do.
There. I feel better now.
Johnny B
@Dennis G.:
More susceptible to race baiting than the Silent Generation or the Greatest Generation who were born before the Boomers? More susceptible than those born the generation after the Boomers. None of the statistics cited by you or anyone else in the comments supports that position.
According to the statistics of the 2008 election cited by Lawnguylander, white voters 45 to 64, the age of virtually all Boomers during that election, voted for McCain at a slightly less percentage than white voters 30 to 44 and white voters 65 and older. Since those latter two demographics combined make up a slightly larger percentage of the total white vote than white Boomers, shouldn’t we say they are just as or slightly more susceptible to racial appeals as white Boomers?
I don’t think Boomers get off the hook with respect to who makes up the conservative movement, but it is far from clear that they are solely, or even largely, responsible.
Andy K
@Tax Analyst:
Read my reply to the Super Dumbass. Hell, read everything I wrote on this thread. Read what you and a few other offended boomers are writing. Then look in a mirror: Your paranoia is showing. Not your generation’s paranoia- yours.
Andy K
@Wile E. Quixote:
I never said that there wasn’t racism in Gen X. In fact:
But the point I made- well, that Dennis made and I figured out on my first read-through- to which you don’t have a cutting reply is that the Tea Parties are dominated by boomers, not that boomers are dominated by the Tea Parties.
Again, reading comprehension.
Walter Friese
Please take care to not place all boomers into the racist breitbart basket. No doubt this guy is a dangerous racist, but I do doubt he would be old enough to be a boomer. This is one boomer on the older end of the scale that finds his actions disgusting.
Andy K
@Honus:
Lawnguylander’s stats above say differently.
You’re taking credit for this? These are the achievements of your liberal, progressive older siblings, parents and grandparents. More to follow.
No, half of the males in your generation- those born between ’46 and very early ’55 (the draft was ended on 1/27/73) were eligible to be drafted. Hell, men born between 3/29/57, and 12/31/59 never had to register for the draft.
It’s really only the oldest of the boomer generation that took part in the war in Vietnam. It’s really only the oldest of the boomer generation that took part in the Civil Rights movement, at least wittingly- the rest of the generation was too young to freaking know. Some of you let your freak flags fly in People’s Park or at Woodstock, but some of you were 2 or 3-years old during the Summer of Love, while some were 4 or 5-years old when Hendrix and his pals- mostly musicians born before the baby boom- played at Yasgur’s farm.
Hey, I was 3-years old when the Eagle landed, and it’s one of my earliest memories, but I can’t claim that I had any sort of hand in the Apollo program.
Jesus, do any of you whiners ever think about facts like this? Do you think that no one can figure out that the majority of you were just too damned young to have actually participated in the events that occurred during your childhoods?
Lawnguylander
White people taking credit for the civil rights movement is particularly embarrassing no matter when they were born.
@Johnny B:
I don’t disagree with anything you said. I wasn’t trying to prove that the boomers were more fucked in the head race-wise than mine (gen X) or the generations before. Just that I’ve seen no evidence that they’re more enlightened either. If you accept the premise that voting Republican while white is an indication of racism, it’s the youngsters who are in position to come here and ask WTF is wrong with so many of us older white people. I would then expect them to laugh at anyone who loudly proclaims himself not part of the problem but is acting all butthurt (“bigotry!!!”) over the question. I know I am.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
I have always tried to be a glass 5/8 full kind of person, but lately it has been pretty hard to feel like that. Someone the other day commented that the glass was still 1/2 full but it was urine. My take is that the glass is 1/16 full right now. I’d like to feel different but my refrigerator crapped out last night so… $300-400 to fix it or buy a new one. Or $5.50 per day for ice. And the gas to go get the ice.
You are right though, if you can make your way through the noise you will find that a lot has been accomplished in a short time. It’s just when you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and people keep trying to fill it up with shit, it’s hard to see anything but shit.
Johnny B
@Lawnguylander:
I don’t think you and I are in disagreement. I don’t think any generation is in a particular great place to hold the mantle of “Most Enlightened.” I don’t think Boomers deserve some special credit for being the next “Greatest Generation.” Even the Greatest Generation wasn’t the Greatest Generation, if you know what I mean.
By extension, I don’t think Boomers hold some special distinction of being the worst living generation, either. I wasn’t so much defending Boomers as simply pointing out that I didn’t think they hold some special responsibility for conservatism. They hold some, but so do other generations.
I took issue with this one small part of what I thought, quite frankly, was a really great post by Dennis G. I agree with nearly all of it. And I absolutely agree with his conclusion. The Confederate Party is on its way out the door unless they can find a way to keep their base alive past 85. The Demographics of age as well as race don’t bode well for the GOP.