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Is there no word that isn’t Rethuglican code for “negro”?

Of course there isn’t. Because recall, in today’s linguistic environment, the code is in the eye of the beholder / receiver — and can be either conveniently divorced from the intent of the encoder, or else attributed to conscious or unconscious attitudes the encoder is said to hold (in this case, the “proof” being that McCain and Palin are Republicans, and so are naturally inveterate racists). Hence, Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star editorial writer, “Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black”:

The “socialist” label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

Those freedom fighters included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement; W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization; Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice; and A. Philip Randolph, who founded and was the longtime head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leading advocate for civil rights for African Americans.

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

— unless those whites happened to be socialist, of course, but let’s bracket that inconvenient bit of history.

What is astonishing here is not that Mr Diuguid has found yet another example of a political descriptor that he’s claiming is essentially the equivalent of burning a rhetorical cross on the front lawn of the person being politically described. That is par for the race-baiting course, and is part and parcel of the progressive attempt to undermine the First Amendment by putting pressure on speech that is manipulated into “intolerance”.

No, what is truly remarkable here is that, by Mr Diuguid’s standards, it is now coded racism to describe as “socialist” those who were, in at least three of the examples he offers, actually socialists or communists.

Or, to put in another way, it is now “intolerant” and shamefully racist to accurately describe a person’s beliefs (which makes a perverse kind of sense when one remembers that it is an apparent virtue and show of duty to the progressive cause to inaccurately describe the beliefs of, say, Sarah Palin).

I would be tempted to write at length on the figures Diuguid uses in what is, to put it bluntly, one of the most vividly moronic columns I’ve seen in quite some time, but as neo-neocon has already done the work, I’ll just quote from her:

Here are some facts […] for those of us old-fashioned enough to believe they might matter:

Paul Robeson (about whom I have written extensively; see my three-part series beginning here) was careful never to join the Communist Party, but there is no question whatsoever that he was a strong supporter. If you have a moment’s doubt about this, please read his tribute to the wise, great and good (his words) Stalin, delivered on Stalin’s death and not long after Robeson had earned the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952 for his service to the cause.

[…]

Moving right along, we come to W.E.B. DuBois, who had joined the Socialist Party as a young man but resigned in 1911 to support Wilson [ah, progressivism!], only to become more involved later in life in leftist causes (getting the Lenin Peace Prize in 1948) and officially joining the Communist Party in 1961 at the ripe old age of 93:

Dr. Du Bois said he had concluded that “capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction.”

“No universal selfishness can bring social good to all,” he said. “Communism—the effort to give all men what they need and to ask of each the best they can contribute—this is the only way of human life.”

Next up: A. Philip Randolph, trailblazing union organizer and outspoken member of the Socialist Party from his twenty-first year onward.

Martin Luther King is the outlier here; he was not a socialist, although he expressed sympathies. For example, King told his staff in 1966:

There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

Again and again I’ve highlighted the end game for speech codes, and for the slippery slope that is inherent in the post structuralist movement to un-tether language from intent.

Here, it is now being alleged that socialism is being used as a code word that signals a distrust of blacks. To believe this, however, we must willingly bracket from history all of the whites who have also been accused of communist or socialist / radicalist / Maoist sympathies (including, quite recently, Ayers, Dohrne, and several white members of the New Party, among whom one counts the inarguably pasty faces of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Barbara Ehrlenreich).

Such attacks serve no other purpose than to put the accused on the defensive — and so in a very real way speak to a supreme irony evidently lost on “intellectuals” like Mr Diuguid: they have become the new McCarthyites, even as they pretend to be fighting against a kind of neo-McCarthyism of their own creation.

Up is down. Black is White. Josie is the Pussycats.

****
(h/t Lynn; see also, Jules Crittenden)

117 Replies to “Is there no word that isn’t Rethuglican code for “negro”?”

  1. ushie says:

    Ihad no idea that Sweden was full of black people.

  2. Jeffersonian says:

    “…moronic…”

    Yet another code word.

  3. urthshu says:

    If I wanted to call a black man black, I would not resort to ‘code words’ – I’d just call him black.

    Jeff – what is “code word” a code phrase for, do you think?

  4. David says:

    Arrrrgh. Stupid.

  5. Sticky B says:

    McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black.

    They evidently reached so far back in to such an obscure region of history that I’ve never heard of such. And I’d venture to guess that I’m more historically literate than the average voter. This poor bastard is reeeeeaaaachiiiiiiing. He’s gonna pull something in his back if he isn’t careful.

  6. PalinFan says:

    Eugene V. Debs and Henry Wallace could not be reached for comment.

  7. SevenEleventy says:

    Up is down. Black is White. Josie is the Pussycats.

    From Wikipedia:

    In the Bizarro world of “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things!

    Welcome to Acirema!

  8. SevenEleventy says:

    Hey, I wonder if Bizzaro World thor would be humble and pleasant?

  9. ducktrapper says:

    I suppose one can forgive Robeson’s political naiveté because of his nearness to actual lynching but what’s Barry’s problem? Does he think Ayers and Dorhn escaped “lynching” for their crimes? Or does he not think his grandma could be one of the 25 million who just need killing?

  10. JD says:

    It is kind of like noting the fact that Baracky’s middle name is Steve. Clearly racist.

    Facts are racist. You can smear people with facts. Good Allah, the media is mendoucheous.

  11. Sticky B says:

    Have you ever noticed how fast Marx was? It’s like…….I don’t know……he had an extra muscle in his legs or something. That muthafuck could GO!

  12. urthshu says:

    Gotta do a round-up review kind of post about all the wonderful new, never-before heard of information we’ve all been exposed to this election cycle.

  13. alppuccino says:

    Facts are racist. You can smear people with facts. Good Allah, the media is mendoucheous.

    In spades!

  14. Clint says:

    For my Fall writing class we had to read Nickel & Dimed. Christ! was that dreadful. I’m looking forward to cleansing my palate with Scratch Beginnings and writing a paper about how Obama’s Health Plan violates the fundamental rights of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” in a room full of….socialists.

  15. I don’t think us whities are the only ones using “code words.” The other day Obama used some words that he used frequently when campaigning against Hillary and reminded me of this piece:

    In an article in The New Republic, Cinque Henderson reflects upon why he, as a black man, doesn’t like Obama. It’s all very interesting, but this part is what stopped me:

    “…. he gave speeches across South Carolina that warned against being “hoodwinked” and “bamboozled” by the Clintons. His use of the phrase is resonant. It comes from a scene in Malcolm X, where Denzel Washington warns black people about the hidden evils of “the White Man” masquerading as a smiling politician: “Every election year, these politicians are sent up here to pacify us,” he says. “You’ve been hoodwinked. Bamboozled.”

    By uttering this famous phrase, Obama told his black audience everything it needed to know. He was helping to convince blacks that the first two-term Democratic president in 50 years, a man referred to as the first black president, is in fact a secret racist. As soon as I heard that Obama had quoted from Malcolm X like this, I knew that Obama would win South Carolina by a massive margin.”

  16. Jeffersonian says:

    I ain’t sayin’ she a gold digger [ungh]
    But she ain’t messin’ wit no broke socialists…

  17. Clint says:

    This code word thing is fun! Everyone join in!

  18. adk46er says:

    Mr. Diuguid probably wouldn’t understand – but for everyone else see below:

    “after being a member of the 400 metres relay team that took the gold medal at the 1991 Athletics World Championships. The interviewer started off with:

    “So, Kriss, what does this mean to you as an African-American?”
    “I’m not American, I’m British”

    “Yes, but as a British African-American …”

    “I’m not African. I’m not American. I’m British.”

    This went on for some time before the reporter got so flustered that she gave up and went to interview someone else. I guess more than anything else it demonstrates the potential absurdity of political correctness — this reporter was so tied-up with the idea that the “correct” term for someone of afro-caribbean ancestry was African-American and not Black that she couldn’t cope with the fact that many black people are neither African nor American.”

  19. pdbuttons says:

    judge a man by his charachter/not the color of his skin
    one small step 4 man/one giant leap 4 mankind
    [sp-check]super-cali-fragic-ex-be-ali-dousous
    All racists-
    i denounce myself

  20. EVERY word Repubs use is a code word for negro. Except Negro,which is a code word for Ni%%er…

    I denounce myself…

  21. The Monster says:

    Living in KC, and occasionally reading Diuguid’s columns in the Scar, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s like Jack Webb.

    Remember how every episode of Dragnet began with Webb saying “This is the city…”? He’d go on to describe how the vast majority of Angelenos go about their business peacefully, but somehow figure out how to bring up those who transgress the law. “That’s where I come in. I carry a badge.” Dum, de dum, dum dedum dedum…

    Diuguid seems to have a similar power. He can examine absolutely anything and find the cleverly-hidden racism inherent therein. “That’s where I come in. I carry a grudge.” Dumb.

  22. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by SevenEleventy on 10/22 @ 2:06 pm #

    Hey, I wonder if Bizzaro World thor would be humble and pleasant?”

    Ummmmmmm……..

    No.

  23. ginsocal says:

    What we need, then, is a code word for “socialist.” I know! Marxist!

  24. TmjUtah says:

    I guess the author plumb forgot that the power to overtly define the narrative doesn’t begin until after the O!ne assumes temporal majesty office in January.

    Which means that this race is a lot clo… shucks. How ’bout them Devil Rays?

    My local wholly LDS-owned blowtorch AM station KSL 1160 opened my day at 0500 with the news that Obama enjoyed a widening ten point lead over McCain… and the lead last hour was how “states once thought locked up are suddenly in play/presidential race within margin of error”. No mention exactly which states locked up by whom; error or omission?

    KSL is a disgusting exercise in pandering and pretension; they’d like to be friends with the edgy and cool, but just who that might be is anybody’s guess. Our wackaloons here are a vicious and vocal minority; they work very hard to cultivate that “behind enemy lines” ethos. The wacks used to have all volunteer “community radio” at 90.9 FM but had to go corporate last year and hire DJ’s… and that was the end of any entertainment value out of that pile.

    Poor KSL. All they end up doing is being mendacious and cowardly. Or looking/sounding dork foolish, which appears to have been the goal of their “Night Side” fiasco.

    Cool does NOT equal whiney. Such a faux pretense as basis for a political activism/ideology/commentary (take your pick seperately or all at once – it’s an industry now) could only work in a society so stinking decadent as to have run out of options for cerebral entertainment.

    I call San Francisco ‘frisco. I call black folks folks, unless I’m describing somebody to be met or identified by a stranger.

    I’ll show you a code word: Democrat = COMMUNIST.

  25. Stiv says:

    I never would have guessed that Eugene Debs was colored. Or Clement Atlee. I mean, those dudes could PASS.

  26. Techie says:

    This is simply an example of what I fear more that a litte bit from an Obama Administration. Every opposition to Obamas policy will be framed in racial terms.

    Socialist? Racist

    Big Spender? Racist

    Don’t like his foregin policy? That’s because you hate black people in power.

    A lot of people are really going to get tired of that quickly. Obama isn’t going to “heal” this country. He may set it back 20 years.

  27. JD says:

    Techie said, “A lot of people are really going to get tired of that quickly”.

    A lot of us are tired of it already.

    Socialist!!!!!!!!!

    I denounce myself, and all of you.

  28. Tom says:

    Is there no word that isn’t Rethuglican code for “negro”?

    Yes. “Mr. President”

  29. Jim in KC says:

    My old buddy Diugid! He’s the guy who taught me that if a hotel fucks up your reservation, they’re racist, not simply incompetent.

    He’s also the guy who likes to don a “homeless person” get-up every so often and then see how people react. Surprisingly, they don’t actually buy him a house to live in.

    On political topics, he’s as fact-free as it gets. Every once in a while he writes a sweet and surprisingly lucid column on how much he loves his old VW van.

  30. psycho... says:

    the post structuralist movement to un-tether language from intent

    Not their fault. Well, Barthes, a little, because he’s hard to understand and a dick. And that French Nazi douche, too. However:

    [I]f [poetry] will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her[. We may] grant to [her defenders] the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life

    The drive to wrench meaning from speakers to speakers-for, as a strategy (or mere display, as in these “Code!” callers’ cases) of power, is old — so old Plato called it “ancient.”

    But he liked to lie, so maybe it wasn’t. It is now, thanks to him.

    The big names of poststructuralism were mostly on the opposite side of this battle from their supposed heirs, who are powermad and -jealous clods no better understood by reference to their pedigrees.

    Which aren’t. They like to lie, too.

  31. poppa india says:

    On the other hand, we won’t have to listen to “You just don’t like strong women” for four years if we opposed President Hillary”s policies. Always look on the bright side of life…

  32. Makewi says:

    The one bit of good news is that he doesn’t seem to be getting a whole lot of support in the comments to his piece. I have to wonder if he actually believes what he has written or if he is simply trying to help “the cause”.

  33. Clint says:

    I’m looking for that Tax Credit. My girl and I are thinkin’ we’ll use ours take vacations to foreign spots, especially those spots with great beaches. Let’s enrich those economies.

    Should I question my own patriotism?

  34. kelly says:

    Yes. Next.

  35. Alec Leamas says:

    Is Schwartze code?

    I ordered a new car today. I demanded the Bose system, and ordered the exterior in big eared, exotic, skinny, too liberal, uppity, arrogant, socialist, clandestinely-muslim, from Hawaii, doesn’t wear a flag lapel pin, doesn’t rest its hand over its heart during the playing of the National anthem, attended a Church with a radical preacher, was friends with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, was advised by Franklin Raines, was depicted as having engaged in sexual congress with Britney Spears and/or Paris Hilton, and was photographed before the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Washington Monument.

  36. lex says:

    re:”Black is White”

    RACIST!!!1!

  37. Mikey NTH says:

    Sounds kind of desperate to me. And racist.

    I mean, all things ungood are now code words for ‘black’? So now I can say “It’s so socialist in here I can’t see my hand in front of my face.?” Or “The bar’s specials are written on that non-socialist board over there.”?

  38. steveaz says:

    Jeffy:
    “Or, to put in another way, it is now “intolerant” and shamefully racist to accurately describe a person’s beliefs.”

    Their game is to take any effective signifier – that is, any adjective or team-insignia, that may assist the audience in discerning the threat posed by their agenda, and then corrupt it: make it un-useable.

    Sometimes they’ll just cut to the chase and ban the word’s usage outright, like they did with “Islamic Terrorists.” Or, they’ll try to “own” it through repeated, deliberate misuse, the words, ‘choice” and “torture” being the most obvious modern examples of this.

    The “Arab Street” is one of my favorite examples, though. Here is an uncounted, unpolled, transnational constituency of hundreds of millions of individuals with, one presumes, a plethora of opinions about all things religious and political (just like the rest of us), and yet its political “consensus” on everything from George Bush Senior’s invasion of Iraq to Saddam Hussein’s court proceeding details was constantly being waved in our faces.*

    “But, but, the Arab Street says…the US is, too, the White Satan.” This is either the result of unthinking journalism, or of for-pay message-making while our nation is at war. Either way, both suck big time.

    Come to think of it, the media’s generation of the latest “Obama-Landslide” poll has all the hallmarks of the old “Arab Street” nonsense. And funnily, the same suspect organs are propagating it.
    -Steve

    * Funny thing is, now that one large nation in the ME, Iraq, polls its ‘street’ regularly, the media have had to put away this particular sock-puppet. Is there something similar that we can do to the media to get them to retire their “Scientific Consensus” on global warming, short of sending the Marines fallujah-style into Columbia University’s Political Science and Journalism halls?

  39. TmjUtah says:

    Ugh. poppa india, on that same note, I hope that there aren’t too many of those “Palin is a c**T” shirts out there.

    If BY SOME FLUKE she ends up at Blair House for the next four years, all those tee’s will become the centerpieces of M&PDS shrines tucked away in closets and basements across Blue America.

    I don’t pretend to believe the vast majority of the Lefties have given much thought to what happens if the O!ne loses… but they’ve mastered Teh Hate so well I believe they’ll just get their tattoos modified where necessary and go back to script…

    How many, you have to wonder, have given serious thought to what happens if the O! has to go by boat when he crosses water? They’ll be so disappointed… IN BOOOOOOOSH!!!

  40. urthshu says:

    >>I mean, all things ungood are now code words for ‘black’?

    Wasn’t that the argument for taking back the word ‘black’ to begin with? That english was culturally laden with black=evil [‘black-hearted’] and white=good?

    Have we come full circle now? And if so, can we drop it? Or must we relive the entirety, like a bad dream?

  41. happyfeet says:

    That whole Kwanzaa thing is based on socialism. Sometimes they like to call it communitarianism. But not all black people are socialists. Baracky is though. All Barackys are socialists. Socialist is a code word for Baracky. Retard is a code word for Lewis Diuguid. You have to wake up and decide to be that stupid it doesn’t just happen I don’t think.

  42. McGehee says:

    <trivial quibble> TMJ, the veep lives in a mansion on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Blair House is for visiting dignitaries. </trivial quibble>

  43. McGehee says:

    Wasn’t that the argument for taking back the word ‘black’ to begin with?

    That was 30 years ago. We’ve now reached the point where businesses seek to improve their revenues so as to get into the African-American.

    In unrelated geopolitical news, I read somewhere that the Kashmir question may be less of a strain for relations between Pakistan and Native-America.

  44. urthshu says:

    The only other thing I’m wondering is, since Hillary wouldn’t expose this far-Left shit in the primaries, is Obama proof that the nutroots actually do control the Dems now?

  45. happyfeet says:

    But for real someone made a decision to publish that. That’s weird to me. I would have been like we can’t print that because it’s retarded. If you’re an editor or a publisher you should take a little pride I think in your newspaper if you plan on running it for awhile.

  46. McGehee says:

    I would have been like we can’t print that because it’s retarded.

    I would have had the same reaction, which is why I was blackballed from the journalism profession while still in college.

  47. McGehee says:

    …and the word is “outside the reach of statistical norms.” Can’t say the R word anymore.

  48. geoffb says:

    This must have to do with the idea that you can “choose” your identity group. “Choose” one and they throw in a second group for free. Thus mentioning one group invokes another.

    But which way does it go. Does “choosing” to be “African-American”, as Obama has done, get you an automatic “Socialist” added? Or is “Socialist” the main menu item and the others are the free add ons? Perhaps all is a la carte. “Choice” it’s the Left’s way of life (and death).

  49. JD says:

    Socialist is a code word for Baracky. Retard is a code word for Lewis Diuguid.

    So concise. So succinct. So racist.

  50. JD says:

    How is it that the fact that Baracky is only half-black never gets mentioned? Why is it that he, and the media, simply refer to himself as black? Why does he disown his white roots?

  51. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Pushkin: part black.
    Pushkin: Russian.
    Russia: used to be in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

    Good God, fill in the blanks, people!

    Dumas: part black.
    Dumas: French.
    French: annoying assholes.

    So if I say that Diuguid is an annoying asshole, well…

  52. JS says:

    Here’s an idea. Stick with me. How about all you white people out there, who are apparently just now discovering that not only can blacks be racists (sit still, it’s ok), but that all whites are racists (it’s inherent in our typical white genes), actually do something? Start by having just a bit more pride in your own race. Start getting offended that every effing commercial on TV and radio portrays whites as bumbling, stumbling, idiotic, evil, effete, scared, incompetent, fools. Try it. It’s a good place to start…

  53. happyfeet says:

    I’m just not that in touch with my whiteness. Things I like are free enterprise, turtles, and just about anything with cream cheese. Dislikes include getting in touch with my whiteness, socialism, and the Olympics.

  54. steveaz says:

    JS
    “Stick with me. How about all you white people out there[…]]start getting offended.”

    You lost me at “white people.” I’ve never seen one, for real. And I’ve traveled the whole world with a can of Rustoleum Pure White spray-primer testing folks.

    Even the Scandi’s ain’t “white.” The one I sprayed in the Copenhagen airport last year was a weird pink. Really.

    “Black.” “White.” There’s no such creature. Me, I’m voting for a human this year, not a color.

  55. ducktrapper says:

    The problem is we mostly forget what color we are but if we actually manage to forget what color … er … they are, we’re racist. If we remember, we’re racist. If it doesn’t matter to us, you guessed it.

  56. guinsPen says:

    Racism dressed up in an airline suit is a poor disguise, people.

    How about if we dressed up as Barking Moonbats?

  57. ducktrapper says:

    The left needs to play on these divisions. The last thing they want is actual tolerance.

  58. guinsPen says:

    The question still stands, ‘tic.

  59. ducktrapper says:

    Cleo – Who’s squeezing your head?

  60. ThomasD says:

    I guess more than anything else it demonstrates the potential absurdity of political correctness — this reporter was so tied-up with the idea that the “correct” term for someone of afro-caribbean ancestry was African-American and not Black that she couldn’t cope with the fact that many black people are neither African nor American.”

    One summer I needed to pick up some humanities credits. I had a good job lined up back home so I didn’t want to get stuck in Gainesville for one lousy summer semester, ruining my employment prospects. So I took a course at a local CC. The instructor was from the Bahamas. One day another student made the mistake of descibing him, within earshot, as Jamaican. Oops.

    I was surprised the kid didn’t drop the course right then and there, at that point I would have.

  61. Terry Gain says:

    The code words for leftist retard are MSM reporter.

  62. qwfwq says:

    Hey, semantic: Will you go fuck yourself someplace else? You tedious, stupid, boring motherfucker…

  63. guinsPen says:

    the silence is self-condemning

  64. N. O'Brain says:

    “#

    Comment by Semanticleo on 10/22 @ 5:45 pm #

    ‘The last thing they want is actual tolerance.’

    Tolerance for racism, you mean…?”

    Sure, it’s a Democratic party tradition. They were the slavery party, after all.

  65. ducktrapper says:

    We’re typing here moron. Unless you can’t read without moving your lips loudly, of course, it’s silent. So who’s squeezing your head? This shit must come from somewhere?

  66. dre says:

    “Tolerance for racism, you mean…?”

    White man’s greed runs a world in need. B. Hussein Obama whose father was a muslim which in much of the muslim world makes him a muslim.

  67. guinsPen says:

    Racism dressed up in an airline suit is a poor disguise, people.

    Nevermind, ‘tic, I found a good one.

    Democrat Party Ward Heeler.

  68. steveaz says:

    If O’s a muslim, why doesn’t he just bust out and say it?! I mean, what’s the big f__king deal? Is he proud of his heritage, or not?

    I think, maybe, that the Islamo-crazies made it so he needs to disown their brand of Koran-C-R-A-Z-Y. I think maybe 911 had something to do with it – those skyjackers defamed Islam big time to me, and American!

    My mullah tells me they’re rotting in Hell right now for what they did to Islam!

    Serves them right, and all of Islam shouldn’t be guilty by association, right? Obama should just O-W-N his real self, is all I’m sayin’. He should just be real, Man!

  69. Makewi says:

    Folks like leo and thor have no other desire than to stir up anger with false and harsh words. Quite an admiral goal if you desire making the world a worse place.

  70. guinsPen says:

    Also this…

    Penguins fuel rumor that ‘tic is sentient.

    “I think we ate some bad Krill.”

  71. dicentra says:

    KSL is a disgusting exercise in pandering and pretension; they’d like to be friends with the edgy and cool, but just who that might be is anybody’s guess. Our wackaloons here are a vicious and vocal minority; they work very hard to cultivate that “behind enemy lines” ethos.

    KSL radio is a CBS affiliate, right? They might not have much of a choice in what they get to report.

    I wake up to 1430 KLO, which uses the CBS news feed, and the dissonance between that and Laura Ingraham or Bill Bennett is really jolting.

    But then the local newsguy comes on, and he always adds the right caveats before repeating what the newsfeeds say. It’s a hoot.

    But yeah, KSL and other Utah media are a stepping stone to larger markets, so our media are staffed with the same J-school disciples as you find elsewhere. And the lefties who inhabit the Avenues and Park City are worse in some ways than anywhere else because the poor dears have to endure living among conservatives and Mormons.

    They hate us most of all for having settled in an area with so much scenery and potential wilderness areas. They’re compelled to stay by the slickrock and the mountains but repelled by the locals.

    Pity them.

  72. guinsPen says:

    This is America where creeps are free to be what they are…

    Exactly.

    Jeff, I apologise for being rude to one of your guests.

  73. guinsPen says:

    Pie, ‘tic?

  74. Andrew the Noisy says:

    Cleo, you would have made a fine Inquisitor. Remember, the appearance of racism = racism, and there is no defense.

    Get some sticks. Who’s got a match?

  75. Andrew the Noisy says:

    Incidentally, I clicked Cleo’s money link, and it contained such haymakers as:

    “What about the Republican Party itself? There’s no evidence that the national Republican Party has driven, coordinated or even overtly encouraged the Obama-is-a-Muslim line.”

    “With schoolboy innocence, many conservative commentators say they were merely raising questions or stating facts. And you know what? That’s largely true.

    Many stuck to the points about Sen. Obama that were accurate: His middle name is, after all, Hussein. He was listed as a Muslim as a boy when he attended school Indonesia. His stepfather was Muslim.

    One could merely repeat those facts and it would lead many to believe Sen. Obama was Muslim – especially if one didn’t mention that Sen. Obama has been a practicing Christian for 17 years and was in Indonesia only until age 10 or 11.”

    Oh, those dastardly Republicans! Asking questions and saying things that are true! Bring on the Human Rights Commission!

  76. ducktrapper says:

    Meanwhile, Cleo has decided to act as static on a discussion forum. I generally tune out static until it (by some quirk of nature or DAVID BLAINE) somehow addresses me. I’m surprised, of course but used to hallucination, quickly recover and tell the static to go away and let me get drunk in peace.

  77. Jeff G. says:

    psycho —

    It goes back to the sophists, and Fish himself likes to call himself a modern day sophist. But the rehabilitated idea, as it’s passed off to us now, supposedly came about from the analysis of those who refuted formalism, structuralism, and modernism.

    No need to go into the whole history. I’m not nearly as angry with the sophists, who at least spent the evenings at orgies.

  78. ducktrapper says:

    Sophist Orgy would make a hell of name for something.

  79. ducktrapper says:

    It’s mine, tag! Thanks JG!

  80. Ric Locke says:

    Two points occur immediately.

    First… to the roughly billion or so people on the planet who call the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed (PBUH), Obama is a Muslim — or is an apostate, which in Islam is a capital crime equal to or worse than our concept of treason multiplied by active betrayal, with the sentence to be carried out by any of the Faithful who happens to be nearby with a weapon in hand. He did, after all, receive instruction in Islam in his youth, and attended a mosque in company with others; Q.E.D. What we infidels think of the matter is irrelevant.

    And second… there is a definitive answer — not a defense, because the substance of it is that no defense is necessary — to the “charge”. It is thoroughly rooted in the liberal tradition and the laws and customs of the United States; it is a form of the argument used by those Semanticleo claims as her predecessors to embarrass us Southerners forty and fity years ago. Stevaz hints at it. I have used it a number of times myself, despite being no Obama supporter by any stretch of the imagination. You need not fear hearing it from the trolls, though, because Semanticleo and her fellows will never think of it — because their real philosophical forebears were sitting on front porches as the sun set over Alabama red dirt, quoting Medger Evers and Stokely Carmichael, and taking Martin Luther King out of context, to establish that black people were too stupid, lazy, and violent to participate in society as equals, in exactly the same way Semanticleo dredges up the discreditable emanations of loons to tar all of us with the same brush.

    Regards,
    Ric

  81. ducktrapper says:

    Ric – I could get a kick out of playing the role for her though (she’s or he’s such a gullible twit) but I hate entertaining static.

  82. Percy Dovetonsils says:

    Lately I’ve just been calling O! “that fucking cocksucker” – can that be considered “code”?

  83. SevenEleventy says:

    Lately I’ve just been calling O! “that fucking cocksucker” – can that be considered “code”?

    That’s funny, I was thinking what a “fucking cocksucker” semenlips is? Coincidence?

  84. Andrew the Noisy says:

    Clearly , more denuncations are in order.

  85. SevenEleventy says:

    Clearly , more denuncations are in order.

    Okay, I denounce myself for redudantly referring to semenlips a “fucking cocksucker.”

  86. Ric Locke says:

    ducktrapper, I don’t even get a kick out of it. I heard ‘way too much of it in my youth, from people at least as sophisticated and literate as Semanticleo is as well as from some who fit perfectly the original stereotype of “redneck”. To my shame, I even said some of it. So I know how it goes, how it’s formulated, and how even the well-intentioned (which some of us were, believe it or not) shift arguments around to support the bigotry. Semanticleo’s screen name should be “Semanticbillybob”. For me, no thank you.

    Regards,
    Ric

  87. guinsPen says:

    I vote “Semanticnitwit.”

  88. TmjUtah says:

    dicentra –

    KSL runs ABC feeds at the top of some hours, others it just handles with a local news update.

    I’m not sure who the TV station is affiliated with any more.

    The radio side of the house left the CBS brand after management took too much heat for running the network “commentaries” that were invariably Black Rock condemnations of BOOOOOOSH or the ILLEGAL WAR or just plain mean spirited and/or stooopid. I may be misremembering, but I think the straw that broke the camel’s back had something to do with the network trying to justify Rathergate ex post facto. Heck, I even wrote two letters to the station manager asking them to hold off on the morning commentaries so I could at least start the day without being pissed off.

    This “Night Side” thing would work if the market was Boulder or even Vegas; don’t know what their thinking is, unless KSL management is wanting a cage match with KRCL for the two thousand Blue Wackaloons that live between the U and Park City.

    And does KSL have a stake in Real (our local chapter of the U.S. professional soccer scam)? Because even Sandy City is already beginning to maneuver to ease the impact of the stadium disaster and the paint on the parking lot striping isn’t even dry…

    … and you have a fine, happy, night, ma’am. *lol*

  89. Pablo says:

    Is there no word that isn’t Rethuglican code for “negro”?

    Well, there’s “Nigger”.

  90. TmjUtah says:

    On topic:

    I remember watching Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech during my elementary years. It was probably ’67 or ’68, because he hadn’t been assassinated yet. That time line puts me in second grade.

    I was impressed then, and still am, by his rhetoric and delivery on that day, particularly (paraphrased) “…judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin”.

    I thought it was delivered well. Personally, I didn’t know that there was any other way that people were supposed to treat each other. My parents didn’t tolerate slurs or race jokes. Period. “People are people, and the faster you learn that they want to be treated like you want to be treated, the better off everyone will be”.

    I got exposed to racism in chunks beginning in sixth grade. That was the year I found out that the city map on all of my bank-donated book covers failed to show the south east quarter of Midland, Texas, where all the colored folks lived. Then came “Roots”, and the first overtly racial gang fights I was ever involved in.

    I’ve always been dark, and my hair won’t ever be mistaken for Scandi. I may have metioned before that Great g’ grandpa on dad’s side probably got chased into Canada by General Crook back during the 1870’s. Mom was first generation Norwegian, dad an American polyglot of Italian/Sioux/unk stock. Adoptive parents were German/Welsh/Irish. And I was never, ever taught that skin made any difference in how I would be treated, or how anyone else SHOULD be treated.

    The 1970’s brought expanding horizons. I devoured history and began to flesh out my studies of the origins of America, mostly via biographies, but also including a lot of the Time/Life and American Heritage book series. And the “war” shelf; what struck me was that the basic template was changeless: irreconcilable point of conflict, popular or philosophic justification, slaughter to follow. I also dealt with mom’s search for meaning in life, which meant I brushed up against televangelism. And became aware of the industry personified by the Reeeeev. Jesse Jackson…

    … and wrote both phenomenons off for the scams that they were. My judgement remains unchanged to this day, and the continued farce that is “The Cause” as practiced by the NAACP, Mr’s Jackson and Sharpton, I present as evidence of my correct judgement.

    If you live in the United States of 2008… or since 1966… and your lucrative income depends on the color of your skin, that color is BLACK, and you should be fucking ashamed of yourself.

    Let the gig, and your people, go!

    And I’ll take any manner of denouncement that anyone cares to assign. The last bastions of racism in America are owned and operated by the progressive Left, and they may go to Hell knowing that I don’t have any problem with calling them on it. Here on the web, on the street, or in print. Makes no never mind to me.

  91. William says:

    Socialism is socialism. Racist is racist. Socialist Governor Sarah Palin calls Obama a socialist.

    Sarah Palin is a socialist. She redistributed the wealth in Alaska – took the oil profits, imposed a tax and kicked it back to Alaskans. Palin is the governor of a state that practices collective ownership of oil and other natural resources, and equally distributes the state’s cut of the revenues to every citizen.

    That’s socialism. That’s spreading the wealth around.

    Remember this when she appears at these campaign stops and elicits huge cheers by accusing Obama of being a socialist. Get a clue… a tax of any kind by mere definition is “redistributing wealth.”

    As we know Conservatism under Bush has run up the largest debt in American history, started a long expensive war, and destroyed Wall Street… but we’re supposed to be afraid of Obama – the socialist.

  92. Pablo says:

    How old were you when your mother dropped you on your head, William? That tax you refer to is a royalty on the property of Alaska and therefore Alaskans. It is not redistribution of wealth. It is distribution of profit to the owners of a product who sell it to those who buy it.

    Where do you suppose that money should go? Or, do you think it should be given away to those eeeevil oil companies?

  93. TmjUtah says:

    Sara Palin can’t be a socialist; she’d have the alphabets on her side and HuffPo/KoS/DU would be giving her foot massages.

    They are agin’ her, ergo, she is a patriotic, conservative, Republican.

    Not socialist.

  94. JD says:

    Pablo – Be nice to William. His fontanelles never filled in after that blow to his head.

  95. Dash Rendar says:

    That’s some weapons grade stupid there Will.

  96. Republican on Acid says:

    Paul Robeson was a horrible man. He KNEW that people were being murdered by Stalin and ignored that fact. He KNEW several of those people murdered on a personal basis. He shouldn’t be admired by anyone with a human heart.

  97. Bob Reed says:

    Such attacks serve no other purpose than to put the accused on the defensive — and so in a very real way speak to a supreme irony evidently lost on “intellectuals” like Mr Diuguid: they have become the new McCarthyites, even as they pretend to be fighting against a kind of neo-McCarthyism of their own creation.

    Brilliantly put Jeff G, and thought provoking.

    Linking the race card, McCarthy-ism, and the critique of socialism! I had never looked at it as a leftist crusade to not only box out their political opponents, but to at once validate progressive political philosophy by equating those who oppose it with the most vile and repulsive mindsets and behaviour one can in modern America; and to do it all with the thinly veiled implied government heft of discrimination or hate-crime prosecution behind it. It is very much a McCarthy-ite tactic…

    Best Wishes…

  98. McGehee says:

    Start by having just a bit more pride in your own race.

    Celto-Germano-Franco-Anglo is a race?

    Or do you mean “human?”

    ‘Cause one race I don’t belong to is “moby.”

  99. Bob Reed says:

    Is there no word that isn’t Rethuglican code for “negro”?

    No there isn’t…

    As a matter of fact, I hear that in the next edition of Roget’s thesaurus, that Republican will be a synonym of racist…And O! will be a synonym for messiah…

    Best Wishes…

  100. JD says:

    Y’all better watch it. Baracky has people. And they are watching you.

  101. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    ‘Cause one race I don’t belong to is “moby.”

    The Whiteness of the Moby.

  102. TmjUtah says:

    yarrrrrrrrrr.

    And good night.

  103. McGehee says:

    Palin is the governor of a state that practices collective ownership of oil and other natural resources, and equally distributes the state’s cut of the revenues to every citizen.

    I lived in Alaska only five years and I too noticed that troublesome aspect of Alaska’s state constitution.

    William, would you really rather that the governor of a state just ignore the constitution of that state because it conflicts with her core beliefs? Or do you think it’s better to comply with its dictates so long as they are its dictates, while perhaps working toward making necessary changes?

    Bearing in mind that, in Alaska as in most states the constitution can only be amended by vote of the people, which means the political project involved in revising whole articles of that constitution is probably a matter of generations rather than years…

    Can you see where I’m going with this?

    Seriously: would you really like Palin better if she simply disregarded the Constitution of the State of Alaska? If so, it’s okay to say so. Hell, the federal courts have been disregarding Alaska’s constitution for years.

  104. J. Peden says:

    the slippery slope that is inherent in the post structuralist movement to un-tether language from intent.

    It gets real slippery since words are actually nothing more than sounds, visual images, or tactile sensations to begin with, so that anyone who thinks they can understand what I just said better just give it all up right now, because words are actually not tethered to anything, right?

  105. Techie says:

    Moby is about as pale as they come, IIRC.

  106. Jeff G. says:

    Seriously: would you really like Palin better if she simply disregarded the Constitution of the State of Alaska? If so, it’s okay to say so.

    These are the same folks who screech about a “unitary executive” until Bush refuses to go over the head of the Governor of Louisiana and send in troops without her having asked for it.

    If one were to plot their political principles, one would come away with something that vaguely resembles a question mark.

  107. JD says:

    I think that it would more closely resemble the plottings on a Richter Scale during the next earthquake at the San Andreas Fault.

  108. J. Peden says:

    That is, before you start arguing over what a word or a bunch of words mean – whether it’s tethered to intent, anyone’s arbitrary interpretation, or to a majority vote of what their meaning is – you have to first face the question of why they should or do mean anything at all.

    So that I would counter the poststructuralist’s attempt to delink meaning from intent by simply asking him/her how s/he knows they mean anything to begin with, and maybe try to [falsely] prove that any interpretation is futile, and that even talking about it makes no sense. They seem pretty dumb, so it might work.

  109. thor says:


    Comment by dicentra on 10/22 @ 6:34 pm #

    They hate us most of all for having settled in an area with so much scenery and potential wilderness areas. They’re compelled to stay by the slickrock and the mountains but repelled by the locals.

    Pity them.

    Yes, pity them, and all their laughter. I hate you because you’re a stupid God-trotting asshole, they simply laugh at you. Pity them.

  110. Thor says:

    It’s no surprise to me, my obdurately infantile [ex]son, thor, that the Progressive Religion fears and hates its competitive superior, Christianity, just as you no doubt fear and hate me, your [ex]father – in my case because of my permanently larger and more effective hammer, of course. Sadly for you, little thor, it’s Reality that has you nailed all-round.

  111. Silver Whistle says:

    Happyfeet,

    You don’t have to wonder how Diuguid got that piece past the editor – he is one.

    Having read the piece again, and trying to see how anyone could write such ahistorical trash, I can only come up with a limited set of scenarios:

    a) Diuguid had an incredibly poor education at University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, and actually believes that what he wrote is true

    b) Diuguid knows that the piece is garbage, but attempts to sway the rest of us with his propaganda

    I seem to be running out of alternatives. Perhaps some of his defenders can help me out? Or are they really saying that, yes, socialist is code for black? Really? I guess then the question is, how many people actually believe that to be the case.

  112. Pablo says:

    Bernie Sanders is black? Who knew?

  113. […] big money corruption, like calling views about “spreading the wealth” socialist, by The One is just […]

  114. Thor's Amygdala says:

    “I hate you”

    Somebody needs a hug…and a new round of meds.

  115. eaglewingz08 says:

    What would you expect of a ‘reporter’ whose name is pronounced DIG WEED?
    You have to smoke an awful lot to come to his delusional state.

  116. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Clever of Dig Weed to ferret out my bigoted hate for Ayers because of his Blackness.

    – Doubly so, because in this case its Ayers heart that’s Black, and that’s not easy to see through his Che T shirt.

    – The Libturds are still afraid they’re going to lose.

  117. Great Banana says:

    I’m not sure I understand the “racist” argument. It is pretty clear to all of america that O! is black. Thus, the people who are not going to vote for him b/c he is black are not going to vote for him b/c he is black.

    Why would anyone need any “code words” to appeal to racists? What logical reason in Thor and Leo’s minds is there for the GOP to try to subtly appeal to racism.

    The whole concept of the boogeyman “code words” that liberals always claim is that the GOP is allegedly subtley saying to racists “if you vote for the dems black people will be empowered”.

    Well, in this election, the choice is between a black man and a white man. Even assuming the stupid boogeyman claims of the left that the GOP routinely used subtle racist “code words” in past elections, what would be the point of doing so in this election? What code words would be needed to point out that O! is black? Are these idiot leftists claiming that there are allegedly white racist voters out there that do not realize that O! is black and need “code words” to so inform them? Do these idiot leftists claim that these racist white voters would vote for O! absent the sublte “code words”?

    This is a case where the left has so bought into stupidity that they cannot see logic if it bit them in the ass.

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