Daniel Henninger examines the Democratic nomination battle and comes away with the idea that identity politics is something of a tar baby. Or maybe it’s a whore with a heart of gold. Pick ’em, as they say:
[…] the candidacy of the first liberal white woman to run for president is about to lose, defeated by, yes, a black man.
Some in the Clinton tong profess not to understand what happened to her. “We are filled with disappointment and amazement,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped deliver unto her the Keystone State. “Why haven’t these results caused the superdelegates to come around?”
Did Ed Rendell ever believe that the 794 superdelegates, weeded from the party’s topsoil, would decide that of the two candidates’ constituencies – Hillary’s “women” and “white” voters and Barack’s black voters – they would stiff Sen. Obama’s nearly 90% black base? So long as he led her by one delegate, this was never going to happen.
Writing last week in the Boston Globe, Geraldine Ferraro now says that “sexism” contributed to Hillary’s defeat. She wants a study to determine “whether either the Clinton or Obama campaign engaged in sexism and racism.” Isms abound.
The irony too bitter to swallow is that Barack Obama’s identity politics trumped Hillary Clinton’s identity politics. Put differently, what goes around comes around.
Naturally. And as I’ve noted here before on many an occasion, this particular instance of ideological karma, while not so much instant, was, in fact, inexorable: the very structure of a multicultural civic philosophy, built as it is around the mechanism of identity politics, will inevitably produce an unsustainable tension once disparate and competing identity blocs can’t be brought into alignment for the common goal of attaining power.
For years, “progressives,” particularly academics and the engineers of social policy who make up a faction of the Democratic party, have used identity politics and the philosophy of multiculturalism (together with its inbred stepchild, “diversity,” — which, when examined closely, is nothing more than a frontal attack on the very concept of individualism, something the Progressive movement has long embraced as a precursor for installing a ruling elite to pacify what they see as a society of essential docile dullards) to cobble together alliances of core constituencies in an effort to attract voters en masse, appealing to what the leaders of the various identity factions explain is in the best interests of their particular group, with the quid pro quo being the promises made to advance the cause of the identity group in question once power is secured.
That strategy, from a purely cynical or even pragmatic standpoint, is not a bad one — and in fact, it amounts to little more than a kind of marriage of convenience between politicos and a form of essentialist lobbying. Yet from the standpoint of a society built around the idea of the primacy of the individual, the gambit is decidedly unhealthy, particularly insofar as it encourages the very kind of balkanizing and insular opportunism that is anathema to the founding idea of a civic society constructed around the notion that individual rights must necessarily supersede what always threatens to become, in a balkanized society, the tyranny of majoritarianism — a condition that is easier met when individualism is subsumed by group dictates, particularly when the underlying philosophy metes out punishment to those individuals who resist the controlling narrative for his or her culturally enforced identity group.
Which is to say, individuals who opt out are often punished with social and political banishment — becoming inauthentic race traitors, or women suffering from false consciousness, or self-hating gays, whose positions are to be dismissed out of hand on the flimsiest of psychological pretenses.
Here, that very dynamic is at play — only helpfully distilled and then put on display for all of us to see. To wit, when each identity group’s controlling narrative is analogized as representative of an “individual” point of view, we are left with the competing points of views of several individual players (blacks vs gays vs women, etc) all forced to answer to the will of the Progressive master narrative.
In this case, that progressive master narrative — a will to power — is, after a lengthy internecine battle, constructed around the ascension of Barack Obama, leaving those who refuse to climb aboard the Hopeitude Express as outcasts and outsiders, traitors to the progressive cause, worthy of derision or outright hatred.
As Hillary Clinton is finding out, should she be peeking at some of the progressive blog sites.
The irony, of course, is that those who support Hillary (and they, too, are legion), are NOT mere individuals whose intransigence can be punished with easy banishment, because they are themselves an important identity group within the progressive coalition. Meaning that, to label them as somehow inauthentic progressives, say, is to risk alienating precisely the kind of bloc vote the progressivist braintrust requires to commandeer the ship of state.
And so we are left with the spectacle of watching progressives — who have built their entire movement on deconstructing individualism and stoking group-based grievance mongering — forced to beg for some sort of reconciliation, an internal importuning to put aside differences (much less “celebrate” them) in an effort to find a cohesive common ground that relies not on the localized instances of identity politics (represented by race or sex or orientation), but rather on the more essential design of the identity politics movement, namely, the ascension of the only “identity politics” that ever really mattered to the academic and progressive elite: progressive’s taking over the reins of political power.
In short, the cynical design of the entire identity politics project has been laid bare — and, as a bonus for those of us who have fought the pernicious philosophy of multiculturalism from the outset, the squabbling and rancor evident throughout this battle to see which group’s claims were ultimately to be privileged, has likely opened a few eyes among both the opportunists and their dutiful lemmings with respect to the treacherous footing that lies beneath a worldview built upon intellectual plywood.
— Which, one might hope, would reinvigorate classical liberalism — though sadly, the likely outcome is rather a redoubling of the efforts within the multiculturalist camp to repair the exposed rifts with a lot of backroom dealing and rhetorical placating.
The Emperor, you see, is not really naked, now-bitter identity politics losers will be told. Rather, he was engaging in a bit of performance art meant to ironize the condition of his own nudity as it has been used as a “conservative” object lesson, and for a while there, some progressives simply didn’t see the genius of such a post-moralist deconstruction.
Soon, however, O! will be King. And then? FRESH HORSES FOR ALL OUR MEN/WOMYN/OTHERS!
(h/t Terry Hastings)
Incidentally, if none of this makes sense, I claim vacation hangover. That, and it’s raining for the second straight day, meaning the tan I fought so hard for is fading away like a Hillary Clinton presidential dream.
And, yeah, there are at least sentences with more than 100 words in them.
What are you gonna do about it?
Jeff,
Great analysis. Glad you made it back from MD safely. Good to have you back on the blog.
Well, the problem with the post is that you simply said it all, Jeff. Any comment (by me) would be superfluous. It has truly been a wonder to behold – the fight between the two factions. I say the ride isn’t over just yet. O is stuck between a rock and a hard bitch. He both cannot and must pick Billary as his running mate.
It’s just delicious.
Oh, and the weather sux here in Michigan as well. Second straight day I’ve been uninspired to enter my garden. poo
Watching the loony Dems descend into vicious intra-mural infighting over who is “authentic” and who is “privileged” is one of the few enjoyable aspects of this horrendously extended campaign “season”.
So, like, don’t try and piss in my beer, dude.
Glad to see and read you, Jeff.
BTW, I think you mean that the gambit id decidedly unhealthy.
But you have sorta explained why so much performance “art” and Leftist protest seems to be based around the display of pasty naked flesh.
Isn’t the UN Commission on Human Rights already doing a report on racism in the United States already? Couldn’t we just get Special Rapporteur Doudou to include sexism in the report?
Amazing, Jeff, that you can be so cynical now that the sick will be treated and the earth will begin to heal itself. I think I saw the level of the Pacific lower just a tad this morning, too. Might’ve been the tide though.
Seeing that the earth as a running mate would pose a logistical problem for jetting around in Air Force One, and a lapel pin that would have to be manufactured to be about the size of Texas, I presume Barry will choose a running mate from the “sick” identity group. Perhaps Al Gore with the post-Taco Bell runs?
At least the Dems have shown us that it is more socially acceptable to be a sexist as opposed to being a racist.
Yeah, I meant ‘unhealthy.’ Fixed that. Also, I’m moving this post up for a bit. I so rarely have time to post these days that I like people to see that I’m at least making an effort.
Do know that Karl’s new post is just below this, people. Later, I’ll move it back up to the top.
Horses? No, Mules. Hopefully good eatin’ mules considering the state of the economy under Bush.
O!
Jeff,
Don’t move the post back on my account. I was just rushing to post due to Dan’s vacation and did not check to see whether anyone had posted while I was typing. As you know, had I seen your post, I would have given it time to breathe at the top.
I am disgusted.. DISGUSTED, I say.. by the spectacle of this young black ram tupping the old white ewe..
And so we are left with the spectacle of watching progressives …in an effort to find a cohesive common ground…
Obama = “blacks.” Hillary = womyn. Lawrence Summers/Don Imus/Jeff G. = common enemy, common ground.
And there will be Unity!
From the Washington Post:
If that’s to be believed then Clinton is completely immersed in the vat of identity politics kool-aide. Perhaps the one thing that made a significant difference was Obama avoiding, at least overtly, any race based whining about this or that. He ended up coming off as more gracious and less invested, whereas Clinton, with a big assist from Ferraro and Billy Jeff, presented a more “bitter” sexual identity martyr complex.
It’s great to have you back and, may I also say, you have my sympathies for the horrific injury plaque that the Rocks have siffered. That is just brutal.
Some in the Clinton tong profess not to understand what happened to her.
It’s actually pronounced “dong”.
The Clinton “dong”….
No.. Not even the Clintons understand the Clinton Dong.. It has a mind and a will all it’s own.
I have to agree on the inevitable karma bit. Hillary’s hubby managed to hang onto the identity-fem bloc despite being what he is. Having demonstrated that they’ll sell out the sisterhood for a Dem president regardless of his behavior toward womyn, they ought to have expected their support to be taken even more for granted someday than the black vote.
That “someday” came when Hillary herself ran for president, tops off the irony with a nice karmal topping, with nuts and a cherry.
The symbolism of which, I have no idea what it means.
Okay. You may all now proceed on to the next topic. My work here is done.
Ah, the sweet, sweet Schadenfreude of the the chickens of identity politics coming home to roost.
Look, he left a silver bullet!
James Ceaser appeared yesterday (04/06)am on C-span Washington Journal to talk about a report entitled “E Pluribus Unum: the Bradley Project on America’s National Identity”.
http://www.bradleyproject.org/bradleyprojectpress.html
He had to endure a spate of ugly phone callers but endure them he did.
And here I thought everyone looked gorgeous on the phone.
Well, except maybe Fran Drescher and Harvey Fierstein.
It’s pretty damn easy to accept garden variety victimhood these days. What proves difficult is being the worst victim amongst a hoard of other victims.
Whose pride could ever stand that sort of thrashing?
The Left will not soon give up its multiculti project. There are too many identity groups that have been promised they’re going to be the Serbs in this fight. Nobody’s been promised the Kosovar slot, though all but one will get it.
OMG, will I ever stop laughing? McGeeHee, what a hoot!
Glad to see a Jeff post! Excellent as usual. Welcome back!
Democrat Diversity Points
Black – 10 points
Muslim – 9 points
Gay – 8 points
Disabled – 7 points
Native American – 6 points
Hispanic – 5 points (bonus point if you self-identify as Latino)
Female – 4 points
Asian American – 3 points
Jewish – 2 points
White – Ha ha ha. You’re kidding, right?
Male – (-2) points
This result makes perfect sense when you score it on a Democrat Diversity Points scale. The only way Hillary had a *chance* is if she came “out” (female + gay = 12). Of course a similar nasty, unproven rumor is that Obama is Muslim, which would have empowered him to totally dust Hillary (Black + Muslim = 19, but he loses two points for being a guy – but he’s a “safe” sorta neutered, “well spoken” black guy so he gets the points back). Of course Hillary has been known to summon distant ancient Jewish relatives from the grave, retroactively converting them (2 points) and if she was willing to give her left arm to be president, cutting it off and making herself disabled, that *might* have done the trick (woman (4) + gay (8) + Jewish (2) + disabled (7) = 21), but that only works if Obama refuses to play the upbringing-in-Hawaii card, which technically gives him some Asian-American ties, and an additional 3 points for a grand total of 22.
So any way you cut it, Obama was going to come out ahead in this dream matchup of specially privileged classes.
Rumor has it the gals of NOW are even now working on a way to give that Men factor a -8 score. It’s been a long term project for them.
Look, he left a silver bullet!
A dropped round for his AK-Slong of Death.
So the Republicans need to come up with a Black, Gay, Disabled Muslim Female for ’12. I’ll start looking around down this way.
It would help if she wore a Burkha, but loved to fuck for any other reason than pro-creation, BMoe.
Maybe check the art galleries.
Art galleries are second on my list, right after wheelchair accessible organic food co-ops.
Hey, I’m just thinkin out loud here.. but if someone can convince Hoopper X to get a sex change operation and register as Republican I think we got a winner for ’12..
How many points is a transgender worth? It’s got to be pretty high cuz it’s like a gay guy that has his junk surgically removed.. That would bring in the gay vote..The (black) Muslim vote.. The little pink mafia vote and the really screwed up sexual identity vote..
A quote from Hooper X;
Black rage!!! Black rage!!! I kill all white folks I lay my motherfuckin’ eyes on!!
I know a Black Muslim Female. Do I have to disable her and convince her that she’s gay, or do you think she could just fake it?
Get your ration of warrior-killbots here.
OK.. If you dont know Chasing Amy then you dont know what I was talking about..
presenting, 2012 candidate,HOOPER X
Some choice tid-bits from Slart’s link:
Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human.
…
American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity.
…
The reality and the ideal tragically clash when soldiers and Marines return home. These combat veterans are often alienated from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation.
Where do they find these guys? It must be like those stories we heard when we were kids about those Japanese soldiers lost on some remote Pacific island who didn’t know the WWII was over. The media goes around and finds these old hippies hiding in the bathroom of some anarchist bookstore who don’t know Viet Nam is over and they hire them to write columns. Only thing I can figure.
Im surprised no one has said this – ‘Free Horses for Humans? SPECIEST!!!!11!!1’
The thing is, there’s a certain group of people, B Moe, that laps this kind of crap up like it’s a fudgesicle. Probably a preconceived-notion-reinforcement thing.
Oddly, there’s a lot of overlap between those people and people who constantly complain about Rush Limbaugh’s radio audience. Self-awareness doesn’t abound.
B Moe – any assertion can be made if it is done with enough emotion, invokes victims all around, and ignores unpleasant little things like facts. Soldiers as the villians and victims at the same time? Classic!!!
Synchronicity: the author of that piece wrote a book called American Fascists, which drew nary a peep of outrage from the Greenwald crowd. Probably because it’s about people the Left tend to dislike.
Guess it all depends on whose sacred ox is getting gored.
American Fascists, of course. Liberal fascists? Don’t be absurd.
Progressives are trying to save us, don’t you know. From the fascists who promote a climate of fear, trample the Constitution, torture, falsely imprison, spy, etc — and it could be you next!
My God. It’s like these people accidentally put their irony meters in the microwave while reheating that leftover Quinoa.
Guess it all depends on whose sacred ox is getting gored.
For an example, see the Democrat’s primary fight, Slart. It is a lesson on not getting so focused on the trees that you forget the forest you are walking through; never forget to surface for air and re-orient yourself to where you are.
From the fascists who promote a climate of fear
But… I thought we were promoting a climate of catastrophic warming. Could someone check to see if I got dropped from the memo distribution list?
Art galleries are second on my list, right after wheelchair accessible organic food co-ops.
Be sure the co-op has a “Hallal” section and you should be good to go.
Slart: Yet another fucking stupid “vets are crazed killer/victims of the MAN” pile of turds vomited from the progtards. yay. It must be nice not to have to come up with anything new for an arguement.
All this fear out there needs a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER™! Vote Hussein ’08
The politics of identity meet the piranha of dissipativity. And all is right again in the world.
Did Ed Rendell ever believe that the 794 superdelegates, weeded from the party’s topsoil, would decide that of the two candidates’ constituencies – Hillary’s “women†and “white†voters and Barack’s black voters – they would stiff Sen. Obama’s nearly 90% black base? So long as he led her by one delegate, this was never going to happen.
So only black people voted for Obama? Really. Okay, that statement alone is enough for me to dismiss every fucking stupid thing said after it. Basing analysis on utterly fallacious fuckery is really a waste of time. I am disappointed that you even bothered with such errant dog-whistling nonsense.
He was running as the “post racial hip liberal guy who appeals to the same people who love oprah, argula, and MacBooks”. She was running as that too until he took those voters away from her. The old school liberal like Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton see themselves as warriors for equality – with themselves being the elite leaders of the movement. There is another generation that sees them as having become entrenched, entitled, and irrelevant – and terrified of those whose equality they were fighting for actually becoming equal enough to them to ask them to step aside.
But I do agree with you on this (and conservatives have been saying this for years): Democrats, as self-appointed gods and goddesses of inclusion are full of shit.
A commenter at Pandagon put it perfectly:
this is such an important post. I don’t have an answer. We are simply seeing a deep seated truth about people played out before our eyes. That truth is that it is easier to be generous and politically a risk taker at a distance than it is up close–its easier to fight for civil rights when someone else’s ox is gored than your own, its easier to push for busing in someone else’s city than yours, its easier to say you will vote for someone not of your ethnic group when the choice doesn’t seem to involve any sacrifice of privilige. I think a lot of liberal white people have falsley congratulated themselves on their disinterested and non racist liberalism as long as they could still experience the privilige of being the leaders and they are truly shocked and frightened by the still undigested realism of a new movement towards equality that isn’t white led and white dominated. Just like there were a lot more men advocating for women’s rights before women actually seized control of what that would mean and who would get invited to talk at conferences or run for office.
For conservatives and a certain class of ethnic white workers non whites are a real and acknowledged problem–a source of conflict, a source of crime, a source of “the welfare state†and they are pretty up front about it. For white liberals and middle class people racism and racist policy prescriptions were something we either thought we were fighting against, or are largely over with and a problem of lower classes/conservative politicking. Now we are going to be brought face to face with the fact that we were just pretending, in many cases that we thought or wanted to yield priviliged positions to african americans in politics or society. I think a lot of white responses to Michelle Obama especially, but also to Barack Obama are based on the fact that they don’t even pretend to be “humble†about their struggle and their successes. They don’t even pretend to be waiting for permission from the white hiearchy or from white voters. They’ve presented themselves as ready,w illing, able and intending to break barriers and rule. And on some fundamnetal level (and I would say this also happened to all the first women who broke barriers politically) that is felt as an intolerable level of arrogance by some white voters.
More than this “battle of the identity warriors” meme, I see a generation angry because they still think it is their turn. Further, they are perplexed as to how a supposedly oppressed minority managed to be sleeker, more organized, and more appealing to voters than them when they were supposed to be too busy being oppressed to actually be competitive.
No sharks with frickin’ laser beams on thier heads? Serr8d, I am so disappointed in you; the lessons at Evil Overlord Academy didn’t take, I see.
Now me – it would be to invite both Amadinejad and Khatmanjani over, and have Khatmanjani wake up with Amadinejad’s head in his bed. Classic, but with a twist that keeps it from getting stale. They should fear their Evil Overlord for a long time, not just in the few seconds it takes a tank of piranhas to skeletalize a man.
Lisa,
I cannot speak for Jeff, but I read the part you quoted as referring to the 90% support Obama is getting from blacks, not as a suggestion that 90% of Obama voters are black. I can see how you read it the other way, but I think Jeff is merely suggesting that the supers were not going to alienate a key Dem constituency like the black vote by overturning the pledged delegate results if those results favored Obama.
Actually, Lisa, your comment underlines the identity politics that are tearing at the Democrats, and at all progressives. When the emphasis isn’t on the last half of ‘hyphenated-American’ that is what you get, a fight by small groups to control the greater entity for the benefit of their own group and not the whole. The word ‘Balkanization’ was made for that; another example is ‘Lebanon’.
With those examples I urge you and all thinking people to be very careful of the wind when you sow.
thor,
I didn’t write this post. Pull your head out.
And thor can be ignored as always. He is exercising his beer muscles without the disadvantage of actually being in a bar when he does so.
steve – ignore
matoko – mostly ignore
thor – ignore
No there there; as it was, and is, and will be forever. Amen.
Hmmmm, you are probably right Karl. But the quoted text does not mention the substantially larger chunk of non-black voters that gave Obama the nod. I don’t think Jeff is necessarily playing this game. But I have seen this casual/possibly calculated and erroneous statement floated quite a bit lately: Obama won on the black vote, Hillary won on the white vote. Even if every black American (including black cats and chocolate labradors) came out to vote, it still wouldn’t even get Obama enough votes to even surpas Paul Tsongas. It annoys me to even see that kind of stuff quoted.
Sorry for the long comment, btw. Had to get it off my chest. I have been reading the liberal blogs with my mouth hanging open lately. People have gone bloody mad.
I have faith in Jeff’s ability to recognize who is being addressed. The lead chihuahua, not so much.
Oh Mikey I could not agree more. This has been a “learning moment” for all liberals. I don’t think it is necessarily bad to want to fight for equality. It is how you do it. Do you punish one person for another person’s misfortune? Do you appoint yourself king and keeper of the oppressed? That kind of shit has proven to be bullshit. Making this country a place where everyone CAN (if they feel like it) succeed without someone trying to block a mothafucka is the goal, not artificially transferring wealth and privilege and appointing yourself the Keeper of the Keys to equality.
What Karl said in #51.
In other words, the Dems were more willing to dis women than blacks, because of the hierarchy of victimhood in #28.
As for Hillary’s sense of entitlement, I don’t think she sees herself as being entitled because she’s white but because she’s Hillary. Think of it: if another white woman had eclipsed her the way that Obama did, would she be any less outraged? Feminist Dems wouldn’t be upset, but Hillary most definitely would.
That’s why Pfleger’s narrative is lacking: Bill and Hill are raging narcissists, and narcissists always believe that they are entitled to whatever they want.
Seriously, who voted against Hillary because she’s female? Everyone who hates Hillary has a problem with her personally, not with her plumbing. Puh-leeze. Ferraro’s full of it.
As for the Pandagon quote, we on the Right have known for decades that white liberals “championed” the cause of minorities to assuage their guilty white consciences, so that they could feel all benevolent and charitable and morally superior and warm and holy for supporting the politically correct positions.
Why else do you think they are untroubled about the fact that most of the policies that are designed to help the afflicted actually do quite a bit of harm and in fact keep them on the welfare plantation? If they were truly well-intentioned, they would have the honesty to admit that their ideas don’t work the way they thought they would, and that it’s more important to actually improve the lot of the oppressed than it is to publicly preen on the moral high ground.
We conservatives say, “come sit by me, on my level; I’ll give you a hand,” whereas the elitist lefties say, “oh, you poor thing. I’m the only one who can save you; here, depend on me so that I can look good.”
Anyway, I am going to take my little post-racial niece to the park to play with some white devils.
See you in a bit.
thor,
My point was that even in an attack on Jeff, you were compelled to refer to me twice. Put down the copy of Fatal Attraction.
Making this country a place where everyone CAN (if they feel like it) succeed without someone trying to block a mothafucka is the goal
Um, Lisa? I hate to tell you this, but you’re actually a conservative if you believe this. Lefties believe that equality (perfection) should be achieved by a top-down, for-your-own-damn-good coersion, whereas conservatives think that we’re better off if we let people find their own way, including providing assistance to the disadvantaged.
Not everyone wants to live in the big house or drive the big car. I live modestly and am fine. No envy of the rich, here.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 6/5 @ 5:22 pm #
And thor can be ignored as always. He is exercising his beer muscles without the disadvantage of actually being in a bar when he does so.
steve – ignore
matoko – mostly ignore
thor – ignore
No there there; as it was, and is, and will be forever. Amen.
You’re that white girl who worked at the concierge desk. I’m Kobe Bryant.
Kobe, Kobe, Kobe!
thor pretends to be a black man. Pretty much explains it all.
O!
You still can’t get a date, thor. And if true, the paparazzi would have a field day when you got bounced.
Your obsession with sexual assault is disturbing; perhaps that should be looked into. I know our host as had dealings with this sort of perversion from commenters before.
Seriously – seek some professional help with your rage. You can’t take polite criticism without expressing physical and/or sexual abuse, and though I am not a psychologist, it doesn’t sound real healthy.
#57 Lisa – I think it has gone beyond punishing one person for another person’s misfortune, I think it has reached punishing one person for their fortune, no matter that the person being punished hasn’t caused any other person’s misfortune. As an example I will cite Michelle Obama. She has no call to be decrying after she has had such good fortune. I, also, am a lawyer, but I did not go to Harvard, and I certainly do not make what she makes in a year. But I do not be grudge her that; I am quite happy with my career and what I do, both at work and in my free time. I am kept comfortable – warmed, fed, clothed, and with money for small luxuries. In my free time with the USCGAUX I help my country and my fellow citizens (and the citizens of Canada we run across who are in trouble).
I am not ashamed for what I have, I worked for it, and am happy with it. For all of the pain it is a good life, and I am thankful for pulling the winning ticket and being born American so that I can live this life. I guess I am a glass half-full guy, and not a glass half-empty guy, let alone a glass half-empty which is also cracked and dirty guy.
I don’t say that the cardinal sins don’t fall on me – I have envied, I have been wrathful, I have hated, etc. – but I concentrate on my blessings and am grateful.
I also want to say that I try to keep both horses – passion and reason – in harness. Each is necessary to be human. Without passion you are an automaton, a Terminator. Without reason you are a mere animal, bloody in tooth and claw. That is why I rarely refere to the candidates as othe than Sens. Clinton, McCain, or Obama. It allows reason to guide passion, to avoid a wreck, to avoid eating crow. Directed passion, as it were, better for personal health and the health of the Republic to which I owe my allegiance and my gratitude, for I have read of the rest of the world, and I am grateful that I am an American.
To be king and keeper of the oppressed implies that you want to keep them oppressed. No thanks, too much responsibility, too much weight on the soul.
Being a liberator is a better job description. “You are freed, I will help you, but you have to take charge of your own lives.”
Who wants slaves when willing followers are a better measure of your own worth?
#59 – Lisa:
What I learned as a camp couselor and an uncle is to devise things so that the kids run around and you don’t. Makes them go to bed before you do.
As an example – when we had the soccer block with the kids they would form the teams, the counselors would be the goalies. We didn’t run as much and when we got the ball we would whale it down the field. Keep the little beggers running – they love it and they’ll pass out around 8:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Lisa
that Pandagonian is talking about herself/leftists, even as the nice little bigoted meme
wanders in yet again.
Conservatives are not the ones that hear the word “crime” and immediately think “black” or “Mexican”.
This is just so old.
#61: I do believe that, and I am a liberal. Liberals come in many shapes and sizes. And you will find that if you talk to many liberals under the age of 50, you will find that they have a decidedly “non-sixties liberal” view. Not saying that some have not been spoon fed the “to be successful is to be evil” meme. But really, witness the interliberal fight over the ridiculous gas tax “sock it to ’em” proposal that Hillary trotted out a few weeks back. The proposal was greeted with almost universal scorn by most of the “young arugula eating elitists”. The scorn, in turn, was greeted by cries of outrage by mostly older folks who claimed that that we were not real liberals because we didn’t recognize a proper handout when we saw one.
I would describe myself and most of the liberals that I call my contemporaries as mostly very very socially liberal but not as big of a wild-eyed Chomskyite as you would think. I don’t scream and run at the idea of government programs. But I don’t think throwing new agencies, programs or entitlements at every problem is a great idea either. I think the market works perfectly fine most of the time. That does not mean that I am not liberal.
#69: Yeah, I think that was an unnecessary and inaccurate dig – a pretty broad brush. But the rest of it was pretty spot on.
Good stuff Jeff,
Incidentally, if none of this makes sense, I claim vacation hangover.
Actually, this post is one of the few serious ones you’ve written that I read straight through, and knew the definitions of all the words and understood each sentence without reading it more than once.
I’m so proud.
Mikey NTH, good stuff. I think the country has been divided into those who see a lapel pin and feel pride, and those who don’t.
Lisa, I would totally like to sit down, have a few beers, and shoot the shit with you. And our significant others of course.
Thor, you are an ass.
#67: Exactly. It is amusing to see those “keepers” reveal that they were shocked to look around and find that in spite of those terrible 60s welfare programs, the poor oppressed had managed to slip by them and continue to be part of the working class, enter into (ZOMG) the middle class, the upper class, and (WTF!!) the really upper class.
They thought the oppressed would stay where they belonged so that they – the enlightened – could live out some bullshit Welcome Back Kotter fantasies forever whenever the mood hit them. It has come as quite a shock to them that they have not been taking advantage of Midnight Basketball programs, but getting all fancy and edumacated.
el Jeffe might not get it…thinking it’s the Narrative again. Nope. It was the hope, the charisma, the intelligence, the exotic, the charm….and only a tinsy l’il bit of ‘identity’ politics. Blacks only came around to Obama from the Clintons when they saw he was for real and because he was articulate and had a huge impact upon initially mostly younger white technological sophisticates (a good campaigner w/ Silicon valley types for sure). And Oprah, who has a bigger white audience than a black one. Anyway, his being a good writer is more like part of it. Now if Jeff would run for dog catcher or justice of the peace perhaps, he’d know what it’s about.
Hillary lost it for two reasons….a poor campaign at the start (but it got much better in the end run but not enough to offset Barack’s great start) and she lost Not because of ‘sexism’ as actually her gender was a Huge Asset. She lost due to Lying, and being a Clinton. The Clinton’s are a love-hate thing in the Democratic Party. For every Democrat there’s usually a smarter one that hates the Clintons…mostly for their lying.
Jeffe’s looking at the elephant blindly (maybe checking the hindquarters and getting heaped on after pulling the weensy elephant’s tail, from that ‘identy’ Jeff has described the Democratic party. The So-called “progressives” (a misnomer as that faction is somewhat to the left of the party…but with good enough name recognition …like ‘socialists’ in the early 20th century Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council (a conservative Democrat lobby) co-opted the ‘progressive’ label …just muddying up the whole concept and the word. From what I see here, seems like you don’t know that. That “Progressives” are hardly unitary or even in the same party. (the Progressive is someone more like Bernie Sanders or Nader who are critical of the Democratic party for it’s conservatism..while the Clinton’s ‘co-opted’ the word. Co-option is a common political trick and effective. Judging from Jeff’s writing I doubt he’s knowledgeable about the DLC and the “Third Way”.
Market Segmentation is only part of how to sell a candidate, a product, an idea. Categorization the demographic is certainly as arsenal of the Reicht, ala Karl Rove et al. Conservatives are self identified and living ever and ever in their own well-off or less well-off segregated colonies. ( more and more Americans generally live in districts of like minded folks: i.e. Orange County, CA and Atlanta white suburbs are overwhelming white and conservative and NYC, NY, Austin TX, Portland , OR generally can be relied upon to be overwhelmingly diverse and liberal.
Lisa, you’re uttering entirely too much sense. You must be a ‘liberal’.
So you guys continue to make a liar out of me. I keep saying that I am going to stay out of these conversations but I end up yapping away on PW anyway (my beloved progressive bloggers, with the exception of a few, have leaped so high over the shark during this primiary thing that the discussions about race and gender have gone beyond surreal into Blue Velvet/Mulholland Drive crazy).
Stop putting up this thought provoking analysis stuff. You are supposed to be Bushitleritssbrownshirts.
Blacks only came around to Obama from the Clintons when they saw he was for real and because he was articulate and had a huge impact upon initially mostly younger white technological sophisticates (a good campaigner w/ Silicon valley types for sure). And Oprah, who has a bigger white audience than a black one. Anyway, his being a good writer is more like part of it.
Exactly. People forget how deeply beloved the Clintons were (and probably will still be after everyone gets over this kerfuffle) by black people and brown people at the outset of this primary. He initially received with a very, very frosty shoulder – just another candidate no one knew anything about. He had to pull off a couple of surprise wins for people to say holyfuckingshit, this guy might be viable! And he is a brotha! What the..!??!?!
And Lisa, I hope they continue to get educated and reach as high as they can. I don’t hate people unless they hate me, and why would I want my country to be cursed with people who won’t take opportunities that most of the world would kill to get? To be born American is to win the earth’s lottery ticket – what you do with that ticket is your own call.
And like lee said – it would be a privilege to share a couple of drinks with you and shoot the breeze. If you are planning to go Lansing-ward, just drop a comment here. I haunt this site – as you know too well.
“Okay. You may all now proceed on to the next topic. My work here is done.”
aw, jhezz, I can’t say, ‘carry on’. ( or what the buzzard likes to eat..)
Lee, Mikey: Right back atcha. And I would be most honored.
One guy I know did take advantage of the midnight basketball programs. He became a mentor/teacher/whatever for one of them. Not one person ever showed up to get schooled, so his position remained rather vague.
So he read books and filled notebooks and did drugs (to stay awake) and shot a million free throws in various empty parks and rec centers around the city for a couple seasons, for pretty hefty pay — especially for a young uneducated weirdo. He used the cash he was suddenly flush with to fund some art projects. One of them made him semi-famous, and he remains just enough so that he doesn’t have to work for anybody, fifteen or so years later.
So there you go. Without that fake job, there’d be one less self-employed, way-off-the-plantation black man in America. Well done, Al Gore.
(beer is the great uniter)
#75 Lisa – remember that passion and reason are twin horses to be kept in harness. I can’t always do that, but I strive to keep them there. Never burn a bridge before you know you won’t have to cross it again. (Heh.) Alas, I will have to call this night as there is much on my plate tomorrow.
#82: Night Mike. Nice talking to you, as always.
Karl is correct. And just because something isn’t excerpted doesn’t mean it isn’t addressed in the original. Henninger does address the point, in fact, further on in the piece. Or maybe it was in the video. At any rate, I provided the link.
And of course, datadave misses the point — which is about as surprising as finding a donut wedged under one of Michael Moore’s breasts. It matters not why blacks voted for Obama at a 90% clip. What’s under analysis here is the place the Democrats find themselves in because of the particular political philosophy they’ve adopted — and the pressures this puts on the delegates to make a choice between identity groups, both of whom are represented by someone vying for “first ___________ president.”
In other words, multiculturalism itself is being exposed here for what it is as a result of what it does.
Of course, I could be missing YOUR point, datadave, because to be honest, I didn’t read beyond the first 8 words or so.
As for thor…well, it bears noting that Democrats themselves are talking about the very kinds of things I’m talking about here. But beyond that, I don’t deal at all in this post with why people voted for either Hillary or Obama. Like datadave, thor seems to think that explaining the dynamics behind the thinking of the superdelegates of a party built around identity politics is the same as explaining the opinions of voters. The two don’t necessarily track — though there are of course overlaps.
There are plenty of people who support Clinton and Obama for quite legitimate reasons, I suspect — just as there are those who support McCain under that same description. Similarly, there are those who support candidates for reasons having to do more with political calculation or personal satisfaction than with any genuine belief in the candidate’s abilities to handle, for instance, foreign policy.
I’m not sure what “KK” means, though, so I can’t comment any further. Other than to say if thor is now calling me out, he’s welcome to bring his A game. Talk of “fancy lingua-strutting” excuse making would only bother me were the person making the observation capable of understanding the scope of the argument in the first place. Meanwhile, his rejoinder is nothing but an attempt at fancy lingua strutting — only with his typical thor-esque edge.
Beyond that, it’s nothing different than the kind of shit I’ve heard from any number of left wing bloggers who use it as a preferred method of attack. My problems with Obama lie with his political philosophy, and I can’t fathom how anyone who believes in individual liberty can back a man whose writings and legislative record (such as it is) place him so far to the left that I’m confounded that he has yet to fall off the face of the earth.
thor uses “Leftards” yet seems content to support their King. Could be all part of some elaborate meta joke, but if I’m not in on it, then fuck if I care.
Something’s getting lost in all this, and it’s getting me more and more irritated.
Look back at this whole thread. You’re all, even Jeff, treating this like a simple contest. Hit all the right squares, do the right thing when the d20 comes up 17, get $200 when you pass go, and the best player gets the prize, right? Thor and datadave are the most explicit about it, but that’s the whole thrust of the discussion.
Six-foot-high chrome-plated cup, and Tha Winnah! gets to stand between two pretty girls and spray the audience with champagne, and everybody goes home and starts gearing up for the next contest. Boy, that guy/gal/cnidarian can campaign! Can’t wait to see what happens at Talladega…
But it’s not a prize, dammit.
It’s the Presidency of the United States. What we’re talking about here is very likely the hardest f*ing job in the f*ing world. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, being discussed here that has anything to do with whether or not Candidate A has a worm in a blender’s chance of doing the job; only whether he/she/it is clever enough or can spin hard enough to get the job. It’s as if the winner-on-points of the Winston Cup[1] was going directly from the award ceremony to the Presidency of General Motors.
There are a few, a very few, on the Right who seem to think the job as a job should be a significant factor; most of them are as embedded in the horserace-audience as the Left, who seem in their entirety (yes, I’m sorry, you, too, Lisa) to have adopted the attitude that the goal, the end of the process is getting a particular name engraved on a plaque that sits on the desk in an odd-shaped room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20022.
Now, to be truthful with you, I don’t think McCain can do the job, either, but the fact that the Republicans’ process was and remains a little more genteel than the Democrats’ doesn’t mean a damn thing, because it’s still focussed on the contest aspect. And what that means is that whichever one of these jerks wins, it’s Jimmy Carter squared: a President who doesn’t know what the f* he is doing in a position where OJT is the only training available, and the OJT is brutal.
Is that all we can have any more? Is it f*ing Carters all the way down, forever and ever? I weep.
Regards,
Ric
I respectfully disagree, Ric. I haven’t written much during the primaries because I don’t much care about the horserace stuff — though I understand that others do, and that Karl is particularly adept at covering that aspect of the campaign season.
Like you, I don’t believe anyone available to us is capable of doing the job. And I’ve told everyone that who’s asked me. I’m not likely to pull the lever for McCain simply so a particular side gets in — unless I feel ultimately compelled to at least roll the dice on getting a decent SCOTUS nominee out of Maverick Statist.
Obama is Carter with a tan.
This post, however, was sparked by a discussion of identity politics, a topic on which I’ve shown a consistent investment. Which is what brought me out of hiding today.
Beyond that, I spend most of the day in the depths of political despair. I simply don’t have the energy to battle the collective idiocy of the millions of people buying into Obama’s hokum. They’ve been schooled to think as they do. The fact that one of the underpinnings of their schooling is being exposed, therefore, is worth pointing out — and it’s the best I can muster just now.
Sue me.
Well, yeah, Jeff, I know you try, and I enjoy the Hell out of your dissections. Trouble is, if everybody else is handicapping the horse race, you find yourself in the position of racecourse vet — are they healthy? doped? are their teeth good? legs sound? — whose determinations will be used by the punters at the $20 window. You’re trapped. It’s the only job available, and somebody’s got to do it.
What nishi, thor, and datadave are telling us is that stupid irrelevant stuff like “qualifications” not only doesn’t matter, it’s positively damaging. If one horse stops along the way to show off its conformation and dressage skills and have its teeth looked at, the one that doesn’t interrupt the gallop with any such silliness is gonna romp to the pole. I can’t say they aren’t right, but dammit, there’s more to it than the next f*ing race!
Regards,
Ric
I hear you. Truth is, though, I’m about three quarters of the way to becoming Gulliver on his arrival home. Most nights I prefer to sleep in the barn.
**sigh**
Anybody got a recommendation for a good biography of Juan Perón? More importantly, is there any information on how ordinary Argentinos got by, circa 1952 or so? I think we’re all gonna need that data in a little while.
Regards,
Ric
Is it f*ing Carters all the way down, forever and ever?
Nope, just turtles, same as ever.
Seriously, though, I feel the same quite often. But I think that the reason we are focused on the horse race is because that’s all there is at this point. The time to vet candidates for their ability to handle the job (or to think about the direction we want the country to go) was last year, before the primaries started.
But what came out of the laundry was two left socks and an a pair of old underpants that have lost their elasticity. Watching the Emperor parade around in that getup is the only entertainment in town anymore.
Yeah, it’s extremely depressing. I’m waiting for the moment when we all get fed up enough to engage in some significant civil disobedience.
I do believe that, and I am a liberal.
Then perhaps you’re a JFK liberal, which means that you used to be aligned with the Democratic party, but that party shifted Left big-time. Folks like you have often had to find a home among the conservatives (classical liberals) or the libertarians.
Read this and this by someone who used to be a liberal, too.
I don’t know how the Argentinos did it, but for me it’s time to start digging under those sofa cushions far more regularly.
My understanding is they became excellent singers.
**sigh**
I just saw somewhere that the first season of Mannix has been released on DVD. Boomers (of which I am one) appear to be sliding down the Alzheimer’s slope. Probably that means it makes sense to adopt the life motto of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
Regards,
Ric
I picked up the complete “Square Pegs” on DVD. Man, did I ever have the hots for Muffy Tepperman…
Oh. And a deluxe Dirty Harry collector’s set just came out, as well. I recommend that, and Death Wish 1&2. As a kind of primer on how to deal with thuggery in a Utopia wherein even foreign intel gathering is a hate crime.
I have read it somewhere, but I don’t remember when and I am too fucked up to look for it right now, but the problem started back with whoever it was decided that democracy was no longer a synonym for mob rule but a valuable concept to demagogue and introduced it as a legitimate concept in modern political thought. That seriously fucked everything up, and until we figure out how to undo it I don’t see much of a future for the country. Seriously.
“But what came out of the laundry was two left socks and an a pair of old underpants that have lost their elasticity. Watching the Emperor parade around in that getup is the only entertainment in town anymore.
Yeah, it’s extremely depressing.”
I tell my wife when she comes to me with news about the race that I don’t have a horse in it anymore. I try to look at everything that is happening in it and laugh about it. Dark humor but it’s either that of tear what’s left of my hair out.
So I keep plugging away at “real life” and maybe someday that old underwear will tighten up a bit.
We need to have another Boston Tea Party, only this time it is no representation without taxation. You gotta pay to play. You cannot use the government as an instrument of plunder.
Fuck them all and sleep ’til noon, by God.
Galt’s Gulch, I’m serious.
Except that it was also its own type of Utopia. We’d all retreat to wherever Mountain Time Zone, yo) and then fight amongst ourselves about how to be.
Or not. I guess we could strip back to the Constitution, convene an new congress, and start over.
Galt’s Gulch, I’m serious.
I was thinking that, too, but then I got to thinking of all those national strike the laborers in France are so proud of and I got to thinking: what if the producers went on strike instead?
What if all you robberbarons out there that own businesses just said, fuck it, we are shutting down for a week, y’all are on your own.
“Making this country a place where everyone CAN (if they feel like it) succeed without someone trying to block a mothafucka is the goal, not artificially transferring wealth and privilege and appointing yourself the Keeper of the Keys to equality.”
Well Oprah Winfrey built her empire from the ground up, on her own,toiling for decades yet for some odd reason it took the nomination of Obama for Liberals to notice that this country is a place where everyone CAN succeed except the problem with Obama is that his success was built by sucking up to THE MAN who is the Keeper of the Keys to the exclusive Chicago VIP room.
Lisa think about this, you’re basicially saying that Oprah WInfrey didn’t have the correct gender for you to notice that the BATTLE for EQUALITY has aready been won.
In a way the Democratic Party is far from making history, as a matter of fact they’re repeating the same shit over and over which is why they stink all the time.
hey, thor. good job. especially the comment about “You act as if everything requires a tortured deconstruction. ”
Jeff, basically, is politically illiterate. “Multiculturalalism” is only a minor part of the ‘schooling’ going on. Republicans have had the executive branch and now the judicial branch in govt for sometime now and they’ve ‘schooled’ us plenty about “lefttards” and “Liberals” being evil-doers. Besides it’s hard to take serious anyone who’d think a lazy pontificator like Fred Thompson is anything other than a privileged white person laying down conservative laugh tracks about eliminating welfare and employer-based health insurance but otherwise wasn’t a serious contender for the White House. Jeff ignores the fact that “identity” politics is a historic given…always present in politics. What was JFK’s charisma? That he wasn’t a WASP, he represented the newly rich ethnics of America: Irish Catholics (and as companions in the rising class: Jewish Americans, Catholics of all stripes, etc,,,non Wasps…but certainly not ‘people of color….as Robert Kennedy et al disdained MLK and hoped the FBI would stop the black demands of equality in order for the political world to digest their own rise to power….from South Boston to the White House.) Need I add the Daley machine of Chicago? or going back to the race riots in NYC during the Civil War. Identity Politics! Always there. Republicans have played it to the hilt: the Southern Strategy of Nixon (ala Buchanan and Kevin Phillips –the latter who has denounced his early body of work and seen the errors of Republican class warfare against the middle class).
not sure though about how you see how ‘lefttards’ don’t get how Bush was elected…(simple he wasn’t elected in the first one..but probably in the second with a lot of help from the Ohio sec. of state) voter disenfranchisement was one of many things. I actually don’t hate GW Bush and think his good sense of humor had a big part in it. Yupp. There are a few reasons he is there not least of which is the fractured and ‘tortured’ ‘identities’ of the Democratic Party. Obama better work on that but I’ve noticed he does have a sense of humor which is a leg up on either Gore and Kerry (although Gore’s developed one after the beard and nights in the wilderness sleeping in his car). Humor goes a long way in politics. (KK? Karlist Karl? or KKK? ) Jeff at least knows that with his endless sarcasm… but his whining doesn’t cut it.
b moe. I am troubled that those who deride us “liberals” don’t themselves seem to produce any thing of value. I know you work at something, but what? JD? education guy? At least I do my punch list of excellent carpentry projects and get paid for it. And Dan’s an academic and Jeff writes and reaps advertising revenue from this creation. But the right wing critics here of ‘liberals’ seem to be the shadow world of production: military-industrial stuff perhaps? And the ‘robber barons’? They used to be called Manufacturers…but now that’s for the Chinese. Note GM is happy to switch to new fuel economy cars as they can dump the whole American/Canadian workforce in the process…and let the Asians build the fuel efficent vehicles. Waggoner seems almost gleeful about cutting his workforce 20 percent. It seems the geniuses of Wall Street are in fact making a bundle on increasing oil prices and commodities such as food. Good bye, middle class.
datatdave
All Obama had to do was suck the cock of Chicago’s Kings to get his membership to the VIP room.
You’re right Obama is funny.
Yeah, I’m a shadow warrior dave. Way to smoke me out.
I’m curious, on what planet can it be said that the right wing “has” the judiciary? For my entire life the top court in the land has had a leftward tilt.
#92: LMAO!!!
Edu 6uy – It is a moron.
[…] Savior, B. Hussein Obama (the survivor of the biggest yet, and the meanest to date multiculturist ‘identity politics’ squareoff ([subcategory: race] won this fight; the [subcategory: gender] loser was tossed to the curb on […]
My problems with Obama lie with his political philosophy, and I can’t fathom how anyone who believes in individual liberty can back a man whose writings and legislative record (such as it is) place him so far to the left that I’m confounded that he has yet to fall off the face of the earth.
And, even more mystifying are the “conservatives” here who are backing him.
Jeff, basically, is politically illiterate. “
Wow, Dave is hitting the sauce again, isn’t he? Far be it from me to defend Jeff (he certainly can handle that himself) but he prolly hasn’t woken up yet.
. Republicans have had the executive branch and now the judicial branch in govt for sometime now and they’ve ’schooled’ us plenty about “lefttards†and “Liberals†being evil-doers. Besides it’s hard to take serious anyone who’d think a lazy pontificator like Fred Thompson is anything other than a privileged white person laying down conservative laugh tracks about eliminating welfare and employer-based health insurance but otherwise wasn’t a serious contender for the White House
You wanna explain how the Judicial or executive branch has schooled the leftard liberal portion of this country? You’ve got words, and they appear to be in ok grammatical order … they are just totally devoid of meaning or relation to reality.
Fred Thompson – a lazy pontificator? Privileged white person? He was the first member of his family to go to college. His dad was a used car salesman. When Fred graduated from HS, he worked in a post office during the day, and at night at a bicycle assembly plant. Out of college, he worked as an assistant U.S. attorney (certainly no “community organizer, but not bad.)
I have no idea where you got the idea that Thompson was against employer based health insurance. I’m guessing you pulled it right out of your ass. He is against employers paying ALL of the health insurance costs, but that is really a no-brainer. Fully-paid for health insurance is considered (by those with a brain) as part of their compensation. It’s not some freebie. Either the company pays you, or pays the insurance.
And so we are left with the spectacle of watching progressives  who have built their entire movement on deconstructing individualism and stoking group-based grievance mongering  forced to beg for some sort of reconciliation, an internal importuning to put aside differences (much less “celebrate†them) in an effort to find a cohesive common ground that relies not on the localized instances of identity politics (represented by race or sex or orientation), but rather on the more essential design of the identity politics movement, namely, the ascension of the only “identity politics†that ever really mattered to the academic and progressive elite: progressive’s taking over the reins of political power.
There are definitely people on the left whose sole motivation is for their interest group – we have the disparate groups of single issue ‘whats in it for us’ types just as you do. However, that does not make up who the Democratic party or progressives as a whole are. Just as you are not all Fallwellians, we are not all wild eyed tribes of race and gender warriors. It is an idiotic premise, any analyses stemming from it are flat wrong.
But, in Jeff’s defense, he was very thoughtful in dissecting the meme. I just disagree with the conclusion. In my opinion, he let the false assumptions stand and kinda ran with them.
Dave I agree with you big time about Identity Politics being a huge part of BOTH parties. Thanks for pointing that out. It is a very important point. I think republicans would do well to do a little soul-searching on this topic as well. The kind of identity politics that the right used for years has run its course. The “ZOMG [insert menacing group here]are scary/dirty/immoral/terrorists!” shit doesn’t work so well anymore either.
Dave I agree with you big time about I
Oh Lisa … I really hoped I’d never see you type those words …
I am a member of an identity group – white men who oppress womyn and minorities.
#110: Ha! Dave is a good guy. Kind of reactionary. But who isn’t in these crazy, crazy times.
Kind of reactionary? That is the rhetorical equivalent of saying water is kind of wet, or nishit is a bit immature.
Womyn. LOL. I imagine that word was pulled out of the hairy asscrack of Andrea Dworkin. It cracks me up when I see it, though.
Andrea Dworking should do something about that asscrack. I hear they can wax those things now.
That construct has been ascribed to conservatives to a much greater degree than they’ve ever subscribed to it. Iraq is a prime example. The shrieks of warmongering and bloodlust because of the scary brown people create an incredible din, but it isn’t coming from the right. Those who are paying attention will note that we’re working hand in hand with oodles of brown people in an effort to help them build a society worth living in. That includes arming them and training them to fight so that they can protect said society. Conservatives see that as an essential component of security and have invested an awful lot into seeing it through. The left has long insisted that the brown people are really stupid and not scary and that they aren’t capable of maintaining such a society. That they must be in thrall to and in service of other scary brown people because they can’t possibly act rationally in their own best interests.
So who’s the racists? Who’s dealing in identity politics there? And why is it OK to do it in Afghanistan while it borders Pakistan, but not in Iraq because it borders Iran?
carin…your just jealous she’s getting attention that you desire so much. I checked out your ultra right winger l’il blog. Can you get out and meet some real people for a change? Get active in your local school board for example. Even if you’re a homeschooler (I think?). Michigan is pretty conservative I’ll admit but try a little diversity in association. Note: I don’t frequently interact with only people that I only agree with do I? That would be boring.
Yeah, lisa, I ‘reactionary’ yeah. I lived thru Nixon’s Watergate, Carter’s support for the Mujhideen of Afghanistan, Reagan’s downsizing of the middle class, Bush 1 and 2’s MilitaryIndustrial Complex profiteering, Clinton’s kissing ass with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, and you want me to be ‘forward’ thinking? oh well. I voted for McGovern in my first vote of my life. That was forward thinking. America drank the Conservative Koolaid and it’s been me reacting ever since.
to whomever: Supreme court is definitely tilting Right… as the Presidents who put them in office were tilting Rightwing. Duh! The Warren Court was the nemisis of the Right but yet that was a Republican at the top. Without Warren, blacks probably wouldn’t have had the right to vote in the south as the present court probably would have gone along with the Southern Dem/Rep. drift of things as in ‘original-ism’. Now, it’s what the Framers thought and that’s what the right wants: limited vote for only males with property. Partiality in voting: no evil-doers allowed to vote: the poor, people convicted of crimes in the past both minor or major, people of color, the wrong identities, in other words. Now Students are being attacked for voting in university districts by the Right….on spurious suspicions that they might vote in their home districts too. Unfounded of course. But next, Republicans will try to make it so hard to vote with multiple IDs needed. Perhaps they’ll up the age of eligibility next due to the Obama factor. The Republican majority in the Court will go along with whatever a Republican executive says.
One party has group quotas as part of it’s identity. So to say that while not all those on the left are steeped in identity politics is correct, it is fair to say that one party favors elevating group membership over individual ability, which is identity politics.
datadave – Not content with everyone believing he is a mental midget, he is one a quest to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
My ultra-right winger blog? Shesh, Data – the last few weeks I’ve been mostly talking about the metal music I like and books. But, I suppose that doesn’t fit into teh narrative.
Can you get out and meet some real people for a change? Get active in your local school board for example. Even if you’re a homeschooler (I think?). Michigan is pretty conservative I’ll admit but try a little diversity in association. Note: I don’t frequently interact with only people that I only agree with do I? That would be boring.
Since you have absolutely no clue about me or my life, I’ll let you in on a little secret. My political “life” exists almost totally online. IRL, I honestly don’t meet many who wish to discuss politics. I was annoying my friends, so I get it out of my system online. So, fuck off with the intertubes psychoanalyzing. You suck at it.
So who’s the racists? Who’s dealing in identity politics there?
Elements of both sides, which was my point. We could both stand to do some looking in the mirror. We could go on shouting “You are doing it!!! No YOU are doing it! Oh no no no, motherfucker YOUUUUU are doing it!” endlessly.
But the fact that when you say that the left has employed the base politics of identity tribalism, you would be correct. When I say that the right has employed them as well, I beleive I am also correct. The happy news is that is not working very well any more for either side. Likely, we will find some other cudgel with which to brain each other. But the hopey hopeness is that we become better, more thoughtful and respectful in our opposition to one another’s politics as a result of our realizations about the failings of identity politics.
dave
One more time, because you seem to be confused, the court does not have a rightward tilt. It’s really quite easy to figure out, just count.
The Warren thing made me laugh. Good job.
You are all racist sexist homophobes. These are the right’s identity groups.
Note: I don’t frequently interact with only people that I only agree with do I?
Yes, the craziness of the primaries was a direct result of “me too” echo chambers. That road leads to madness.
Education Guy – dave “learned” with different history books than everyone else.
thompson was from one of the more prosperous families in his li’l southern berg. His dad had the car dealership. They all had to work, true. But he wasn’t poor, nor black, and that’s a leg up in the south. He did some good things like expose a corrupt southernDemocrat governor. But then he did everything he could to enrich himself too: “Thompson lobbied Congress on behalf of the Tennessee Savings and Loan League to pass the St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which deregulated the Savings and Loan industry.[15] A large congressional majority and President Ronald Reagan supported the act but it was said to be a factor that led to the savings and loan crisis.” Kind of like Rush Limbaugh. Going to college is optional if you’re already on top in own your li’l town.
count what? Republican appointments vs. Democratic ones?
No, you fucking imbecile. Count Justices that are reliably liberal and reliably conservative. Hint, Souter is not conservative. Kennedy either. Good Allah, stupidity like your should be painful.
Yup. Sen. Thompson was the robber baron partriarch of his little town.
Justices dave, there are only nine. I come up with 4 fairly solid conservative votes – Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Scalia. So which one is the 5th?
Note: I don’t frequently interact with only people that I only agree with do I
And that little patronizing pearl of widsom – honestly. Do you think you could do me a favor and provide me with more of these little guidelines for being a better person? I think it’s really what I’ve been missing.
How about you throw at me the one about all the important stuff, I learned in kindergarten? It’s a GEM.
start counting…frankly I don’t have the time to argue all day….but I count only two Democratic appointees. Maybe I missed one? “Appointed to the Court by Republican President George H. W. Bush, he usually votes with the liberal wing, though not as consistently as his predecessor. ”
ok maybe three ‘liberals’ on the court. gimme an argument that’s worth something. Bork was so REACTIONARY and anti-democratic in his writings since then that Democrats were justified in fighting such a crazy wing nut from getting. Now watch the Right go in a tempest about anything Obama might nominate…but that’s conjecture as I have my doubts still he’s even close to the White House.
e wasn’t poor, nor black, and that’s a leg up in the south.
The whoosh I just heard was of the goalposts moving. There sure were a HELL Of a lot of privileged people in the South then. John Edwards … Bill Clinton …
note the sarcasm, but at least you’re polite.
Edu Guy – You see, if dataless is able to classify them based on who appointed them, he can call them conservatives.
You almost got something right, dataless. There is likely to be a tempest should Baracky appoint a SC Justice who thinks the role of the SC Justice is to promote social and economic justice, as Baracky has promised. Then again, Baracky’s words appear to be subject to change, depending on the audience.
carin…I am sooo sick of Southern politicians. believe me I am not an Edwards supporter. He sucked as a VP candidate. Some lawyer! Dick Cheney of all people left him twisting in the wind. I never thought someone couldn’t nail Cheney but Edwards proved me wrong.
Clinton? gimme a break. Obama’s from Illinois and Hawaii. About time we had some diversity.
A justice appointed by a particular party is not enough information. The record of their votes is what you need to look at.
c’ya, I gotta work where the internet portals are dim and distant…like not avail….like real work.
I guess I could type in my cell phone. NOT!
JD – Yeah, I got that. Uber-conservative Earl Warren told me.
I’m not talking about the politics at all. I’m addressing the charge the Fred Thompson got “his” in life because he was born into priviledge. That’s not true, unless by “privilege” you mean he wasn’t black and his family wasn’t on food stamps. Because if that’s the case … just about all of us are privileged. Fred worked TWO jobs out of high school. The first member of his family to go to college.
Come on – that was heralded as proof of Clinton’s “non-elite” status.
Have a nice day dave. Try not to let the evil republicans get you.
I’m not seeing it, Lisa, especially not in my Iraq example. The left has, as it does with virtually every issue, has ascribed racism to Operation Iraqi Freedom and the motives for going in there. They jump up and down, mocking the right about “scary brown people”, which no one of any import on the right has ever described as a factor. While doing so, they’ve based their prediction of failure entirely on their own racist expectations. They’re wrong on both counts and they’re steeped in racism on both counts, while the right just wants to get the job done and pigmentation has nothing to do with it.
dave if you aren’t shoveling shit, it isn’t real work. Elitist.
“Blacks only came around to Obama from the Clintons when they saw he was for real and because he was articulate and had a huge impact upon initially mostly younger white technological sophisticates (a good campaigner w/ Silicon valley types for sure). And Oprah, who has a bigger white audience than a black one. Anyway, his being a good writer is more like part of it.”
Bullshit. More anecdotes from Dave. Here’s one and I am ackowledging that it is one for you. I don’t know a single black person (and my workforce is comprised of approximately 95% blacks) that weren’t on board for Obama from the beginning. Not one. I’m not doubting that there are many black people that did just what you claim, but not nearly as many as you imply. Many, many blacks are voting for him because, and I quote from a friend of mine (see another anecdote), “I am so proud of him. I am proud of us!”.
“The “ZOMG [insert menacing group here]are scary/dirty/immoral/terrorists!†shit doesn’t work so well anymore either”
You mean the, you know, actual fucking terrorists that happen to be terrorists? I know the WeatherUnderground probably doesn’t resonate so well with you, given your ObamaLove, but what about the fucking jihadis that are actually terrorists? You only have to fear the right if you are a terrorist.
#145: He is correct. I find it amusing that you accuse him of basing his statement on anecdotal evidence and proceed to refute it with your spurious (and suspiciously made-up)anecdotal evidence.
Thanks for playing though, bucky.
I realize you haven’t been reading here long, Lisa, but when the right engages in identity politics, I am perfectly willing to call them on it — though as Pablo points out, much of what passes for that phenomenon is simply projection from those on the left who are immersed in the stuff.
But that’s not even the point. It so happens that multiculturalism as an organizing social philosophy is a product of the left / academics, and was given its theoretical groundings by people like Said. I have discussed this at length in earlier posts — how, precisely, the ideas made popular in Orientalism have infested language and helped to turn “meaning” into a battle of will, with no necessary tether — so I won’t rehash that here.
I will say, however, that there is simply no argument against the fact that multiculturalism and it’s offshoots, identity politics and the “diversity” movement, are illiberal, and are a product of the left. As I noted in one of my comments, I don’t think that all “progressives” consciously understand the extent of what it is they’re engaging in — and that was one of the points of this post. But to argue that identity politics is not foundational to the Democratic voting coalition by design is to argue from ignorance.
As for datadave, he can clap thor on the back all he likes and pretend that I’m politically illiterate. I suppose it feels good to believe he’s found himself an ally.
Beyond that, though, his argument is nonsensical.
You have proof of this? Having worked at a university, I can tell you that it is absolutely foundational, to the point where some universities are requiring that every class address racial and gendered implications for the subject matter — meaning that classes on horticulture and animal husbandry, eg., are required to deal with racial and social “issues” that don’t exist in any relevant way in those spheres of pedagogy. Further, what is left unspoken is that these frames for the course material should have a certain slant: you won’t find the Thernstroms being taught; instead, you’ll get the grievance mongering.
Free speech zones, hate speech = offensive speech, mandatory “diversity” training as part of orientation… Fact is, dave, you haven’t the slightest idea what the fuck you are talking about.
I won’t even get into the way text books are now vetted by interest groups, or how “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is deemed inappropriate because it uses a politically incorrect term for spine bendature, while the “Old Man and the Sea” is “ageist” (you can forget about teaching O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger,” too) — because I’ve covered all that here, and I have close to 7 years worth of material on this very site that points to instances of what you seem to think is some “minor” point of the education process.
You’re wrong. This is a foundational point of much contemporary curricula; in fact, it is so ingrained now that it has become largely accepted as the de facto state of “tolerance” instruction, despite being remarkably illiberal and, in the strictest sense, anti-American (see, eg, Peter Wood on Diversity: you should be able to find that through a site search, because I’ve written on it extensively).
A string of gross generalizations, coupled with inaccurate observations and remarkably infantile assertions does not an argument make, dave. Try harder, or else take your shit elsewhere until you’re polished and up to speed. I don’t suffer fools gladly, particularly those who pretend to an intelligence and political sophistication that they have not once, to my knowledge, ever exhibited.
Actually, no, Jeff does no such thing. Instead, he points to the ascension of multiculturalism as a social philosophy turned to use in policy, and finds that to be problematic. But don’t listen to me. Go check out some of the British scholars who have been highly critical of this project in England, where it is more readily codified (rather than enforced oftentimes through back channels). Or don’t. They’re probably just politically illiterate, too.
Politicians have always pandered for votes from constituencies they’ve identified as potentially sympathetic to what they are selling. Which is not the same thing as identity politics, which is essentially a legal phenomenon that grew out of a (faulty and dangerous) linguistic argument having to do with “authenticity.” I use my terms as precisely as possible, dave. Before you open your mouth, you might try understanding what it is that’s being discussed here. I have entire categories on the sidebar there that deal with the back arguments informing this one wrt identity politics and language. Read up.
Or, you know, don’t: because it’s all so much “tortured deconstruction,” which, let’s face it, is just another way of saying it isn’t easily digestible by people who like to consider themselves intelligent, but who don’t actually want to put in the work necessary to achieve the distinction.
And when “Republicans” have played it, I’ve been critical, as I explained to Lisa, above. But there’s a difference between pragmatic electoral strategy (again, this is ADDRESSED IN MY POST) and using identity politics and “diversity” as tools of a defined social and political philosophy, namely, multiculturalism.
My post shows how, for all the talk of multiculturalism as an ameliorative to social ills, it is, when laid bare, nothing more than the same kind of cynical politicking that has been around forever. Unfortunately, it is sold as something else — and when that something else it is sold as becomes idealized and starts finding its way into legislation and policy, it tears at the fabric of this country, more specifically, at individualism and classical liberalism.
Not that I’d expect you to understand any of this, dave. You’re too invested on suggesting I’m “politically illiterate” to recognize that I’m playing on an entirely different field than are you.
Do yourself a favor, hard charger. Go find a place where they might take your bullshit seriously. Because here, you are entirely out of your fucking league.
I have no comment on this, because I’m not even sure it’s English, to be honest.
I mean, it certainly resembles English, but the structuring is all wrong. That, and it doesn’t say anything remotely coherent.
Bravo, Jeff. Nice takedown.
1) Recounts made by multiple press agencies showed Bush won Florida, and when the standard Gore wanted to use was applied, his margin of victory increased.
2) Gore was the one who took it to the courts. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
3) In Ohio in 2004, there were at minimum 30,000 registrations submitted by Democrat supporting groups that were invalid and likely fraudulent. The Secretary of State (do you even remember his name? Don’t Google it; that’s cheating) was enforcing already existing laws; there was no attempt to tilt the vote one way or the other. There’s never been any evidence of his attempting to game the election; the accusations have been made on the basis of ignorance, incredulity, or the sheer idiocy of believing the results of exit polls over the ballot count.
4) The word “disenfranchise” has a definite meaning. Nothing that’s happened in recent history comes close to that meaning. A confusing ballot is not “disenfranchising”. Long lines aren’t. Enforcing eligibility standards (you know, like residence and citizenship) isn’t.
Lisa, do keep up. I admitted mine was anecdotal. Reading is fundamental. Again, just because you assert it, doesn’t make it so. And made up? Everything you type is a lie. Cool, that was easy.
Obviously KK is a string of alphabetic symbols; it’s a pair of K’s. Denoting someone by the first initial of their name, K in Karl’s case, is within the finite set of observed grammars used here on PW. K is one symbol per message code. KKK is an altogether different yet common natural language abbreviation. Adding a second K to Karl’s first name denotation of K, the original K in the string, is a low-information tickler as you might call it. My interchangeable use of K and KK to denote Karl is outside PW’s observable finite set of grammars, true, but rather than transmit to Karl a reiteration of my opinion that he’s edging toward language symbols distinctly associated with the KKK, I add a ambiguous K symbol to Karl’s first name signifier, also a K. KK lies, symbolically as well as literally, between K and KKK in a symbol string set of accepted K abbreviations. The fixed KK string, therefore, is a symbol of my personal logical analysis of symbol K, singular, gravitating to the larger KKK, plural, or K as a function within a range, the KKK range, as it were. It’s all just dressing up language theory hilarity in a mini-skirt (catharsis the arse is!) for sake of being curt and cute .
I do, as you note, believe I support Barack Obama for legitimate reasons. But I do not generally tackle aesthetic-political questions on multi-cultural theory and the migration of forms, meaning merging social deconstruction theory and pop culture analysis with realizations of the present into my degenerate message board rhetoric. I just ain’t go the time for it, frankly, especially since I can be deflate all the self-parody phrasing into “Barack Obama Brings the Funk!”, or, abbreviating to the extreme, posting my signature symbol – O!. This laudatio is not for want of fellatio, as my critics often suggest, though I’ll admit my rhapsody is not always based solely on factuality, granted, but nor are your or anyone else’s opinions of Barack. I like to casually think I have a tolerance for things I believe fated, or maybe it’s just all a matter of taste, or it very well could be that I am in self-denial of myself as a big, fat, wooly fag with a man-crush on Obama. Who can really say, judging per se.
As for your broader scope, yeah dude, I so totally get it and the rest of all the moral-intellectual divide bullshit; there’s less expertise gap between us than you assume, cause, like, stand back burrito, I attend grad school at a major Southeastern university where dogmatic arrogance is transferable.
thor, just come out and fucking call Karl a racist, already. Coyness doesn’t make for clear communications.
Oh, thor has called me a racist. The multiple K thing is just showing solidarity with Rev. Wright. O! supporters always like to show their love for Amerikkka.
thor’s low-information kungfu is strong. You might say it’s the only tool in the box.
as Pablo points out, much of what passes for that phenomenon is simply projection from those on the left who are immersed in the stuff.
I would like to point out inherent implication that one side (the right) gets to decide what is identity politics and what is not. You get to decide what passes for projection from the left, while we have to own all of your projection because….well…just because you said so. That sort of expectation that your definition of what ‘is’ is will be meekly accepted by all is fascinating.
But do I know what you are talking about in academia….it is a petri dish for the crazybugs. And the 1980s and 90s were the Golden Age of Academic Fuckery, in my opinion. But when you are IN it, you tend to think that that is representative of everyone. The left is not defined by crazy college professors and their fever-eyed acolytes any more than the right is defined by the wankers at Focus on the Family. They are loud and occasionally have a strong influence on the dialog (but not all of the time). But they are not who we are – just one cog in the progressive wheel – we have some pretty diverse (and divergent) views. Your assertion that you can define us based on your exposure to the campus crazies you were exposed to is flat wrong in my opinion. That is what I take issue with.
For dave, who seems to lack any Google skills at all:
Emphasis mine. The USCCR, a committee with an axe to grind, did not find disenfranchisement.
Well, you can certainly profess to pointing out an “inherent implication,” but it helps when one actually exists. I have not in any way intimated that the right gets to decide what identity politics is. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Multiculturalism is a professed social philosophy — one that has many supporters — and they have kindly spelled out precisely what the project entails. I have explored what kernel assumptions are necessary to animate such a project, and then described the outcome.
Noting that the left oftentimes projects its belief that the “right” fears the Other onto people like me is nothing more than an observation from experience. If you believe I’m projecting — if, for instance, you believe that the multicultural project and its “diversity” counterpart (and, legally speaking, identity politics falls under that description, as well) are not part and parcel of the progressive worldview, and by extension, influential as part of any Democratic platform — then show me how. I’m certainly willing to listen.
But again, I’m afraid that the fact that the left has actively embraced multicultural dogma as a political and social philosophy — and written glowingly about it — will frustrate your efforts. Similarly, the enormity of influence on the left born of Said’s incoherent and illiberal linguistic observations is undeniable. In fact, one can see clearly how and why such a critique was bound to grow out of the poststructural/ postmodernist project as those predisposed to do so saw the political implications in the death of a transcendent set of “truths.”
Again, you haven’t read here enough perhaps to know this, but I don’t define progressives based on their crazies, nor have I argued that progressivism is homogeneous in terms of its ideas. I do, however, assert that on a profoundly structural level, progressive beliefs are informed by a dangerous and faulty set of linguistic premises, and that from that flows inevitable outcomes.
Beyond the influence academics (and their studies) have on social policy (which is significant enough) directly, their influence, when it happens on the level of language, interpretation, meaning-making, and truth claims, is so profound that I simply cannot overstate its significance. Combine this with a steady change over the years to public school curricula — changes that represent projects in social engineering — and you have a population that is prepared for “liberalism.”
In fact, so profound are some of these influences that I see them on the right quite often — and have duly criticized them (from the Flight 93 Memorial to Bill Kristol’s criticism of Bill Bennett). And of course, one of the reasons I cannot stomach McCain is because I find that he is, at base, something of a progressive philosophically, even if on policy he might back conservative positions.
To me, it matters how you get there. Because in other instances, the thinking behind what gets you places is going to be important. It was for this reason, too, that I opposed Harriet Miers — and why I opposed the (bipartisan) Schiavo legislation.
Isn’t identity politics pretty well defined? What’s wrong with this? “Identity politics is political action to advance the interests of members of a group supposed to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalized identity (such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or neurological wiring).”
Agreed. Haven’t you and I already discussed the dangers of post-modernists’ fuzzying of Marxism/Communism’s fatal recent history. The gussying up of base Marxist theory into more fashionable universality and equality theories is quaint non-sense. Our Bill of Rights insures our personal freedoms equally and it does so without forcing State narrative’s upon us, for example that we must accept Molly Ivins as Joseph Brodsky’s literary equals based on contrived gender-perspective arguments.
I’m not afraid of nor exploit fears of Marxists or Marxism, I simply point to the wealth of horrid literature it produced, not including Calvino, who was a stud.
And yet somehow Justice O’Connor can kick the can down the road on race-based affirmative action, and the editors of contemporary literary anthologies include lesser lights precisely because of their sex and/or color.
So forgive me if I remain vigilant and — beyond just that — try my best to keep an eye on exactly how this kind of thing has been able to gain traction, on the structural level, in a country premised around classical liberal ideals.
Sure, it forces me to use big words and eat shit from punks from time to time, but it’s the least I can do, given that I’m a chickenhawk otherwise.
Herein, like I said, we agree. I read your syllabus a long time ago, pomish? I’ve never said/implied your arguments are without merit or academic standing. I’m the idiot who stood in front of a live audience of mouth-beathing female explicators and defended Rosetti’s Goblin’s Market as a mere children’s story as defined by pure authorial intentionalism and not a tale of incestuous lesbia. The trained deconstructionists wanted to physically break my man bones. The audacity of intentionalism! How dare I quote the author’s own words when defining her poem!
Right. Just tortured deconstructionist bullshit and fancy lingua-strutting excuse making.
But it’s nice to know that such things have merit. Maybe if I express the ideas/arguments in freeform verse, using lots of Michael Vick references and a handful of arcane references and oblique allegorical constructs, I can get people like datadave to focus on the content, not on my horrific, pretentious style.
You know — dumb that shit down for a brother.
I’ll help you where I can, Jeff, of course. Dave and I both bay like Northumberland wolves. He and I speak rubber tree and Russian. We usually assign the exact same anthropomorphic conjectures to political theories, “giving politics a human face and a bloody nose,” as a typical bitter right-winger more simply says.
Try something along these lines: Dave, thor “you are the son of a thousand men and they are all bastards, just like you.” Those who maliciously teeth on Ronald Reagan’s decaying skull are bad for PW’s obdurate truth claiming business. Mass intellectual movements require complementary proviso, vapid and bizarre jargon, kinetic nuance and unabashed emblems. Twin Val Kilmers acting badly, not so much. Transcend your superficial peculiarities because the pendulum swings with both Larrys and Craigs. You throw the ‘dillo or he’ll throw you. Further still, dress appropriately, speak only when spoken to, and please, spine amputees, don’t slam my rear door screaming “you’re gonna miss me” predictably followed by “wait and you’ll see” because you get no Ronnie trickle down until both your begging hands steady ever so steadily. Carved forms take shape only when they release themselves from evil ivory. And that, pestilent imps, is what Ronald Reagan actually did; he saved the world where and when beauty fell on its carving knife, prior to giving big money speeches translated into Japanese, which was prior to Kathy Lee Gifford singing his eulogy under California skies all smoky blue and clean.
Wow, he’s even worse when the beta male pops out. Whoda thunkit?
Oh my, the puppy lifts its lips. Gee, what big teeth you have, Karl. Is that a tricycle in your front pocket or are you just happy to read Jeff?
And yet the puppy is a higher and more intelligent form of life than the tree.
“I kinda figured that, Glen.”
And the tree loops back around, a la #163.
[basks in the brilliance of the post] Think I’m gettin’ some tan here…
On the road again, so no time to comment of Jeff’s responces. I believe he’s an English major and concerned mightily with grammar and such.
Jeff, to know what you’re talking about maybe try ‘doing politics for awhile’ be a precient chairman, a state party chairman (admittedly a ‘third party’), run and get elected to something, get a degree in poli sci or public administration. Don’t just Whine! About the hairy armed feminists that are out to get you.
Thor, Obama’s the man! So’s governor Dean btw.
You’re intuitive, sailor Dave, and that’s a gift. Yes, Jeff is likely an English-degree-bearing former-Marine-type and Karl is his ceramics-degree-clutching high-kicking-Protestant-tragedian, which, as I’ve always said, means the best argument for the arts comes after staring at a female’s private parts, which, on occasion, I’ve even forced myself to do.
I will contest your governor Dean addendum, though. Obama is a highball that needs no chaser. The gist of my banana cream pie toss is to counter the constant man-is-what-is-piled-into-his-basement analogy. I simply can’tt inhale Jonah Goldberg’s fumes then hold my breath until I’m light in the head. What a bloody trance, hit the brakes, unless you’re planning to plow into that crowd. To see the individual maybe requires thinking as one firstly. Too many fetching nihilistic notions, I know. Merci, merci, the avant garde keeps guard dog in my front yard.
Free from forms, free doors down, they’re forming doors formerly freeformed. And when my door swung open it killed her, your honor. That’s my story form, Jeff, and I’m stickin’ with it.