House Negro Ward Connerly, puppet to the Man, writing in the WSJ:
With all my heart — and for the betterment of my country — I desperately wanted to believe that Sen. Barack Obama was not one of the same tired voices who peddle arguments about “institutional racism.”
I have heard him say that America is not about “black and white.” I was inspired when his supporters chanted at his rally on the night of his victory in South Carolina that “race doesn’t matter.” I thought his March 18 speech about race had the potential to become a defining moment in our endless struggle to confront and conquer this issue. I was encouraged by his perceptive acknowledgment that affirmative action breeds resentment and hostility. As millions of whites cast their votes for him in predominantly white states, I held out hope that, perhaps, he truly was a transformative leader.
But a June 10 article in USA Today by DeWayne Wickham dashed my hopes for Mr. Obama.
Mr. Wickham, who had interviewed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, wrote that “Obama believes America can keep its promise to women and blacks without dashing the hopes of working-class whites. He doesn’t think opportunity guarantees made to one group must come at the expense of another.” Then he went on to quote Obama campaign spokeswoman Candice Toliver, who said that “Senator Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of race, gender or economic status. That’s why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities.”
Translation: Mr. Obama supports race preferences.
[…]
The rationale for using race preferences to “eliminate historic barriers,” upon which Mr. Obama relies as his primary justification, has been rejected consistently by the Supreme Court since the Bakke decision in 1978. Only the pursuit of “diversity” [thanks, “conservative” Justice Kennedy! -ed] by higher education meets the strict constitutional test for race preferences. As a lawyer, I am sure that Mr. Obama must know this.
He must also know that blacks and whites are not the only racial groups in America. Every year there are more than 48,000 applicants for one of the 4,500 seats at the University of California campus at Berkeley. Before the passage of the initiative in that state to outlaw race preferences, thousands of Asian students were denied admission so that a greater number of “underrepresented minorities” could be admitted.
Excuse me, Ward. But what do you think makes one a “minority” in the first place? Underrepresentativeness and functional unreadinessitude! Asians, though traditionally an underrepresented race, have reversed that, adopting and evolving an ethnic culture that promotes the kind of hard work that readies one for advanced academic challenges.
— Which means that, in a just world, they would have studied themselves right out of spots in institutions of higher learning — to be replaced by those who are underrepresented by dint of not having developed that same kind of commitment to education.
After all, it’s only fair. Egalitarianism in action!
And besides,that’s what you deserve for getting all culturally uppity, what with your abacuses and your slide rules.
That house negroes like Connerly, who push the “racist” idea of “color-blindness” — mostly because, unlike true champions of social justice like honorary Panther Ric Caric, Connerly doesn’t quite comprehend his MLK (it’s a Black Thing, after all) — have managed to dupe some states into adopting the racist policy of not selecting candidates on the basis of race or racial quotas, doesn’t make it right.
But with Obama at the helm, can we fix it? Yes we can!
House Negro continues:
Similar circumstances exist across the nation, because college admissions, public jobs and government contracts are the ultimate “zero-sum” game, and race and gender should not be the determining factors in picking winners and losers. It simply stretches credulity to argue that an “opportunity” given to one, on the basis of race, is not discrimination against another for the same reason.
The issue that troubled many Americans about the widely publicized sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright was his view that America is an “institutionally racist” society. This view lies at the heart of the defense advocates of race preferences make for “affirmative action.” It is also at the core of Black Liberation Theology.
By supporting race preferences, Mr. Obama is unmistakably attaching himself to despicable ideas like Rev. Wright’s. And, if he believes in those precepts, how does he reconcile his impressive political success and that of Mrs. Clinton with this perspective? Thirty-six million Americans didn’t vote for the two of them because the majority of the American people are racist and sexist.
Of course not. Just conservative Americans.
Where have you been living, Ward, a cave?
Now shut up and dance, would you? I mean, I just tossed a quarter in your hat. I own your black ass.
So let’s get to steppin’!
(h/t Terry Hastings)
I ♥ Ward Connerly. He may be the first unabashedly rational black public figure I encountered in real time. I, as a white guy, would happily trade him for Mike Pfleger. Is it Spike Lee I’d have to talk to to get a deal like that done?
Cue a drive-by commenter who doesn’t know snark when he sees it in 5, 4, 3… .
I denounce myself for laughing and more importantly appreciating that post.
Yassuh, mistah Goldstein! I’se a steppin’…
Ooooo. Harsh.
I preemptively denounce everyone who even reads this post.
RACISTS!!!
Glad to see Ward finally sees what we see. I think Obama has finally used up all of his genetic polticial capital.
Seems like everything Obama says needs a translation….
Race bait.
I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.
Next thing you know, Dan will be discussing “Coal Black and the Sebbin Dwarfs…
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1692829
You better stop datcussin’.
…if [Obama] believes in those precepts, how does he reconcile his impressive political success … with the [BLT] perspective?
“It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.” — Obama, Dreams From My Father.
And clean, too.
Okay, Ward. Take a break from shuffling. I need a mint Julip. Snap snap!
If we’re trading, can we also pick up Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas in exchange for Bill Clinton and Vanilla Ice? I’d hold off on including Eminem up front, but would be willing to throw him into the mix to get it done for a player (playa?) to be named later….
Which side gets to put Colin Powell on the block? It seems that neither wants him.
“Colin Powell is openly white, he happens to be black.” – G. Carlin
I really don’t care what the swap is… as long as Tom Cruise is included in the deal.
Forgive me if I babble here:
Yeah Obama needs to back off of that one. I know that it is ingrained in us at birth that preferences are a good thing. That if we think they suck, we are just biting the hand that feeds us and being ungrateful for all that America has have given us. And he is already walking the tightrope with that 20 year association with a man who completely rejected white people and all of their wondrous Solutions for Teh Coloreds.
Affirmative Action was a crappy little setup. All it did was make one set of fuckheads feel good that they had “given” the coloreds something while also preserving the second and third class status by saying: “You are too stupid to do it on your own. And why should we bother making sure the public schools in your neighborhoods are good enough to prepare you to compete with us? That is too hard. We will just give you preferences when you graduate from that crappy public school system. Yay! Pat me on the back now!” Yeah that worked out really well.
And I don’t know why Asians came over here and kicked everyone’s ass in spite of the massive crapping upon they received by white people. Maybe we really are at the low end of the Bell Curve. I don’t fucking know man. But I am no longer surprised that two over achieving black people who don’t apologize for being successful would be treated with such suspicion and outright hatred by the people who set up those “preferences”. My theory is that when white liberals set up their “programs” it was to produce people like Cynthia McKinney and Al Sharpton – somewhat literate but altogether incompetent and generally mediocre. They did NOT expect Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, or Colin Powell. They did not expect that there would be black people actually surpassing them in excellence without asking their permission or being sufficiently humble about their success.
On another note: I love it that Ward’s entire career is based on him being a BLACK conservative and therefore so exotic yet he blabbers that he wishes America was not about black and white. If America was not about black and white, then Ward, LaShawn, et. al.* would have to find a new pony to ride at the circus.
* This does not include Thomas Sowell, who would be fucking brilliant, awesome, and fascinating even if he were a white conservative.
Yeah that was babble. But I have the flu and I am feverish and high on lots of cold meds.
They did not expect that there would be black people actually surpassing them in excellence without asking their permission or being sufficiently humble about their success.
I would also include Walter Williams in that list, even though there’s a good chance that I’d wind up punching him in the face if we ever spent a long period of time in each other’s company.
(see also: Harlan Ellison)
Well, sorta babble.
It isn’t about color. It’s about stupid jerks.
And that’s why I (and, I suspect, a majority of commenters here) am a “Stupid Fucking Jerkist”.
I hate stupid fucking jerks. It’s as simple as that.
The soft bigotry of low expectations. Tell it, Sister.
Historically (as in “original conceptualization”), “affirmative action” was simply the advertising of government positions in “non-traditional” periodicals (i.e. minority papers (historical fact — major populations centers used to have several serious broadsheet news-papers publishing several times a day)).
Mission creep… what a pain.
This isn’t the Jeff Goldstein that I knew.
They didn’t wallow in victimhood, they put their noses to the grindstone, their shoulders to the wheel, and they simply succeeded, as every American has the opportunity to do. They expected nothing other than that which they could attain on their own. They consider being a loser to be a shameful thing, and not an inescapable conclusion.
True. Al and Cindy expected that as well, perhaps because they see themselves as the pinnacle of blackness. Fuck them. I ♥ Ward, Sowell, Thomas, Rice, etc…
Um, no. Ward’s career is based on him being willing to take on affirmative action, and being an eloquent and effective spokesman for the idea of a color-blind society.
Before I pass out for another day or so, I have to say this – many of the people who are still so unbelievably pissed in Camp Hillary are pissed because they don’t know Obama and they think he is a lightweight and a sure loser. Ok. Fair enough. But there are a crapload of comments and posts that say stuff like “he is too arrogant; he should have waited his turn; he doesn’t even acknowledge all we did for him; who does he think he is…” that tells me everything I need to know about my fellow 60s liberal progressives. Even if Obama loses his ass, the good thing is that the torch has already been passed (or snatched) from the baby boomers. That whole bullshit “The Jeffersons/Welcome Back Kotter” bullshit fantasy about how black people are supposed to be and act has gotten really tired and it is time to put it out to pasture.
Jeff, did you write this while in blackface!
I don’t know how familiar Jeff is with Asian admissions to elite universities when he wrote this:
But there are lawsuits underway even now examining this very issue:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/11/asians
I guess we do live in a “just world,” where hard work, hitting the books, and playing by the rules gets you eliminated from the admissions pool.
Or, it could be that “diversity” as a term is a crock.
#24: Interesting. I used to bristle when I heard white people yapping about how black people were whiny victims. Most of the black people I grew up around did not spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about white people. I mean it is not like we didn’t notice that we were black and they were white or asian or whatever. We just sort of fit in and got on with it.
When I got the opportunity to live in Atlanta for a couple of years then move to Washington, DC, I realized what the ranting white dudes on talk radio were possibly talking about. There is something seriously wrong and fucked up about people – white and black (but especially black) over here on the east coast. Maybe there is more onerous history weighing people down. I don’t know. But the kind of stupid shit I hear people say out here is mind boggling. (Someone told me that I should be offended that my boss greeted me each morning with “good morning, sunshine” because that is racist – apparently, my boss is expecting me to smile in a buckwheatish manner by saing this. I asked, “You are fucking kidding me, right?” and the person answered me with a sad smile and walked away.
Living here, as opposed to my beloved left coast, I realize there really is a whole lot of baggage that needs to be thrown overboard before we can all get on with it.
Please use a pillow between your head and its destination.
to be replaced by those who are underrepresented by dint of not having developed that same kind of commitment to education.
You just can’t fucking resist can you?
.. I’m not Barack Obama, because Barack Obama has said he’s not a fan of affirmative action.
But who should we believe when we want to believe and preach the worst of Obama 24/7.
Tim Russert just died, BTW. Condolences to his family. Always liked that guy.
Holy shit. Tim Russert dropped dead at 58 years old. Damn.
Lisa! Are you doing Nyquil? I like it with a little ice in a brandy snifter, sipped slowly while watching Spongebob Squarepants. Hope you feel batter soon: Nyquil will put you down for a few hours, too.
Someone told me that I should be offended that my boss greeted me each morning with “good morning, sunshine†because that is racist – apparently, my boss is expecting me to smile in a buckwheatish manner by saing this. I asked, “You are fucking kidding me, right?†and the person answered me with a sad smile and walked away.
My mom said that to me and my brother every morning, and I never suspected I was being insulted. Dad called me boy, too, now that I think about it. That is probably the reason I wound up this way, now that I think about it. I just realized those two sentences are not very well written, now that I think about it. I probably should just shut up, now that I think about it.
It’s always the standouts in a subgroup that seem to get our attention, especially when we don’t have a lot of knowledge about people in the subgroups. The arrogant young men (found in all colors of the rainbow) stand out, and hence color (oops!) our perceptions of members of that subgroup who don’t have the same level of melanin as ourselves. Just like people who don’t know any gay men think that all gay men act flamboyant and girly, and are always in your face about their sexuality, and like to march in parades with very little clothing on, when that is just a small subgroup of gay men, or like the imagine of Asians all being really smart and nerdy, or basically any generalization you can make.
From these observations come the stereotypes. They have some truth to them or they wouldn’t exist, but they don’t even begin to describe everyone in a subgroup. So when speaking and hearing generalizations, ’tis best to remember that they don’t apply to all, but more likely only apply to the most vocal or most prominent, and even then it’s suspect.
But the kind of stupid shit I hear people say out here is mind boggling.
I was at a university forum on diversity once when a “white” guy stood up in the audience and ostentatiously apologized to the “black” members of the panel (on stage) for someone else’s insensitive use of the word “blackmail.” The poor panel members looked weirded out at being used by the guy to illustrate his moral superiority. (“Now you know why I hate white people.” Charles Barkley)
#34: I did take a little Nyquil. I can’t sip it because it tastes disgusting. I am fucked up, though.
#35: You turned out fantastic, BMoe. Your parents rocked it. You are definitely a ray of sunshine, boy.
#36: True. What you are saying is quite correct. It still hurts a little when someone implies all people who look like you are lazy, shiftless, and not committed to bettering themselves. And if they look over and notice that you are quite bright and accomplished, they say “well you are the exception” which sucks real bad. But it is what it is, ya know?
WTF about Tim Russert?!!!
Salt Lick: “I was at a university forum on diversity once when a “white†guy stood up in the audience and ostentatiously apologized to the “black†members of the panel (on stage) for someone else’s insensitive use of the word “blackmail.†The poor panel members looked weirded out at being used by the guy to illustrate his moral superiority. (â€ÂNow you know why I hate white people.†Charles Barkley)”
As a pointless aside, the term “blackmail” is medieval and was protection payment in goods (meat, grain, etc), so as to differentiate it from “white mail,” which was payment in silver.
Jeff G. What’s the color of your lawn jockey?
#37: Someone should have said “I apologize to the ladies for the BITCHslap I am about to give this guy”. God. What freakery.
Caric’s a Pantha? Does he have a girlfriend named Samantha?
My lawnjockey is painted in all the colors of the rainbow!
Of course, he wears a mesh half tank and leg warmers, so there could be something else going on there.
LionDude —
You do know I was writing from the perspective of someone other than myself, right?
Thank you for you well wishes, Geezer. Are very kind. Now I really do think I am going to have to pass out for a while.
Dread Cthulhu (#39):
What difference does that make?
I was once lectured about the use of the term “history.” “You know what that term is, right? HIS STORY?” The person proceeded to argue that the term “herstory” was every bit as valid, to fight the patriarchy.
When the actual derivation of “history” was pointed out (notice the similarity to the French term “histoire,” which bears no resemblance to the male possessive), I was then lectured on how insensitive I was being, for failing to acknowledge that the female speaker felt oppressed by the term “history,” whatever its origins.
“My lawnjockey is painted in all the colors of the rainbow!”
I didn’t know that Rainbow/PUSH had fund raising stuff.
Lisa @ #29,
I think there’s a large, silent segment to which my #24 does ot apply. Unfortunatly, they are neither the chattering classes nor the policy advocates, with few exceptions. I’d like to see the volume turned up on them.
Lurking Observer: “I was once lectured about the use of the term “history.†“You know what that term is, right? HIS STORY?†The person proceeded to argue that the term “herstory†was every bit as valid, to fight the patriarchy.
When the actual derivation of “history†was pointed out (notice the similarity to the French term “histoire,†which bears no resemblance to the male possessive), I was then lectured on how insensitive I was being, for failing to acknowledge that the female speaker felt oppressed by the term “history,†whatever its origins.”
Unless you know the truth, you can’t fight the lies.
As for being insensitive, when feelings become more important than facts, then we, as a species, should be wound in our shroud and buried, whether we need it or not.
And, having been someone who had to debate the Hiroshima bomb with a “Sorority Sue” whose primary argument was that dropping the bomb was “bad” (a quote, btw), I feel you pain…
JG,
I’m totally with ya, pal. Just spouting some Barry-O-isms.
Dude, a Nyquil high cries out for Invader Zim.
Lisa, inspite of your condition I think you have gotten to the heart of the matter. That very same, shall we say, “entitlement attitude” casts a wider net than just those most effected by preferences. There are other circumstances where the same “commitment to mediocrity” shines through.
I am the grandson of Portuguese immigrants. My father never spent a minute in my entire life bemoaning racism or lack of opportunity. Not. One. He insisted that his children get educated even though he and my mom were highschool drop outs. He built a successful business from bankrupcty that employed about 80% Portuguese and apologized to nobody, topping out at almost 400 people. He was a community icon, sat on the boards of banks, industry organizations and charities. Whining was not an option. We had privilages and were quite well off but you were expected to work in the summers and study during the school year or there was real hell to pay.
Fast forward to my son, borderline genius level bright, who simply hates school. He gets a job with a large utility as a FIOS installer, which required him to join the CWA union. After he had been there a while he related to me the proper procedure for getting along. Even though he could have consistently and with little effort acheived outstanding productivity scores instead he would sit at a computer and monitor his work so that he could assure himself of being rated slightly above average.
My Dad would have wept.
There is a fine line between and hand up and a hand out, between an opportunity and an entitlement and between a roadway to excellence and agravel path to gettin’ by. Both in preferences and in some Union shops, column B outranks column A and the end result is a class of whining mediocrity that ain’t all race based.
It’s really about believing that somebody is going to take care of your ass and that achievment is for suckers. In that little truism stands my primary obhjection to liberalism in general and progressivism in particular.
Even though you and I disagree on, well, almost everything, (except on George R. R. Martin!) I really appreciate your contributions to this blog, especially on issues like this.
What a racist post, you really are the scum of the earth. Why are most far-right bloggers inherently racist?
“‘white mail,†which was payment in silver'” or the rough eqivalent of
“Now shut up and dance, would you? I mean, I just tossed a quarter in your hat. I own your black ass.
BUT YOU DON”T OWN MY UTERUS
“#Comment by RealityCheck on 6/13 @ 3:14 pm #
What a racist post, you really are the scum of the earth. Why are most far-right bloggers inherently racist?”
Chill dude this entire post was “preemptively denounce(d)” @#6
Lisa – Here’,s to hoping you and your sugartits perk up in the not so distant future.
How long ’til Oliver “twinkies by the pallet” Willis, Sadly No, or the rest of the usual suspects scream racism?
Consider yourself denounced and condemned.
SaraherstoWy: ““‘white mail,†which was payment in silver’†or the rough eqivalent of
“Now shut up and dance, would you? I mean, I just tossed a quarter in your hat. I own your black ass.”
Not really — more like Danegeld / protection money. Saracens didn’t figure into the equations, let alone Nubians.
Why are most far-right bloggers inherently racist?
Why are all trolls inherently retarded? It is one of life’s mysteries child, why ask why?
Sounds like you’ll be voting for Obama, BJ, seeing how you sound just like him, outside the moments you’re frozen in stupor projecting Obama’s face onto an Evil Is Proggy poster.
Maybe you read the same invisible copy of Audacity of Hope that Jeff did.
O!
Lisa, oh noes, please treat yourself to some real sudafed and pillows and lounging. Maybe a popsicle or two.
Actually I probably live and breathe thanks to my acestors who coughed up the geld. Are you tellng me my ancestors didn’t dance like an Armadillo on Friday the 13th?
I get all the stereotype – bad thing. I’m cool with that, but this one little item:
like the imagine of Asians all being really smart and nerdy,
C’mon, you guys. They *are* like really smart and nerdy and shit. And the ones that aren’t are only pretending. To make the rest of us feel better.
They’re like Jews. Except without the little hats covering up the bald spot.
You know this, right? I mean, it’s common knowledge.
I’d like to hear Obama’s position on affirmative action from the man himself. As I recall, his spokesmodels don’t always do a sterling job of speaking for him.
Lisa: Even if Obama loses his ass, the good thing is that the torch has already been passed (or snatched) from the baby boomers.
It seems that you feel “Brainy” Barry (a questionable assumption, but never mind) losing would be the worst that could happen in this election. I disagree. Barry winning would be immensely worse. I watched helplessly in the late 70’s as “good ol’ Jimmuh” took the US down the dumper with his feel-good lefty clap-trap. I don’t want a repeat, regardless of the melanin content of the perpetrator’s skin.
“You know this, right? I mean, it’s common knowledge.”
Of course we do. After all, given the testing done on subsets of the 450 million illiterate Asian subsistance farmers, who could doubt it?
“That wasn’t the spokesmodel I knew.”
What a racist post, you really are the scum of the earth. Why are most far-right bloggers inherently racist?
RealityCheck, what about the post was racist, the use of the term “House Negro”? I’m sure you were equally offended when Harry Belafonte used the term to describe Collin Powell in the same manner. How about adding to the dialogue by telling us why you thought what Jeff wrote was racist?
Lisa – hope you get better soon.
Last weekend I was in Benton Harbor, Michigan, for a cousin’s wedding. The neighborhood the church is in is a wreck. But across the intersection from the church is this house – neat and painted, the lawn meticulous, the shrubs all trimmed the flower beds in bloom. Be hind it is a burnt out hulk of a house.
The difference is cultural, it comes down to what you value. Do you value education, or do you see that as ‘acting white’? Do you keep you and yours clean and neat, or do you live in squalor? Are you honest, diligent, hardworking, and prompt; or do you think that is for suckers?
The things I just described are not determined by genetics, they are not determined by color. They are choices, as BJTex just described. Where he was raised it was not acceptable to do anything less than be responsible for you, yours, and your life and no excuses. And what needs to be done is to condemn the bad behavior and insist on better behavior.
It is a cultural thing that crosses all other differences in social class, economic class, race, ethnicity and so forth. It is the attitude that you subscribe too (and you obviosuly subscribe to the dilligant do your best attitude, not sloth and squalor).
It is obvious that the Obama’s subscribe to the same attitudes in their personal lives – and if they passed the bar exam then they proved that they earned what they earned and don’t have to explain anything to anyone else. The elitism comment comes from things that have been said by them – the ‘bitter, clinging’ comment was an elitist one, the complaint about how hard it is to pay for their children’s programs and extra-curricular activities. And those attitudes and comments come from people from all colors and walks of life.
Race, as an explanation, isn’t one. It is a charge to hit critics with, it is a red herring.
RealityCheck bounced.
Thomas Sowell is black?
Wal, shet mah mouf…
Gerard Vanderleun has a post up at American Digest about the culture of cool. I think it is related to this topic. It is called “Ain’t It Cool?”.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 6/13 @ 4:18 pm #
Lisa – hope you get better soon.
A lecture full of implied bigotries and imaginary broke-dick niggers living in burnt down houses was your best effort at a fuckin’ pick-me-upper? A regular walkin’ talking Tuskegee experiment you are. The least you could do is offer her a small pox blanket to wheeze in, racist Bubba-Frank.
Yeah, White Toast, why don’t you tell Lisa ’bout that time you went to your cousin’s wedding in the Ozarks and caught the best man fuckin’ a milk goat and where mule gristle was served on party toothpicks as a party appetizer. Tell her about the fire trap honky slop they live in. When you use a FEMA plastic tarp it makes it easy to re-roof, uhhuh uhhuh. Tell her how that whole family of hee-haws swore to stop fuckin’ each other for a full week to mourn Dale Earnhardt croaking. Respect like that crosses racial, social and economic class lines, yep, respect like that is hardwired inbred genetic. Mindful of their American heroes, tell Lisa all about them good White Evangelical mountain folk. And while you’re being a asshole, maybe you should ask Lisa if she’s got a mild case of sickle cell, you dumbfuckin’ white dope.
Gosh, that’s not filled with much hope and change. How’s Michelle doing with finding fresh fruit these days? Sometimes Walmart has really good specials on the stuff that’s in season.
Fight the patriarchy!
this becomes ther
antihistamine becomes antiherstamine
chisel becomes chersel
histogram becomes herstogram
And since homonymophobia is the root of the problem, hysterectomy becomes, natch, hersterectomy.
Lisa’s got sickle cell? Oh yes, that is one of those negroid diseases isn’t ? I would tell her to take it easy, but I’m sure she’s got some white folks washing and cleaning to do … and we wouldn’t want her to lose her job, right???
Well – that was unexpected.
I did say that race has nothing to do with behavior, that behavior was something that crossed all other bounds, and any individual human can behave how ever they choose to behave, value what they want, and some behavior has better results for the individual and hence the larger community.
For instance, I do not litter and I pick up litter and can it. And that is a trait determined by my skin color as opposed to my upbringing and the values I have?
That concept my have been too much for #70. However did acting as a good person and a good citizen become so weighted with these concepts? And really – who benefits from making those concepts that?
The answer is – no one who lives in Benton Harbor, that is for sure.
Benton Harbor is a shithole. It’s actually kinda bizarre.
But, it does raise an interesting point that goes beyond color. Slums -white or black – don’t HAVE to look like they do. I can go by some broke-dick white or black house and see trash and weeds. I’ve got a hot tip: It doesn’t COST anything to throw stuff away and pull the weeds.
The whole nobility of the poor is bs. Sure, there are some people who have little means that aren’t lazy. But, not a lot. I can drove through the hood, and see a trash filled piece of crap house with a whole lot of people sitting on the porch doing NOTHING.
Mikey, forget it. RealityCheck didn’t understand what Jeff was actually writing about, and Barack X parsed what you said in order to read racism into your remarks. Although, I did find his Dale Earnhardt tribute sentence rather amuzing.
“Comment by dre on 6/13 @ 1:54 pm #
Jeff G. What’s the color of your lawn jockey?”
I don’t know about Jeff’s, but I do know that the Democrats treat blacks like political lawn jockeys.
Regarding Lisa’s observation in #18, here’s what one observant young, Black man had to say, as recorded by a writer from American Thinker who sat next to him on a plane out of NOLA: “they’re [Vietnamese immigrants, in this case — EL] hungry and we think we’re owed. It’s crushing us, and as long as we think we’re owed we’re going nowhere.”
“Comment by RealityCheck on 6/13 @ 3:14 pm #
What a racist post, you really are the scum of the earth. Why are most far-right bloggers inherently racist?”
Sorry, dude, it’s the Democrats who are racists.
“…, it wasn’t the GOP that opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor was it the GOP that opposed the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing equal protection, or the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing voting rights. (In fact, Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act in greater percentages than did Democrats.)
Moreover, it wasn’t the Republican party that opposed Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-lynching legislation or that filibustered or otherwise opposed more than a dozen other anti-lynching provisions during the 20th century.
Republicans didn’t institutionalize Jim Crow, implement school segregation, or establish poll taxes and literacy tests to keep non-whites from voting. Bull Connor, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Orval Faubus weren’t Republicans.
It wasn’t a Republican who ordered the internment of Japanese-American citizens (or Italians or Germans) during World War II. Nor were Republicans behind the Chinese exclusion acts or licensing requirements that discriminated against non-white businesses and tradesmen.”
-Peter Kirsanow
Mmmm Nyquil. Reading your comments I had to run and get me a couple ounces in a brandy snifter to sip on.. Give it 20 minutes to kick in then it’ll be a nice , quiet Friday evening in front of the TV watching a few episodes of my new Invaders collection.. That or I’ll tweak some meth and come back to to try and keep up with Nishi’s machine gun speed flow of consciousness commenting.. Still haven’t made heads or tails out of the whole Crouching Tiger analogy thing…
Again Carin- that goes to what you believe in. Do you want to live in squalor or not? It may not be the Getty mansion, but any person can dispose of trash and keep themselves and their place clean and neat.
Do you encourage education or not? Plenty of people fall on either side of that. It is behavioral, it is cultural; which do you choose to adhere to? The culture of squalor or the culture of personal responsibility?
Lisa doesn’t choose squalor, certainly the Obama’s don’t. It is all choice, and those who purport to lead ought to condemn the one and encourage the other. Like BJTex’s parents did.
Heck, I rent a townhouse and I raked out the bushes, I put fresh mulch around them and the patio – because I like that. The mulch cost about $34, but if I couldn’t afford it I would at least have everything raked out and clean. I like things cleaned up and squared away, I’m proud – personally proud – like that. And others where I live do the same thing, and plant flowers around their little holdings.
It has nothing to do with anything but how a person wants to behave. Wants to behave. A choice.
As a straight white male age 18-34, I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to comment on posts like this.
” ..straight white male age 18-34″
Um, how long did it take you to be born?
“Asians, though traditionally an underrepresented race, have reversed that, adopting and evolving an ethnic culture that promotes the kind of hard work that readies one for advanced academic challenges.”
Bullshit, Jeff. Everyone knows the success of Asians is due to how they are adored by white colored people. Until the brown colored man is loved as much as the yellow colored man by the white colored man, the brown colored man will suffer needlessly.
Have you forgotten the color of the big boss man?
“Until the brown colored man is loved as much as the yellow colored man by the white colored man, the brown colored man will suffer needlessly.”
I think I’ll go for the brown lawn jockey then.
Still haven’t made heads or tails out of the whole Crouching Tiger analogy thing…
Me neither. I didn’t know if my being compared to the “May” character was a dig or not, since (truth be told) I could never make it past the first 30 minute roof-fight scene. Did she have great sugartits?
Mikey – I think it also goes to how you perceive yourself to be in control of your own life. If the government is supposed to come to your aid in other aspects of your life, well … why can’t they get their ass busy in my yard? That grass isn’t gonna cut itself …
Though I’m still intrigued by the Rainbow/PUSH model Jeff G. has.
ccoffer – Um, I hope you just made a mistake on your sarcasm tags…
Until the brown colored man is loved as much as the yellow colored man by the white colored man, the brown colored man will suffer needlessly.
That explains Tiger Woods’ success.
Sean, that’s ridiculous. This is exactly the place to comment. If someone can’t handle an exchange of ideas, then they’re in the wrong place. If people misconstrue what you post, so be it. Life lesson learned. They’ll get over it, eventually!
psst, Roboc … Sean is part of teh white patriarchy. His participation in this convo is limited to apologizing.
Sigh … I miss happyfeet. I’ve grown used to his irreverence.
Then I need a scorecard to keep track of the victims!
Carin – it is personal responsibility.
Look – a hundred years ago my great-grandfather was superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools and it was a good system; fifty years ago they required the teachers to take a test to make sure they were getting the best teachers – and the Detroit schools were top-notch. Hells Bells! They offered classes on aircraft engine maintenance! Cass Tech was one of my great-grandfather’s ideas!
What the Hell happened? How did that deteriorate?
The only answer I have is that the culture of the city changed so that becoming educated and respecting the institution of the schools became far, far less important. And so long as the culture of the area proclaims that the average (not Renaisance High) schools in Detroit will remain as crap.
And Wales C. Martindale will continue to do high-speed RPM’s in his grave.
RealityCheck and X were as predictable as El Tigre winning another US Open.
MikeyNTH: Are you the guy on the bus that mumbles and has a huge sack lunch?
Carin was teasing us earlier talking about some linky love. That was not very nice, sugar.
I redenounce myself.
[wiping away a tear]..Sean, you’re a hero. A lot of people don’t rake, but, dammit, you know raking saves America. God Bless you
Fuck off, FudgePacker.
I vigorously denounce raking and hero worship!
#75 Carin – and what is even more odd, I have no idea who lives in the neat and clean house I described. I just pulled a contrast (and what a contrast!) between it and the property behind it. To emphasize values, not race.
I often wonder what the major malfunction is with asshats like TinyPecker, Ron Burgundy, caric, timmah, IJS, etal. Then I realize that they are just small pathetic people.
Wow — JD’s testy there. Could be because the ostensible topic is Obama’s position on affirmative action, when in fact, nobody has provided anything to refute or support the supposition that he’s a teat-attacher. I don’t care, one way or the other. Way to go, debate team!
Mikey, the property behind it was inhabited by non-raking slobs!
#97 – no; I live a mile from my office so I don’t need to take any transportation than shank’s mare to get to work.
But thanks for your concern; I’ll treasure it.
#99 – that wasn’t Sean, but I bet he also does his best to keep his community looking good without waiting for that government team to make All Perfect®
And I even said the house behind the neat and clean house was a
BURNT OUT HULK.
No one was living there, or should live there – the house is looking for a place to fall down. And when did keeping you and your property neat and clean become racial?
I think there is some real racisim going on, but it ain’t from me. I think Chris Rock had a riff on this once.
WaPo on Obama and AA
Of course, those aren’t the positions which Obama knew. They have obviously changed as much as Rev. Wright has. Or Fr. Pfleger. Or Tony Rezko. Or Johnson. Or….
I was just kidding, MikeyNTH. Is a shank’s mare the latest Harley? Haven’t heard of it.
Rick Ballard, I’m not mounting an unequivocal defense of Obama. I would, quite frankly, allow him to address his positions in the here and now, without the right-wing static factory trying to rhetorically cut him off at his knees. And believe me, if he can’t stand on his own, he won’t need the righty yippers to undermine him.
The House Negro on the Magic Negro:
“”I’ve been saying for a number of years that the American people are not institutionally racist,” and Obama’s strong support among white voters proves it, said Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, an organization that backs proposals to end affirmative action in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. “It underscores my position . . . that affirmative action is an idea whose time has passed.”
Again – when did acting as a good citizen – a responsible adult – around your property and generally become a bad thing? When did picking up litter from the ground or raking out the shrubbery become evil? When did common lawn maintence become a forbidden thing?
I try to keep the little piece of earth I inhabit looking pleasant to everyone else and that makes me a villain? Being conscientious is a crime?
Penny-wit and cynical – go do what I told matoko to do. You’re worthless for a comment thread.
cynn
Collectivists eschew individuals. Collectivists believe the hoi polloi incapable of taking care of themselves. Collectivists play to greed while sneering at success.
Barry is a collectivist who believes only gubmint (directed by him) is the answer to everyone’s woes. He’ll even hike taxes he KNOWS won’t increase revenue to the government because he thinks taking from Mr. and Mrs. Smith over }here{ who have worked themselves into a bit more success than Barry thinks is prudent and give it to Mr. Jones and Ms. Taylor over }there{ who decided to coast through life
BECAUSE OF TEH FAIRNESS!
Barry tells us we aren’t allowed to eat what we want anymore. Michelle tells us that Barry won’t let us ignore him.
Why shouldn’t we assume Barry will approach Affirmative Action like he does every other policy? AA is a collectivist’s dream.
Up yours cynn.
Shank’s mare is also know as ‘walking’; I think you should take a long one, and if possible do some thinking.
Mikey, sorry, I was just teasing. No, cleaning up and taking pride in your environs is a good thing.
Shoot, Cynn, you said: “nobody has provided anything to refute or support the supposition that he’s a teat-attacher”, so I hopped to it. I realize that it’s been ages since 2006 and the Lightweight Vibrator changes positions like a center ring contortionist act for Ringling Bros. but that article is only three months old.
BURNT OUT HULK NEED STAY-CATION! HULK SMASH!
Late to the party, but my best wishes for a speedy recovery for Lisa and condolences to Russert’s family.
I thought Lisa was working pretty well on the Nyquil. As for the Asian/Black difference, I would add as factors that there are some — but by no means all — segments of the black community where studying is deemed “white” and uncool, whereas (and this is a again a generalization) most of the asian families I have known are near-fanatical in stressing education and making their kids grind on the books.
The other factor I would add is that asian immigrants often benefit from microfinance of their businesses from within the extended family or the local community. To take a cliched example, my dry cleaner has now been run by three different Korean couples, each of which has gotten this type of support; it’s like the starter set from which they move on to bigger and better things. In that entrepreneurial aspect, they’re pretty Booker T. Washington.
Holy Shit!! What have I wandered into? I made some offhand comments…is Mikey in some inescapeable ghetto? Everyone’s got neighborhood issues.
Teasing? You throw in the greatest insult in these United States – an accusation of racism – and you cover it by saying you were teasing?
Andrew Jackson’s time would know how to deal with that insult.
BTW, there’s an NYT piece I’m not going to Google in which O! takes both sides of the AA position in the space of three paragraphs — much like every other issue.
” My theory is that when white liberals set up their “programs†it was to produce people like Cynthia McKinney and Al Sharpton – somewhat literate but altogether incompetent and generally mediocre.”
Pablo,
Al Sharpton is a very, very intelligent man. It’s just that he has chosen to ply the back rooms of politics in the most cynical way possible. He is basically a political blackmailer.
It’s too bad that a man who is as inteeligent as Sharpton has chosen to be a bottom feeder. He has the makings of a great man, but chooses to ignore trying to do good things, and instead,to write his meal ticket with “victimhood”.
Darleen: you come off like a hypnotist. Where’s the metronome? I happen to be opposed to affirmative action, because I think it’s redundant. No need for a law or wide-ranging policy. People do what they do.
Mikey: I don’t recall accusing you of racism.
Incidentally, I don’t think an accusation of racism is the greatest insult in these United States; it’s appeaser.
I just can’t get over the leeway given this clown. I mean, have we really gotten to the point now that we can’t take a presidential candidate’s spokesman, speaking on the record, at his or her word?
How many fucking layers of insulation are we going to give this guy?
Besides, I tried asking Obama directly about his stance on affirmative action (knowing that he fought against doing away with it in ’06), and all he had to say to me, “just let me finish my goddamned waffle, would you?”
If Obama can’t find spokespeople who speak for him, then fuck if he should be president, anyway.
cynn
are you having short term memory loss…like between comments?
You want proof O! was against/for AA yesterday (but not 3 months or more ago). I don’t believe we have to have his specific words on the policy, we can judge him on the totality of his beliefs based on his behavior.
Incidentally, I don’t think an accusation of racism is the greatest insult in these United States; it’s appeaser
cynn, when was the last time someone was fired or denied a promotion because a co-worker whispered “appeaser” to Human Resources.
“have we really gotten to the point now that we can’t take a presidential candidate’s spokesman, speaking on the record, at his or her word?”
Even though it’s rhetorical, I’ll take a stab. Yes, we’ve gotten to that point. Besides that, how the hell do you know if that spokesman is the spokesman that Obama knew?
This campaign went through the looking glass some time ago. New rules – they’ll be announced right after the elections.
Lisa is alright, even if she is accusing you of lying. I hope she gets better and soon. Being sick is obviously no fun. And I can’t do Nyquil. I took it once and thought I was having a massive heart attack every time I laid my head down to go to sleep. Sudafed does the same thing to me. Amazingly, whippets, back in the day, were fine.
Probably just another lie by me, but here is a TRUE story regarding Al Sharpton. He was downtown Cleveland protesting Charter One bank because of their evil lending practices towards inner city blacks. Basically, they wouldn’t give loans to high risk customers, whether black or white, but who’s to quibble with Al when he’s on. Anywho, Charter One is my bank (small thrift with decent interest rates, well it WAS!), and I had to wiggle through the imported protesters (mostly from Carin’s neck of the woods!)on my way out, I saw the good Rev. walking by himself (with muscle a good 100 feet behind) and he gave me a dirty look, so I told him to go fuck himself. He gave me a look of astonishment and skulked away. It’s a story representative of nothing in particular, but mention of the not so good Rev. awakened it from my memory.
We can judge Obama by the fact that he has an outstanding political campaign machine, with all kind of do-bots in the field, but the man himself is amorphous. He is ether; the clean distillation of our hopes and aspirations, but we can’t touch him. He’s like a sprite, always just beyond our grasp in the forest.
I really want to engulf and internalize the Obamavision, because it is the perfect cure for the wrenching nausea I have had for the last seven years. I’ll keep my mind open, but it’s beseiged.
Comment by cynn on 6/13 @ 9:01 pm #
Jesus, cynn… do you know what you’re admitting?
cynn: Go read the thread again, jerk. I certainly got that perception from you. It began when I said to lisa that behaviour meant more than race, and gave an example.
And now I am offended. Go fuck yourself up the ass with a nail-studded bat spinning sideways at a high rpm.
“Comment by Ouroboros on 6/13 @ 7:19 pm #
Mmmm Nyquil. Reading your comments I had to run and get me a couple ounces in a brandy snifter to sip on.. Give it 20 minutes to kick in then it’ll be a nice , quiet Friday evening in front of the TV watching a few episodes of my new Invaders collection.. That or I’ll tweak some meth and come back to to try and keep up with Nishi’s machine gun speed flow of consciousness commenting.. Still haven’t made heads or tails out of the whole Crouching Tiger analogy thing…”.
It’s been a long, long time, but why would you waste meth on reading Nishi’s ridiculous spew?
Meth is meant to be used for three days of non-stop sex, and nothing less!
Ohhhh, mikey. Nishi may become jealous. That is, if her programming allows for such base emotion.
Mikey, you were offended by my guy on a bus comment? It was a JOKE!! A bad one, maybe. I didn’t mention race, only a sack lunch. Did you infer a hamhock reference somehow?
cynn: “We can judge Obama by the fact that he has an outstanding political campaign machine”
No, the Chicago machine, among others, have found the ideal empty vessel for their ambitions… hardly the same thing.
cynn: “the man himself is amorphous. He is ether; the clean distillation of our hopes and aspirations, but we can’t touch him.”
He’s a second rate phoney in a first rate suit. He says all the right things, but, way down deep, where it’s important, he’s shallow. He thinks the public are a collection puling half-wits he can fool all the time with a simple “This isn’t the (insert name of long-time associate here) I know.” He’s thrown so many people under the bus that I’m surprised the wheels still touch the road, all in the name of political expedience.
cynn: “He’s like a sprite, always just beyond our grasp in the forest.”
He is, rather, a will-o-the-wisp — same movements, leading forward to some pitfall.
Read the entire thread – jerk.
Stop being so fucking clever and actually read what others have written; if you pile on with those accusing racism what the hell does that make you? What the hell am I supposed to think? That you are just giving an off-handed snark?
Auto-contrarian is just as dumb as anything I can think of. And I remain offended.
Melville’s Confidence Man had something of the messiah-like about him, if I remember correctly.
No – not offended. I remain enraged. That’s the better word.
Thanks for the correction; I;m batting a billion here.
#135 O.I. – nishi can go take a flying leap for all I care. This is personal.
“Comment by Mikey NTH on 6/13 @ 8:26 pm #
Again – when did acting as a good citizen – a responsible adult – around your property and generally become a bad thing? When did picking up litter from the ground or raking out the shrubbery become evil? When did common lawn maintence become a forbidden thing?”
Well, shit! No wonder I have so much laundry. Isn’t the government supposed to pick it up, clean it, fold it, and then deliver it back to my house?
Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. Are you trying to tell me that I have to take care of this stuff my ownself?
Mikey, I understand. But, cynn is probably three bottles into a case of BV Cabernet. As for nishi, that was the only time I saw her deviate from her core programming. I was impressed.
Mikey: My God, would you please point to the exact offending comment so I amy properly atone? I feel bad to think that someone is out there needlessly fuming over some crap I said.
I try to never rake unless I absolutely have to.
Only so she could play the ‘woe is me’ card, O.I.
It was all she had; she didn’t think anyone would remember her after she disappeared and then changed internet handles. But memory is one thing I got going for me; the cousin who got married? I remember details of his dad and mom’s wedding, and I was only seven. They were surprised at that; my folks weren’t.
– Russert is gone, and its a damn shame. He was one of the few voices of sanity on the left that I trusted.
Ever been to Camden, NJ, Mikey? I drove in there one day and just wandered around in the car. I was practically weeping by the time I quit, probably a couple of hours in all. The destruction of that city is simply overwhelming. Anyhow, knowing nothing in particular about how it came to pass, I made the mistake of marveling aloud about my wonder at it in a trendy coffee shop in Philly. Without warning the young woman behind the counter (with whom I had been friendly before, had many a long conversation with) jumped feet first down my throat accusing me of all manner of racist attitudes and insensitivities. I was shocked, as I hadn’t said a word about race, indeed, hadn’t so much as thought about race. For her, I was white, middleclass bourgeois (she was a self-professed Bryn-Mawrian Marxist Poetess, Daisy Fried http://tinyurl.com/527×33) and therefore must have been implicating the race of the citizens of Camden, for she knew, where I did not, that all the white people had fled Camden many years before. She apologized the next day after thinking over what I’d actually said (and probably the shock and pain my face showed at being misunderstood). But the good progressive people do know what you are thinking and were put here to tell you what that is.
You guys are fuckheads; I have no need either to change my internet handle or to play your stupid shitty games.
“This campaign went through the looking glass some time ago. New rules – they’ll be announced right after the elections.”
Or when the Florida supreme court changes the law, AFTER the election is over.
We are dealing with asshats who hate freedom of speech (and thought). If you disagree with them, they WILL find a way to SHUT YOU THE FUCK UP!
“You guys are fuckheads; I have no need either to change my internet handle or to play your stupid shitty games.
– What, donouncement isn’t good ebough for you? Nag nag nag.
I said read the thread, and see where you piled on after the accusation was given. Start at about #70.
And yes, I am very touchy when I perceive that someone has slurred my honor. That is why I choose my words carefully and rarely use profanity, just so that I can’t be misconstrued or what I say twisted, or merely dismissed as the ravings of a crank. Heck, almost 100% of the time I refer to Sen. Obama as just that – Sen. Obama. Or any officeholder I try to refer to by his or her title. I try hard to keep up those little politenesses because they mean something in public discourse. As much as picking up litter where you live means – it means you respect others no matter who they are or what they do. It is consideration; common courtesy, Something that I believe is valuable.
– Ok. That was bad even for me. Turning the spell checker back on, even though its buried in leaves up to its bumpers.
Was that bottle 2 or 3 speaking, cynn? Keep the handle, though, guessing who you are might not take Hercule Poirot to figure out.
– Mikey, you keep it up with this courtesy and respect stuff, you’re going to totally lose your self-denouncement creds.
“Comment by Sdferr on 6/13 @ 9:39 pm #”
Don’t fel bad. Camden is an amazing shithole, and I can’t believe that you left there alive.
LD
I didn’t know better at the time, though it was broad daylight.
Comment #70 was by someone named Barak X, not me.
Jeff still seems to be bitter over the pasting I gave him in our little debate last year. Not that he isn’t generally a bitter kind of guy. Jeff, you’ve really got to get over things man.
O.I. are you accusing me of making that comment? Disgusting.
BBH – I can’t help it; the culture I was raised in expects that from me. So I have to keep it real – for Mom and Dad, and my brothers – and me. I like self-respect.
I’m keepin’ it real – real square. Ahem; heh.
– cynn. As I have had moonbats say to me so many many times: “Well, maybe you didn’t actually say it, but we KNOW what you were thinking.”
– Tell me. How does it feel?
I said start there and then read on to the point you piled on. Part of the thing with these comment threads is that someone starts something and then we all take it from there – we add to the original comment; and part of that adheres to us if we aren’t careful.
And I am touchy about my honor. If this was 200 years ago – I’d probably be dead ’cause I’m a decent shot, but not that good of a shot.
Other than 200 years ago meaning I would be dead naturally; I’m talking about it all ending very unnaturally.
Perfesser ummmm….You haven’t given anybody a pasting at any time in your sad little life, much less Jeff. I’m willing to bet that that wasn’t even the real Ric Caric, as even though he’s an idiot, he’s not that much of an idiot. Could be timmah? Could be another of his brood.
““…Jeff, you’ve really got to get over things man.”
– Apparently the regiment of anti-psychotic meds haven’t worked out for “teh preffeser”.
You are beneath contempt, becaused you heap contmept and don’t stop to examine your own motives. Sad.
I owe you all an apology. I need some larnin.
SDferr,
I didn’t either until I went there. Never again.
#134 The Lost Dog: Meth is meant to be used for three days of non-stop sex, and nothing less!
Hahahaha! It’s been years but as I recall it’s good for 3 days of non-stop manic sex because that’s home long it takes to cum once on meth.. Man, I used to have to keep a few spare chicks around the house to replace the ones I was wearing out …
Ahh. good times..
Sdferr: “Ever been to Camden, NJ, Mikey? I drove in there one day and just wandered around in the car. I was practically weeping by the time I quit, probably a couple of hours in all. The destruction of that city is simply overwhelming.”
My family is from that area — the city is a disaster area, although there are a few oases here and there. The suburbs are nice. My da’ used to work in the Campbell’s soup factory and the shipyard over in Philly.
The scary part — Newark is worse.
The death of great cities, the birthing and maturing of which takes in most cases fifty to a hundred years, longer even, is a terrible thing to see. Philadelphia, from all I could see, was the manufacturing capital of the world through WWII and maybe a bit beyond and is nothing but a shell of that today. So many millions of lives lived building and yet it disappears in a couple of decades. No one decides, let’s kill this town, but it seems to happen on the heels of human decision nevertheless. I always been awed at the unknowable complexity of such things.
Mmmmm.. yessss…. I.. just cooked up.. a spoon of some.. good store brand .. ‘compare with’ Nyquil… tied off my eyeball and shot it under the lid.. so no one will see ..the trackss.. and know I’ve got a Nyquil Monkey on my back…mmm what a rush.. better than meth sex…
cynn
go sleep it off
I see the Red Ric is plagarizing Pee Wee Herman again.
No, thanks I’m not going to “sleep it off” as much as you might like. I’m going to chap your californicated ass and you can make as mamy funnies as you want but you can’t outrun it.
cynn
I was trying to save you further embarrassment, but good deeds going unpunished and all that.
Carry on.
Sdferr,
The basic purpose for many cities is simply gone. The productive no longer have no need to be penned and herded for the sake of efficiency. There are a few exceptions but for the most part cities have become prog fiefs where the work of the serf is to collect a government check which the Blue Barons then appropriate. The only other thing the prog serfs have to do is show up on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even numbered years and confirm their masters power.
I think of it as the progs application of the Hegelian master slave/construct through good community organization.
Darleen, thanks for the embarrassment and deauthorization watch! Well done.
“longer have
noa need”Sheesh.
One problem Rick is that the proggs are hell bent on herding everyone back into the city and slamming the gates tightly shut
Notice – from O! to Pelosi not one Dem wants American citizens to pay less for gas. All you hear is yammering that people have to give up their cars for mass transit, give up their single family homes for multifamily dwellings “closer in”. We have to creche our four y/o’s (when we are allowed to have kids) in mandatory government schools.
A lot of Proggs are enamored of medival times because they always see themselves as the lords, not the serfs. The “simple life” is for others to toil “green” while they look on from the balcony of the castle.
I’m not treading unmarked ground around here when I suggest that the average college-educated, heavily ideological leftist loves to talk about race. They see it nearly everywhere, in nearly every issue. For the less cynical, it’s a way to assert their moral superiority. For others, it’s a way to play King Solomon, and assume the responsibility, power, and benefits that come from divying out punishments, spoils, and privileges on the latest oppressors and opressees. Actual colorblind individuals are anathema to these people, becomes it not only shows their moral bankrupcy, but makes their self-annointned role of King Solomon superflous.
Personally, I’m very much an individualist, so the idea of punishing and rewarding people according to race or ethnicity is revolting to me morally. Even within ‘groups,’ individuals have widely different experiences. Class, family history, geographical location, luck – to actually play God would require a God. Easily corruptible and heavily fallible bureacrats – forgive me if I’m not impressed at their projected ability to do so.
Due to the impossibility of judging people as individuals, the King Solomons fall back on group statistics and broad categories like ‘Black,’ ‘White,’ ‘Hispanic,’ ‘Pacific Islander,’ etc.
These categories, however, are themselves nonsensical as a tool of policy. What is an “Asian”? An Indian? Pakistani? Japanese? Chinese? Montagnard? Filipino? Setting aside their own wannabe-Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons, who have an interest in increasing their power bases through the lowest common denominator, the average individual in these communities would look at you as if you had six eyes if you were to suggest their positions are in any way analogous.
Similarly, what’s an Hispanic? Cuban? Mexican? Colombian? Puerto Rican?
How about white? Jewish (noting that many Jews could pass as Middle Easterners)? Italians? Russian? Pole? Irish? Voting patterns, wealth, history within this country – there is no common narrative.
Even the supposedly simple one, “black,” doesn’t mean all that much. Aside from the historical divide between Northern and Southern blacks, newly immigrated Africans and Carribian-Americans (see Colin Powell) are going to break down the category even further.
Take this, for example:
“As for the Asian/Black difference,”
As a Trinidadian former girlfriend of mine often reminded me, and also is documented in Thomas Sowell’s Ethnic America, this categorization breaks down from the start depending on who you’re talking about. Black Americans from the Carribean, for example, do significantly better economically and educationally than black Americans as a whole, to the point where there’s almost no difference between them and white Americans.
In short, these categories are so broad as to be largely useless. The differences within them can, in fact, disprove a number of common assumptions. In my opinion, bureaucrats and politicians only use them because if they looked at the ‘groups’ at all realistically, they wouldn’t be able to even passably fake their managing and manipulating them with any sort of accuracy. There would go their entire claim to control power.
I’d like to hear Obama’s position on affirmative action from the man himself. As I recall, his spokesmodels don’t always do a sterling job of speaking for him.
I thought I knew my campaign spokeswoman Candice Toliver, but really she was just one of those people you smile at and say “good morning” to when you pass each other in the hallway at campaign headquarters. Apparently she and I are not really on the same page at all politically like I imagined. sorry about that. Anyway, she was just one of numerous people who volunteered to speak for me to the press. Besides, she was run over by a bus on the way to work this morning. We have a new spokeswoman this afternoon…
Disgusting all the more since I’m Barack X, not cynn.
At one point you have to ask yourself how stupid must you be not to recognize that Barack X mirrors every signature insult that thor, I, normally invoke.
cynn is snarky and cute; thor beats your fuckin’ noses off, jackasses. Yet you go and pick on her.
Teh funny isn’t when Barack or thor or cynn is the butt of it. You dumbasses are funnier than a pink balloon full of unicorn jizz.
No kidding.
I’m pretty sure Darleen is either a SoCal resident or at least familiar with the region, and there’s a plan here to turn a significant swath of our freeway carpool lanes into toll lanes. The tolls collected aren’t going to be used to improve the freeway infrastructure at all. Nope, they’re going to be used to expand the bus and rail lines that hardly anybody uses around here, especially near the freeways.
Since my local Congressman has basically introduced legislation saying “Oh no you di’int” to that plan, I did an interview with his press secretary and a spokesman for the L.A. Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is backing the toll plan.
The Congressman’s rep basically said that the he’s opposed to the lanes being switched to toll lanes because taxpayer funds had been used to build them, and imposing a toll would essentially be “double dipping.” That, and it would drive cars out of the carpool lanes and into the other freeway lanes and surface streets, making congestion worse.
You know what the MTA guy said their plan was? He told me, straight up, even though I reminded him that a lot of people have seen public transportation here in the L.A. area as a non-starter, that they were going to implement the plan to try to change commuters’ behavior. By driving people who drive their own cars (even if they carpool!) off the freeways and onto buses.
That’s right. They want to make freeway congestion worse here so that the proles will take the buses that nobody wants to take right now. And he admitted this to me, without any prodding.
The mind boggles.
Sean, that may be fine for those that live reasonably close to work, but many in the burbs will just leave the state rather than commute 2+ hours each way.
Geez thor, read that label on the fiber supplement bro.
M1R: “As a Trinidadian former girlfriend of mine often reminded me, and also is documented in Thomas Sowell’s Ethnic America, this categorization breaks down from the start depending on who you’re talking about. Black Americans from the Carribean, for example, do significantly better economically and educationally than black Americans as a whole, to the point where there’s almost no difference between them and white Americans.”
African blacks and Caribbean blacks do better, economically, as a group / class. I personally believe has something to do with there not being the same grand tradition of welfare dependency in those regions… there’s probably one heck of a sociological or economic thesis paper in that suspicion, somewhere…
Dread, yeah if you want to be branded a racist.
thor, you are verbal ejaculate!
Hail teh Hammer !
Roboc: “Dread, yeah if you want to be branded a racist.”
How is one being “racist” if one is examining a phenomena that occurs in and amongst one community?
At no point am I positing that one race is superior to another. At no point am I positing that one race is inferior to another. What I am observing is that there are different outcomes arising from similar inputs within what some would acknowledge as a single community. I am positing an economic theory as to the difference — i.e. that individuals that grow up under one set of economic and social policies have different life outcomes, on average, than individuals who grow up under a different set of economic and social policies.
At no point, in a reasonable and adult analysis, should the pejorative “racist” attach.
Thor:
Here’s five bucks. Go to Walmart and buy a 6 pack of coherence abd a tub of relevance.
At no point, in a reasonable and adult analysis, should the pejorative “racist†attach.
Agreed!
If Prof. Caricature actually felt like he was getting the best of anyone, a laughable proposition on its face, why is it that he just drops in during the late evening, makes a stoooopid comment, and flees?
At one point you have to ask yourself how stupid must you be not to recognize that Barack X mirrors every signature insult that thor, I, normally invoke.
JD, he’s a legend in his own mind. He even used the word “invoke”, so maybe he wears a cape. I’m sure his mother has the, “My child didn’t drool the entire school year” bumper sticker on her car.
I’m willing to bet that that wasn’t even the real Ric Caric, as even though he’s an idiot, he’s not that much of an idiot.
Oh yes, he is. Go over and hang out at his site for awhile. It is beyond parody.
thor beats your fuckin’ noses off, jackasses.
thor beats off, but not other peoples noses.
thor must have been put on suicide watch when the “Dungeons and Dragons” fad passed. Wiiiizzzard!!!
JD – ain’t it the truth. I’ve got a challenge for Caric. Stay around for …oh, I don’t know – 100 comments of engagement. We’ll see how badly he schools anyone here. But if he knows what’s good for his ego, he’ll stick with the drive-by incoherence.
thor can count his unimagined friends on one hand…oh,wait…his hand is his only unimagined friend.
“Comment by Ric Caric on 6/13 @ 9:52 pm #
Jeff still seems to be bitter over the pasting I gave him in our little debate last year. Not that he isn’t generally a bitter kind of guy. Jeff, you’ve really got to get over things man.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, perfesser, you’re a funny guy.
Delusional, but funny.
Wow, I just went to Mr. Caric’s website. Yikes, good luck with all that, Rick. He’s lugging around a considerable amount of baggage.
Stay around for …oh, I don’t know – 100 comments of engagement.
I go over at play at his site sometimes when I am feeling really bored and sadistic. He seldom lasts more than 3 comments, I think 5 is probably his max. Whenever you engage him on specifics, he immediately starts in on what all conservatives really think and then starts arguing with himself. He is utterly clueless.
Ok, I was just googling Obama’s affirmative action positions, and I found this little interesting piece. It’s a letter written to the “Black Commentator” from JUne 2003.
There it is. Obama’s core values.
And this little nugget:
I wonder how that compass is doing now-a-days? You think he lost it?
Ouroboros,
“…better than meth sex…..”
That’s just not possible. Don’t you remember that 40,000 ton freight train that started at your toes and SLOWLY headed upwards…?
Jeebus! I must be OLD if I am talking about this stuff…
I’m last!
A little late to the party, but I’d like to pick up on something Lisa said in her initial post.
Well, yeah. But that’s part of the defining difference between progressives and conservatives (or classical liberals) and it’s called local control. You see, we want the people in the neighborhoods to be the ones responsible for making sure their own schools ‘are good enough.’ Turning that responsibility over to some paternalistic overlords just leaves you vulnerable to their whims. The bottom line is: your schools suck, you should be able to fix them, or at least be free to fire those responsible, and hire someone who can fix them.
#185 Sean
My parents live in Brea (I graduated from Sonora High). I live and work in the IE.
The Proggs aren’t even circumspect about their plans anymore. The LATimes just ran an article about how “selfish” people who drive in cars “alone” are and that they won’t change their behavior until it “hurts” enough.
I really wouldn’t mind taking a train to work, I looked up the metrolink option … one train, then TWO different buses to go the last three miles but I can’t do it, because I work in the opposite traffic pattern flow than most commuters so the trains don’t run in the direction I need in the morning.
Jerry Brown is getting his wish that he started years ago and that he uses the power he has now as state AG to try and badger small cities with lawsuits into stopping all single family housing.
But I am no longer surprised that two over achieving black people who don’t apologize for being successful would be treated with such suspicion and outright hatred by the people who set up those “preferencesâ€Â.
The invective heaped on high achieving black individuals (e.g. Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas) by the Jeremiah Wrights and the Farrakhan lovers is nearly unbelievable in its viciousness.
Ward Connerly’s disappointment in Obama dissembling or backtracking on “racial preferences” seems genuine enough.
I’ve never seen the “race card” beat so subtly (and, occasionally overtly) as it has been in Obama’s campaign. I finally saw a picture of the “typical white person”, Barack’s grandmother, who basically raised him in Hawaii, the (now) old, sickly white woman he basically threw under the bus awhile back to make some dipstick point about “race”.
“I’ve always trusted my moral compass, and have thus far avoided compromising my core values for the sake of ambition or expedience.”
You have to understand that the “core value” is “power for the socialist elite”. This has not been compromised or sacrificed.
Seeking the office of the President, by hook or by crook, is part of that “core value”. Throwing anyone “under the bus” or in the gulag is not mere expedience but is a necessary part of the “core value” and is understood as such by all parties involved.
When reading or listening to the far left translation from their newspeak is needed for understanding. Remember the definition of “Peace” used by the USSR. Peace was the condition that would be had when all the enemies of the Communist Party of the USSR were totally defeated. Newspeak still lives on.
Peace was the condition that would be had when all the enemies of the Communist Party of the USSR were totally defeated. Newspeak still lives on.
Definitions relative to perspective, the word means what you want it to mean.
“newsspeak” from Brave New World
We should not elect any individual whose message varies substantially depending on which particular crowd he/she is addressing. SF limousine liberals probably got the closest (and he thought private) version of Barack’s actual worldview, such as it is.
Sonic Boom
Darleen,
I have what I believe to be a vain hope that sometime before the election an article will appear tracing Obama’s support among the thieves in the Chicago Machine. The Rezko/Obama connection, slumlord/progmaster, is just too clear to ignore. Obama worked to keep his serfs penned in substandard housing and Rezko used the money funneled through those nice Section 9 checks to rent pols wholesale. The Pritzker tie-in is a little tougher to see – kind of like the Blum/Shorenstein/Feinstein gentrification efforts in SF which have the net effect of running blacks out in order to finally maximize profit.
It’s very difficult to see how the prog fiefs could be broken up. The dependency cycle is well established and the cash flowing through is sufficient to keep the serfs well collared. There is some flight but it takes a level of corruption such as that enjoyed by Detroit to really get large numbers loading U-Hauls and seeking greener pastures.
“thor beats your fuckin’ noses off, jackasses”
The Talib, HIG, AQI and JAM haven’t been able to do that. Nor a whole host of powerful plaintiff’s lawyers when I was practicing. I really, really think you haven’t the chance either, thor.
I sometimes wonder if you’re one of those self-deluded frauds, or if your fraudulence is a progressive construct — the little red inflatable water wings that keep your from drowning in a sea of your own hot, liquified bullshit…
Okay, actually, I don’t often wonder that. Just when you show up here and make an ass out of yourself like this. Other times, I don’t really wonder about you at all.
“There is some flight but it takes a level of corruption such as that enjoyed by Detroit to really get large numbers loading U-Hauls and seeking greener pastures.”
Outstate Michigan still ships boatloads of tax money to Detroit. It’s population has been declining for decades but the money still flows in and the votes for “D” still flow out. It’s a power in decline and desperation. Still dangerous but also becoming it’s own parody. See Mrs. Conyers on Youtube.
Darleen, what year did you grad from Sonora?
Here’s my rebuttal to Caric’s “pasting,” by the way.
I’ll let you judge who wound up wearing the dunce cap — even as I stand amazed that Caric would wish to once again draw attention to his rather (in my estimation) poor showing.
Thor, realizing that you’re good at playing the idiot, I didn’t care what cynn said in regards to Mikey as Mikey can handle, cynn. I am also betting most people knew that barack X was you. You think you’re cute, but you’re, actually at this point, kind of embarrasing.
“Oh yes, he is. Go over and hang out at his site for awhile. It is beyond parody”
I don’t have the stomach for that, B Moe. So, I’ll take your word for it.
fixed that for him.
#217 Ouroboros
1972 … back in the stone age (slide rules, rotary phones, no cable…)
;-)
[…] Jeff Goldstein penned a satirical post yesterday that delves into the debate on whether or not Affirmative Action is still a necessary tool for U.S. racial (and gender) equality. […]
That tenure track sure has gotten a lot wider in the last 20 or so years
“1972 … back in the stone age (slide rules, rotary phones, no cable…)”
Hahaha! Tell me about it.. 1976 here.. I didn’t grad from Sonora though.. but had 5 cousins that did ’75 – ’82.. I did live in the general area from ’65 to ’85.. My single parent household moved a lot.. “So Cal” or “OC” is as close as I can get to describing exactly where I grew up.. Fullerton, La Habra, Pomona, Placentia. Even went to college at CSUFullerton.
Now I’m in Seattle.. but I go back every February to see the family, take my kids to Disneyland and breathe deep the delicious smog smell that means ‘home’ to me =)
but had 5 cousins that did ‘75 – ‘82..
My younger sister, Valerie, graduated 1975 from Sonora.
I like North OC, even today.
thor is just in a bad mood because his sister is on the rag. He can tell because his dad’s dick tastes like shit.
Thanks for the apology, rabid ones. Decency is dead.
And tell me what I said that was so offensive/outrageous/objectionable. I will not sacrifice my beliefs, but I am willing to examine my delivery.
And BMoe, you have sunk like a stone in the rhetorical cistern. Expected better from you.
Sorry, cynn, but that was about as offensive as I can muster on a pleasant Saturday evening.
So thor is tougher than all our opponents in the GWOT, and Peter Angelos and Mark Lanier combined. Who knew? My nose is in MND(SE) if you would care to come take a look at it.
thor is so funny! What a comedian.