The Chicago Sun-Times reports Barack Obama’s response to Ralph Nader’s claim that Obama is “talking white” and “wants to appeal to white guiltâ€Â :
“Ralph Nader hadn’t been paying attention to my speeches, because all the issues that he talked about — whether it be predatory lending, the housing foreclosure crisis . . . I’ve devoted multiple speeches,” Obama said. “Ralph Nader is trying to get attention. I think it’s a shame because if you look at his legacy in terms of consumer protections, its an extraordinary one.”
But now, Obama said, “He’s someone . . . whose campaign hasn’t gotten any traction. So what better way to get some traction than to make an inflammatory statement like the one that he made? It is what it is.”
As noted yesterday, Nader’s attack was “simply despicable†for its implicit assumption that blacks or any other group should all think alike  and like Democrats in particular.
Obama’s response notably avoids this aspect of Nader’s remarks, choosing instead to respond that he has discussed the issues Nader named (though yesterday’s post noted Obama’s problems related to those issues).
It was just three short months ago that Obama delivered a major speech declaring that “race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” Yet Obama chose to avoid the ugly stereotypes at the heart of Nader’s remarks.
Nor is this approach limited to Nader’s remarks. During the Democratic primary season, the Obama campaign compiled a list of instances in which they believed that Hillary Clinton and her supporters to have deliberately played the race card. Now that Obama has secured the delegates needed for the nomination, Obama tells Clinton supporters that they “were allies then and we’re allies now.”
It is worth reviewing Obama’s list of grievances, because one of them was when Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, raised the issue of Obama’s past admissions of drug use, claiming that Republicans would raise the issue. Similarly, there was a firestorm of criticism when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (then a Clinton backer) said in an interview that “You’ve got conservative whites here … who are not ready to vote for an African American candidate. Obama let Rendell twist for about a month before responding:
“I think there will be people who don’t vote for me because of race, there will be people who don’t vote for me because of ideology, there will be people who don’t vote for me because I got big ears,” Mr. Obama said. “But you know, what I’m confident about is the overwhelming majority of voters in Pennsylvania and across the country are looking for someone that will deal with the real problems that we face as a country.”
David Ehrenstein would call that playing the “magic negro.â€Â And yet, when Obama himself deflects attention from the bad press he was getting for opting out of public financing in the general election by claiming that Republicans were going to try to make voters fear him because he is black, virtually no one will notice that Obama and his campaign have an extraordinarily flexible standard for what constitutes playing the race card.ÂÂ
It appears that race is an issue Obama can walk away from when the person making racial remarks is not (or is no longer) a viable threat to his political ambitions.  Also, claiming that Republicans will play the race card was itself playing the race card when Camp Clinton did it, but it is entirely acceptable to do if you are Barack Obama. Perhaps we will soon be informed that all of that race talk in the Democratic primaries was simply “overheated” — or “inartful.”
I’m of the decided opinion that Ralph Nader is actually the world’s best standup comedian. He has been running a routine on the entire United States for the last 40 years, which must be some sort of Guiness record for longest continual act. He’s got Andy Kaufman beat in the “fooled the lot of ya!” arena by a sizable margin.
I really couldn’t tell you what Ralph Nader is looking to accomplish. I can only figure being in a campaign has some tax or fundraising advantages that work out pretty good for people like him that don’t have real jobs.
hf,
Of course there is: Get a few trial lawyers to kick in the initial capital, collect the federal matching funds.
The Obama-Nader administration … it’s got a ring to it.
Oh. It’s just like how NPR does it.
Can there even be such a thing as “predatory lending”?
Happy, don’t be talking about my NPRizzle.
That is how they do it, though (with a little help from ADM – but their money is federal money anyway so no real diff).
I’ve got some good NPR0n coming later today.
I know commandero. My bleeding heart aches for the people who got taken in. But come on people. You would mortgage your house without reading the not-all-that-fine print? You figured YOU would be the one adjusting that Adjustable Rate Mortgage? What did you think would happen when your rates were adjusted?
Sigh.
“Can there even be such a thing as “predatory lendingâ€Â?”
If O! says it exists, it shall be.
Can there even be such a thing as “predatory lending�
Only in the minds of people who think banks make more money from people not paying their loans. You know, the people who think raising taxes on gasoline will lower the price?
Off Topic, but I see that the Gleens are now trying to throw Olbermann under the bus for Obama.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/26/olbermann/
The gleeeeeeeeeeeeens vs. Olberdouche in a no holds barred cage match on WWE.
Can there even be such a thing as “predatory lending�
Of course there is. It’s called “loansharking”.
The banks just aren’t breaking anybody’s kneecaps… yet.
They can, and some risk a lot of defaults to do it. Even ignoring repossessions/etc., a partially paid loan at a sufficiently high interest rate brings much more profit than a fully paid loan at a normal rate.
All banks do the math, and some do risk (or seek) certain kinds of defaults, timed just so — full payoffs being hugely profitable when they happen (and they largely do). It’s not hard to “profile” for the type whose defaults will likely be late, if they come at all.
It’s not a good long-term strategy — such banks soon must-avoid reputations among their targets — but when it works, it really works. And not every bank seeks immortality.
get
Whoa, there, slow down. Too much crazy at one can mess you up!
“at once” not “at one.” Sigh.
What I’ve never been able to figure out is why Nader still gets any press at all.
Shouldn’t he be limited to the local “indy paper” circuit, along with that hippie who travels around to college campuses arguing that we should all go back to the stone age?
I am just not feeling the love from Fuck Obama. If he keeps spamming the site with that comment, I’ll be deleting them.
SPB,
There’s way more than one aging hippie advocating a return to the stone age. Do you mean Al Gore?
…and F.O. goes bye-bye.
There’s way more than one aging hippie advocating a return to the stone age.
Oh, for sure, but this one is extreme even as that breed goes. He doesn’t think we should travel, or buy food from stores, or use electricity, or anything other than live as subsistence-farming peasants wading around in our own shit (or maybe he thinks we should go all the way back to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, I forget).
Naturally, he travels all over the country, has a web site, uses electricity when he’s giving speeches, etc.
I wish I could remember the fuckstick’s name. The local indy weekly is happy to suck his dick every time he blows through town.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair to smack O’Bama up for this particular thing; Nader just sounds like a tool trying to get attention, and there’s no reason for anyone, even a dopey progressive, to give him the excuse to continue such an idiotic argument. I’m no O’Bama fan, despite his Irish cred; I’m even less a Nader-lover.
I wish I could remember the fuckstick’s name.
Hah! Found him.
Puts out a paper journal, a radio show, and a web site, and “does extensive speaking tours around the world”. Yeah, that’s quite the “anarcho-primitivist” lifestyle you have there, John-Boy.
This bit caught my eye, SBP
John Zerzan is a leading theorist of the anti-civilization movement. John’s arguments are based in part on an assessment of human prehistory that is now part of the standard university curriculum. Contrary to long-held stereotypes that described prehistoric human life as “nasty, brutish, and short,” for the past few decades, scholars have considered our two-million-year existence as gatherers and hunters as the only successful human adaptation to the planet.
http://www.johnzerzan.net/
Is this just bullshit self-hype, or is this really a standard part of academia now?
Jasper said:
Can there even be such a thing as “predatory lending�
Of course there is. It’s called “loansharkingâ€Â.
The banks just aren’t breaking anybody’s kneecaps… yet.”
That’s not predatory lending. That’s predatory collecting. They are not the same thing.
“That’s not predatory lending. That’s predatory collecting. They are not the same thing.”
Give it time.
Another question for you: would there be predatory lenders if there weren’t predatory borrowers?
Don’t be silly, B Moe.
Victimization runs one way.
BTW, notice that none of the congresscritters are mentioning the pressure they were putting on lenders five or six years ago to boost minority home ownership.
SSShhhhh! It’s a secret.
Let’s all chip in to give Johnny a one-way ticket to Antarctica!
There may be another reason, why Obama’s not exploiting these issues, so readily. How do you throw yourself under the bus?
Half-and-half. There are, sadly, quite a few who cling to the noble savage myth — in “War Before Civilization” the author recounts his attempts to get a grant for a dig in England, and how it was repeatedly refused until he changed “fortifications” to “enclosures”. The evidence was pretty unequivocal that they were fortifications — associated arrow points and human remains — but it wasn’t politically correct to associate the Stone Age with organized violence.
There are, however, quite a few serious archaeologists who pour scorn on the noble savage. The aforementioned author, for one, and a couple of others. I just picked up “The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory” by a couple of French authors.
It’s an interesting time to watch archaeology. The old-guard — largely politically left and who couldn’t get past their ideological blinders — are being supplanted by people who may be equally left, but at least aren’t afraid of what the evidence tells them. Thus, it’s pretty clear now that the Native Americans weren’t the first Native Americans, and that they didn’t come down an ice-free corridor through Canada; there was no ice-free corridor ANYWHERE in Canada during the last Ice Age, and they likely came in boats along the edge of the ice cap.
The evidence of predecessors is pretty strong, too, with pre-Clovis finds popping up all over the Americas. The biggest problem is that US law has enshrined Native American religious beliefs as TRVTH, so ALL pre-Columbian human remains have to be handed over to tribes, even if the context of their discovery makes it unlikely they were associated with ANY of the existing tribes.
SBP, thanks for that John Zerzan link. Challenging domestication, and language! Hahahaha! Og, indoor plumbing bad. Let’s sit in our own feces! Oh, that’s right, no language! Sorry, I meant to just *grunt*! Hahahaha!!1!eleventy!1!!1! Paleolithic loser!
Speaking of Primitivists, my Senator Bill Nelson replied to my question regarding China drilling off the Florida coast. Here is his reply:
Comment by McGehee on 6/26 @ 6:50 pm #
John Zerzan is a leading theorist of the anti-civilization movement.
Let’s all chip in to give Johnny a one-way ticket to Antarctica!
Let him walk, like they did in the Paleolithic era!
The old-guard  largely politically left and who couldn’t get past their ideological blinders  are being supplanted by people who may be equally left, but at least aren’t afraid of what the evidence tells them.
How willfully blind do you have to be to not recognize the “Native Americans” were already accomplished, well-practiced warriors when the great white devil arrived here?
This says it all, really.
Black is not a monolith and we do not all think, act, talk, eat, pray, fuck, sing, dance, vote or manifest anger the exact same motherfucking way.
If a black person is running for office that does not automatically mean that she or he is going to make affirmative action, poverty and pay-day loan scams the foundation of their platform. For the record – black America is also complex and there are a lot of policy issues that impact the lives of a majority of black people, which include but are not limited to poverty, affirmative action and pay-day loan scams.
Pause…breath in and then exhale…continue.
All people running for office…any office…should be expected to build a platform that addresses the needs of the people they wish to serve.
Black candidates…being human (gasp!) and therefore people (shock and awe!!)…should be held to that same standard.
…..
Ralph Nader ought to be ashamed of himself for high-jacking legitimate important policy issues and telling the American people that those are black issues.
He ought to be ashamed of himself for putting forth the notion that a black person isn’t fully black if they don’t act like he expects them to and society has instructed them to.
THanks, bitch. I couldn’t have said it any better.
But she should have said:
“He ought to be ashamed of himself for putting forth the notion that a black person isn’t fully black if they don’t act like he expects them to and liberal society has instructed them to.”
In accordance with my continued griefing against my fellow cuntbeasty liberals who are really making my ass hurt lately.
Lisa,
There, there – just sit down with a nice book, say, Kirk’s Rights and Duties or Chesterton’s Heretics/Othodoxy or Oakeshott’s Rationalism In Politics. They’re all useful primers for planning Darkerella’s campaign against progressive stupidity.
We have to get Darkerella’s backstory down. Heiress to an insurance fortune with a mansion in Malibu that would make Bruce Wayne sob in envy, right? Sickened by being surrounded by idiots, Darkerella…
I dunno what’s next. Hopefully it involves dropping Babs Streisand from a great height to land upon Babs Boxer, thereby raising the average IQ in SoCal by 1 SD.
Rick: I like it.
I’m personally annoyed about Nader’s crap about payday loans.
Yes, they have fees that make for a high interest rate equivalent.
But … so? What does Nader suggest replace them as a credit source for urban blacks* (and presumably relatively poor ones, since wealthier people already have access to better sources of credit)?
Or is Nader’s idea the paternalist one that urban poor black folks* are so stupid that they need to be kept from taking out loans at all – that they cannot judge for themselves when credit is worth taking or when it isn’t?
Must they therefore be forced to live on a purely cash basis, For Their Own Good?
I say no, but hey, I’m not Ralph Nader or Barack Obama.
(* In reality, not only black people use payday loan services, but his context was one of “blackness” and “black issues”, so, arguendo, we can restrict the discussion to that context.)
Black is not a monolith and we do not all think, act, talk, eat, pray, fuck, sing, dance, vote or manifest anger the exact same motherfucking way.
I agree, but someone should inform Jackson, Sharpton and the NAACP because they don’t seem to have gotten the memo.
They may have gotten the memo, EG, but why should they pay attention to it? You know who writes memos, don’t you? Bosses write memos. And who’s the boss? The Man!
Yeah but who cares about them anyway? The only people still listening to Shardressed and Jackass are people who accidentally call someone a nigger or a nappyheaded ho in public. Such a person always seeks to meet with a Prominent Negro to discuss their embarassing gaffe. What this does to alleviate their embarassment, I don’t know.
If Michelle Obama’s “Whitey” tape does prove to be the real deal, who would the Prominent Cracker be that she would need to meet with for atonement? Pat Buchanan? No, he is somewhat of a crank, but he is not as completely pointless as Al or Jesse. Any nominations?
Sorry, I meant Sharpdressed and Jackass.
I nominate Marilyn Manson. Honestly, that dude, or maybe Rob Zombie, should be everyone’s official apology accepter.
Yeah but who cares about them anyway?
I guess someone does, because it’s always news when they show up to show the appropriate outrage. It occurs to me also that they must have endless supplies of outrage, because they never seem to run out. It must get tiring after a while, so I’m guessing the bennies must be good.
LOL. One would really need to mean it if they are going to apologize to Rob Zombie, as insincerity might get your liver eaten with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Ha ha!! Yes. They are the Racergizer Bunnies.
Edgar Winter
do I need to denounce or condemn myself?
All the denunciations are starting to get redundant. We need to get Jeff to add it to the masthead: WE HEREBY DENOUNCE ALL OPINIONS OFFERED ON THIS SITE!
Regards,
Ric
Lisa:
Let’s just sit everybody with a race grievence down and make them watch “The Job Interview” with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor.
After everybody stops laughing their asses off, progress will be made in resolving both the victimization and the condescension.
Ha, Ric, the first blog wide self denouncement! NOW WITH EVEN GREATER BLANKET CONDEMNATION! HELP US, DARKERELLA!
OT: Did you see the story here in Philly about the guy who was arrested for making a YouTube video waving a gun and ranting about killing Philly cops? I thought about you and how you might respond to the free speech vs terroristic threats nature of the situation.
No, I didn’t see it, BJ. I occasionally go to Pittsburgh, but anything east of about State College is terra incognita to me. Most of my time in Pennsylvania is spent in Lord Kalvan country.
I don’t think stuff like that ought to be grounds for arrest; I’m something of a free speech purist in that respect. It wouldn’t irritate me in the least if the Philly police paid quite a lot of attention to the guy’s movements for a while, though.
Regards,
Ric
In reality, not only black people use payday loan services
Indeed. Around these parts the payday loan places (and related businesses, such as rent-to-own stores and check-cashing services) seem to be favored by the Hillbilly-American demographic.
Who will speak for the hillbillies? Where is the redneck Al Sharpton?
One of the most pernicious tropes of modern identity politics is the belief that a redneck trailer denizen with an eighth grade education is “privileged” over, say, Barack Obama simply because he’s white.
Yep, born to people with advanced degrees, raised by professionals, private school, went to Harvard Law, insider in one of the most powerful political machines in the country — none of that counts as privilege. It’s the melanin, and the melanin alone.
Ric: check it out here.
I know about your “purity” and I thought you might enjoy ruminating on this particular case. The “terroristic threats” statutes have been strengthened in recent years, starting with right after Columbine and accelerated by 9/11. It’s a way more interesting discussion than “free spech zones/cages” and the like. Maybe I’ll do a weekend post and let the commentariat have at it.
“But you know, what I’m confident about is the overwhelming majority of voters in Pennsylvania and across the country are looking for someone that will deal with the real problems that we face as a country.â€Â
Sadly for the voters, there is no such person running for president this year.
No rumination required. That would be an outrage, except that I had to have my outrage gland excised for hyperactivity.
There is no difference, none whatever, between arresting Mr. Moore and, say, the Chinese putting “dissidents” in jail. As I said before, this does not mean Moore’s speech should be consequence-free; at minimum the police could be expected to keep a weather eye out for him, and they could do so without getting a peep of objection from me.
Regards,
Ric
Agrees with the good Mr. Locke. In my circles this kind of free speech purism is not popular. I am often screeched at about it. “Would you want the Klan to be allowed to march down your street??!??!??!??!?!??!?!” Well, no I wouldn’t send them a gilt invitation to do so, but if they got the notion, I can’t and should not be allowed to stop them. “What?!?!?!? So you are an apologist/self-hater/hate coddler?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?”
Sigh.
#54: Darkerella flies in and does some flashy karat-ay moves:
You called?
Is it the weekend yet? Oh yeah, hello sugartits ;-)
#61 In my circles this kind of free speech purism is not popular. I am often screeched at about it. “Would you want the Klan to be allowed to march down your street??!??!??!??!?!??!?!â€Â
This is like some kind of corollary to Godwin’s law. On the internet it was once (maybe still is in your circles) very fashionable to approach every public policy issue in terms of whether it might somehow empower the Klan. In the 21st Century the Klan is a group of losers living in trailers in Idaho. They have absolutely zero political power or cultural influence. The same people who are able to dismiss the threat of Islamist terrorism as overblown fear-mongering hype would muzzle us all in a heartbeat if they could in order to protect us from the Klan. It’s absurd.
I even heard this Klan argument used against the Iraq war. In the beginning, the war opponents were regurgitating the Vietnam (compulsary draft) era complaint that the military was disproportionately made up of poor blacks. Finally someone actually looked at the evidence and discovered that if the military has any demographic over-representation it is in Southern whites. Naturally, given the Left-wng stereotype of the South, the argument mutated into “the military is a giant Klan! They can’t be allowed to come into contact with brown people!!”
Well Aldo, they hate the military for what it has done for black Americans. My family is a living and breathing example. Not only has it done the obvious – what it gives to all of its recruits – a sense of purpose and pride in country, fellows, and self, but it has been the key that has opened doors that the Great Society types wanted to keep closed.
To them, we are too weak to pick up a bayonet and defend our country. Why should we when we could be doing something much more important like playing midnight basketball and brushing up on our ebonics.
/bitterness
Happy friday JDizzle (and everyone).
Yay! It has been a long and craptacular week. Everyone tip a 40 for their homies and get busy relaxing.
Crappy week ain’t over. Stupid weekend librarian convention. Who are these people?