I have much to do for the next few days in the wake of my Grandmother’s passing, but having read Dan’s earlier post — which touched on Professor Caric’s rather pointed set of criticisms against both me and my readers (criticisms shared by Maha a host of other “progressives” over the years) — I feel compelled, again, to make the following offer: let’s debate the merits of our positions. For instance, let’s debate the merits of race-based affirmative action and racial categorization, particularly as they pertain to what we wish to see as a social end game with respect to how agency is considered within the U.S. political system; we can do the whole “race as a social construct dance†along the way, too, if you’d like.
Then, when we’re done there, let’s debate feminism. My contention is that, of professor Caric and myself, I’m the more viable feminist, as the term was originally understood  his bona fides as professor in second wave feminist propaganda nothwithstanding.
From there, we can move on to “Muslims in relation to terrorism and torture.” The professor and his fellow travelers can bring along their theories about poverty, western hegemony, and cultural imperialism as potentially causal with respect to Islamic terrorism. They can speak on blowback and “tolerance.” For my part, I’ll engage those arguments, then hopefully dismantle them — taking care to give them back their original contours — and hand them back in the shape of a crescent, or maybe Daniel Pearl’s severed head.
We can then move on to a debate over gay marriage: does failure to support gay marriage equate to homophobia, as Ric consistently intimates? Are openly homosexual men and women who disagree with a policy of gay marriage homophobic? Inauthentic? Self-hating? Or are those heterosexuals and homosexuals who support gay marriage somehow “gayer†than their counterparts who dispute the policy initiatives favored by many progressives and libertarians? If so, how? If not, why not?
Finally, we can debate just how it is that criticism of today’s progressives is, to professor Caric’s way of thinking, just another way for right wingers to express their social bigotry — and why corresponding criticism of right wingers by today’s progressives is not. Hint: it might help if the professor were able to define “social bigotry” up front  or at least, be prepared to come up with a definitions when pressed  because such an accusation lies at the heart of his entire worldview: as with Maha (and Mona and Greenwald, et al), and previously expressed in my insidiously “complex sounding rationalizations,” Caric and his like have conveniently taken as the neutral point of social equanimity all the policies that they favor; and in so doing, they have rendered all those who don’t favor those policies — for whatever their reasons — as de facto bigots, with those who are able to explain their opposition cogently in terms of political or social theory “much worse than the primal bigots” for having the temerity to use their acumen in the aid of “evil.”
Because it is from precisely that base assumption  and yes, Ric, that pun, once you’ve figure it out, was intended  that is derived every assertion about “right wingers” that Caric and others like him make.
Now it’s time to turn those assertions into actual arguments. Because a lot of establishment feminist psychologizing about right wingers’ fear of the vagina is not going to count as anything more than a dodge, an ostentatiously shaved metaphor masquerading as a substantive critique.
Still, the metaphor is apt — though not in the way Professor Caric imagines. For it is Caric himself who is nothing more than an academic Brazil wax: narrow in his focus, ostentatious in his display, but supplying very thin intellectual cover just the same, and  frankly  a bit on the scratchy side, to boot.
At long last  put up or shut up, professor. And yes, I’d be delighted if you invited some of your academic friends over to give you a hand in my dismantling. Me, I’ll rely solely on my coterie of bigoted weenie men and women to aid in the assault against all that is good and righteous.
Are you ready yet, Ric? Or are you content simply to bob and weave and drop the occasional high-sounding load of bullshit in the comments about how right-wingers are but a particularly virulent cancer?
Because if that’s all you have, I’ll simply reply right now in brief — and in the same terms, stripped of all their academic pretense: I know you are, but what am I?
What would really make me tingle all over is if you described tossing down a Knights of the Round Table type gauntlet after you had finished writing, followed by draining a large flagon of mead.
Ooooo, positively medieval!
Now if you’ll pardon me, this archetypal weenie man has to get his son fed and dressed, get some flowers for a funeral, then do some plyometrics and yoga before preparing his shrimp stir fry (which is going to take a bit of mastery of his new Kitchen Aid food processor).
FEAR MY WEAPONIZED MAN MEAT!
Professors. Meh. I’d be more interested in what your typical ironworker thinks about most topics than your typical professor.
Let’s also talk about how cracking any sort of joke is evidence of some phobia or another. In fact, let’s frame the debate this way: Frank Zappa: Xenophobe, sexist, racist, etc… or astute satirist?
Recommend some good Zappa to me. Nothing really available on iTunes. But then get back to the business of coaxing the left’s bright lights into actually putting their positions into words.
Because there is quite a difference between criticizing and (mis)representing the positions of your opponents and clearly stating your own.
From what I’ve noticed, progressives in the blogosphere tend to be reactive — but then seldom follow up with any alternative. In fact, without such a strategy, would Tbogg, for instance, even exist?
Jeff:
Make it easy on yourself for Zappa: 2 CD live set “The Best Band You Never Heard Of in your Life.” Pretty much the at the peak of his and his band’s creative power and some insanely good extended guitar solos.
His live song parody of Jimmy Swaggert should be banned for causing death by hilarity.
Absolute. Friggin’. Genius.
In other words, the fear may be more sensible and the monster in the closet more tangible than your logic.
Hence the comments springing from somewhere unseen and terminating with similar abruptness…
So it don’t matter if your arguments are logically or factually correct, if others instinctually believe you are in fact a monster, they will always be, as Caric put it, rationalizations.
[Sigh.]
Jeff, the Zappa catalog is enormous, but particularly in terms of this discussion, I’d recommend You are what you is. Everyone gets skewered, from sluts to Godbotherers to rednecks to fat chicks and beyond. Dumb All Over, probably the most serious track on the disc is an absolute gem. And there are numerous gutbusters, as well as one hell of a straight up power R&B love song, Doreen.
Good shit, man. Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation, Sheik Yerbouti, and Joe’s Garage are also mandatory to any decent zappa collections. But be careful, he’s half an Arab with a potty mouth. Booga booga.
tw: regret ownership?
Not for a second!
The Perfesser made such a bigoted ass of himself in my last post’s thread (https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=9492#comment-216190) I simply can’t take him seriously. I tend not to “debate” much with folks who tell me that my facts simply cannot obscure the fact all I’m doing is rallying arch-conservatives by my rhetoric. I tend not to pay much mind to having my motives reversed against my very words.
“Recommend some good Zappa to me.”
“Hot Rats”
Any album that has Captain Beefheart singing “I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back….” leading into a loooooong solo trip by Zappa has to be worth the price of admission.
Pablo;
Don’t forget “Weasels Rip My Flesh.”
Best. Album. Cover. Evah!
Oh, and the title track is sure to redline the perfessor’s bigot detector.
And….
The good perfesser reminded me ot this passage:
“The man who sets dogs on concentration camp victims or fires his revolver into the back of their necks is evidently a brute; the intellectual who devises justifications for the brutality is harder to deal with, and far more sinister in the long run.â€Â
– David Pryce-Jones
Can a clown be sinister?
I’M STILL A BIGOTED WEENIE-MAN YAY
“Put up or shut up.”
That’s the phrase I used in my one and only comment on mahablog, back when she claimed she could easily duplicate the fake TANG memo on a 1972 typewriter. She did neither. I’m willing to bet Ric won’t, either.
I’m glad there are folks like you, willing to engage and expose these blowhards. I don’t have the patience.
on that basis, the “Have I offended someone?” compilation.
After listening I was offended.
Which only gave it plus points.
Mr. O’Brain:
I just read the lyrics and we should make that Ric’s personal song
Professor Ric Caric: “You Are What You Is”
Catchy…
“Can a clown be sinister?”
You apparently don’t read much Stephen King….Pennywise, anyone?;-)
This is where being married to someone not of my race has come in so handy. We’ve counter-protested at a few anti-war demonstrations, and the second someone hurls “racist” at us, we start making out. It confuses them and they start sucking their thumbs.
We will not hear from the good professor until he drops by to inform us that he has created a new term to follow weenie-boys, something along the lines of ball-lickers, which by his construct, with ball lickers being inherently contemptible, would make him either homophobic, or phobic of hetero-females who engage in this practice. He will likely drop by late at night to point out that merely defending oneself from his accusations shows the depth of our bigotry, and my fear of the vagina.
I love Zelda. See Ric, no fear here (except that Jethro might get pissed) ;-)
“Can a clown be sinister?â€Â
Without a doubt. The correct construct for that question should be “Is it possible to be a clown and not be sinister?”
I would argue that being a clown is as good of a predictor of anti-social behavior as abusing animals, starting fires, etc … likely to evolve into serial killing and child buggering. I am phobic of clowns for precisely those reasons, and do not care whatsoever if that generalizes over a subset of the population. Come to think of it, this cannot be a phobia, because it is perfectly rational.
JD;
What about dwarf clowns? Sinister?
Zelda, ROFL! And on that note, I forget whether it’s Ray White or Ike Willis singing lead on YAWYI, over Zappa’s backing vocals, but it’s one of them and both were in the band at the time.
BJ – EVIL PERSONIFIED, you are, along with dwarf clowns.
Zelda – As my better half and our daughter are brown-skinned ladies, ladies of color, etc … I always get a kick out of being called a racist. Clearly, I did that to hide my latent racism.
Stop fooling the perfessors, JD.
Zappa has a lot of great discs, but One Size Fits All is my favorite:
Well, JD. By the “integrated” calculus that is professor Nellie-waffle, the mere fact that you married someone of color while holding the obviously racist/hater views makes you even more egregiously racist than that white hooded cracker with the rope.
Ugh…. dizzy …
I happen to be Portuguese which might get me some of that there minority status, at least in certain states. I’m relatively light skinned but have cousins who could pass for Black Panthers. Many of them experienced racism first hand, fact that does not absolve me, I’m sure, from the latent racism of my political beliefs.
Ya just gotta love a pasty white dude living in academic La-La Land who chooses to lecture you, me and Zelda on the proper definition for racism.
Piss off, Nellie-Waffle.
I am not a bigot. Well. Do journalists count as a class? Cause, sometimes I think to myself, well, if some number of people every year are going to have aneurysms anyway… Hmmm. Maybe I need to look at myself.
BTW, didn’t mean to overlook this, Jeff.
I’m sorry to say that I’d be just as successful if I endeavored to teach a bucket of water to climb a ladder. As I’ve said before, I’d like to be pleasantly surprised, but I’ll also be shocked to death should the perfessor or any of his tribe actually take up the debate. They don’t debate, they only decry for reasons covered ad nauseum here.
I just had one of them attempt at least the appearance of an actual discussion here, and the result was a terribly familiar one. As soon as it became evident that the facts were not on his side, the entire thread was deleted. And now, it’s been reposted, sans the original comments and with commenting closed.
I’ll give Mitchell this, at least he didn’t start shrieking insults a la Maha or Perfessor Caricature, he just folded like a lawn chair and then pretended it never happened. But there is simply no debating The Narrative.
I appreciate that you’re laying the offer on the table, and the response or lack thereof will be instructive. But you’re not going to get what you’re asking for because they just don’t roll that way.
JD and BJT –
Dwarf clowns don’t like brown people. That’s why you should never have a dwarf clown doll sitting in a rocking chair in your bedroom at night.
Their eyes follow you.
Ya just gotta love a pasty white dude living in academic La-La Land who chooses to lecture you, me and Zelda on the proper definition for racism.
You know how hard it is for a racist like me to live in Detroit? I mean, they are just everywhere. Oppressing my neighbors is a full-time job.
slackjawedyokel – That was just sooooooooooooooo wrong.
Still, the metaphor is apt  though not in the way Professor Caric imagines. For it is Caric himself who is nothing more than an academic Brazil wax: narrow in his focus, ostentatious in his display, but supplying very thin intellectual cover just the same, and  frankly  a bit on the scratchy side, to boot.
That belongs in the blogger Hall of Fame. Just beautiful.
redundant?, he asks
Also there is a book
I don’t approve of killing people for their skin color, preventing anyone from getting married, shunning children for their parents’ race, segregation, Jim Crow laws, job discrimination, and using naughty words to insult someone’s ethnicity.
Other than that, I’m practically a Nazi.
We can add happyfeet to the list of people that are evil, personified. There were midget clowns pictured there. My eyes are bleeding.
Coulrophobia. But like I said previously, can it be a phobia if it is rational?
Zelda;
All of that is utterly wasted if you haven’t seen the light on affirmative action or set asides as defined by Nellie-waffle and The Narrative™
Racist!
One of the hotter Nazi’s around. What a great blog that is. In a few short minutes, the topics run the gamut from whipped cream and feathers, to pole dancing, wedgies, and foot nipples (eww!).
Or academics? Professor Caric cannot debate because he is a product of an impoverished environment. Many years ago he learned that the only reliable method to advancement was, not to stimulate debate through original thought, nor mount any serious challenge to the status quo. No, that type of dangerous living could lead to a quick academic death.
Instead he learned that the safe path was to parrot that which was most likely to please the hive-mind of the collective. Spend your most productive years developing that talent in order to placate the gods of tenure and what are you left with? A burned out shell, ostensibly ‘freed’ by a guarantee of employment and academic freedom, yet entirely incapable of engaging except upon the most rarified, and ossified of terms.
A long time ago I posted a pointed critique of some town’s decision to place a ban on the word “oriental.” The resultant accusations ranged from the hysterical to the deranged to the “saddened by your racism”-type of faux solicitousness.
Ironically, when I noted that my wife was half Japanese, the reply — after the initial stunned silence — was that I was a “rice chaser.” So where actual race-blindness exists, therein lies the proof of one’s racism, if one happens to be a “conservative.” You must be willing to call a conservative a “rice chaser” in order to prove how racially enlightened you are, I suppose. And besides, Asians aren’t really a protected class anymore, what with their having bought in to the white man’s whole “merit” construct, devised to protect the status quo.
The guy who said all that, by the way, was Aaron Hawkins, with whom I used to have some actual (on occasion) debates about race. His “Uppity Negro” site was often mean-spirited and (intentionally) oblique, but he was a gifted writer and an intelligent guy.
He committed suicide a few years back, but his site, if I’m remembering correctly, was maintained in his honor by his sister.
When I read Caric’s self-loathing progressive puffery, I miss Aaron all the more.
Bravo, Jeff!!! I have repeatedly asked our leftward fellow citizens to stake out a manifesto, because, quite frankly, I can’t figure out what it is they fundamentally want and/or believe. I don’t think they (a dangerous word, but some sort of collective is necessary) are cognizant of just how riddled with contradictions their talking points have become (see: “speech, free” for starters).
Before the good professor returns to call me a pussy–let me stake out what I believe:
1. The only affirmative action I favor is based on economics and requires only equal opportunity–not equal results. This brand of opportunity also recognizes the inherent superiority of capitalism in raising people out of poverty. Any other system relies on the state to ensure equality of results and therefore stamps out opportunity or peters out into cleptocracy. Fundamental difference along this ideological divide? Like P.J. O’Rourke–I do not believe that my money is the cause of anyone’s poverty. Boy, am I SICK of the 2+2=5 economic arguments coming from the other side in this area. Somewhere on a campaign stop today, a trial lawyer who considers himself qualified to be leader of the free world will trumpet exactly the opposite of O’Rourke’s brilliant point based on some characterization of corporations as “EVILE”. Someone needs to ask him: “Why is federal deficit coming down?” and/or “How many Americans own stocks?” directly on the heels of such a claim.
2. Feminism. My wife is a woman…ditto my daughter. Why would I have a problem with them? Simplistic, yes, but I like it.
3. Islam. See my point above about contradictions. “Crusaders” are unjust and imperialistic. All that stuff right after 622? Not so much. Observing willful historical ignorance of this kind is not bigotry, it’s honesty. For all the chants of “Free Palestine!”, I’d just like to offer a quiet whisper about who actually displaced the Palestinians in 1948–and then never offered the West Bank and Gaza between there and 1967. Hint: It doesn’t start with “the Je…” And the idea that 5 million Israelis are “oppressing” a billion Muslims is just absurd. And for the defining characteristic of a man with a $400 million fortune to consider himself oppressed enough to finance the killing of innocents on a scale that would make Charles Manson blush, I’d suggest an adjective that begins with “evi…”–bigot that I am. Since Professor Caric is such the good feminist, to blend these topics together, please–let’s do discuss the status and rights of women in Islamic culture.
4. Gay marriage. Sorry to disappoint the professor…I’m totally ambivalent on this topic. So, let’s try that “bigot” definition again.
I hate myself already. Because, let’s face it. I’m a hater.
JD,
Who wears grease paint and lives in a test tube?
Happy the Clone.
Thanks, Dario. I took a guess about Brazil waxes. I’m a big honkin’ pubis mound man, myself.
Which either makes me homophobic or misogynistic. Or French. I can never remember.
If I were a hater I would be working much harder at developing my latent scanner abilities. You’d think Daniel Schorr would be grateful, but I’m not seeing it.
Jeff – Homophobic, misogynists Frenchman, you are. The Brazilian wax was a great rhetorical flourish. So what is it with us whities, going off and marrying those honey skinned ladies? Is that evidence of our latent racism? Or maybe, we are doing so as a symbolic action to hide our racism from public view. Or maybe, we are doing so as our way of subjugating one individual as representative of our desire to subjugate the entire class? These not-so-liberal constructs are rather difficult to wade through.
I am going to go to a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant, where not one iota of Engrish is spoken, and eat Pho to my dark black heart’s delight. Oops, there I go being racist again.
happyfeet – I do not think that journalists are yet a protected class, but be prepared to defend against your tyranny for wanting to constrain the press by aneurysm.
N. O’Brain – Cloned clowns? Sick.
We’re not likely to see a substantial response here. After all, the left, like Islamic Armies, don’t have a great track record with direct confrontation.
They (the left) prefer to approach a policy issue and attack with oblique references and calumny. A direct call-out rarely results in much, but good luck with that!
JD, I just want my faith in karma to be validated. That’s not so wrong is it? Journalists with longevity, they challenge my belief in a just world. Cf. Castro, Fidel; Mugabe, Robert.
Carter, Jimmy.
More Zappa: Not satirical (mostly because it’s instrumentals), but check out “Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar”, “Son of Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar” and the ever-popular “Return of the Son of Shut Up ‘N Play yer Guitar”.
You can get ’em all in a box.
For the more satirical works, I recommend “Sheik Yerbouti”, “Joe’s Garage” and “Live in New York” (which has the truly wonderous “Illinois Enema Bandit” and “Titties And Beer”)
“For what purpose does the gentleman from Maryland rise?”
I must further the recommendation of my colleagues for Sheik Yerbouti and One Size Fits All. If you’re interested in FZ’s symphonic music, try The Yellow Shark, which features, unless I’m greatly mistaken, the only live instrument performance of G-Spot Tornado (a wicked Synclavier piece from Jazz is Dead).
(oops… “Jazz from Hell” should have been the last album title.)
I pass his office all the time. I think it’s Barking something records. There’s like a picture of a dog anyway, sort of howling at a moon. What would they still be doing there?
happyfeet – Proof that the world is not just.
Barking Pumpkin Records. It was a pet name for his wife, who if memory served, developed quite a cough due to smoking.
No, JD, the destiny, it is manifest. You have to believe that. Everything always works out for the best. Don’t you watch broadcast network television?
yes! Barking Pumpkin. Is his wife still around? The place looks kept up and all. I’ll look more closely next time.
Now, if they aren’t willing to put up a tract you can ask them where they fit with Transnational Progressivism, as they argue many things that are the basis of it. The following taken from John Fonte’s The Ideological War Within the West:
Now the nice professors could have this agenda to argue about as a basis for their understanding of the world… seems to me they have most of it down cold as an emergent worldview. And since this is a descriptive agenda, those that push these things tend to fall under this category, and so gain label by association of their actions of purporting the ideas themselves.
That is known as ‘action based labeling’ not ‘intent based labeling’ which are the types these professors seem to like to throw around with accusations of racism and bigotry without demonstration of same beyond disagreeing with them on other matters.
I’m no mind reader when it comes to intention of people, but actions speak for themselves.
For those interested in the topic a longer piece by Fonte is: Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism. And he takes a look at the Transnational Right also, just so that both ‘sides’ of the spectrum get hit.
Merovign just stated what I was going to say, essentially.
I wish you the best of luck in getting a direct engagement with the Left: in a war of ideas, they lose. Thus, it is not surprising to shy away from ideas, and tilt towards innuendo, fallacy, and psuedo-psychology (it is much more likely to get a “rice-chaser” response). It’s human. What drives me nuts is their insistence that said tactics are somehow enlightened–progressive–if you will.
In fact, I think JG knows this; he’s forcing an issue this variety of Leftists are not comfortable with.
I have been mulling over something else recently. It’s about lying (or mischaracterizing), the sort of deliberate, transparent, obvious lying. Usually, they won’t link to the site they are lying about, but I’ve seen that lately they link anyway. I can’t believe that these Leftists are just insurmountably ignorant. So why do it? What do they get out of it? Is it really just an attempt to trick potential slothful readers? I will shy away from slothful psychoanalysis myself, but I find that tactic really eerie. Is this just some recurring personality quirk?
As an aside, timmah is doing a fine job of being a complete sycophant over there, thus increasing Prof. Fluffer’s traffic by at least 33%.
Here’s an important question I’d like professor Nellie-waffle to expound upon if/when he sticks his head out of Morehead:
With regards to affirmitive action/set asides: When and how do we know when they’ve worked? What is the empirical data that supports them and is there a goal set whereby we can recognize they have accomplished their stated purpose and collectively do the dance of joy?
Or
Are these types of programs completely permanant due to the nature of institutionalized racism and the fact that it will never be stamped out (because of latent racists like JD married to Vietnamese Women?) Is there no possible end game for these programs.
Oh, and one more thing: Does your use of the term “weenie boys” in describing conservative males reflect a psycho-sexual defense mechanism for your perceived gender inadequacies exasperated by your dead beat relatives and a severe macho envy of gun wielding redneck right wingers?
Wow, this should be good…
“a psycho-sexual defense mechanism for your perceived gender inadequacies exasperated by your dead beat relatives and a severe macho envy of gun wielding redneck right wingers?”
Utterly brilliant, BJ.
And just so everyone knows–I married a Venezuelan (non-Chavista, of course).
All together now: “EMPANADA CHASER!!!”
happyfeet – I believe Gail Zappa is still alive. Barfko-Swill is the mail order operation, and I think she is still associated with that.
Because of the Jesus’ General incident awhile back?
ELarson & Happyfeet
Gail Zappa is indeed alive and well, administrating, along with her sons, the Zappa tape library, DVD’s and products.
Described here: http://www.zappa-analysis.com/whatsnext-f.htm
I was blessed to see Zappa in 1976 with the Mothers of Invention at The Acacdemy of Music? or Tower Theater? I had very little appreciation for him as a musician but he just blew me away. Also quite possibly the tightest band I ever saw outside of jazz.
Freakin’ Genius.
#Comment by BJTexs on 7/24 @ 12:30 pm #
I saw him at the Academy, sitting lower level near the end.
The band was onstage, warming up, tossing a beach ball into the audience.
Zappa was counting the audience (behind the curtain, most of the audience couldn’t see him)
I yell, “Oh no, look who’s here!”
The acoustics in the Academy are well nigh perfect, and he heard me.
If looks could kill, I would’ve been struck down like a Harry Potter curse.
He came out and kicked ass all night.
Strangely, at the end of the concert, he complimented the audience.
I would think Charles Johnson could hook JG up with the Zappa.
JD, where is the restaurant with the good Vietnamese food? I would love to check it out
By the way is the over/under on the Professor Stinkypants accepting Jeff’s challenge “Never”? Because I might still take the over.
I’m more interested in his lame excuse–pardon me–reason for not debating will be.
As a white southern cracker of scottish descent I just married another white southern cracker of scottish descent because I’m so racist I’ll only have myself a red head. But as a point of definition does that just make me a “cracker chasher”, a “haggis chaser” or a “fire crotch chaser.” Not that I wouldn’t take to being a “fire crotch haggis cracker chaser” but it’s kind of unwieldy for left to chant.
TW: Slit Sheriff ~ Sound like a porn movie music cover band name if I ever heard one.
Mr. O’Brain:
Was that in ’75 or ’76? If so, I was probably at that show with my bass player.
And yes, he kicked serious ass all night long. I couldn’t talk after that show.
God DAMN, Jeff! That was amazing.
If you need a spear-carrier when you take the field against these lgihtweights, I’ll gladly do it.
So, 70 comments and no reply yet from the professor. Huh.
Grading papers, prolly. In July.
(TW: endeavour cognation – that thing is spooky)
“Mr. O’Brain:
Was that in ‘75 or ‘76? If so, I was probably at that show with my bass player.
And yes, he kicked serious ass all night long. I couldn’t talk after that show.”
Dude, are you seriously expecting me to remember?
Those were my long hair days.
Did you play in Philly?
“If you need a spear-carrier when you take the field against these lgihtweights, I’ll gladly do it.”
Just as long as you are not a spear-chucker. That, afterall, would be racist.
Yea, strictly U of P college frat shows as a cover band. Cream, Zep, Allman Bros. Hendrix. We really weren’t that good and I ended up doing trio folk stuff later. Those were my big white man’s afro days (my kids collapse in hysterics whenever the pictures are trotted out.
If you saw that Zappa show in the mid-seventies then we probably were there at the same time in Philly.
New computer game idea: Where in the ‘Tubes is Ric Caric!”
Ever play with Kenn Kweder?
Timmy is so very needy. The next time he pretends to be engaging with your arguments, just remind him that he’ll soon do a 180 and run off to massage a mendacious intellectual fraud like Caric for the sole purpose of being recognized and cuddled.
Then giggle at him.
My favorite Zappa album: Live at the Filmore. One side has this long, nasty piece about a band with a hit and some groupies. It ends with the memorable line: “Bend over and spread ’em. Here comes my bullet!” and then the band lauches into Happy Together (Mark Kalan and Howard Volman of the Turtles fronted the band). It also has my favorite “Bwana Dick”.
My dick is a dagger,
I’ll poise at you babe.
My dick is a reamer baby,
To steam up your snatch.
Steam it, ream it, cream it!
You can hear the steam, baby,
You can hear the screamin’ semen.
I have always been extremely partial to the Yo Mama track from the Sheik album. It seems to offer the best advice for liberals;
“Maybe you should stay with Yo Mama, she can do your laundry and cook for you”
The perfesser is no doubt waiting for his Kraft mac and cheese. Think Will Ferrel in Wedding Crashers. Without the charisma.
“Chinese complaint”. Cut that shit out, it’s scarier than a midget clown with radium eyes.
jg – this is sure to leave a mark, heheh
nobody – my favorite line from bwana dick
“my dick is a harley
you kick it to start”
and you others – i was at the show in nyc that they recorded for that album (i never missed a zappa show in nyc, i would go every night, never. missed. once, – it was that important! he and his band were awe inspiring live)
crazy story – during the recording of that show zappa invited a young lady up on stage to dance and stuff during what song i can’t remember, turns out about 6 or so months later i took a road trip to some private school and wound up banging that girls room mate
the girl herself had a nice bunch of autographs and backstage photos along with some great stories
thanks to all of you for bringing back some great memories
It’s much harder for faux-liberals to call a white girl a rice-chaser. It shouldn’t be, but they force themselves to pause and show respect to my vagina before applying their tortured racial logic.
I’m amazed–usually when threads get this big, it’s due to feasting on Timmah or someone else. But instead it is hilarious of its own merit, and that makes me happy. (Good amazed, not bad/sarcastic amazed.)
I haven’t got much to add, other than I continue to be a spear-carrier myself. It’s the name.
PS: Proud to be a weenie boy, even if I don’t have one. A weenie, that is. Someone get me a gun and a big Gaia-raping car.
Went to circuit city to pick up some of the Zappa albums recommended here. They had none of them. So I’m gonna have to go through Amazon.
But not until I’m done watching the Black Action Cinema 9 pack I picked up in Zappa’s stead.
I also picked up Grand Hotel and Dark Passage — but only because I didn’t want the check-out clerk to think I was RACIST.
So what is it with us whities, going off and marrying those honey skinned ladies? Is that evidence of our latent racism?
The early Spaniards intermixed with the natives for the express purpose of “elevating the race.” So yes, you imperialist swine, you are a racist if you marry a brown person. You’re trying to dilute the genes so that the pure-bloods won’t exist anymore.
Well, I wonder where the distinguished Professor Caric is. Come out and play with us, Professor Caric! I have my own little doctoral dissertation on feminism in law, medicine, and literature I’d like to beat you about the head most severely with. Please, tell me how you know better than a woman “women’s studies.”
After I dated a black guy, a woman at work asked me if I preferred black guys. “Nope,” I said.
“Well, do you prefer white guys?”
“Nope,” I said, “I prefer sane guys.”
Took her a while.
Looks like Ward Churchill finally got axed.
“Looks like Ward Churchill finally got axed.”
I was going to ask “Stone axe?’
But that would be racist.
Guess your invite wasn’t fluffy enough .
I was actually I knew the real live Dynamo Hum once. In point in fact, we sort of dated. (I could never get to that “spot that made her hot” though. Man, that thing was like the Bonnydoon of erroneous zones.)
Bad place to be , that erroneous zone .
Pellegri and Zelda in the same thread! Heart, be still …. ;-)
Oops, looks like I spoke too soon about churchill. Sorry. I saw an announcement that has since disappeared. ‘Sposed to happen any minute now. Wait for it…wait for it…
Witheld, my friend, what got her hot was watching ole Franky givin’ it to her sister. She was a voyeur, and an incestuous one at that.
“Just get me wasted and you’re halfway there
‘Cause if my mind’s tore up, then my body don’t care…”
“…the Bonnydoon of erroneous zones.”
Just what I needed: a real good laugh.
Wow, almost a hundred comments and no rebuttal of any kind, not even from resident lefties or even drive-by trolls. Does it officially count as a rhetorical smackdown after 100?
Tony – If he follows his more regular pattern around here, he will post something late tonight about all of us being sexist, racist, homophobes, with Mommy or Daddy issues, and call us weenies, before slinking away.
“Man, that thing was like the Bonnydoon of erroneous zones.”
Heh, the Brigadoon of errogenous zones, would be very elusive indeed.
On a completely different topic, there’s an excellent guesstimate of the origin of the Scott Thomas crap here, from a rather unlikely source. Read it, for it is good.
That is a great piece, Pablo.
That was pretty interesting reading, Pablo. Several days after getting called on these articles, TNR is now stating that they have, in fact, cofirmed that Scott Thomas is a soldier. Good Gawd. If they were going to publish this kind of stuff, performative rhetoric, maybe they should have done this rudimentary investigation beforehand. Such a silly thought. Coming from the same place that produced Steven Glass, one might think that they had learned their lesson.
Here’s the bet, ladies and gentlemen (and pussies). Which will happen first ?
1) Ric Caric’s substantive response, or
2) TNR admitting that they ran Scott Thomas’ piece without verifying anything.
Here’s the bet, ladies and gentlemen (and pussies). Which will happen first ?
3. My freakin’ popcorn runs out
I’m putting my money with the
pussyCat. I’ll take Door #3.In other “real” liberal news… Ward Churchill has been fired.
Little does the good perfesser know popcorn is wingnut code for lots and lots of booze . And hey , don’t worry I won’t describe ” The
Handshake ” …….. at least until I’m out of popcorn .
I do enjoy popcorn.
OT: In another forum I frequent, I have someone proclaiming that he would not go to Poland because it’s a “highly homophobic country”. Based on what these words actually mean versus what they’re supposed to mean, I can only imagine he thinks being a tourist there would be unpleasant because Poles would run screaming off the street to flee from him?
I don’t know.
TW: MacSheehys blow–NOT in Poland.
Poles are clearly bigoted against men that like Poles.
Homopolic?
WAIT NOT THAT KIND OF POPCORN–
JD, that nearly made me laugh out loud. (I would’ve if I weren’t in a library.)
It does appear that Pole smoking is on the decline:
http://2006.confex.com/uicc/wctoh/techprogram/P7825.HTM
NLOL is simply not good enough. I will have to do better than that. “Highly homophobic”. Can one be lowly homophobic? Or does that mean they are only homophobic when they are high?
Poles don’t let Poles with Poles play with other Poles with Poles.
Andrew Sullivan is off smacking a gob right about now.
I’m not into that hard pore corn.
TW: Life grabbers
Is that what they call them?
Women that like Poles should feel quite welcome in the land of the Poles.
Just as long as you are not a spear-chucker. That, afterall, would be racist.
That job would be mine.
So. jaysus dere perfesser, ya gott nuttin dere do ya? Well ya know niow perfesser, way dey put da handles ona barrow now do ya?Fer ter teach a Irishman ta walk on is hind legs. Ows dat fer big-ot-try.
tw; dried interests Oh. aye n’all. mine is swiftly witherin’ away.
“I’m not into that hard pore corn.”
Hi-def ruined it for everyone…..
That’s man’s work, sweetheart.
I ate at a German-Chinese restaurant one time.
An hour later I felt like conquering Poland.
“That job would be mine.”
“That’s man’s work, sweetheart.”
FIRE IN THE HOLE!
“I ate at a German-Chinese restaurant one time.
An hour later I felt like conquering Poland.”
…and Tibet, Taiwan, etc.
I am woman, darker than tan
Chuckin’ spears just like a man…
Sing it with me!
OK, but I gotta stand out front. Because, you know, I’m a pig!
Oink!
Sadly, for me it really does mean popcorn.
I *really* gotta get back on the diet wagon. Fell off hard this week. I’m betting I’ll be up 2 pounds.
Oh, shit. I just remembered. I’m a white boy.
Perfessor! Where are yooooou!?!
We’ve got a situation here that requires your special expertise if we’re to get it untangled.
I am woman, darker than tan
Chuckin’ spears just like a man…
Sing it with me!
RACIST ! SEXIST ! HOMOPHOBE !
Was it something I said?
Juliette, I don’t know what the hell it is. Maybe if we wish really hard, Perfessor Ric will come and tell us. Wouldn’t that be special?
Meanwhile, how will you choose between Hillary and Obama?
How does one choose between Hillary and Obama ? If you choose one, you are objectively a racist, and if you choose the other, you are objectively a sexist, and a member of the patriarchy. Caught between a twat, and a soft fluffy cloud.
TW ; Conner and drenching. Did y’all know that Bull Conner was a Democrat, and George Wallace was too, at least when he was drenching all of those students with hoses.
Hold on ….. wasn’t someone supposed to issue an IMPORTANT ACTION ALERT . Shit , was I on point today ?
But, JD, what if you’re a black woman? It’s like being torn between two lovers or something.
And on a serious note, for those incapable of such nuance, and for baldilocks herself, I adore her and admire her work, her smarts and her independent spirit. And her sense of humor. You rock, lady. I’d share a foxhole with you in a hot minute.
Now, should I put the pig hat back on, or go for the tinfoil?
Frankly, I’m disappointed that nobody showed up with any substantial response to JG’s challenge. I’ll offer a meek response, but of course I only speak for myself; I am not quoting from Chairman Reid’s Manifesto or anything.
On affirmitave action: It’s a good idea in principle. An open and fluid society recognizes that there are certain members who are constrained either by income or prejudice. But it’s impossible to manage or measure. So there’s that.
On feminism: It’s ginchy to be a girl!
On Muslims and terror and torture: There is something to be said for festering resentments fostering a fulminating fistula of fury against the west. Truly, many islamists despise the very concept of the west. However, draping the religion of Islam in the shame scarf only adds to the problem. I sense that many of these wacko fundies were sorely aggrieved to begin with, and latched onto Islam as a moral balm, an apparatus, and a catapult for their aggression. But I don’t represent the ascendant libs, so there’s that.
On gay marriage: Because I think marriage in general is a quaint pain in the ass (as it were), I’m not credible here. But I do find the more ferocious opponents a little bit insecure. Again, only my perspective; I’m flying blind here.
Oh, and finally, “social bigotry:” It’s a nebulous term, and it’s conveniently broad. I don’t like my neighbors, because they’re like trailer trash. I could be a social bigot, or not, depending on the context. I live in my own society, in a communal comfort zone; whatever offends our sensibilities causes us to throw up our defenses. Likewise when I perceive the hard right assuming the same end-zone posture, I tend to interpret that as a head-on response to something that disrupted their trickly fountain of a world-view
But I am hardly representive, and a bad libbie to boot.
By the way, it’s a shame you guys are reduced to chatting among yourselves here. It’s like waiting in a lobby for your blind date.
Not to detract further from all the substantive responses being offered up by our esteemed progressive comrades, but I would be remiss if I didn’t just mention that Broken Hearts Are For Assholes.
You say you cant live with what you been through
Well, ladies you can be an asshole too
You might pretend you aint got one on the bottom of you,
But dont fool yerself girl
Its lookin at you
Dont fool yerself girl
Its winkin at you
And it just gets better from there.
Oh, ferchrissakes, cynn. It is what it always is, and you being a fairly regular part of it ought to know better than to make such a remark. We all know that all the wisdom this thread is going to see has already been posted.
Pablo – people that are torn between 2 lovers end up feeling like a fool.
And I like baldilocks too.
Frankly, cynn, with regard to your 8:09pm, a shame you’re reduced to chatting among yourself here. It’s still like waiting in a lobby for your blind date.
Are you guys serious? You honestly think nobpody would relply to Jeff? I’m not the best equipped to rep the left, but I would have sworn that this would be a major callout. Sorry, just trying to get the diagogue going. That went well.
Has “chickenbloger” been coined yet? Probably so, but if not, dibs!
My Zappa picks; Overnight Sensation by the Mothers of Invention and Apostrophe. You can find them bundled together usually.
No, cynn. History has shown that the clowns like Prof. Caric prefer to snipe from the sidelines. Most debates with the bloggers on the left end up like a Maha comment thread.
jamrat – I called Prof. Ric a chickenblogger over at his place last night. Great minds, and all …
JD — that’s crap if they do. I’m not a hanger-on of the lib blogs. It’s cowardly, and I’ll be the first to say it.
Anyway, isn’t the kind of argument Jeff is soliciting here anathema to the progressive weltanschauung? I mean, isn’t logic qua Aristotle (but especially Hume and progeny) simply passé to this crowd? Merely another projection of the patriarchy? Isn’t the excluded middle a bald repression of Marcotte’s puissant prurient progenitor?
I’m being serious here. How can you have debate when there is no legitimate agreement regarding the ground rules? Does it not appear that within Maha’s (and ilk’s) epistemology, these so-called misrepresentations are actually sophisticated demonstrations of truth. The Truthiness is only visible with the aid of empiricism, but these emancipated bohemians soar unfettered by such pedestrian shackles as reproducibility or logical consistency.
I’ll admit that logic has its limits. And I say that as someone who believes that the philosophy that found its apogee with the positivists has proven itself to be the most productive abstract system humanity has ever known. But do not the ostensible opponents of the views expressed here seem to have thrown out the proverbial baby with the bathwater? C.P. Snow had it dead to rights half a century ago. But what these self-important liberal-artists seem to miss is that the probable existence of profound knowledge that is not derived from axiomatic systems, does not obviate said systems.
So, y’know, I don’t think it is as simple as imputing perfidy to these folks. They’ve drunk the philosophical cool-aid. It seems to run deeper than debate can address.
This sort does not do well in the daylight. They are most comfortable sagely nodding to each other in a faculty department committee meetings as they mutter incantations to ward off scrutiny. Incantations with words like “patriarchy” and “racist”.
If they actually fully express their ideas outside of the obscure academic journal, and without the full camoflage of jargon and code words, they are laughed at – and they know it.
Main Entry: welt·an·schau·ung
Pronunciation: ‘velt-“än-“shau-&[ng]
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural weltanschauungs /-&[ng]z /; or welt·an·schau·ung·en /-&[ng]-&n/
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Welt world + Anschauung view
: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint
I know it wasn’t just me.
Honest, it just came out that way. I swear, I don’t even own a thesaurus. Come to think of it, I believe I picked up that word from a Robert Anton Wilson novel.
I like it, weltanschauung. Cool beans.
And you’re right I think. Without an agreement about the ground rules the issues can’t be debated or even discussed.
I’m convinced, for instance, that Jeff is likely right when he claims to be the better feminist. And I could explain why. I haven’t hung around here enough to have a good idea of Jeff’s politics (imagine that, that I don’t feel comfortable assigning him political beliefs from so short an association) but I’m confident that he does not have any gender based bigotry. To have a discussion of this, however, the person I was discussing with would have to say, “That’s interesting, why would you think so?” and then listen.
What are the chances of that?
And what am I supposed to think of someone who feels that plumbing determines economic and political views? Isn’t that pretty much the definition of sexism?
My definition is pretty simple. When someone looks at me (in person or at my writing or anything) do they see a person? I’ve met chauvinists but they are rare anymore. I actually met one my age about 20 years ago but I had to go to the military to find the guy and it was just him by his lonesome.
The worst disrespect I’ve faced ever in my life was from a “feminist” because I disagreed with her politics. No man alive has ever treated me with the dismissive, superior, and abusive attitude as that woman did.
And no man here would do so either.
I’m absolutely confident that whatever I write in the comments on this blog will be taken with equal consideration for the ideas I’ve presented as anyone else who makes a comment. I have never noticed on any blog I read or comment on that there is any less weight given to what women have to say. (Drive by trollers excepted.)
The pure prejudice that people like Ric carry with them is beyond incredible. I’ve no doubt they find just exactly what they expect to find because they allow no other possibilities.
Several of the blogs I read have regular liberal commentators and it is possible for people with differing opinions to have a discussion of issues. I see it everyday. But it starts with seeing the other person as a person.
You’d think that wouldn’t be so hard, particularly for those who’s self-image includes the idea that they are open-minded, rational and tolerant.
Though I suppose that’s dependent on understanding the meaning of “tolerant.”
synova – When the one side lays claim to be the arbiter of that which is tolerant/racist/sexist/bigoted, that pretty much ends the chances of there being an actual exchange of ideas, no?
You love me? I’m feeling oppressed.
TW: dang, I can’t read that shizam
A bit off-topic, this, but oh well. I have little tolerate for anyone (right, left, green, red) who can not a) explain why they believe what it is they do, and b) are willing to defend their beliefs. Sadly, and I do really mean that, I have not had a true discussion with the fabled ‘liberal’ that everyone keeps talking about. Well, they call themselves that but then always fail the entrance exam I outline above. Am I doing something really wrong?
Cynn, Jeff G. attempted to initiate friendly debate with a wide array of feminists blogs a while back. Needless to say, it went over only slightly better than debates with folks like Marcotte or charlatans like Caric.
PWers have a long, LONG history of dealing with lefties. We know how intellectually vapid the vast majority of them are. For every one of you, there are at least a thousand Carics.
Comment by JD on 7/24 @ 11:39 pm #
synova – When the one side lays claim to be the arbiter of that which is tolerant/racist/sexist/bigoted, that pretty much ends the chances of there being an actual exchange of ideas, no?
—
I’d think that was the whole point…. try to claim the rhetorical ‘commanding heights’ verses winning a rational debate…
But, of course, the other [re: us] disdains reason….
Not surprised that perfesser Caric hasn’t shown up thus far.
I am, however, surprised that nobody’s suggested such Zappa/Mothers classics as Freak Out! and (especially, since it’s my favorite) the hippie-skewering We’re Only In It For The Money.
#
Comment by cynn on 7/24 @ 8:28 pm #
By the way, it’s a shame you guys are reduced to chatting among yourselves here. It’s like waiting in a lobby for your blind date.
Well. You could, at least, try to more entertaining. You think she’ll like this shirt?
“You honestly think nobody would reply to Jeff?”
No. But I knew that this Professor Caric would not be within a country mile of this post, for the basically the same reason JD mentioned above (#141).
#144: “I mean, isn’t logic qua Aristotle (but especially Hume and progeny) simply passé to this crowd?”
Yup. And I think you are right. Without having an agreement on the operational definition of the word “debate” there won’t be anything useful to come of it.
I don’t approve of killing people for their skin color, preventing anyone from getting married, shunning children for their parents’ race, segregation, Jim Crow laws, job discrimination, and using naughty words to insult someone’s ethnicity.
Well then, welcome to the human race professor. Now if you could only get over your other bigotries, you might actually be someone worth talking to.
synova says:
JD responds:
Combine those two thoughts and we are at the crux of our problem with those of Caric’s ilk.
His approach is simultaneous: Depersonalise the entire blog of commentators by identity language (“I find this blog to be bigoted.”) and define the opposing views in the exact same identity. This collective approach to identity waves any right to consideration (a la mona) and propels the ownership of the debate essentials. Thus Caric can argue at “weeners” and “homophobes” and “misogynists” because it willfully devalues all individual opinion, rendering any further debate moot by his self proclaimed previously defined doctrine.
While the dictatorial defining of “correct” thinking on issues is annoying it is far more infuriating to be faced with the willful application of identity labels that raise up The Narrative™ while utterly devaluing the responding party’s humanity. Caric is blind to the idea that when he broad brushes opposing views with identity politics, he collectivizes his own position as a disconnected tape loop, devoid of intellectual underpinnings.
Irony expands to the bursting point as we consider Caric’s implied declaration that ethnic name calling is anathema while politically charged race/sex/gender political point of view name calling is acceptable in its quest to not so much win the debate as to state divine truth while rendering the individual opposing party as unworthy of identity apart from the their proclaimed membership in the collective “ist” or “ism” (insert intolerant identity here.)
Nothing reflects this more than the use of “phobia” to describe opposing views. Like the good party members of the USSR they seek a mental illness explaination for critical views of certain issues. Debate becaomes irrelevant as the opposing person is crazy don’t cha know!
Stupid, crazy, racist, phobic, cancerous, weenified vast right wing conspiracy.
“I don’t approve of killing people for their skin color,
No argument here.
preventing anyone from getting married,
Does that include polygamy? Children?
shunning children for their parents’ race,
So someone’s application shouldn’t be passed over by less qualified applicants because their parents happen to be white?
segregation,
Voluntary included?
Jim Crow laws,
Uh, when was the last time you read a current newspaper?
job discrimination,
see shunning children, etc.
and using naughty words to insult someone’s ethnicity.
Being kind of a weenie, aren’t you?
That’s certainly agreeable.
So you’re pro-incest, polygamy, etc…? Interesting, but I’ll not be joining you under that blanket. And there’s no way a hottie like Jeri Kehn should be married to a nasty old right-wing codger like that Fred Thompson.
Check, check, check, check. Now, how do you feel about assuming people to be guilty of crimes or generally immoral based on things like their race or socio-economic status?
Naughty words can be useful in a lot of ways. Is it the naughty words you don’t approve of, or is it the insult?
I don’t think Ric has really answered, do you?
Not surprising.
But if he’d like to wade into this a bit more, he could start with some of the concerns raised above by Pablo, BJ, and BMoe.
Not likely to happen, though. His first point was meant as a swipe at those who favor the current foreign policy, the subtext being that warmongers are in this just to kill brown semitic desert dwellers.
The rest is all bromide. He claims to be against segregation, and has essentially made a feint toward color- and gender-blindness (this is, after all, how one achieves the absence of any forced segregation or discrimination based on race or sex), but we know from his earlier posts that “color-blindness” is just RIGHTWING CODE for RACISM; similarly, I doubt very much Prof. Caric routinely walks around his Women’s Studies Dept praising Cathy Young or Christina Hoff Summers.
Bottom line: Importantly (and predictably), Caric offers no prescription for how to get to that social Utopia wherein all of the things he favors occur, and all the things he opposes don’t.
The devil is in the details. And the “planning.”
Put up or shut up, Ric. Clock’s ticking.
Nobody here is going to give you points for such a pile of feel-good closure.
BJ – Why do you have to go and be all thoughtful like that?
The comment function is going bazonkers on me again. But let’s try.
To Quote from Zelda:
“I don’t approve of killing people for their skin color, preventing anyone from getting married, shunning children for their parents’ race, segregation, Jim Crow laws, job discrimination, and using naughty words to insult someone’s ethnicity.”
You’ve nicely summed up the substance of American conservatism in your denials here. Let me get to the heart of the matter in relation to race. Conservatives went from “Killing people for their skin color” in order to enforce segregation to using the rhetoric of “color-blindness” to justify generalized racial hostility, “job discrimination,” consumer discriminations of all kinds, police targeting of young black men, racial profiling, and other kinds of discriminatory behaviors. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King characterized whites as an “oppressor group” be ause of white support for segregation. Whites are still an oppressor group (and King would still say so despite his enormous generosity) and the rhetoric of color-blindness is used both to justify the oppression and to cut off any kind of remedies for the oppression. What makes Goldstein and this blog a particular evil is that he’s making the justification of oppression into something “cute,” “fun,” and “hip” while providing a haze of pop culture references to cover his political alliance with the hard core bigots.
The same is the case with gay marriage. Zelda writes that she doesn’t approve of “preventing anyone from getting married.” In case she hasn’t though, preventing gay people from getting married has been one of the top political priorities of the American right for several years. Why is this the case? As Karl Rove would say, campaigning against gay marriage was a way to ensure that people who hate and fear gays, homophobic people in other words, voted Republican.
In fact, marriage is one of the fundamental acts, sacraments, or relations of our society. For someone to advocate the exclusion of any group of people from marriage is to tell that group that they are not full citizens, really not full human beings. When Goldstein opposes gay marriage, he is telling gay people that they are not worthy of the fundamental and good things of our society. That’s the same that the right-wing bigots say. At the same time, Goldstein is providing a slick cultural cover for the hard-core bigots. In my opinion, that makes him worse than the bigots.
This should be considered my response to his challenges.
Ric Caric:
I could just cut and paste my comment above as you perfectly illustrated its contentions.
One more thing: Do you get tingly all over when you make a provocative statement like “Whites are still an oppressor group…” and do you include your pasty white butt in that calculus?
BTW: The last time I checked debate involved a give and take, not leaving pretentious generalizations designed to slander and marginalize opposing points of views and then run away to the academic sanctuary.
Dude, it’s summer! Live a little!
“Whites are still an oppressor group…”
So it is our fault the coloreds are such slow learners?
“This should be considered my response to his challenges.”
Thanks for the heads up, I would have never guessed.
Whites are still an oppressor group (and King would still say so despite his enormous generosity) and the rhetoric of color-blindness is used both to justify the oppression and to cut off any kind of remedies for the oppression.
So, your sole supporting argument for white (conservative) oppression is that many, if not most, conservatives are opposed to affirmative action?
How about just simply explaining how affirmative action remedies “oppression?”
And, explain to me how, say, accepting kids, based on their race, into schools where they are ill-prepared to succeed (and thus, do not graduate in healthy numbers) remedies oppression?
Or, say you just explain the mechanics -in real world terms- how blacks are oppressed today. By whitey, of course.
Because, I tried to round up the two other white familes on my block to see if they were up for some cross burnings. They weren’t that interested.
Figured as much: Having reframed every stated opinion and every thought of everyone you deem to, you’d naturally go so far as to define how you yourself were interpreted. I would too, if I were you.
Yet I’m not buying a dime’s worth of it.
I admit, you’ve changed my mind: When you have the audacity to completely avoid the challenge put to you, Professor, by way of telling yet another fellow human being what they’re thinking and what motivates them…
…I have no alternative but to see you as resembling a paranoid schizophrenic. Since we’re all about what we say shit looks like, that is.
Speak for yourself, cracker. I’m not oppressing anybody.
First, it isn’t just the right that’s responsible for that, its the majority of Americans. Every place it’s been on the ballot, large majorities have decided that marriage is between a man and a woman. Even Oregon amended its constitution to ban same sex marriage and they did it with 57% of the vote. In deep, deep blue Massachusetts, the gay lobby is doing its utmost to keep the question off the ballot because they know they’ll lose a vote.
Now to your question: “Why is this the case?”
You’ll find that it’s been discussed here at length, and you’ll find that if there were a single position of the PW monolith, it’s something along the lines of “Marriage is what it is and the definition of the word need not be changed to appease identity politics practitioners. At the same time, gays should be just as entitled as straights to make whatever financial, contractual, inheritance, and other arrangements they like, and they should be to entitled to benefits such as dependent health care just as straight people are. So, yeah, civil unions.”
But you see bigotry. Explain.
Re: #164
Hmm, more guilty conscience/slave morality talk. Nietzsche would be pleased to see how it’s evolved in the early 21st century. Or so I would think.
[…] of history and women’s studies, Morehead University, Ric Caric: The “challenge†Goldstein and Collins offered was for me to write five or six books. With all due respect, you guys […]
Well, Ric answered but he just made the same assertions over again.
You know, this isn’t really very hard. Present and support an argument, Ric. You know what that is, you must. The idea that you don’t and that you teach at a college is a bit disconcerting.
Concerning racism, I don’t know anyone who would condone the things that you listed with the exception of racial profiling for military aged middle-eastern men going through airport security. Now, isn’t colorblindness the opposite of racial profiling? Isn’t it true that we should not see color when we look at people? Explain, please, how identity politics, or the insistence that race be the most prominent thing in interaction between people and our systems, does anything but encourage racism to continue. Show logically and with some support for that logic how identity politics does *not* promote racism.
I’d also say that “Crypto” anything is short-hand for “I want to think this is the opposite of what it really is so I’m going to call it “crypto” whatever and claim that people are carrying on in a way I don’t like *secretly*. And because it’s a *secret* I can’t show any evidence, you know, because it’s like, hidden.”
Identity politics is good for Democrats because they can claim to represent groups, just as they claim to represent women. But in order to do that the group has to define the opinions and beliefs of that group of people. I’m a woman, therefore I must prefer socialism because as a woman I want to be taken care of? Is that it? Or women are nurturers therefore I must prefer socialism because it is the State acting as a nurturer? Explain to me how my plumbing matters. Explain to Baldilocks up there (assuming she is reading the comments still) why her plumbing and her skin color matters to her ideas about economics or the proper role of morality in politics. Can you do that?
Go over to GayPatriot.org and tell those men how they are supposed to believe about politics, economics, the war and marriage… or at the very least how they are supposed to present the argument for gay marriage and how it’s all about homophobia. You do that, okay.
My own feeling is that gay marriage by whatever name supports the smallest natural unit of social welfare and should be legal and encouraged as something that will contribute to non-government social welfare and stability. But I don’t think it’s a “right”. Arguments that it makes people feel bad to be excluded ignore the fact that none of us have a right not to be made to feel bad. I’d also like to see a legal domestic partnership made possible that doesn’t assume a sexual relationship at all that encouraged stable domestic cooperation in more circumstances and in cases where we wouldn’t allow the adults in the partnership to marry.
But that’s because I firmly, despite my vagina, oppose the ever growing welfare state.
His answer to a challenge from JEFF is to respond to ZELDA?
Caric’s reply on race isn’t very original. In fact, it is just a rehashing of the arguments Stanley Fish made in “Reverse Racism, or How the Pot Learned to Call the Kettle Black.” Note that the piece was published in 1993.
In fact, Caric’s entire worldview seems to rely, for the force of its arguments, on essays like Fish’s “How the Right Hijacked the Magic Words” — which uses the very kind of sleight of hand Fish ostensibly rails against, and proceeds from the dual fallacies that 1) “conservatism” and “liberalism” — or those who espouse what he would characterize as rightwing versions of “liberal” beliefs — remain static descriptors, which means that today’s conservatives are tarred with the detritus of conservatism past, just as today’s “progressives” get to fancy themselves liberals; and 2) that a disagreement over the strategy for reaching a desired end (which is never really laid out) proves that one doesn’t wish to reach that end (instead of proving only that one disagrees with a particular strategy).
For Fish, cumulative “blows” of racial inequality are set aside by those hoping to serve the status quo. In short, those who now profess “color-blindness” really want us to forget about the years of racial discrimination in this country.
But what Fish (and Caric, who merely parrots the 12-year-old article) don’t take into account is that the cumulative affects of racial discrimination have long been fought with social engineering policies specifically designed (or, at least, so they claimed) to level the playing field — with a goal toward establishing Dr King’s vision of a society wherein people are judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
The question now is, has that attempt by government (and the judiciary) to correct the wrongs of the past proven successful? In what ways? What parts of that program should be continued, if any? Why? And — importantly — is it possible that those policies themselves have outlived their usefulness, or are they necessary in perpetuity?
In short, was that strategy the best one available to those of us who believe in individual rights (Fish plays on this notion, as well: when used by those on the right, “individual rights” is simply “code” for maintaining the status quo; when used by the 60s civil rights movement, it was a galvanizing cry for social change).
Ironically, when Fish wrote that piece in 1995, he was reacting to a kind of Republicanism that was still supporting foreign policy realism (today’s home of the new Dems) — and many of those who are now labeled “conservatives” would back then have self-described as liberals.
Caric believes either that a culture, having learned the lessons of racial discrimination, either can’t change — or else they refuse to. (Caric leans toward the whole “White Oppressor” trope — a way to show that he’s one of the “good ones” by admitting to his own self-loathing).
Me, I’m not much into such reductionist psychologizing. Instead, I’m more interested in getting us to the place where we, as a society, claim we wish to be. And in doing so, I am interested in finding the best strategies for doing so.
It is my argument that the Great Society programs, while initially well-intentioned, have given rise to an entire new set of problems that is keeping us as a society from achieving our goal of individual equality.
And it seems to me that those who most resist this argument are people like Caric, who have built a career around teaching things like “Comparative Racial Thought.” They have a vested interest in keeping “racism” and “sexism” and “homophobia” alive, which is why they are so desirous to find it wherever and whenever they can, even if they have to strain — or even redefine the terms — to do so.
But if the idea is to truly level the playing field, it is my contention that doing away with “racial” thought — or “black” aesthetics, or “feminine” logic, etc — is the best way forward. Affirmative action that relies on something both scientifically dubious and historically charged as “race” is not a winning strategy; affirmative action based on opportunity is far more desirable, and far less racially divisive.
Fish and Caric would turn “merit” into a code word; but to do so cheapens the accomplishments of a host of immigrant cultures who throughout the history of this country have assimilated and prospered as “Americans.”
In short, Caric (and, at least in 1995, Fish) have staked out an enemy and consigned him with bad faith. They may as well as “the right” if we’ve all stopped beating our wives.
Take a couple of days off to heal a sprained ankle & I miss yet another possibly classic blog-war, though it does seem that every time the opposition seems to be of a less substantive mold.
Condolences to Jeff & your family, am truly sorry to hear about your Grandmother’s passing.
Ric Caric,
Funny that you quote MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, an article that would be considered inappropriate & completely ignored on most campuses today because of the biblical references & moral judgment applied to the real systematic racism in the Democratically controlled South. MLK, a southern Baptist Preacher, argued against identity politics & fought against those persons that define/d anyone by the color of skin & not the content of their characters. Given how easily you imply bigotry, sexism or homophobia using those defining qualities as justification alone, completely shows your total lack of appreciation or understanding of Rev. King’s most basic principles.
What do you suppose his stance on gay marriage would be & given his religious back-ground? Would you ever be brave enough to call MLK, his followers & supporters, homophobes w/ the same blatantly obtuseness that you fling towards the commenters around here? What about his church followers or his widow?
No, you wouldn’t. Not because he was & did represent a very strong & literate antiracial identity based way of defining individuals, or the fact his actions or responses were defined by inherently by his belief in Christianity, but simply because he is a black icon. At least have the respect to read & comprehend his arguments before dissecting them to fit your personal meme, because the majority of what he sought, fought & ultimately murdered for was completely against defining people solely on the basis of their skin color.
I also guess that the irony of your initial foray into responding to Jeff’s challenge is to completely disregard any of the points he has made, you know the subject of the post you chose to comment on, but chose to respond to a fellow commenter & then use an individual whose repeatedly stated beliefs axiomatically make him a prime example of what you are arguing against. I’d call it intellectual laziness, but that would imply an intellect in action & not another baseless reactionary.
Jeff & PMan
(standing ovation
Other arguments briefly considered & quickly dismissed as too intellectual by Professor Ric Caric:
The moral righteousness of vegetarianism using Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kauf.
The effects of violence in Warner Brothers Cartoon’s siting Walt Disney’s Steam Boat Willy
Religious stereotypes in the media based on the “twofer†of Ice Cube’s movie Friday & his song “Black Koreaâ€Â
Support for the Mandy Mercotte’s anti-Catholic comments as told by Andrew Dice Clay’s Hickory Dickory Dock
Should have used spell-check, “siting” should read “citing” Damn phonetics!!!
Timmy —
Better run over and tell Caric I’ve responded.
After all, he doesn’t read this site every day, you know.
meanwhile, on the Zappa front, here’s my rec to go with the many above (my fave is One Size Fits All – a bonus point is that you can play it for your granny even if she hates naughty words)
Here’s the Allman Bros. “Whipping Post” from Frank’s underrated mid 80’s band. Note the vocals from musical mutant Bobby Martin and Frank’s solos – Bobby plays everything and sings great, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FUAgIBysj4
One of the interesting, but under-discussed, elements of identity politics (present company excepted, of course) is when the identities pull in different directions.
For example, the issue of black gays. IIRC, there was an interesting PBS Frontline episode a few years ago, “Tongues Untied,” about homosexuality in the black community. The black community, it seems, is not exactly open and welcoming of black gays (and arguably not of black lesbians, either).
In line w/ PDMain’s observation, this is due, in no small part, to the power of the church in the black community—and black churches, like their white counterparts, often view homosexuality as immoral.
So, in the context of Perfesser Ric’s construct, are black churches filled w/ haters? Are they, in fact, “conservative”? Or does their being Black trump their moral (and arguably political) views on the subject of homosexuality?
Similarly, one suspects (but I’m not sure where you’d find the data) that the black community as a whole voted against gay marriage. Does this mean that the black community is comprised of “haters”?
To borrow from the TW: Is one to dismiss offence based on the color of one’s skin, rather than the content of one’s beliefs?
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