Hey whitey, don’t be insulted
It seems clear that the Michelle Obama “whitey” tape is merely an urban rumor and does not exist, except in the fevered minds and wishful thinking of some who oppose Obama. But even if it were found to be based in fact it turns out there’s no harm, no foul.
Who says so? The staff of the Chicago Tribune, that’s who. You see, “whitey” can’t be a racial slur, nor can it offend, because whites are not an oppressed group.
And anyone who thinks otherwise is just dumb, and therefore deserves to be insulted.
I’m not making this stuff up. This is the sort of thinking that passes for reason on the part of some members of the MSM. And while it’s undoubtedly true that “whitey” has a very different history than other racial slurs such as the n-word, since it refers to a majority group in power rather than a minority with a history of being oppressed, it’s still a racial slur. I guess the Trib is just following the liberal rule that says that only oppressed groups are allowed to get angry at hatred directed at them.
But that’s not really the point, anyway. If there had been such a tape on which Michelle Obama (or her husband, for that matter) had raged at “whitey,” it wouldn’t have been about any imaginary harm she or the term might be causing to whites. Agreed that the answer is “none”. It would have been about what it says concerning her state of mind.
Such a tape would have indicated a victim mentality and an anger that has persisted despite all her advantages and successes in life—and, far more importantly, an attitude that would have belied her (or her husband’s, had he been the source of the quote) claim to be beyond race, and to be the champion of all Americans equally. It would have been an indication that anger against whites, and a victim mentality about blacks, was still a potent factor in her life and in her psyche. It would even have indicated that she might share some of the deeper rage against both whites and the US that her ultimately repudiated pastor Reverend Wright spewed from the pulpit lo these many years.
The reason the fake story had such legs is that Michelle Obama is on record as having said a number of things that indicate she may in fact harbor just those feelings, or at least some of them. And the fact that she and her husband sat in the pews at Trinity Church for twenty years listening to Wright’s sermons without outrage is another clue that something is not quite believable when they claim to be the great post-racial healers.
In Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope he describes the very first sermon he ever heard given by Reverend Wright, the one in which the man said (among other things) “White folks’ greed runs a world in need.” Obama not only quotes the speech approvingly and makes it clear it moved him, but appropriated its title for his book and made it central to his campaign.
That Reverend Wright didn’t say “Whitey’s greed runs a world in need” is irrelevant. It’s not the word, it’s the thinking behind it that’s the problem. And yes, yes, I know; there certainly has been institutionalized and individual greed on the part of white people. But the present and past neediness of the world is hardly based on that, nor do white people have a corner on greed or exploitation. If anyone thinks that poverty would be eliminated if black people ran the world, for example, just take a look at so many of the indigenous leaders in Africa—and I’ve also got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
But then, I’m just a greedy white person, and a dumb one as well.
[Hat tip on the Trib piece, the indefatiguable Larwyn.]
[ADDENDUM: Because this post was linked by a few blogs to the Left, the trolls have come out in the comments section. I’ve left up all their comments, even the most offensive ones, to demonstrate, once again, the caliber and tenor of the “arguments.” The comments themselves demonstrate the nature of the people posting, and need no further description.
But I do want to add that one question continues to puzzle me: do they truly have a problem with reading comprehension, or are they just pretending to in order to frame the insults? I always think it’s more effective, if you disagree with a person, to try to frame your responses to fit what that person might have actually written.
So, in case anybody really didn’t get it, this post is about two things, and primarily the first of the two: (1) a critique of the Chicago Trib‘s assertion that “whitey” can’t be a racial insult because whites are not oppressed; and (2) an explanation of why the rumor of a non-existent tape of Michelle Obama saying that word, “whitey,” in a negative way had legs—that is, why it was believed for a while by so many people. And that’s because (unlike all the other tapes that don’t exist that were helpfully envisioned by the trolls) there have been many times when she actually has expressed sentiments that indicate she might in fact harbor such feelings.]
[ADDENDUM II: Funny thing, many of these trolls have the same IP number. Go figure.
As for evidence from Ms. Obama’s life that that could lead people to believe she harbors feelings of anger towards whites, there’s the following:
There’s her assertion in her stump speech (not just a passing comment, but an integral part of her message) that we’re a “divided country” that’s just “downright mean.” This resonates with the Rev. Wright’s statement—a sentiment her husband focuses on in The Audacity of Hope as having been inspirational for him—that, “White folks greed runs a world in need.”
These dovetail with a very important fact of her history: having been a devoted parishioner, listening to the racist and hate-filled harangues of Rev. Wright for twenty years. That, to me, is what raises the most questions of all.
This New Yorker piece provides an example of Rev. Wright’s belief in black liberation theology, which was both his personal philosophy and that of his church, the church that the Obamas attended regularly for twenty years:
In portraying America as “a Eurocentric wasteland of lily-white lies and outright distortions,” Wright promulgates a theory of congenital separatism that is deeply at odds with Obama’s professed belief in the possibilities of unity and change.
And this fits in well with Michelle Obama’s own scholarly work. Separatism is a theme in her Princeton thesis, although not black liberation theology, which I don’t believe she’d yet been exposed to at that time:
In her senior thesis at Princeton, Michele Obama, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama stated that America was a nation founded on “crime and hatred’. Moreover, she stated that whites in America were ‘ineradicably racist’.
Black liberation theology, the official philosophy of Wright’s Trinity Church, is a separatist and racist point of view. It has been described many times before. But here’s a good summary of its main points, written by its founder and Rev. Wright’s self-proclaimed mentor, James Cone.
I think it’s clear why a member of a church espousing this philosophy might reasonably be suspected of harboring racist and angry feelings towards whites:
“Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God’s love.”]
[CORRECTION: Ms. Obama’s thesis does not contain the words “ineradicably racist” or that America was founded on “crime and hatred.” Many people published a rumor to that effect, but it appears to have been incorrect.]
One word, one country: Zimbabwe.
“It’s not the word [‘whitey/white folks’], it’s the thinking behind it that’s the problem.”
I’ve been wanting, more and more, to do something I’ve barely yet done: speak about Obama in public, amongst my friends and colleagues. Though I’ve been feeling more and more desire to speak out about Obama – I have held off, for the exact reason neo describes in the words above: it’s the thinking behind the words which is the problem.
Obama has made so many gaffes – incredible gaffes. He’s a gaffe machine. He’s actually, in all sincerity: a laughingstock.
But, it does no good to speak of the gaffes. We all make gaffes. Haranguing someone for gaffes is mean-spirited and actually illogical, most of the time.
Obama is not a laughingstock b/c of the gaffes. He’s a laughingstock b/c of the thinking behind the gaffes. He’s a laughingstock b/c of the thinking and logic behind his words – especially behind his extemporaneous words.
So, if I am to speak out about Obama, I must concisely communicate the flaws in the thinking which is behind his words and his gaffes. Otherwise, I am just chatting a lot of noise which wastes people’s time and maybe even angers them. To me: the “concise” part and the “communicate” part of this task loom as difficult obstacles. Which is why – except for momentary lapses – I’ve remained publicly silent about Obama. Instead, you guys in these comments have been forced to speed skim my venting.
I can’t help contrasting Michelle’s whining and blaming with Tim Russert’s appreciation of his less than luxurious childhood. Whether she used the term Whitey is unimportant. Whether her values are in the right place is.
“Zimbabwe”?! Mr. Vanderluen, you execute concise like no one else.
I’m guessing Obama will play up the false whitey tape rumor to try to connect it any criticism of his church associations…. One falsehood means they’re all false! Or something.
Anyway, it’s how libs operate…
As to this editorial, I think they’re off message.
one of Obama’s tactics during the primary was to play up the victim card (e.g. his constant referencing of the those nasty internet attacks / emails). he was like a little crowned prince each time he raised that one in front of the press. problem is that in a general election, it’s no-holds-barred and the victim routine kind of goes out the window. the very fact that folks believe Michelle could have uttered those words (ideas), goes to the root of his unelectability. i cite his speech yesterday directed at black fathers who need to be more present in their families. great idea, totally piss poor timing. who wants a president that grand stands, berates and lectures on a quasi-national holiday for fathers? moreover the very fact that he directed his comments at only black fathers versus fathers in general goes to the real heart of the matter – he can’t figure out what he wants to be when he grows up: a black man or a candidate running for office? but, alas, i am just a DWOM (dumb, white, over-educated male), and as such, rescind all rights to anything, anywhere forever.
“Pithy prose packs punch,” says teacher Paules.
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Screw this.
I’ll pretend to be insulted any time I think it’ll get me something. Just like all the other perpetual victims.
It’s been my contention, that rather than “transcending race,” the candidacy of BHO has set back race relations in this country by 100 years, precisely because of the naked racism of Rev. Wright and his ilk that has been exposed.
I am not now, nor have I ever been the “whitey” that is implied by the orations of Wright and Pfleger, but let me tell you: you call me something hateful long enough, I might just grow into what you imagine me to be.
Come on, you knew that neo. African-American’s are incapable of racism, just like women are incapable of sexism.
I was uncareful with my wording. Allow me a second try:
Come on, you knew that neo. African-American’s are incapable of racism, just like women are incapable of sexism. By definition.
How else do you explain the occurances where an African-American specifically targets Caucasian-American, shoots them whilst hurling what would be considered racial ephitaphs and get charged with everything except the hate crimes statutes?
Where are the trolls? I’ll even spot them the favorite, consdescending liberal opening line
“well, ya see…”.
Are newspaper editorialists an oppressed group? If no, then they cannot take offense at being called hacks, scribblers, parasites, phonies, douchebags, liars, and corrupters of the public and the First Amendment,
A while back in another post i posted the way it works. until this presidential race, no one would believe me that this is the crackpot way they look at the world.
the oppressor class can never be oppressed, and more. they arent telling you the whole thing yet.
under that doctrine, anything that the oppressed class does to the oppressor class that others would call morally bad, would be considered justice. do if a person of an oppressed class kills a member of the oppressor class, they should go free.
now you know why the courts in cases where the woman killed her husband gets much less time! and why there is an organization of judges that seeks to free them after sentencing since thats easier and is less reported in the news (as well as a few other groups).
the other cases where the perpetrator was a victim of some form of abuse and gets to go free is that doctrine in action without explaining it. selling it before defining it in full flower.
oh.. and an oppressor class has no right to defend itself, and no actions of benificience to the oppressed can change their state, they are always the oppressor class till there are no more of them.
similar logic occured in other places… what eventually happens is that a group can attack another group with legal impunity, but the other group will go to jail for defending themselves. either way, it doesnt take very far before it puts one group in the skids.
after all, this is called class WARFARE and at no time were they other side ever not serious.
“Pithy prose packs punch,” pronounces professor Paules pleasingly post prose.
Ask Michelle Obama if she thinks that the rest of us would have access to lucrative jobs if we majored in Sociology and African-American Studies in college. That woman really, really lacks a perspective on her own life and ours. She was able to indulge her repressed anger and resentment in college, and then be rewarded for it in the real world. Am I missing something?
I’ve read parts of her senior thesis from Princeton – what was made available and what I saw a couple of months ago. I found it shocking that such scholastic mediocrity can be so rewarded by an Ivy League school. It appeared to be the psychological Rhorshark results of a sophisticated, yet out-of-control psyche. More to the point, I thought it was the ranting of a narcissist who was frustrated that she was not the center of attention and adoration by her peers because of her race.
God help this nation in January onwards…
The whitey statements don’t insult me. I’m not exactly sure why they don’t. Probably because i’ve noticed that those most easily insulted, are those who waste their lives with a chip on their shoulder that turns into an anchor around their necks.
I am whitey. Deal with it.
You know, I long for the days when “slur” was something you did after taking advantage of a 3 for 1 special on Margaritas. But, since the Chicago Trib has defined “racial slur” for us I’ll try to put it all in perspective.
It’s that Hyde Park thing again. They’re just so much smarter than we are. I remember when the Tribune ran a piece by a University of Chicago law professor addressing the fact that many black people, especially black ghetto people, are wary of police. She said it was because so many black men were in jail.
Her solution? Put more white people in prison.
There is in fact an effort to redefine the word “racism” to include tripe about how it has to include power relationships, etc., ergo blacks can’t be racist. I live in Detroit which is 80 percent black and the power structure is almost all black. So I’ve asked if at least inside the city limits blacks can be racist. I haven’t gotten a clear answer.
As to who are “oppressed groups,” apparently Jews aren’t included. When I found that out I had my first good night’s sleep in two thousand years.
This business that blacks can’t be racists, and woman can’t be sexist is so obviously wrong that it takes years of college to convince you it is true.
The fact that our universities are teaching nonsense like that to people like Michelle Obama is the reason jobs are being shipped overseas. The best thing we can do to level the playing field with our overseas competitors is to start funding massive endowments for Womens Studies, Gender Studies and [name your oppressed group] Studies in Chinese, Indian, and Eastern European universities.
Whitey, Cracker, and Redneck when used as the liberal nuts and blacks use them are exactly like the ‘N’ word. They are meant to degrade a segment of society, like it or not. It should not take a degree from a failed liberal college to know that.
I can only imagine how horribly offended you’d all be by something that isn’t 100% fictional.
I just read about another lawsuit that makes what i’ve always said true. Hire anyone and you may get sued, hire a black or female and you up the chance of being sued by 75%, Hire a black female and you may as well hire a law firm at the same time., you will be sued. Best thing to do is keep any business a small family affair.
I find it interesting that Obama and his supporters are not really denying that Michelle Obama said this in the church, but rather that no tape exists…. or to bring it forward if it does. Its a strange form of denial isn’t it?
My big question I wish more in the media would ask is what is his position on reparations?
Personally if I were a member of an “oppressed group” I would be insulted by the assertion that I cannot be racist, sexist, or whatever the perjoritive of the day happens to be.
All human beings are prone to faults, failures and character deficiencies. All of the names the “oppressor group” may be called, if true, certainly fall into one or more of those categories. Therefore if someone is patronizing enough to claim that I am incapable of feeling the same emotions as some “higher” group of people I would have to assume that he does not consider me to be fully human. (three fifths maybe?)
I find it interesting that Obama and his supporters are not really denying that Michelle Obama said this in the church…
Indeed! I read that Team Obama grilled Michelle O. on the possibility. In other words, it didn’t sound farfetched to them.
Nor to me. Though at this point I don’t there is a smoking DVD. From what I could tell it was a last ditch scam from a pro-Hillary blogger who pulled this stunt before, breaking the news that Karl Rove was about to be big time indicted.
I prefer to focus in on Michelle Robinson Obama’s character, achievements, and her attitudes. I’ve never been one to get caught up in identity politics and the race thing. It’s a distraction from what is really important. I happen to think this whole race controversy surrounding the Obamas may actually work somewhat to their advantage, since it distracts everyone from what matters most: that both of them are committed Marxists. Their lives are littered with clues and hints about this everywhere – and yet no one in the mainstream media seems to pick up on this and expose it. Things like that are germane to how his economic policy and foreign policy will be shaped.
Michelle Obama’s senior thesis is dripping with cultural Marxism, if only those with some brains to understand would take notice. Habermas, Gramsci, and Lukacs are right there behind the language of class and race struggle.
It’s a bizarre world now. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the integration of capitalist economics in China our awareness of Marxism’s permutations seems strangely diminished. And right before us in this upcoming important American election stands a power couple who were weaned on Communism throughout their intellectual formation.
It seems quite possible we are going to elect someone president who holds most of us in a kind of patronizing contempt. Barack “understands” our fear of crime, even though it is sublimated racism. He forgives us our clinging to religion, guns, and tradition.
Has the number of smart ass hipsters who think they know more than everyone else passed 50%? If it has, this country is going to deserve the great big kick in the ass it may be in store for.
If there had been such a tape on which Michelle Obama (or her husband, for that matter) had raged at “whitey,” …It would have been about what it says concerning her state of mind. Such a tape would have indicated a victim mentality and an anger that has persisted despite all her advantages and successes in life…
Neo-neocon, what would it have said about your thinking if we had found a videotape of you calling successful blacks “uppity n***ers” while sitting next to David Duke at the fundamentalist megachurch of Rev. John Hagee?
Not that any such tape exists. But if it did, what would it say about you — since some of the things you have said in the past show ample evidence of resentment towards successful black women such as Michelle Obama?
What would it indicate about you if there were a videotape of you cheating on the SAT? What would it indicate about you if there were a videotape of you mistreating a puppy? Not that any such tape exists, of course.
brooksfoe:
Can you offer an argument that my 4 year old nephew can’t claim as his own
Actually, there’s a tape of me mistreating a puppy while cheating on the SATs.
Actually, there’s a tape of me mistreating a puppy while cheating on the SATs.
AHAHAHAHAHA!
Did they unceremoniously kick you out of the ballet troupe for that?
I read there’s a tape of John McCain raping a goat. Don’t know if it’s true, but if there were, what would that say about his thinking?
FredHjr Says:
“Ask Michelle Obama if she thinks that the rest of us would have access to lucrative jobs if we majored in Sociology and African-American Studies in college.”
If we lived in a just world, no one with either would have jobs… except maybe fry cook.
Sociology…shudder…if it didn’t exist, the other social sciences would have to invent it… to make them look more serious….
Smedley Says:
“I read there’s a tape of John McCain raping a goat. Don’t know if it’s true, but if there were, what would that say about his thinking?”
I don’t think that’s how the argument goes. If we kinda sorta thought it might be true… then that would say something.
If you do want a fair example, I heard a rumor he cussed out his wife in public. While most everyone around me wrote it off, considering what I’ve heard about his temper I couldn’t rule it out as bogus… even today, wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it turned out to be true… so, that says something about his rep…
John McCain raping a goat is highly unlikely, since he is not Muslim. It’s not an apt analogy, since it falls entirely out of the realm of what we know to be the supporting facts that attend goatf***ing. On the other hand, we have read statements from Michelle Obama and are familiar with her views from other sources which would make the “hating whitey tape” not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
If your gonna use “tu quoque” forms of argument, then the analogies you use should be constructed using more than just a pro forma approach.
But, I guess our education system has indeed devolved to the point where college graduates today would never pass the classic regimen from another era.
Such a tape would have indicated a victim mentality and an anger that has persisted despite all her advantages and successes in life–and, far more importantly, an attitude that would have belied her (or her husband’s, had he been the source of the quote) claim to be beyond race, and to be the champion of all Americans equally.
It is very likely that Michelle Obama holds the belief that black people in the present are victims of oppression. If you object to this belief, fine, let’s hear your argument for why this is false. But you are also saying that her holding this belief is just as offensive as her hurling racial slurs at white people generally. I think this is a mistake.
I do not take offense at someone laying out her objections against what she views as an unjustified victim mentality. But I would take offense if in the course of doing so, she used hateful language that showed she held black people in categorical contempt. You appear to argue that there is no difference between Michelle Obama holding political beliefs on black oppression that differ from yours, and naked hatred of whites. This would be analogous to me arguing there is no difference between your substantive opinions about race relations on one hand, and the unhinged spouting off of racial epithets on the other.
It would have been an indication that anger against whites, and a victim mentality about blacks, was still a potent factor in her life and in her psyche. It would … have indicated that she might share some of the deeper rage against both whites and the US
Again, I think you are overstating your case. If I read about you deploying hate speech to rail against blacks, I would also be able to extrapolate your political opinions about minorities claiming oppression and maybe even guess at something about the rage in your psyche. But I would not make the leap from there to say that the very fact that you deny the existence of contemporary black oppression makes you an odious racist.
Disagreement about race relations is not tantamount to hate speech. Asserting that it is chills meaningful discussion.
I have to say, Neo, that this post is a bit off the mark. I don’t disagree with most of what you say, but it seems bizarre to me to go on at length about how terrible it “would have been” if Michelle Obama had used the term “whitey” while at the same time admitting that she didn’t use it and the supposed video almost certainly does not exist. This is like an anti-McCain blogger going on at length about how terrible it “would have been” if he’d used the term “nigger” in a video that doesn’t exist. To then say, but maybe she DOES harbor negative feelings towards whites, though there’s no actual evidence she ever used the term “whitey” — it just seems like you’re going off the reservation a bit here. Why can’t we stick to criticism of things people actually say, rather than criticism of things that they clearly haven’t said?
Sure, the tape of Michelle Obama probably doesn’t exist, but I’ll bet she’s chock full of resentment towards white people anyhow, so it MIGHT AS WELL exist.
I don’t care what anyone says, that Obama woman just has “uppity” written alllll over her. Who the hell does she think she is, saying that the blacks can’t be racist?
She didn’t say that? Well, I’m sure she BELIEVES it, anyhow. And I bet she thinks she’s better than normal people, too.
uppity? interesting choice of words.
but beside that, i think many are missing that these are belief systems which are shared by many. while most treat it as the quirk of the individual… its a desease of a collective mind in which the individuals no longer can think their way out. if they can accept such as valid logic, then they cant get out of the system they have taken in as it has redefined their world view.
they believe what their contemporaries believe, just like most of us. yet we believe that they could have a totally different view, and yet do nothing but surround themselves with the same ilk.
which is another thing pople arent noticing, the ilk all share the same desease, and it takes collective believe to suspend reality to believe so differently you create this hegelian alterior world view.
they look to the people to define their world view, most people look to the feedback look that is participating with the world. they use the collective as a proxy for experience and feel what the collective feels. (or tells them to – nihilism /lack of culture, blurs the edges of the self)
Artfldgr,
Stunningly interesting comment. But the larger question is, aren’t we all doing that?
(Even/especially right here, right now, on these blogs?)
I heard there was a tape of the neo-neocon masturbating while watching “The Day After” on DVD. I heard that, on the tape, she has a huge, wet, screaming orgasm when all the small-town Americans get obliterated by the nuclear attack, and then she says, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” and licks her fingers. Now, this tape probably does not exist. But what does it say that this scenario is so believable?
That’s not the point anyway. If there had been such a tape, it would not have shown an active plan for extermination of masses of people. I agree there is no plan. It would have been about what this says concerning neo-neocon’s state of mind.
Such a tape would have indicated a certain unbalanced death wish, projected onto the entire world. It would have indicated a need to feel powerful through destruction, despite neo-neocon’s peaceful, safe upbringing, and easy, priviledged life. This would have belied neo-neocon’s claim to care about spreading democracy. It would have indicated cravings for vicarious violence to balance a strange inner feeling of weakness. It would even have shown a strange unbalanced thanatos that is not susceptible to reason.
The reason this story is so believable is that neo-neocon has said so many other things that suggest she harbors just such feelings, or similar ones.
Is such speculation warranted? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Poor atheist.. obviously something set him off… just picture him furiously typing his manifesto
Just thought I’d lend my own example of the whole, “They probably never did this.. but what if they had- it would have been awesome!” genre of theoretical character assassination.
I think it holds up, don’t you?
I think that since Obama is half white we have to focus on and reject his black half.
That’s why the key to winning this election is going after Michelle. For instance, I read somewhere that Michelle actually stole and used drugs from a charity she worked with — and was addicted to said drugs. Barack had to quietly intervene behind the scenes to avoid possible prosecution for his wife’s illegal behavior. This, of couse, was an elitist act on his part. It is very likely this is true because it’s utterly believable, and thus is fair game as a campaign issue.
hey randy.. great idea!!!
I have a better one
STFU
Maybe you confuse us with Leftists who seek out personal info and use it to destroy people.
(Not that I even believe the crap you just wrote)
Conservatives don’t do that.
Bye
Maybe you confuse us with Leftists who seek out personal info and use it to destroy people.
No, we’re pretty sure you’re conservatives who are too goshdarn lazy to even find personal info in order to destroy people, and have therefore resorted to simply making stuff up.
sythia,
maybe some of us are, but most of us here it seems want to think abotu things for ourselves.
most people dont take years to have the ‘rules’ of the system learned.
for most, the rules of astrology are enough… what these people are practicing is an ideology whose approach is being refined over 100 years to capture the key people and ignore the rest selling things as half truths.
however the kind of thought that is required is not natural. its not natural to see the world only through a power dialiectic. its not natural to create a youthful population that works, gets meds, but at old age gets removed in favor of more young. when they mate, they give their kids to the state, and go back to work. or hasnt anyone taken a step back to see what this model is imposing?
the broken logic also is a test… if you spout the nonsense you are on that side, if not or you question it, you are against that side (ergo the attacks).
got to get ready for work… sorry.. 🙂
Why can’t we stick to criticism of things people actually say, rather than criticism of things that they clearly haven’t said?
Mitsu, what’s the big idea? Why say sane, reasonable things? C’mon, you’re ruining the joke!
This is like an anti-McCain blogger going on at length about how terrible it “would have been” if he’d used the term “nigger” in a video that doesn’t exist.
Mitsu — This is a false equivalence. Michelle Obama’s college thesis was about her feelings as a black separatist. For years she has been attending what I would call a black racist church in which whites and America are demonized from the pulpit as the congregation claps and dances and cheers. McCain has no such converse history from the white side.
Obama’s team certainly took the charge seriously and reportedly grilled Michelle Obama at length on the possibility she had been caught raving about “whitey” on tape. I doubt they would have been surprised and neither would I.
If the “whitey” tape showed up, it would only be the final smoking gun for MO’s negative feelings towards whites.
Wait, you used to be a liberal and now you’re not.
Cool. Frankly, I think the rest of the self-identified liberals of the world are somewhat relieved.
Now please, continue on with your being a neo-con. It’s so much more entertaining.
NeoNeoCon,
Get over yourself already. Really, this is pathetic.
whats more pathetic is someone who has the idea that something is pathetic but is so pathetic themselves that they subject themselves to pathos, then asking the world to change to prevent them from being subjected more to the pahetic they percieve.
of course this is couched as a public service message for the terminally pathetic…
One thing I’ll give Mitsu: even though he disagrees, he’s willing to engage Neo’s columns with grace and intelligence, as opposed to the drive-by snarks above.
Yeah, yeah, I know it goes on from both sides, but I’d say overall more so from the left side of aisle. I used to be a liberal too and at the time I assumed that was the side of open-mindedness, fairness, and rationality. I’ve changed my mind about that too.
Hey, how come not takers on the offer to trolls?
Also, Davey Duke is one of your (trolls) boys: big Iran appeaser.
I’ve never seen people so scared to death. It’s funny actually.
Screw this.
I’ll pretend to be insulted any time I think it’ll get me something. Just like all the other perpetual victims.
You already do. You and the rest of this whiny bunch of losers.
Atheists.
Actually, I heard the tape of neo-neocon was her getting gangbanged by several large angry black men and screaming “Put your big n***** d*** in my tight white c*** and f*** me like I’m your slave masters racist daughters you big black N*****!!!” while her tiny-dicked husband watched and masturbated.
I haven’t seen it but it totally would fit her perdonality, so I believe it.
One thing I’ll give Mitsu: even though he disagrees, he’s willing to engage Neo’s columns with grace and intelligence, as opposed to the drive-by snarks above.
Drive by snark is the only appropriate response to a conspiracy minded racist cooch and her tiny band of readers.
If your gonna use “tu quoque” forms of argument, then the analogies you use should be constructed using more than just a pro forma approach.
If you’re gonna use the phrase “tu quoque”, you should first make an effort to understand what it means.
But, I guess our education system has indeed devolved to the point where college graduates today would never pass the classic regimen from another era.
Indeed. But congratulations on your recent graduation anyway!
I can tell that from some of the above comments, and from what I am seeing from other weblogs of a conservative persuasion that I participate in (and I am a former Leftist, left the Left in 1987, who is now slightly right-of-center) that the Leftist and Democrat organizations have sent forth its brave ones to agitate and be snarky and obstreperous.
I have had my disagreements with “mitsu” but I will concede that he is mostly civil and does try to hold up his end.
But, I guess we are just going to have to endure the months ahead, as the Obama Kiddies are out beating the bushes and being Don Quixotes at our sites.
I apologize to neo for getting away from the topic of this thread. I have already put in my $.02 worth for what I think about Michelle Robinson Obama. She needs to get a life, get a grip, and realize her good fortune. Stop complaining about whites. If I had been a student at Princeton when she was there and if we had crossed paths I would not have shunned her because she’s black. My best friend at the Catholic boarding school I went to in high school was a black kid from Somerville, MA. But maybe I would have told her to get rid of the attitude and think of other people for a change. The world does not revolve around her and her “grievances.” My friend in high school had no such attitude at all. He was very comfortable in his skin and we were completely comfortable with him. We all could laugh at ourselves, and make jokes about each other’s ethnic backgrounds all in fun, not meanness. When I was in the Army, there were guys, black and white, who had decidedly racist dispositions, but overwhelmingly most of us just mixed, worked together, and had fun together.
And that is how I think most of America NOW is. South Chicago is NOT typical of most of the country. For the record, when I was a Jesuit seminarian at Loyola of Chicago back in ’86-’87, I did some volunteer work down on the South Side. South Chicago, in all of its environs, including the University of Chicago, is not in any way typical of most of America. It is a hard, gritty, nasty place. Also, you know, even back then when I was a Leftist seminarian, I was not comfortable with some of the WHITE activist types down there. There was something just a bit too intense and weird about them.
To take one’s experience of South Chicago or the snubs of some immature, white college students at Princeton and then project that on to the rest of the country is just stupid.
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Mr. Vanderluen, you execute
concisehyperbole like no one else.Fixed.
What a ridiculous post. You are commenting on a non-existent video of a false, planted rumor. Auditioning for FOX News, huh?
The reason the fake story had such legs is that Michelle Obama is on record as having said a number of things that indicate she may in fact harbor just those feelings, or at least some of them
Can you please provide a link these such “records”? Much thanks.
John Kerry might disagree. John McCain too, now that you mention it. Also, Valeria Plame and Joseph Wilson.
I can keep going if I need to; I got plenty more.
What a joke.
Wow, what a silly lil bunch of nutjobbers. Speclating on tapes that don’t exist and what that all means. How positively precious!
Carry on, reich wingers.
“But then I am just a greedy white person and a dumb one”
I don’t know about the greedy part but dumb yes. Undoubtedly!
“Conservatives don’t [seek out personal info and use it to destroy people].”
ROTFLMMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HUAHAHAHAHA!!!! OMFGORZ!!!!11!!two!!
Sorry to infuse logic into this absurd post, but how in the hell can you “previously” be a “lifelong” democrat?? Did you die and were reborn as a reich winger? Cuz if you’re no longer a democrat, then you were never a “lifelong” democrat.
Please. Stop. Teh. Stoopid.
BTW, I was previously a bitter, irrelevant newt for my entire life. Until I got better.
“The reason the fake story had such legs is that Michelle Obama is on record as having said a number of things that indicate she may in fact harbor just those feelings, or at least some of them.”
So I’m sure you’ll be providing factual backup for such a heft accusation, right?
Don’t try to give me the runaround either, for I am aware of all internet traditions, and this ain’t one of em!!!
Have any of the Leftist loons above read any part of Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton? And what about her comment that she was not proud of her country until her husband decided to run for office did you people not get? Or, her comments to the effect that this country needs change of the kind that is often left unspecified by a power couple that share an affinity for Marxism? I call that context. As for the issue of the tape, let’s just say I don’t think it exists. Neo herself doubts it exists. But much of “the context” suggests to us that such alleged statements would not at all be out of character for Mrs. Obama.
By the way, some of you above pay no attention to sloppy writing. Misspelling, poor grammar, etc. It’s all the product of the “dumbing down” of our education system that ideologues like Bill Ayers, and his fellow-travelers in education theory, have presided over. The fact that you people do not look under Obama’s hood for a true picture of who he is testifies to the fact that your educations have not been worth shit.
“The comments themselves demonstrate the nature of the people posting, and need no further description.
But I do want to add…..”
Somebody call the Waaaah-mbulance!
Seriously, if the reich wing had even a microscopic schred of the toughness they like to pretend they have, then why are they always pissing and moaning wghen people call them out for their bullshit?
Probably the same reason they’d rather hole up in their houses with plastic wrap and duct tape hiding under their beds rather than signing up and fighting in Iraq.
FredHj, please provide even one excerpt of Michelle O’s thesis that suggests she blames “whitey” for all (or any of) the country’s woes.
Please provide just one single, solitary line in her thesis wherein she extols the virtues of Marxism.
You’re so full of shit, and your $5 words do not disguise the fact that you’re just another 0.50 reich wing sheep who preys on fear and who needs to be coddled by the “big, strong father-figure” right wingers to protect you.
In other words, you are weak sauce.
FredHJr,
Well said. I’ve driven through the outskirts of South Chicago, one time. I hadn’t recently thought of how different it is – how much more hard-edged – from most of the rest of nation. I hadn’t thought of how the elite schooling/Hyde Park residence vs. South Chicago experience might still be impacting Barack and Michelle’s thinking. I will not overstate the impact; but, also, I’m glad you reminded me of this.
South Chicago’s relationship to government largesse reminds me a bit of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward relationship to government largesse. None are perfect comparisons, but: look at the way Mississippi pulled itself up after the Katrina damage with a minimum of griping and blaming; look at the way Iowans are shoving into their boots and dealing with their flooding with a minimum of griping and blaming. It is an American ethic: pull yourself back up, do not gripe and complain – with which Barack and Michelle may not be as familiar – due to the frankly Democratic/Leftist ethic of South Chicago and Ninth Ward New Orleans – in which much citizenry looks to government solutions for problems, and in which much citizenry feels the path to salvation is through public outcry for more government help. Don’t get me wrong: Mississippi and now Iowa will certainly benefit from government help. However, the mindset of middle America is different from the mindset of Dem/Left outposts like South Chicago and Ninth Ward New Orleans.
Oh, and BTW: if any visiting commenters read this and leap to racial conclusions about me – for you, I hereby issue a pre-emptory FU. I didn’t write in code words, and I’m not unconscious. I meant exactly and only what I wrote with my eyes wide open.
Dumbing down? Oh you must be referring to the poor SOB who wrote the following:
“I found it shocking that such scholastic mediocrity can be so rewarded by an Ivy League school. ”
and then added
“It appeared to be the psychological Rhorshark results of a sophisticated, yet out-of-control psyche.”
What is this “Rhorshark” you post about? As I am aware of all internet traditions, I know that credit must be given where it is due, and Dr. Hermann Rorschach would appreciate you getting his name right.
Is this merely scholastic mediocrity, actual ignorance, intellectual laziness, or a crime against metaphor as well?
Gcotharn
I am sure you wrote with your eyes wide open and your brain nailed shut.
“Is this merely scholastic mediocrity, actual ignorance, intellectual laziness, or a crime against metaphor as well?”
It’s a clear lack of intelligence disguising itself as intelligence.
Not much different from the reich wingers who talk tough and try to feminize their opponents and yet are the first ones to cry and moan when they are called out on their bullshit. “But, but, youre swearing!!”
Or, the same pseudo tough people who tell people to spy on their neighbors and lock themselves in their houses, board the windows with duct tape, and reminisce about the good old days of bigotry and Pat Boone. When men could be men, damnit!!
Seriously, Mr. Granderson, you need help.
Yeah…. yawn… no big deal. She was aware of racism. What a surprise.
Proud before, “really proud” that day. Easy.
WTF???
And when did you stop beating your wife? Geez, this is the lamest sh*t I’ve ever seen.
FredHjr: Have any of the Leftist loons above read any part of Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton?
They haven’t…
However, most on the conservative side haven’t read the ‘manuals’ of saul alinsky, which basically instructs HOW to have a slow march through the institutions. Which is what we have been experiencing.
The idjuts who have suddenly arrived are a mass cult. Its been seen before a lot, and each time the mass cult does their thing, long long long miseries are in store. Russia is still slowly dying. China is going to burn out from change that is too fast. the list goes on.
However the useful idiots are loyalists. They will go over the cliff for their leaders, as they will also believe anything of their leaders. This is key as mass movements move on blind loyalty and fealty, not merit, and substance.
For example, in many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.
The people on the left know each other and what side to take by the inanities. The false truths are a test of loyalty, and so they are blind loyalists, who believe that the PRIOR state which they distrusted will be replaced by an infinitely powerful state that could be trusted forever into the future.
Conservatives like to put leashes on mean dogs and be free to roam…
Liberals (leftists), like to let the mean dogs roam free, and everyone stay in their homes.
Humans, the rest of us caught in the middle of this stupidity, survive despite their efforts.
In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a euphemism for “revolution”a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America’s social and economic structure.
The goal is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation.
Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that status quo’s complete collapse to be followed by the erection of an entirely new and different system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal changes are needed.
I am pretty sure that I am one of the few who knew how this stuff worked BEFORE Alinsky made his easy to understand rules for radicals. Then again, my family lived through Hitlers and Stalins purges… or rather what’s left of my family..
These People’s Organizations were to be composed largely of discontented individuals who believed that society was replete with injustices that prevented them from being able to live satisfying lives. Such organizations, Alinsky advised, should not be imported from the outside into a community, but rather should be staffed by locals who, with some guidance from trained radical organizers, could set their own agendas.[33]
Winning was all that mattered in Alinsky’s strategic calculus: The morality of a means depends on whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory. [54] The man of action thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action, Alinsky added. He asks only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. [55] For Alinsky, all morality was relative: The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent on the political position of those sitting in judgment. [56]
Given that the enemy was to be portrayed as the very personification of evil, against whom any and all methods were fair game, Alinsky taught that an effective organizer should never give the appearance of being fully satisfied as a result of having resolved any particular conflict via compromise. Any compromise with the “devil” is, after all, by definition morally tainted and thus inadequate. Consequently, while the organizer may acknowledge that he is pleased by the compromise as a small step in the right direction, he must make it absolutely clear that there is still a long way to go, and that many grievances still remain unaddressed. The ultimate goal, said Alinsky, is not to arrive at compromise or peaceful coexistence, but rather to crush the opposition, bit by bit.[57]
So Fred, these are the voluntary arm of the saul alinsky (SA) branch of the left… its histories second SA… and remember what happened to them after they made their leader who he became.
And here Saul and the author confirm what I have been attempting to pass on.
All great leaders, he added, invoked “moral principles” to cover naked self-interest in the clothing of “freedom,” “equality of mankind,” “a law higher than man-made law,” and so on. In short:
All effective actions require the passport of morality.[68]
This tactic of framing one’s objectives in the rhetoric of morality precisely paralleled a communist device for deception known as “Aesopian language”, which J. Edgar Hoover described as follows:
Nearly everyone is familiar with the fables of Aesop. Often the point of the story is not directly stated but must be inferred by the reader. This is a “roundabout” presentation. Lenin and his associates before 1917, while living in exile, made frequent use of “Aesopianism.” Much of their propaganda was written in a “roundabout” and elusive style to pass severe Czarist censorship. They desired revolution but could not say so. They had to resort to hints, theoretical discussions, even substituting words, which, through fooling the censor, were understood by the “initiated,” that is, individuals trained in [Communist] Party terminology.
So rather than say they are communists, they say they are progressive. Rather than say they wish to change this country to a communist state, they say that they want peace (the absence of all opposition to communism), democracy (we are a republic, soviet union refered to themselves as a democracy), and they are all for change.
Straight from the horses mouth:
The word democracy is one of the communists favorite Aesopian terms. They say they favor democracy, that communism will bring the fullest democracy in the history of mankind. But, to the communists, democracy does not mean free speech, free elections, or the right of minorities to exist. Democracy means the domination of the communist state, the complete supremacy of the Party. The greater the communist control, the more “democracy.” “Full democracy,” to the communist, will come only when all noncommunist opposition is liquidated.
(today they are calling it sovereign democracy). This is how the left can promote communism, but never get the people to understand that their idea of democracy is communism, while the other sides idea of democracy is a democratic republic of the people.
But Alinsky understood that there was a flip side to his strategy of speaking the palatable language of the middle class and the reassuring parlance of morality. Specifically, he said that organizers must be entirely unpredictable and unmistakably willing — for the sake of the moral principles in whose name they claim to act — to watch society descend into utter chaos and anarchy. He stated that they must be prepared, if necessary, to go into a state of complete confusion and draw [their] opponent into the vortex of the same confusion. [70]
So all those who are leaders on the left, are prepared to break some serious eggs.
After all the left in America has arranged for the deaths of 42 million potential people who would have been born to more conservative parents (As liberals don’t have as many babies). Close to 250 million world wide in the past 100 years.
And the current points of what Obama says, would lead us into a situation where a limited nuclear war would end up with us on the losing end after he has gutted our defense…and finished gutting the state organs that would be replaced with loyal aparachics.
I guess no one on EITHER side read the questionnaire given to soldiers recently that asked if they were willing to fire against their own people when ordered. Those that said no, were sidelined.
No… what would happen is that if they make the change they want to make, the American people would then have to enter the streets in order to get their freedoms back. you can see that at no time in history, as any form of this kind of government ever ended its tyranny witout the efforts of an outside force.
Without the US, we will all be re-educated one way or another.
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and to the leftist that keeps using Reich Wing, lern history… Hitler and STalin competed for the SAME PEOPLE. leftists…
national SOCIALISTS were as leftist as you.
they did not argue on merit, they did what your doing. the play book your playing out of it, is theirs.
its not the playbook of the right.
the right is not royalty and imperialism… your basically a dunce that believes that the indoctrination you got was education. that your on the side of right, not on the side of wrong.
what it is, is that your a misfit. you join the left because your a misfit. thats why Saul alinksy and the communist party both advised finding people like you.
you are stupid, useful, and will work for your own demise happily whistling thinking of the utopia your making.
you actually dont like the right because they ahve everythign you want. stable family, love, charity, goodness, freedom… your so full of bile, and spite that your pissing vinegar…
you believe that in this new world that a misfit like yourself would be a king… your suckered into the same position quasimodo was in when they elected him king of fools.
sad thing is that your so ill educated that you wont develip enough knowlege and experience till your much older… then you will realize that you sold everyone you ever loved and all their children into a form of slavery that makes the slavery of the american slaves a picnic.
dont believe me, then read and pay close attention to this article.
Are Americans Pro-Slavery?
by Walter Williams (June 11, 2008)
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5199
the one thing that a misfit cant understand, is that capitalism works by making people happy.
misfits are so miserable, they cant understand that if they made people happy they would be rewarded, so they seek to make everyone like them. misfits and angry, spiteful, full of envy, and willing to destroy.
the motto of such misfits is
“if i cant have it, no one can”
everything that they think of their own, is actually a projection of the side they oppose.
Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows
George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. ‘One sometimes gets the impression,’ he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, ‘that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026442/Dont-listen-liberals–Right-wingers-really-nicer-people-latest-research-shows.html
I’m glad Neo put up the addendums with material from Black Liberation Theology, which I consider the keystone for understanding how problematic Trinity Church is for both Obamas and the Obama campaign.
IMO the underlying teachings and theology of Trinity Church are simply racist. One can seek to understand it or justify it, but there is no getting around that. Here’s another quote from James Cone, the theologian Rev. Wright recommends as the basis for Trinity Church.
Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.
–James Cone, Black Power and Black Theology
Shorter “Hey whitey, don’t be insulted”: It was a lie, there was no tape, but that doesn’t matter because it was true anyway.
Artfldgr,
Be fair. You’re not greedy.
Is Michelle Obama running for president?
huxley @ June 17th, 2008 at 9:18 am says:
“One thing I’ll give Mitsu: even though he disagrees, he’s willing to engage Neo’s columns with grace and intelligence, as opposed to the drive-by snarks above.”
Oh, I don’t know, huxley. If you show in a shiny satin jumpsuit with pom-pom buttons, a round, red nose, and big floppy shoes, I don’t think it should be surprising that people treat you like a fucking clown.
Best,
AntisocialScientist
No but her spokesman is.
Gosh, the range of debate exhibited by Big O’s supporters here has surely convinced me that he really IS the one to unite the country! Civility and intelligence abounds!
Neo, I have to say that while this is not the ugliest collection of trolls I have ever seen, it certainly could win the state competition in New Jersey.
You say the same IP address? There can’t be one single troll so obsessed with you that he’s doing all this by himself.
Can there actually be someone that demented?
Can there?
and to the leftist that keeps using Reich Wing, lern history… Hitler and STalin competed for the SAME PEOPLE. leftists…
national SOCIALISTS were as leftist as you.
Jonah? Jonah, is that you? You get your butt in here right now young man or you’re not going to get a smiley face on your latest home-schooling thesis about how history really isn’t history unless you just make a whole bunch of shit up.
I mean, write nonsensical screeds about some guy and then claim those dirty Obamas are just gonna roundup all the good, honest, hard-working white people who really aren’t ignorant racists, they just don’t like uppity negroes spouting off about what life is like for Negroes in this country! Noooo
This thread is definitely going down as an award winner, it cannot fail. Oh, and as for the blog author and your complaints about nasty comments? Maybe you should just stop with the insulting innuendo. Maybe you should actually come clean and say it out loud, strong black people scare the shit out of you and you don’t know what the fuck to do. You’ll feel better, promise, just look at Cindy McCain. Now that she’s stopped stealing drugs from her foundation she’s back to being a Stepford wife, and she just loooooveeesss it, you should trade cookie recipes with her.
I didn’t think it was possible to blow of the world’s entire history of racism and its persistent effects so effortlessly…Africa is pleased to know its needs and suffering are hardly based on the slave trade, colonialism, or exploitation.
*neo, do you have an option in your template to ban certain IP-addresses? I have read the addendum, but for the sake of general cleanliness and as a mercy to your readers – could you spare us the mentally deficient garbage falling out of this troll’s soiled mind?
dr. luba Says:
And here I thought that brave, strong clean-living right-thinking consevatives didn’t have abortions….
What the heck are you talking about… I think your making a poor attempt at the imperfection fallacy… your ideology is no good because its not perfect. Except conservatives don’t follow an ideology, they are not a mass movement of idiots inculcated, indoctrinated, and parroting their way to their own slaughter. ]
HumboldtBlue Says:
Ah… the facts were well established before jonah wrote his books. The socialists here in the US sided with Hitler, till he attacked stalin… so you might have a revisioned history, but we don’t. by the way, revisionism in history is called Stalinism.
No one said that they were going to round up people. You are confusing the cause of a desease with a single symptom.
What you will find in the western version is a softer form of it. like putting 4 times the number of abortion clinics in black neighborhoods. By those same clinics accepting money to ‘help; an African girl abort her child.
The rounding up, didn’t come till way later… it comes from the premises, and a balance with the people that prevents them from rising up. However the steps were pretty clear. Hitler was much like Obama, a man out of nowhere placed in position. Hitler appealed to women, and the young. The most gullible, and naé¯ve.
Hitler was on the left, if it wasn’t for his killing jews, we would be hiding his bad side as we hide stalins, and revision him too.
My family lived through these systems, all you got is blind acceptance and no prayers.
MLE Says: Africa is pleased to know its needs and suffering are hardly based on the slave trade, colonialism, or exploitation.
actually, why dont you read something from someone who knows?
“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
bascially slavery stopped a long time ago… and its been socialist welfare that has prevented africa from building an economy.
you cant build an economy and get control of your country if you have western leftist communists funding the leaders to prevent the state from getting its raw materials on the market and destroying russias economy. (or havent you noticed who supplies weapons and explosives, and expertise, and even pilots to fly the planes and mechanics to maintain them)
bascially, you have no idea, and you chose which political message you like…
the same thing that is being faulted in michelle presumptive tape.
however, we dont know if a tape exists or not. the absence of evidence is not evidence. and there is anotehr angle that dull people might not get.
and thats the fact that such a tape, if NOT shown, ends up giving one CONTROL… so if obama wins, his balls would be in a nutcracker… he would bend and be in control by such things.
given that you can cover the bet better if you do this, there is every reason to not bring it out.
in fact, the earlier something like that comes out, the more likely they will be able to brush it off… but if it playes two days before the actual vote, it has a different effect… much more damaging.
so we dont know either way… and we may never know.
mcCarthy was sitting on 12,000 names… not producing them didnt prove that lattmore who coined the phrase mccarthism in a book, wasnt a spy. turned out he was, as was dexter white, and lots of others.
so its a waiting game…
When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. – Shikwati
just like here… once a socialist area of state is created, it takes a heck of a lot to remove it. it can only grow by not completing its task and being incompetent.
soooooo…. the end result is a state like russia… average life expectancy 58… abortion so high that more get aborted than not… its horrible there.
but thats ok… its the same utopia that the left here is creating… they just never lived in it..
A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.
so the corn decimates the farmers.. who then cant grow… then there is famine.. and lefty idiots send more… this is used by the leaders to favor their own tribes, and so on.
in other words, the help is how you hurt them.
like john cleese taght you.
if you pretend to help you can hurt people a whole lot and not be blamed for it since you had good intentions…
though his purpose was how to really really really annnoy people.
Listen to vanderleun. Vanderleun is aware of all internet traditions. Such as when he made fun of Jane Hamsher for having breast cancer.
Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: “The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it.” – Shikwati
When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it’s unacceptable that the aid worker’s chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently — and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That’s just crazy! – Shikwati
bascially.. everyone in the west thnks everyones life would be better with more money..
this is like eating dinner, and enjoying that you have a knife to cut your meal..
so you decide that if you gave 100 knives to someone that they would be better off… but the truth is that they only need a certain amount, and after that, it does way more harm than good.
india didnt grow into a powerhouse till it stopped taking western aid.
I had prepared a lengthy, fair response to the asinine taunt posted by “montysanto” in response to an earlier post of mine. When I have attempted to post it, it has been refused by the server.
May I appeal to the author of this site for a fair treatment? Or will I be denied the chance to rebut the mockery to which I had been subjected?
[neo-neocon writes: Here’s an attempt to post what you wrote.]
“montysano” says:
June 17th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Have any of the Leftist loons above read any part of Michelle
Obama�s senior thesis at Princeton?
Yeah�. yawn� no big deal. She was aware of racism. What a surprise.
And what about her comment that she was not proud of her country
until her husband decided to run for office did you people not get?
Proud before, “really proud” that day. Easy.
Or, her comments to the effect that this country needs change of
the
kind that is often left unspecified by a power couple that share an
affinity for Marxism?
WTF???
But much of “the context” suggests to us that such alleged
statements would not at all be out of character for Mrs. Obama.
And when did you stop beating your wife? Geez, this is the lamest sh*t
I’ve ever seen.
END OF QUOTE
Normally I let jejeune, flip remarks like this pass without comment, since this snarkiness is fairly typical of a 16-year old with a tad much testosterone and a defiant streak.
“Yeah�. yawn� no big deal. She was aware of racism. What a
surprise.”
I take it you have not read the thesis paper. I read many parts of it, as it was made available at certain blog sites a couple of months ago. It touched on more than just the “racism” meme. There were hints of class-struggle and analysis of oppression contained, underlying the more obvious ideas. Because I have studied the Frankfurt School Marxists, I could see the influence of Marcuse and Lukacs in the sociological framework. The cultural Marxism can be detected by a discerning mind.
“Proud before, ‘really proud’ that day. Easy.”
No, sir. She never said “proud before.” These kinds of revisionary apologetics do not work with those who paid attention to exactly what she had said. She never implied or stated she was proud of her country before her husband decided to run for office. His candidacy triggered her nascent pride in her country. Ergo, it was not there before. You flunk Logic 101. In the old classical regimen of education, the process of intellectual formation proceed thusly: reading, then grammar, then logic, and then rhetoric. Because today’s kiddies are exposed to a regimen that does not include English grammar, it is difficult for them
to be logical. I’ve seen it every day for many years.
“WTF???”
Thus, this deprived creature’s inability to express a clear idea as to why he considers that part of my response unintelligible or meaningless. Here is my clarification. Please bear with the length of the response, but it helps to go step by step when introducing complex conclusions.
First of all, every human being, while responsible for his own free choice of ideas from a panoply of them, is influenced at every step of the journey by other people. Self-conscious of my own intellectual development, I can see during the course of my lifetime certain people who have had great influence over who I have become. Not just books, but real people I’ve had wonderful dialogs with. Both Barack and Michelle Obama are no exceptions to that rule. Let me focus on Barack’s ideological influences. They are factual, not the confabulations of the vast right wing conspiracy. Were it not for a certain journalist from New Zealand who is not a right-winger we would never have known about a very specific and monumental influence in Barack Obama’s life: Frank Marshall Davis, a poet, Stalinist, and member of the Communist Party USA who was living in Honolulu while Barack was attending the elite Punahou prep school. This was the “Frank” mentioned in Sen. Obama’s book back in 1995. Frank was the man who squared Barack with reality and how the world works. Apparently, Barack’s grandfather and Barack’s mother had a hand in deciding to bring “Frank” (Frank Marshall Davis) into his life. They knew who he was and what he stood for. That says something about their world views, and the influence they had over his young,developing mind.
Barack’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was known as a Marxist anthropologist who was attracted to Third World men who were socialists/Communists. Barack’s biological father, while born to a poor family of a Muslim tribe, disavowed Islam and was an atheist and a Communist. When he finished his graduate studies in economics at Harvard, he returned to Kenya to be a part of a Communist government that was not in power for very long. He in fact was the chief economistof that regime and there is an academic paper on what he wanted for the economic, organizing principles of Kenyan society. It was right out of Lenin. 100% taxation, with the State distributing the money – “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Complete collectivization of farms. Total confiscation of foreign properties and corporations. Many years later young Barack would write approvingly of his father’s visions. When young Barack went to Occidental College and then to Columbia University he stated in his own book that he sought ought socialist/Marxist professors to study under. Later, he acquainted himself with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, both open Communists and terrorists, to network within the strange world that is Chicago
politics and the South Side.
“And when did you stop beating your wife? Geez, this is the lamest
sh*t
I�ve ever seen.”
This is a completely cretinous remark that marks you as a lowlife knuckledragger. You were not brought up well, and your education leaves a lot to be desired. You are too much of a Kool-Aid drinker who has not the wherewithal to go in search of who this man you strongly support really is.
One final bit of commentary to cement my argument that the Obamas are a team of fellow-traveling Marxists. They approved of the Liberation Theology practiced and preached by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Fr. Pfleger. I know what Liberation Theology is. I studied it and was attracted to it. When I was a Jesuit seminarian I did a lot of reading of all of these various liberation theologians, from Jose Guttierez to Leonardo Boff to Juan Luis Segundo, S.J. I did not read James Cone, because the little I was exposed to of his work convinced me that he was not serious or systematic in his approach. Even as an enthusiast of that theology, I could tell the solid thinkers from the bomb throwers.
Anyway, you do not spend at least 20 years in a parish that is dripping with this theological framework without approving of at least a good part of it. Liberation Theology is Marxism integrated into the Bible. That’s the bottom line.
I contend that many of Obama’s devotees are also crypto-Marxists who will do any ju-jitsu to deflect attention from this explosive aspect of his vision for America.
FredHjr — This blog software has bugs or perhaps unexplained features. I doubt Neo can do anything about it.
The software ate one of my posts yesterday and when I resubmitted, it said that I had already made that post.
FredHjr: send me the text of the post by email and I’ll see if I can find what the bug is. Sometimes I can’t figure it out, though.
FredHjr Says:
“I had prepared a lengthy…..”
Maybe break it into three chunks and post them one by one. If it refuses one, then you know where the problem is. Maybe a particular combo of words or a something that seems like a internet link?
Artfldgr,
You wrote:
“After all the left in America has arranged for the deaths of 42 million potential people who would have been born to more conservative parents (As liberals don’t have as many babies).”
So I asked how it was that the left is responsible for aborting conservative babies. Did we force them conservative mothers into the abortion clinics and hold them down? I would think that it was liberals who were having all those abortions.
Maybe it’s in the same way that gay marriage destroys “traditional” marriage. Some irresistible allure that tempts good christians to abandon all they believe in….
(Then again, wasn’t traditional biblical marriage between a man and his
wiveschattel?)Why do you hate America?
(Non-American, left-leaning)
Does Artfldgr have an off switch? Phew! He/She should get his/her own blog.
All this noise about the potential FLOTUS is quite amazing to me, as an outsider. I couldn’t tell you anything about our First Lady, I dimly recall seeing someone at the back of the stage when victory speeches were being given.
There seems to be a focus on this issue as somehow being indicative of the type of policy change that you might expect/fear under an Obama presidency. Michelle’s political/cultural leanings are being used to try and characterise the expected outcomes. However, I would have thought that the level of control that the President exerts over the formation of public policy is less in the US than in many other countries.
Perhaps a focus on actual policy statements (the promises they make) would be more beneficial, as that would tend to be the things they would have to adhere to in order to secure re-election, after all.
We have a Leftard infestation tonight
“We have a Leftard infestation tonight”
Somewhere there is a large leftist sight that linked here and complained. I don’t know which one but I can assure one it is so.
They will post for a few days and either decide that they showed us or the next website to pester will be linked too and we will be forgotten.
It happens, it is more or less amusing to long term readers of any blog’s comments section. It also happens to the smaller lefty blogs when a large conservative website links to them complaining. I’ve never really been sure what people thought they were going to accomplish when they do it.
Dylan — Nice civil post! Thank you.
Obama hasn’t been around long in the national eye and many of us are trying to figure out who he is. He talks about unifying the divisions in America, yet he has attended a racist church for 20 years and he is married to a wife who accuses America of being “downright mean” and seems to have a fixation on race in America.
As voters we’d prefer not to elect a bad candidate in the first place. We don’t owe Obama the presidency. It’s up to Obama to convince us that his words and his actions and the people and organizations he chooses to associate with are congruent. They aren’t and he hasn’t explained that disjunction well–mostly he has evaded it.
I was previously a lifelong Democrat until 9/11 made me realize that the world was full of scary brown people and that we had to kill them all to protect ourselves. Then I became a neocon.
“Only intellectuals are capable of believing certain kinds of nonsense.”
-George Orwell
This thread is pure, distilled win.
dr. luba Says:
So I asked how it was that the left is responsible for aborting conservative babies. Did we force them conservative mothers into the abortion clinics and hold them down? I would think that it was liberals who were having all those abortions.
Your no dr. Ah, lets see… you take a large group of people. some are liberals some are conservatives. The conservatives have more babies, conceive more families, and so are in the situation more often. The liberals, are more likely to abort, but they have less kids.
So as an example, you can have a conservative population in which there are 100 children, 10 of them aborted (leaving 90). And you can have a liberal population which has 15 children, 5 of them who are aborted.
This would create a result at a poll at the door in which more conservatives are aborting, while liberals are not. however as a percentage of outcome, only 10% of conservative children are aborted, while 33.33% of liberal children are aborted.
Of course, I would not want to go to a dr like you since the same math reasoning skills are needed to work out dosages, and similar things.
Maybe it’s in the same way that gay marriage destroys “traditional” marriage. Some irresistible allure that tempts good christians to abandon all they believe in….
Gay marriage destroys traditional marriage since it will change its definition.
Duh. If traditional marriage is defined as male — female bonding, then gay marriage destroys traditional marriage BY DEFINITION.
This has nothing to do with the sanctified tradition of marriage through religion since religions bar such marriages, and so set a gay couple at odds with religious belief.
What you don’t get is that the leaders of a group define the rules of that group. you would deny a feminist as being a feminist if she prmotes female servitude to all men, no? why?
Because feminism creates a definition of what it is, and if it doesn’t restrict out what it isnt, it becomes meaningless. Which is why an ideology works to change every brick in a wall one brick at a time, till none of the original bricks are in place, but refuses to adopt or change at all since to do so would be to become something else.
The only reason for such things in the gay community have to do with property laws. Now isnt it funny that socialist communists want fairness in property ownership and transfer of property in a capitalistic way?
Of course it is, what they are doing is buying the support of people they will later get rid of. That’s what people don’t understand. They can afford to let everything go to hell, because once the totalitarian part is cried for by the masses to fix things, the rest is down hill.
They wont have to use soft eugenics in which they economically devastate a population then provide free abortion for those who want to do well by their kids (That they will never have). why women are onvinced to put off till bad fertility years… the list goes on and on… culminating in organizations like vehmt… and others promoting the use of deseases like ebola to cull the human population. (something that also stemmed from germany and russia).
then there is the euthanasia movement… in which they use nihilism and other things to define a life worth living. So in salton sea, and in million dollar baby, life isnt worth living unless your whole. and if your not whole, then you are a burden on your family.
I would suggest those who might think that this is right, watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS596VsNEOE
You see, my parents had a similar thing thrown on them since I was half deaf and it caused serious speech problems. I also have a kind of slight palsy that most only notice in how I move my mouth. They suggested special classes, and so forth. they said that with the proper work, I would lead a decent life on the public dole.
However, like the hoyts, my mom and dad didn’t accept that modern concept, and so raised me like I had no handicap. I didn’t disappoint either. I excelled, entering Bronx high school of science, and having what many said is a pretty good life. I do software engineering, celebrity/fashion photography for one of the oldest and most prestigious agencies that represent me, I develop new products, and show my art work and sell it from time to time. (I will send neo a link after this so she can confirm if she wants to).
I know the hoyts are people that yoru kind hates. They get away from a ncie neat agenda that pretends to defend the weak, and the individual, but does the opposite. Remember, I am not just a person who lived through this kind of thing, I am also from a family that survived the things that this behavior becomes. Lets just say that darwinistically my family may be able to notie such and be willing to move out of the way, so they are alive, and everyone else was tortured to death.
The hoyts are a bit religious… not overboard… the father is a military man… and they have REAL MORALS, not the fake ones that leftists pretend to have that are situational and can be removed by an argument by a smarter person than they.
(Then again, wasn’t traditional biblical marriage between a man and his wives chattel?)
Actually not. not ever. That’s the propaganda. That’s why feminists have forbidden women to have the joy of family. And they have forbidden it. they have a radical agenda of removing men from the picture. And they have described the result as utopian.
But when the state wishes to impose will on women, its their husbands, sons, and brothers that will come to their aid.
100 women who are as productive as men with technology are easier to control and force to do labor than 100 men.
Right now serial monogamy gives many men the chance to have the mathematical equivalent of a harem, without the responsibility of actually having to provide for any of their partners or the offspring!!!
That’s what feminism made…
And if you study the demographics. You might notice that feminists and their absent families will be replaced by groups that are more conservative, and not willing to give them freedom. they will use the lesson of the west like soddom and gommorah to explain why wmen are never to ever have any participatory freedom again.
That’s because it was not godless atheists that conceived of the freedom of the individual (of which women are individuals), but it was the religious celebrating god and the creation that respected what god created. a individual man or woman that was important to god, and so is important to us. and we worried how god would see us if we treated women the way you said. They were never treated that way, only assholes who have no idea of history, and such would say that.
right now women not wearing the veil can be subjected to gang rapes. why? because i a world of total freedom, not culturally limited freedom, women are on their own unless they wear some sign that says some one has a personal interest in me, and if you screw with me, you screw with them. absent of this, she is on her own to defend herself like a man is on his own to defend himself. That’s Darwin, that’s the kind of social world the feminists are creating while promising something else. for the men they are alienating will not go to war to prevent such heinous principals from being the order of the day. They are even working on them now so that the kinds of people in military are skewing towards racial gangs, and radical groups.
So you as a leftist have no real idea of whats going on. you sit in your comfortable little world like an olypian and dictate how things should be. you imagine you know the thing by looking at it, and that no one can tell you anyting. But your looking doesn’t tell you much of anything, other than what you need to hear to not have to acknowledge others.
Dr dummy is more like it. I feel sorry if you have any patients.
Dylan Says: Does Artfldgr have an off switch? Phew! He/She should get his/her own blog.
sorry… i would ahve to clean up roaches like you.
however, you can read a lot of my work at mens news daily… and other places as i publish under this moniker. when i do write, i am seen by more than 100k people…
so i dont need a blog… your suggestion is like a pagan complaining that the missionaries are getting all the good converts… maybe they should go build a church and leave the people to you.
ha!!!
Perhaps a focus on actual policy statements (the promises they make) would be more beneficial, as that would tend to be the things they would have to adhere to in order to secure re-election, after all.
now i know you dont knwo a damn thing. they have promised to raise taxes to the highest level in history, promised to gut our defense. go back tot he failed clinton doctrine on terrorists, and a large large list… including statements that have words liek remake, remold, etc.
if he and she is like his uncle, they will change the very nature of the state… and other communist states and insurgencies will give them the excuse to do it for them. after all, his uncle worked with the communists to have the person who trusted his uncle murdered and then take over.
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You write above: “there have been many times when she actually has expressed sentiments that indicate she might in fact harbor such feelings.”
Perhaps you wouldn’t mind citing these expressed sentiments, with date and location?
About fifteen years ago, before she married, I worked pro bono with Michelle Robinson on recruiting talented minority kids to Princeton. Maybe six or eight times I was with her in a meeting for an hour or two, or had dinner with her, over the course of four or five years. Her brother Craig was in the same group. I do not claim to know either well.
I never heard any such sentiments from her or her brother.
There are racists to be found in all groups. I do not believe that Michelle and Craig are bigots. If you have evidence to the contrary, let’s see it.
Pingback:BGKev.com » Blog Archive » Yeah — Obama is racist against white folks, saw this coming.
Basic logic includes Occam’s Razor. In other words, if you can find no tape of Michelle Obama using slurs against “White” people, by the rules of deduction, you must conclude that in all probability, no such tape exists. If neither tape nor credible witness of Michelle Obama using the word “whitey” exists, it makes sense (based on generational language, if nothing else) to conclude that she never said it. If Michelle Obama never used the word “whitey”, but you insist on highlighting what she didn’t say in your analysis of her character, it makes sense (based on the principle that the explanation which requires the fewest factors, or causes, has the greatest plausibility) to assume that you know or suspect that you have no really strong evidence to back up your arguments. After all, if you had an actual quote from her thesis that made a hard-left purpose clear, it would make sense for you to say something along the lines of: Ms. Obama didn’t say “whitey”, but she did say…. and then append a seriously “Marxist” quote from her thesis. If you don’t present the evidence you claim to have, it makes good sense to conclude you don’t have it, or you don’t trust your evidence to convince us. If you want to refute this conclusion, you have only to provide a quote which backs up your reasoning. Please note that insulting my education, character, or anything else doesn’t count.
Second, to quote that great conservative C. S. Lewis, when confronted with a proposition, we should first enquire for the truth of it. The proposition, in this case, insofar as I can discern it from the rhetoric, seems to amount to a claim that Obama will not govern well. Please explain why. Feel free to use the word Marxist if you think it will help, but remember: saying the word does not establish your case. Merely calling Obama a Marxist does not establish that he would pursue worse policies for the United States than those which have left the United States massively indebted to the world’s sole remaining major “communist” power.
Artfldgr:
Please supply a reference for your extraordinary claim that Obama will raise taxes to historic heights. Please note that even if Obama does NOT cut taxes as he has promised, if he simply allows the Bush Tax cuts to expire, the top US marginal tax rate will revert to 39%; by contrast, the top tax rate in 1979 came to 70%, or nearly twice the top tax rate today. In fact, in 1945, the tax rates topped out at a 91% marginal rate.
I see no evidence, anywhere, that Obama wants to return to these rates, or that if he did, any congress would enact these rates.
Your claim seems profoundly unrealistic to me, so I would like to see any documentation you have.
stumbley: It’s been my contention, that rather than “transcending race,” the candidacy of BHO has set back race relations in this country by 100 years, precisely because of the naked racism of Rev. Wright and his ilk that has been exposed.
Actually, I think revealing this streak of racism in the black community has helped race relations by allowing us to deal openly with a key problem in racial reconciliation in this country, a problem that was not widely known before. Getting the truth out is a GOOD thing.
The way that your post is written it would appear that you are attributing the following quote to the New Yorker piece:
In her senior thesis at Princeton, Michele Obama, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama stated that America was a nation founded on “crime and hatred’. Moreover, she stated that whites in America were ‘ineradicably racist’.
Are you referring to this New Yorker piece? If so, the article contains none of this quote. Apparently, this is a hit piece email that has been distributed. Are you aware of this? Why no attribution to anonymous email if so?
M.O.’s senior thesis contains no such language and no such polemical tone.
Neo – And this [the incorrect anonymous quote] fits in well with Michelle Obama’s own scholarly work. Separatism is a theme in her Princeton thesis,…
Integration is also “a theme” in her thesis. Why not point this out? Oh yeah, inconvenient to the point being made.
Which brings us to:
Neo – As for evidence from Ms. Obama’s life that that could lead people to believe she harbors feelings of anger towards whites, there’s the following…
[inset above misleading, unattributed & incorrect quote and misleading partial inclusion of thesis themes]
Yes, sloppy and/or intentionally misleading posts like this would have that effect.
Good job, in a Paleo-Neocon scholarly kinda way.
jimmiraybob: Despite the insulting sarcasm of your last sentence, I’m responding to your comment because it makes one point that is well-taken.
If you look carefully you’ll see that I did not attribute the quote from Ms. Obama’s thesis to the New Yorker. The New Yorker quote is in italics and immediately follows the link. The link I intended for her thesis accidentally got broken, but it occurs in the second sentence of the paragraph immediately after that.
I’m not sure where I first came across the information about the quotes from her thesis (which indeed, as you state, turns out to be erroneous information). It was most definitely not in an email or I would immediately have been suspicious. This site seems to have been part of the broken link, but there are many others (if you Google “‘ineradicably racist’ Obama thesis” you’ll come across many many references to the quote on blogs, etc.) so I had no particular reason to doubt it. I certainly make no claims to having read the thesis myself, however, and after reading your comment and doing more research I am satisfied that, as you say, the quote was false and was originally part of an email smear campaign.
When I do research I make an attempt to find the best sources possible, but like most bloggers I don’t have weeks and weeks to write an article and to do independent and deep verification of every fact. I try to remedy this by readily offering a correction if a fact or a source I have relied on is incorrect, as here (I have added a correction to the main post). I am pleased to say that this has happened to me very rarely.
However, as far as I can tell, this is the only error in the piece. Ms. Obama’s campaign statements, her husband’s approval of the quote “White folks’ greed runs a world in need,” her focus on and approval of separatism in her thesis, and the tenets of black liberation theology—a philosophy to which Trinity Church adheres—are represented correctly in this post. If they are not and anyone can offer proof of that fact, I’d be more than happy to offer a correction. As I stated, I have not read Ms. Obama’s thesis myself and am relying on the analyses of others.
As I said, I answered you at some length because you were correct about the thesis quotes being falsely attributed to Ms. Obama, and I think it important to correct errors. And although one wouldn’t know it to read the last sentence of your comment, I would imagine you are well aware that errors of this sort are found on both sides of the blogosphere notwithstanding the good faith efforts of people to get it right despite their time constraints—not that all bloggers make that effort, but I certainly do.
Oh the Obama storm troops are upset. Let us all gnash our teeth and cry.
What with being a troll coming over from a leftist blog and having read the post and scanned the comments I would have thought that a little insulting sarcasm would be better appreciated.
Yes, I am aware that errors of this sort are found on both sides of the blogosphere. And, when confronted with obvious “mistakes” at blogs on the other “side” I have also been glad to offer my assistance. Or else just rolled my eyes and moved on.
I do appreciate your response and the correction regarding the bogus email and will try to hold my inclination to sarcasm and snark at bay.
Not having read the thesis in question I’m still unclear as to how you can make this statement, “…her focus on and approval of separatism in her thesis,…” As I said in my original comment, “Integration is also “a theme” in her thesis.” It took less than an hour to find an online source and read the thesis. And nowhere in the thesis does she “approve” or disapprove of separatism.
You really should read it. It’s really done quite well. She identified a very relevant question for the times, she offered a hypothesis, she developed and thoroughly explained the methodology and the results, she identified personal biases and identified weaknesses in the outcome and offered hypotheses to examine the weaknesses. In the process she also challenged her initial assumptions and modified her thesis accordingly. And, no polemics. No advocacy.
She was a young black woman in a dominantly white institution trying to understand that interaction in an effort to advance a serious understanding of race issues – specifically, how back alumni were effected by their experience. And, having been around in the late 50s, all of the 1960’s through 1985 when she was writing, she was addressing a very important issue to society at large in an insightful and methodical way.
I’m not arguing ideology here, just that an intelligent, accomplished woman is getting unfairly trashed to advance a political agenda. I would challenge you to find and read the thesis and give it a fair and thoughtful airing on it’s merits. Now that would make an interesting, honest and useful post – who knows what it would do for traffic though.
Oh oh, I just felt an urge to utter sarcasm, I better go.
Kinda Off Topic but it struck me as amusing:
“I found it shocking that such scholastic mediocrity can be so rewarded by an Ivy League school. ”
Didn’t our President George Bush graduate?
Not Ivy League but kinda special, Annapolis.
What position did McCain occupy in his graduating class.
jimmiraybob:
Since you at least somewhat held your inclination to sarcasm at bay, I’ll respond once again, by saying that I also had read several bona fide MSM summaries of Ms. Obama’s thesis with bona fide quotes from her work, and based my opinion of her thesis on that.
As virtually everyone in the blogosphere, both right and left, has done. Are you really asserting that one cannot comment on the thesis without having read the entire thing? To do that sort of research for a single post is hardly possible, and almost all bloggers on either side who have mentioned her thesis have based it on summaries by others rather than their own readings of the entire work. It would not be possible to write posts otherwise.
In addition, her thesis was rather parenthetical to my point, and so it would have been even stranger for me to have devoted all that time to reading the entire thing. I listed it after her stump speech, her husband’s quoting and approving of the “white folks’ greed” sentiment, and their membership in the church, the latter of which I emphasized most, calling it “a very important fact of her history…That, to me, is what raises the most questions of all.” And it still does.
Good choice of words. I doubt many people take the time to properly digest what you have to say. I know you wouldn’t care for the opinion of “roaches” like me, but the overwhelming voluminousness of your text is a little offputting.
At the same time, in this age of sound-bite media, I hesitate to suggest brevity as an alternative. A reasoned case, after all, requires the opportunity to reason, and you have the luxury of being able to reason at length.
Anyway, my original point (poorly made, evidently) was that you might find a more willing audience if you made your comments shorter, and linked out to your salient and extensive argument elsewhere.
Of course, this thread is now history, and I doubt you or anyone else will even come by and read this message. C’est la vie.
Wonkette is having such a good time with this. Love it!
I love how so many of the comments made by the Left boil down to “ha-ha we’re making fun of you ha ha. ”
I’m 33 years old.. how pathetic someone has to be to act that way in their adulthood.
“…but like most bloggers I don’t have weeks and weeks to write an article and to do independent and deep verification of every fact.”
Well, that certainly fills one with rock-solid confidence. Doesn’t matter, though, as the blogosphere is so self-correcting!
Also: poor you. How you suffer. What with people holding you to facts and such. If you’re gonna make lame excuses, why not go for the full-on cavalier and pull a Jonah Goldberg: “Don’t have time to check this, gotta walk the dog,” and such?
Neo – Are you really asserting that one cannot comment on the thesis without having read the entire thing?
Yes, if being correct, as opposed to being correct enough for the situation, is of any importance.
Neo – To do that sort of research for a single post is hardly possible, … It would not be possible to write posts otherwise.
If you (let this be a royal you applied equally to all) don’t have the time to do it right in an effort to correctly inform your readers then maybe you should think about another pass time. This is what we call good ole heartland wisdom – lots of people appear to cherish this kind of deep-rooted, home-grown, time-tested conservative value.
Neo – …and almost all bloggers on either side who have mentioned her thesis have based it on summaries by others rather than their own readings of the entire work.
And, if all of the kids were jumping off bridges….. More of that old fashioned heartland talk. I would especially like to cite my mother on this one.
Personally, I’m really and honestly surprised to hear someone (especially someone claiming the mantle of conservatism in any fashion) making such a passionate defense of their work by citing a heavy reliance on the MSM in a post ripping the consistency and veracity of the MSM. Heck, I’m what many people these days would refer to as a commie, socialist, islamofacist, bleeding-heart, traitorous, delusional, heathen, liberal-fascista, appeaser (see also surrender monkey) libtard and I don’t even trust the veracity or fact checking of the “liberal” MSM.
When I suggested a post dedicated to a critical analysis of the thesis I wasn’t being facetious, but instead thought that it would be a good opportunity for a writer to do some focused, original, informative journalism for the record.
Go figure, a confirmed wild-eyed liberal attempting to lecture a neo neocon on conservative talking points – at long last sir, do I have no decency?
Of course, jimmiraybob, how very reasonable of you. No blogger should comment on anything without reading the original sources for each and every assertion in each and every post, including a close analysis of an approximately sixty-four page thesis plus appendix, if need be. And no blogger who criticizes the MSM can ever cite it as background for facts in a post.
Eh, don’t sweat it, “neo;” it’s only your credibility that’s coming into question here. And as long as you and your claque think you still have it, who cares inconvenient demands fact-checking lefty trolls make? No? As you say: who’s got the time to get stuff right?
Rest assured that neither glennykenny or jimmyjbobby have read the thesis either. Out of the entire post (not to say blog), they’re pulling on a single thread simply because neo had the the simple human decency to admit that she made one easily-made mistake — the sort of decency, by the way, that they, whether at short or long last, have demonstrated they have none.
upchuckie_cheezits: Interestingly, both Bush and Kerry graduated from Ivy league schools. At Yale, Bush’s GPA was the higher, and in the officer entrance exams both took before entering the service, Bush scored higher.
jimmiraybob: What blogs do you read and respect? (Esp. in reference to the blogger reading primary sources.)
Thanks!
Sally,
Rest assured that I did read the thesis. First I scanned through to get a general feel for what was what. Then I read it and then I did a key word search. It wasn’t that hard (hint: double space with big margins). Of course you can believe what you will. As far as decency goes, I helped Neo with a little fact checking.
And yes Neo, I do think that when attacking someone else’s character you should at least get the facts right – commentary on the facts is a different story and much more subjective.
And, as far as picking out one eensy wheensy little insignificant error goes, reference to MO’s senior thesis is a cornerstone in establishing the thesis of the post – that, “…[the Obamas] might reasonably be suspected of harboring racist and angry feelings towards whites…” and as such a reasonable target.
The problem with tacking your theses to the public door is that you have to be able to establish and defend your credibility if you’re to be taken seriously. The big exception, and I agree that this is a shared value between the right and left, is when people publish only for the sake of preaching/leading their particular choir. Then credibility often goes out the window in the name of expediency, sacrificed to the Sallys of the world who only want to be fed what supports their own world view and who chafe at the idea of capitulation in the form of fairness and honesty and integrity.
Fair enough.
And Sally, if you want to challenge whether I’ve read MOs thesis, a more profitable way to do so would be to challenge the specifics of what I actually posted as a general summary of the thesis, such as:
It’s really done quite well. She identified a very relevant question for the times, she offered a hypothesis, she developed and thoroughly explained the methodology and the results, she identified personal biases and identified weaknesses in the outcome and offered hypotheses to examine the weaknesses. In the process she also challenged her initial assumptions and modified her thesis accordingly. And, no polemics. No advocacy.
What part of this, after your own reading of the thesis, is wrong?
I applaud Neo’s willingness to engage and print a retraction – at least about the veracity of the bogus email. On the other hand, I remain perplexed as to why Neo still has this to say, “…her focus on and approval of separatism in her thesis,…” when it’s been pointed out that the thesis also addresses integration – giving equal weight to both and in no way advocates for either.
Sally,
PS – It’s jimmiraybob, jimmyjbobby’s my cousin down at the holler.
You seem a little tense there, Sally.
# strcpy Says:
It happens, it is more or less amusing to long term readers of any blog’s comments section. It also happens to the smaller lefty blogs when a large conservative website links to them complaining.
I’ve never really been sure what people thought they were going to accomplish when they do it.
See correction in brackets above.
Other than that, I share in your amusement.
jimmeybooby: … reference to MO’s senior thesis is a cornerstone in establishing the thesis of the post – that, “…[the Obamas] might reasonably be suspected of harboring racist and angry feelings towards whites…”
“Cornerstone”? Maybe you should get your cousin to do your reading comprehension for you, jimbo. The fact that the Obama’s looked around and carefully picked out a church with a racist pastor and a virulently racist theology at its foundation might be described as a “cornerstone”; the fact that they chose to attend this church for 20 years, chose this pastor to marry them and baptize their children; chose an institution based upon the notion that “There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks…. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God’s love” — that might reasonably be described as a “cornerstone” of the notion that “…[the Obamas] might reasonably be suspected of harboring racist and angry feelings towards whites…”
Ah, but to admit that would be to capitulate, wouldn’t it? And then … what was that you said — about those “… who only want to be fed what supports their own world view and who chafe at the idea of capitulation in the form of fairness and honesty and integrity”? I guess your cousin must have written that for you, huh? Maybe you need him to explain it to you.
Well, you seem a little dense there yourself, Glenny.
Sally,
Ah, there you go again. jimmeybooby’s my other cousin…the one we don’t talk about much since the accident (hope you liked my Reagan allusion).
OK, OK, I’ll concede to your superior knowledge of construction and admit that maybe the use of “cornerstone” was too strong. Maybe reference to MO’s thesis was more akin to an element of the foundation (maybe the aggregate part) of the post, or maybe the first few courses of brick, or maybe a keystone.
Now, go ahead. Make fun of me for being a leftard capitulationist, a Frenchified surrender monkey, a Neville Chamberlain if you will. I’m strong. I can take it. You can even continue to drag in more members of my family as you will – it’s not likely that they’ll ever visit a neocon blog. Except maybe jimmybobray – hard to explain any of his actions since he sampled the early drippings from the still a few years back.
[longer response to other points were self edited due to excessive rationalism and sarcasm – available upon request]
By the way, you are aware of the ancient internet tradition of not feeding trolls aren’t you? The sarcastic one’s are the worst.
jimmiraybob,
There’s not a single blog you can recommend? No blogger who handles primary sources to your satisfaction? That’s sad, but it might be indicative of the rules of discourse in the blogosphere, both dextro- and sinistro-.
Or maybe you don’t want to infest their comments with jackbooted Nazi brownshirt Rethuglican warmonger wingnut chickenhawks from the reich wing of the aisle?
Anyway, if you think of one, especially political blogs, I’m actually interested.
Yeah, I don’t wonder you “self-edited” — you weren’t doing yourself any favors with your peculiar notions of “rationalism”. But “trolls”? Oh, jimmi, jimray, jimmerino — you’d have to pick your game up a notch to be a troll. Nice to see you have aspirations, though — keep working at it, and one day you might reach a Homer Simpson level of sarcasm.
Sally,
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect and I am no match. Thank you for recognizing and evaluating my aspirations – I am feeling much more validated as a result. And yes, I will keep working at it.
Regards.
I’m a bit puzzled here. jimmiraybob is obviously an intelligent commenter, but he prefers to trade insults with Sally instead of answering a serious question from someone who isn’t hurling insults. That’s just odd.
I guess I could assume the worst, which might be that he can’t answer my question without admitting that he is holding Neo-neocon to a higher standard than the blogs he regularly reads, making him a hypocrite.
But it’s quite possible he just doesn’t regularly read or respect any blogger. Or, it’s possible that he really doesn’t want to advertise in case we follow him home and mess up the place. (I for one would have my swastikad jackboots up on the coffee table in no time, no doubt.) Or, any number of other reasons. However, in a case where his main focus has been on intellectual integrity and the willingness to honestly engage the opposition, one might expect some kind of reply to a serious question.
Or maybe not. Whatever.
Lumpenscholar,
You’re right. I should have just answered Sally’s charge of being a liar and left it at that. But the rest was actually kind of fun – I’m weak, what can I say.
The reasons that I didn’t respond to you earlier are at least two fold: 1) your request wasn’t a response to the substance of any of my comments and a response seemed extraneous, and 2) I did doubt your sincerity and assumed that you would just run out to find violations of intellectual fortitude to use as “proof” of my hypocrisy and thus for all times proving that I was wrong and MO really is a racist Marxist. I apologize for thinking the worst.
Mostly though, because it has no bearing on my comments regarding MO and the Thesis. And participating in what I perceived (perhaps wrongly) to be an apparent effort to discredit me by deflection from my original points just didn’t appeal to me. Make of it what you will.
Given the easy task of fact checking a readily available document and the fact that it has been a significant part of a larger propaganda effort to smear the Obamas I thought it worthwhile to pursue, and it conformed to my own time constraints. If someone wrote that John McCain wrote a senior thesis calling for a fascist utopia I’d be equally skeptical and, if readily available, would read the thesis and call bullshit with equal gusto. Event without reading I wouldn’t give the charge much credence.
Ultimately, we all set the bar for ourselves. I make no apologies if I set the bar higher than most. Damn, the more I respond, the more I start to think that I’m the only one here defending conservative values.
Event [sic] without reading I wouldn’t give the charge much credence.
In thinking about it I would like to change “much” to any.
jimmiraybob,
Fair enough, and thank you for a considerate reply.
The bloggers I’ve read on both (all?) sides don’t seem to deal much in primary sources, which I find frustrating given that a lot of key material is readily accessible on the internet. (The MSM hasn’t been much better, either, and has sometimes been worse.) However, I have learned to enjoy blogs (and MSM) as much for entertainment as for information. That is why I have no problem when people like you and Sally want to get into flame wars with each other. Watching can be fun, if it’s intelligently done.
I do think Neo-neocon does better than most bloggers on either side, most of the time, but we all have time constraints. Which is why it’s good of people like you to drop by with your information. I wouldn’t have checked MO’s thesis because it is irrelevant to how I intend to vote, so now I know something I wouldn’t have. Thanks.
Also, as an aside, I am not a conservative, nor do I play one on TV, so if you’re looking my way when you talk about being the only one here defending conservative values, I’m not really a concerned party. It is interesting that you seem to identify high standards, good fact-checking and giving opponents the benefit of the doubt as conservative values, though. Or maybe you’re being facetious, which would seem to be in character.
The central concept of a posting like this is usually fairly subtle, but you made the mistake of announcing, in effect, “the basis of this post is a non-existent tape that shows Michelle Obama to be a racist, and even though it doesn’t exist I’m going to extrapolate from a set of motives that show, conclusively, that she actually is a racist. And whitey is hurtful because the thinking behind it is hurtful, in a mildly intangible way.”
Wow. OK, well, if it makes you feel better to dismiss the concerns of people that have faced true bigotry, exterminationist rhetoric and deeds, and racism their whole lives, because, hey, some black folks really do call us whitey, well, then, the Republican party is probably the right place for you. Of course, I do note that all of these accusation are made by inference. Not by anything the candidate or his wife said, but by what people like you infer they meant by what they said. Amazing.
That Rev. Wright business is priceless, though. In all the whining and kvetching about his “intolerance”, his “poisonous” speech, his “hatefulness”, etc., there is always a pair of items missing. A rebuttal of his argument, or any effort on his or his former congregations’s part to adopt a separatist stance. I wonder why that is?
I like the self-correcting nature of blogs. You try to pass bull, and the commentators will generally call you on it. The politifact.com site that neo referenced in the apology above is a good one to check quotes on, and also snopes.com does a good line in verifying or otherwise many of the political chain emails that are going around.
In my experience, most bloggers are content to merely quote other bloggers, which makes fact-checking nearly impossible, and in any case most blog posts are opinion pieces. At least neo has some sources (albeit selectively cherry-picked for content.)
Cindy McCain is FAR WORSE a human than Michelle Obama.
Cindy McCain stole drugs from her own charity to sell to make money for her heroine and cocaine addiction! Then she got off without any charges even though she committed a FELONY!
Has Michelle Obama ever committed a felony?
I didn’t think so, so shut up already!
You people are carrying on and inventing situations because of a comment that NEVER happened!
How low does Cindy have to go before you object to this type of behavior?
You people are so scared of losing power that you have thrown truth and character out the window!