Is there a racist in the audience?

The New Neo Posted on by

Re the Shirley Sherrod video, commenter “cm” remarks:

i thought the point of the video was showing the reaction of the audience (naacp ppl) when she mentioned not helping the white farmer. they laughed and said amen at this point in her speech. it shows their racism.

i believe this was stated elsewhere too. i think ppl are intentionally focusing on her and her words when everyone should be focusing on the audiences’ reaction to her comments.

The commenter makes an interesting and important point, but I disagree with its conclusion.

During the flap over whether the Tea Party is a racist movement, most of the charges have been that a few people in a large crowd either held racist signs or shouted racist epithets. Let’s ignore for a moment the truth or falsity of those claims (although truth or falsity is very important), and for the purposes of this discussion stipulate that, even if it is true, a few signs or epithets do not necessarily a racist organization make.

I believe we should judge a group by the predominant persuasion of its members and especially by the message of its leaders and speakers. Sherrod’s statements and their alledgedly racist nature are far more important than the reactions of a few people in a crowd, and the same would be true of the speakers at a Tea Party function.

Why do I say “a few people?” Because an audience is for the most part silent, and therefore just a few in the crowd calling out or reacting can make a lot of noise, relatively speaking. On the video in question (here it is again), I don’t hear evidence of a great many people reacting and saying “amen,” although it’s very hard to gauge from a tape.

What’s more, my understanding is that Sherrod’s full speech ultimately describes a sort of redemption on the part of Sherrod, to the tune of “I once thought this but now I think that; I once had these beliefs about white people but now I realize we’re all in the same boat and the poor need help no matter what their race.” Unless we watch the entire speech we don’t know, nor do we know the reaction of that same audience if and when Sherrod voices those later thoughts; perhaps even more people cheer and say “amen”at that point.

Racism and racists exist, in people of all races and all political persuasions. What matters is the proportion of racists within a group, and especially the stated goals and agenda and offical actions of said group, as well as the subject matter of speeches given by its advocates. That’s what we should be focusing on rather than the random eruptions of a few people in a crowd.

[ADDENDUM: It occurs to me that these reactions of a small portion of a crowd could be considered an example of what I’ve chosen to call “the Martin Higby Phenomenon.”]

[ADDENDUM II: And here’s the full video, which I won’t have a chance to watch till later because I’m busy. I’m putting it up here now for your convenience.]

Oakland’s well-paid police

The New Neo Posted on by

Why is Oakland having to cut back on its police services, to the point of not responding to forty-four categories of crime, including grand theft? As Josh Barro writes, it depends on what the meaning of “afford” is:

At current levels of compensation, yes, Oakland cannot afford to maintain a police department with 776 employees. That’s because total compensation for an OPD employee averages an astounding $162,000 per year. But at a more reasonable level of pay and benefits, Oakland could afford to maintain its force, or even grow it.

Read the whole thing. And lest you think (as I initially did) that those levels of compensation are because Oakland is tangential to the high-priced city of San Francisco, think again, because Barro points out that:

The Oakland police recruiting website boasts that this is the most generous benefit package for police officers among California’s ten largest cities. And indeed, Oakland police pay even makes San Francisco look fiscally responsible — total compensation for SFPD employees averages just $145,000. If Oakland just matched San Francisco’s compensation levels, it could stay within its proposed budget and hire additional officers, instead of cutting jobs.

Oakland’s problem is just an exaggeration of one faced by many California municipalities, as well as others all over the country: the growth of the power of public sector unions. The swelling of the costs connected with them is threatening the solvency of those communities and those states that have let this happen.

In Oakland, the situation has reached ludicrous proportions. But Barro suggests some solutions:

Many options are available. States should consider abolishing collective bargaining in the public sector, which essentially allows unions to sit on both sides of the negotiating table. They should phase out defined-benefit pension systems, which hide costs and are placing an increasing burden on local budgets. They should cap the value of employee health benefits at a ratio to average private sector benefits — no more “Cadillac” health plans. They should liberalize civil service protections that lead to an inefficient workforce, as proposed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. And, where appropriate, they should freeze or cut employee wages that are higher than necessary to attract qualified talent.

The people of New Jersey have woken up to their similar situation and elected Chris Christie as a result. My own unofficial research tells me that the people of California are beginning to do the same, since some recent conversations with liberal friends and relatives there featured the (to me surprising) spontaneous statements by some of them that public sector compensation has gotten out of hand. Hmmm.

On Shirley Sherrod and Breitbart…

The New Neo Posted on by

…my position so far is pretty much what Jonah Goldberg said.

Disclaimer: I haven’t actually watched the longer video in question, just the edited one. But when I see a host of respected writers on the right claiming that Breitbart goofed and that the longer video exonerates Sherrod, I’ll take it as highly likely that he did goof and that the longer video exonerates Sherrod.

The problem for Breitbart is that he is a figure with a huge target on his back, one whom the left would dearly love to take down because of the way he’s wounded them. He cannot afford to make any errors, and in this case he made a huge error by going with an edited video.

Breitbart claims that the video was sent to him already edited in a deceptive manner (perhaps he did not even know it had been edited?) But that’s the sort of thing he’d better be awfully careful to check and check again before he goes public with something; everyone knows that excerpts can be misleading. In fact, it was one of the charges ACORN leveled against Breitbart himself when he exposed them through videos he had made.

[NOTE: please see this newer post of mine on a related issue.]

Yeah, so journalism is a vast left-wing conspiracy—so what else is new?

The New Neo Posted on by

The big ruckus in the blogosphere today is that Journolist reporters conspired to downplay the Reverend Wright/Obama story during the campaign, and to attack and impugn anyone who didn’t play the same game. It is shocking, but unsurprising to those who have been noticing what’s been happening in the media for the last few decades.

But perceiving something is quite a different thing from having the smoking gun, and this story provides the latter. But will enough people know or care?

The difference between left and right may be (at least in this case) that the left thinks this sort of action on the part of journalists is a good thing. I mean, after all, didn’t they become journalists in the first place in order to make a difference?

The thing that surprises me most about the Journolist revelations is the openness of the particpants in creating a paper (that is, computer) trail of their machinations, complete with identifying names. Apparently they either thought what they were doing was noncontroversial, or they trusted their fellow-Journolistos to keep the transactions sancrosanct, never suspecting that one day a member would turn tail and rat.

But that day has come, and as a result we are treated to such thoughtful missives as this one from Chris Hayes of the Nation:

I’m not saying we should all rush en masse to defend Wright. If you don’t think he’s worthy of defense, don’t defend him! What I’m saying is that there is no earthly reason to use our various platforms to discuss what about Wright we find objectionable.

Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent [sic] responded:

It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them ”” Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares ”” and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

There are also some interesting windows on the past. The Nation’s Katha Pollitt reminisces about how distateful it was to her, as a feminist and a woman, to have to whitewash Bill Clinton’s sexual offenses back in the 90s: “I am really tired of defending the indefensible.”

Not tired enough, Katha, not tired enough.

But Ackerman rallies the wearying troops, including Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly, who naively wonders:

I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Obama is trying (or says he’s trying) to run a campaign that avoids precisely the kind of thing Spencer is talking about, and turning this into a gutter brawl would probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly. After all, why vote for him if it turns out he’s not going change the way politics works?”

Ackerman replies:

Kevin, I’m not saying OBAMA should do this. I’m saying WE should do this.

That will keep Obama’s hands clean—and it did, at least enough to get him elected.

Today’s scandal has prompted Andrew Breitbart to write:

The only way that the media will recover from the horrifying discoveries found in the Journolist is to investigate and investigate until every guilty reporter, professor and institution is laid bare begging America for forgiveness. Will they do it?

To say that this question is almost certainly only rhetorical, and that the obvious answer is “no,” is to state the obvious. A more important question is how many Americans will even hear about this—and, if they do, how many will care. I think that most people who would care were already pretty sure that this sort of thing went on, even before the revelations of the emails, and that many of the rest would probably agree with the co-conspirators’ actions and quietly (or loudly) cheer them on.

[NOTE: The Journolist discussion in question was prompted by one of the debates moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, during which Gibson “asked Obama why it had taken him so long ”“ nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public ”“ to dissociate himself from them.” This relatively mild query was considered way too challenging compared to the soft pitches they were supposed to throw Obama, and it caused the resultant commotion in the Journolist ranks.

Perhaps Gibson had learned his lesson by the time he subsequently interviewed Sarah Palin; it would be instructive to read the Journolist entries in response to that performance. My guess is that it received much higher marks.]

Wondering about the book in the masthead photo?

The New Neo Posted on by

A number of people have told me they’re stumped by the title of one of the books in my masthead photo. They can see that the red one on the bottom is The Last Lion, the Churchill biography by William Manchester. But the one on top with the black cover is more difficult to identify.

Take a look at one of the outtakes:

neoouttake1-1.JPG

There, does that help?

If that’s still too hard, here’s an easier one:

dsc02388.JPG

Nicholas Cage: an acquired taste that very few people have acquired

The New Neo Posted on by

Gabriel Malor at Ace informs us that the movie “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” is “the lastest Disney and Nic Cage bomb,” which prompts me to observe that Nicholas Cage is the most talentless major film actor I’ve ever seen, a man so devoid of thespian skills that his repeated presence in movie after movie is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Yes, Cage is Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew. But nepotism can only take a bad actor so far. And yes, Cage was okay in the movie “Raising Arizona.” But that was because his utter strangeness happened to fit the role. And even then he skirted the edge of overacting, a precipice he managed to plunge over in the subsequent “Peggy Sue Got Married,” which was an enjoyable movie despite the fact that Cage played the role of Kathleen Turner’s high school honey (and then husband) as though he were a space alien. The movie was directed by uncle Coppola; it is highly unlikely that Cage could have gotten (or kept) the role otherwise.

The indescribable voice Cage adopted for his role in “Peggy” was “a copy of horse Pokey’s from The Gumby Show; his bizarre performance almost got him fired.” Nevertheless, there’s no accounting for taste, because “Cher ”“ who likened his strange, but compelling performance to watching a two-hour car crash ”“ proposed him for the role of Ronny in ‘Moonstruck,'” a popular movie in which he was marginally human, but only marginally.

Any Cage fans out there who can tell me what the attraction is? Because I must confess that I am stumped.

Walk on the wild side: five-inch heels

The New Neo Posted on by

I see them in all the stores these days.

They look like an exaggerated joke about the extent to which women will go to martyr themselves for the sake of beauty. I refer of course to the five-inchers, that latest manifestation of the sky-high spike heel—higher than anything I wore in my reckless youth, much much higher than anything I’d dare to hobble around in now, higher than any shoe a sane human being should ever wear.

But human beings are not sane, and high high heels make the legs look long and sexy. And so women wear them—young women, at least. There are a number of articles offering advice to the novice, including such obvious points as wearing them only on occasions when it’s possible to sit down for most of the evening after making the grand entrance.

Feast your eyes on a typical pair:

heels.jpg

In my dancing days I used to sport pointe shoes and twirl around on the tips of my toes, so I know what shoe discomfort is. But I can’t imagine that pointe shoes are significantly more tortuous than these.

More about Palin as a candidate

The New Neo Posted on by

I see perhaps a bit of clarification is in order about yesterday’s post about Palin. So let me just say:

(1) I have always defended Palin, judge her to be savvy, and think the media campaign against her was abominable.

(2) I am basing my ideas about the negatives of Palin as Republican presidential nominee in 2012 at least in part on polls that show her as weak among independents. But my estimations of her candidacy spring even more strongly from an admittedly small (but I think telling) sample: my friends who count themselves as moderates. To a person they detest her, for reasons that have not wavered, and which I have been unable to dent over time. Simply put, they bought into the lies, and that’s that. Even though these particular folks do not like Obama, they will not vote for Palin. I feel that the Republican candidate cannot afford to lose them.

(3) Of course this could change over time. But right now that’s the way it looks to me. And since 2012 will probably be the most important election of my lifetime, I would much rather see a Republican candidate with very strong appeal to independents.

More on Obama the blame duck

The New Neo Posted on by

Abe Greenwald of Commentary puts his finger on one characteristic of Obama’s that strikes an especially discordant note: his repetitive need to pass the buck and make excuses.

It was one of the very first things I noticed about Obama, and it later moved me to coin the descriptive name for him that appears in the title of this post: the blame duck.

Here’s Greenwald on the subject of Obama’s excuses:

Imagine a man who is up for a sales job at a company in crisis. He tells his prospective boss that not only will he rescue sales but he’ll also lower costs, turn out a better product, get the competition to cooperate instead of compete, raise wages, improve the food in the company commissary, and redecorate the offices to boot. This man then gets hired. For a year, sales continue to lag, and everything else stays the same. The new employee explains that the guy who used to have his job left behind an unconscionable mess, which has made it very hard to do the things he had promised in the interview phase. After a year and a half, sales hit an historic low, the product is being recalled, competitors have formed a guild and are pulling ahead, everyone at the company has taken a salary hit, a few people have gotten food poisoning in the commissary, and the offices are more dilapidated than ever. On top of that, vendors can’t get him on the phone, he’s insulted his co-workers, and he’s taken more vacation time than the company allows. The boss finally asks him what’s gone wrong. “I could never have lived up to your expectations,” the man says.

It’s not just the blaming and the excuse-making itself, it’s the fact that such behavior is unprecedented in a president in my lifetime. What’s more, it’s that nearly half of the American public isn’t yet turned off by this sort of thing in a POTUS. Back when I was growing up, such an approach by a president would be unthinkable and even (yes, I know this isn’t PC) unmanly. It just wasn’t done; it was weak and unseemly and showed lack of leadership.

The fact that it now seems acceptable is probably a result of the decades-long abdication of the idea of personal responsibility, beginning in the school system with the self-esteem movement. Obama may be the first president who not only is a product of that system, but more importantly, was elected by people raised in that system. He knows his audience well.

Palin’s fine, but not for president

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a new poll indicating that Palin’s support is strong among Republicans but not with the rest of the voters.

That’s why I hope she is not the nominee. Yes, she’s got name recognition, all right. But people have made up their minds about her, and her negatives are both high and seemingly set in stone.

The people being pushed as the front-runners—Gingrich, Huckabee, Romney, etc.—are mostly has-beens, in my opinion, in terms of appealing powerfully to the American public as Obama alternatives. The ones I’d like to see—Christie, Ryan, and Gregg, to name just a few—are not running, as far as I know. Jindal looks a lot better after the Gulf oil spill, but I cannot forget his disastrous showing when offering the television rebuttal to Obama at the outset of this administration.

I am hoping a fresh and strong Republican front runner will emerge closer to 2012, because one of my worst fears as that Obama wins as the default candidate because the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot by nominating someone too stale or too extreme or too easily destructible.