Joshua Green
The Atlantic
July 21,2010
Awhile back, particularly during the Clinton administration, the media would flagellate itself every so often for rushing, lemming-like, to cover some story or other that was being touted on the Drudge Report, and then, after a period of reflection, deciding that it shouldn't be. There was usually a Howard Kurtz column to demarcate such an episode. But the recidivism rate was high. Invariably, the media would chase the next Drudge rumor, and the whole cycle would repeat.
The Full Sherrod Video Unedited
That doesn't seem to happen anymore, at least not with Drudge. But it does happen, and more powerfully than ever, with Andrew Breitbart, who has inherited Barnum's instinct for what will cause a circus and the certainty that suckers are still being born every minute. One difference is that Drudge usually focused on sex scandals and tawdry personal humiliations, which, in the end, is hardly worth getting worked up about. Yes, yes, shame on reporters for taking the bait. But c'mon.
Breitbart focuses on race. Today's episode with Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign from the Agriculture Department on the basis of a doctored and intentionally misleading videotape is an especially ugly case in point, calculated to stir the very worst racial resentments. This time the political world--the NAACP, the Agriculture Secretary--moved as quickly as the media world to unthinking response, and I suspect it happened precisely because race was involved. I don't doubt that the administration's understandable desire to avoid racial issues played a big part in how this turned out.
But what's galling to me--gut-wrenching, really, like watching old news footage of blacks being beaten and clubbed at lunch counters--is that Breitbart obviously understood the powerful effect his tape would have, posted it anyway, and then assumed the role of ringmaster, expertly conducting the media circus, fanning the blames. It's hardly the first time. But the moral ugliness of what's just happened is glaring, and it's hard for me to see how the media can justify continuing to treat Breitbart as simply a roguish provocateur. He's something much darker.
RENEGADE EYE
59 comments:
Read some of the comments on the msnbc.com story today. The white family in question has lobbied hard for Sherrod's reinstatement, denying that she ever did anything less than go all out for them. And yet literally hundreds of comments carry on as if Breitbart's vicious behavior exposed a truth. It's discouraging.
Irregardless of whether or not this woman may or may not have done the job in the end she was actually paid to be doing , she revealed that her decisions were based upon race and that her opinion of white people was very low and she didn’t really want to help them.
Put the boot on the other foot and we would not see the ‘left’ rallying around to present such impassioned counter-arguments to some pretty blatant statements of prejudice.
You people have created this race obsessed PC society but only bemoan of its insidious effects when a favored group - i.e not white – is called out on ‘racism.’
I think the footage below is another prime example. If what transpires in that clip happened with the races reversed it would have been all over the media for days if not weeks.
But its not and so, well, nothing.
Video
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I don't care about Andrew Breitbart, what I care about is an entire group of people being tagged as racist due to the alleged actions of a very few.
Let's see calls for John Lewis to step down from his seat. Let's see calls for him to be prosecuted for slander for accusing Tea-Party members of calling him "the N word" (and a bit more on this childish tomfoolery in a minute), when there is no credible evidence whatsoever that any Tea-Party member did any such thing. The only thing that is heard in any recordings of the incident are calls of "Kill the bill (in reference to the health care bill).
Lewis and the other members of the black congressional caucus including House Majority Whip James Clyburne should all be prosecuted for slander. I have yet to hear any demands from the left for an apology or for any kind of accountability.
But the left is so blatantly childish that even in reporting about somebody shouting "the N word", whether it really happened or not, they are scared to death to say the word, they have to say, for example, Ohh, that racist Michael Richards shouted "the N word". Its like a bunch of little kids telling their parents-"daddy, Mikey called me the b word".
Don't you people feel about two inches tall when you talk like that? Don't you feel the slightest bit of humiliation that you feel somehow obliged to talk like a semi-retarded juvenile? I mean, come on0 YOU'RE NOT SAYING THE FUCKING WORD YOU'RE REPORTING HOW SOMEBODY ELSE ALLEGEDLY SAID IT!
Well, that's all I've got to say. I'm going to go now and read this story I've been hearing about. It's about these two porn actors who make movies about doing the f word and how they've been accused of committing the crime of the m word against this guy.
There now, doesn't that sound fucking CHILDISH?
PT, read the comments made on stories written about the fabrication. No one is making anything up here. Breitbart is an expression of tebagger sentiment without the gloss of code words.
Why would the left repudiate a genuine civil rights hero like John Lewis? Lewis certainly knows the N word when he hears it? How do you know that tape wasn't doctored? Anyway, putting him in the same class with Andrew Breitbart is like talking about Joseph Goebbels and Edward R. Murrow as peers.
K: The tide turned by Tuesday. The Whitehouse reversal is based on it.
I agree with your reply to pagan.
Breibart will probably face charges. Rights to edit, defamation etc.
Sentinel: I don't know, not being in the US, if you understand what happened. Breibart posted an inflammatory 2.5 minutes, of a 43 minute redemptive speech. This Breibart guy has a history of doctoring videos with an agenda of causing race hatred.
Pagan: I oppose tactically the NAACP giving attention to the Tea Party, when its the Democrats in power.
Obama was quick to throw her under the bus.
Well, I have to say I'm glad Shirley Sherrod got her job back. Now she can go back to doing what she does best-making fraudulent claims on behalf of black farmers.
As well she should. After all, some of them actually have farms.
Citizen K-Lewis might have been a hero at one time, I don't know. Did anybody actually see him get beat up? Are there any witnesses who can swear he was in the hospital? How do we know the hospital reports weren't faked?
See, anybody can play that game, can't they?
Even if Lewis was a hero at one time, he's a nasty piece of work now. Just because him and a few other congressmen say so, doesn't make it true. Their word is no better than that of the "Teabaggers", the vast majority of whom I have to suspect are law-abiding citizens, until I learn otherwise.
Ren, the Dept of Ag was quick to throw her under the bus. At most, Obama got a call from Vilsack to tell him that something had happened and he wanted to dismiss Sherrod (and it's more likely that call was to tell him that the termination had already taken place). No executive -- public or private sector -- will overrule a manager on this. You have to trust that the due diligence has been done.
After I went into management, I developed sympathy for elected executives -- Clinton, Bush, whoever -- on this score. The criticism comes from reporters and columnists who are lone wolves with little personal experience running a bureaucracy. They ascribe an omnipotence and omniscience to top management that simply isn't there.
PT: Breitbart doctored the tape, not me. He's the one who put credibility into play.
John Lewis a piece of work. That's a good one.
Lewis outright lied about the Tea-Party calling him the dreaded "N Word". No recording exists to verify his and the others account of that.
So yes, he's a nasty piece of work.
As for Breitbart and the NAACP, if they don't want to get down in the mud, they shouldn't start throwing it to begin with. They don't get to target people unfairly and then cry foul when their would-be victims don't play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
Renegade Eye:
You don’t have to be living in the US to understand plain English when you hear it. In fact I am English, so I have no problems on that score at all. We invented the language.
She quite clearly said what she said below, and to the laughter of the audience too:
"He had to come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him … I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land -so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."
Whatever came after – and I have watched it all - this is how she described her own prejudicial feelings on the responsibilities of her job when dealing with white people – how many times had she acted this way before her ‘epiphany?’
And why did the black audience find her prejudice so hilarious?
Are you really trying to suggest that that was all somehow doctored?
Tell me, in all honesty, if the races were reversed would be leaping to their defense?
I don't get it, some right-wing loon with an axe to grind cut and pasted a video of the lady in question, took her comments totally out of context to make them look racially motivated.
Right wingers took the bait of course.
Then the real video came out and everyone from Obama, FAUX NEWS, O'Reilly, GOP congress minority leader as well as the family of the farmer of in question; all realised they had made a mistake and they had been manipulated.
It really is simple as that.
Wikipedia has a nice, clear-headed, rhetoric free take on the events, seems a big old fuss over nothing.
That right wing loon sure had the leftist fruitcakes in the White House scrambling and ducking for cover. It wasn't a cut and paste job either. The content of the video wasn't rearranged or edited to make it appear as though she was saying something she wasn't. Everything that is shown on the tape is what she actually said.
The point Breitbart was trying to make was that the NAACP was fine with her racism. In fact, Benjamin Jealous was actually there. He was probably one of the ones laughing at her remarks, although its impossible to know that.
There's also the point that she has been alleged to have filed fraudulent claims. Way too many claims were filed, for about four times as many black farmers as actually exist. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, its going to be a big deal.
No doubt somebody is going to scream RACIST over it when the truth comes out (if there's really anything to come out), but like that little boy that cried wolf just one time too many, the charges of racism have just about reached their expiration date.
It's a non-starter Pagan, no one will any intelligence is pushing the line that she is a racist, when someone is cutting and pasting your words, you can be made to say anything, for example:
(Pagan Temple, speaking about a black woman)
"That loon, she was saying something she wasn't. Everything that is shown on the tape is what she actually said, her racism, although its impossible to know that.
I don't know if that's true, but if it is, its going to be a big deal.
Somebody is RACIST like that little boy that cried wolf just one time too many.
The point is, no one is pushing that she is a racist, not FAUX, not anyone.
Also, your desperation to will this story to be true, even tagging on alleged allegations, in order to bolster the flagging tale, seems odd.
Just read the wikipedia article.
This story exposed just how crazy NAACP really is. Of course, they were set up by Breibart, but all he did was to expose their race-obsessed hysteria. The point being that even if Sherrod actually made some mildly racist comments, she still shouldn't have been fired.
O'Keefe and Giles had similarily set up ACORN by pretending to be a pimp and an underage prostitute.
Since Obama became president, it became an open season on exposing just have crazy many black organizations are. Before, attacking them was taboo, because they were "powerless". Obama presidency changed that. Now, they are seen as being inside the power structure of the US government, and attacking them, like Breibart and O'Keefe and Giles did, is rightly seen as "Speaking Truth To Power"...
It is always funny to see the full glaring hypocrisy of the ‘left’ on race issues.
She said what she said, no ‘doctoring’ or ‘cut and paste’ – she clearly stated that her thought process when it came to helping a white farmer was prejudicial and the black crowd roared with laughter over it.
How many other white people did she subject to her prejudice and shortchange before her ‘epiphany?’
If the races were reversed you would have all being screaming ‘Racist’ / ‘Nazi’ / ‘Cracker’ and demanding all sorts of draconian retribution.
The anti-reality stance of the ‘left’ gets more absurd with each incident.
Even in clear cut cases of self-confessed racial prejudice reality has to be turned on its head to suit the agenda.
Unless they are white, of course.
Well, actually those groups have never been powerless. NAACP, National Action Network, Operation Rainbow Push, etc., they have made a name for themselves by pretending to represent the oppressed. It's nothing but a big scam. Sure, they've helped some people, I don't deny that. Hell, they would have to help some people every now and then to make it look good. But they're basically race hustlers and grifters.
That's where people like Daniel miss the point, its not about Shirley Sherrod, its about the NAACP, the New Black Panthers, and some of these other groups.
They have built their power by screaming racism at the drop of a hat. Once it worked in the legitimate cases, as well it should, they decided to extend the franchise, and they've finally overplayed their hand. Actually, they've been overplaying it for some time, but more and more people are finally waking up and catching on, and they don't like the smell.
And since they've got a good stiff whiff of that stank, they couldn't care less about Andrew Breitbart, he just amounts to a case of, as Sentinel said, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Frankly, though, I hope the NAACP and these other clowns keep their shit up. Rand Paul just increased his lead in the polls over Demoncrap Jeff Conway to a seven percent lead where a few days ago he had just a five point lead.
Keep the shit coming NAACP. Maybe with your help, the GOP will take over the Senate as well as the House. Just keep pissing folks off, I love the idea of my Senator, Mitch McConnell, being Senate Majority Leader. With your help, that dream could become a reality.
A Senate Majority Seat is a terrible thing to waste.
Sentinel wrote:
"And why did the black audience find her prejudice so hilarious?"
See, there's this form of humor -- as I'm surprised that an Englishman appears to be unfamiliar with it -- known as "irony." Irony occurs when the typical dynamics of a given situation are reversed. Thus, the African-American audience found humor in a situation in which a black official had authority over white clients.
Since you're not from this country you may not understand how unusual an occurrence that is. Transport yourself back to 19th Ireland and image a British tenant farmer appealing to an Irish official for assistance in a keeping a farm, and how that might sound to an Irish audience.
Sonia wrote:
"This story exposed just how crazy NAACP really is. Of course, they were set up by Breibart, but all he did was to expose their race-obsessed hysteria. "
Interesting. I go read comments on news stories about this and the NAACP, and I reach the opposite conclusion: It's the right that is in hysterics about race. That's no surprise: After all, when hasn't it been?
PT wrote:
"Now she can go back to doing what she does best-making fraudulent claims on behalf of black farmers."
Clearly, the woman is in the business of transferring the assets of hardworking whites into the hands of chiseling, feckless African-American farmers as part of a plot to pauperize the Caucasian race and submit us to the iron-fisted rule of John Lewis and the Congressional Black Caucus. I'm sleepless over this.
PT wrote:
"That right wing loon sure had the leftist fruitcakes in the White House scrambling and ducking for cover"
That's something to be proud of.
Ren, you are a genuine leftist, as opposed to me, who is to the left of center. Is the idea that Barack Obama is a socialist:
a. laughable
b. dumb
c. possibly true, but only in a different universe
d. coded language for an imagined redistribution of white assets to minorities
e. all of the above
Sonia wrote:
"Since Obama became president, it became an open season on exposing just have crazy many black organizations are.:
This must be Opposite Day. Since Obama became president, I've noticed just how many crazy white organizations there are. Exactly how many black militia groups do you think are out there, anyway?
PT wrote:
"They have built their power by screaming racism at the drop of a hat."
What power?
PT wrote:
"its about the NAACP, the New Black Panthers, and some of these other groups."
This is like lumping Dwight Eisenhower with Lyndon LaRouche.
PT wrote:
"But the left is so blatantly childish that even in reporting about somebody shouting "the N word", whether it really happened or not, they are scared to death to say the word"
Ren, are you scared? I'm not scared. I happen to think that the word is grossly offensive and laden so much obscene history that I can't imagine using it any context whatsoever, especially in those cases when a euphemism serves the purpose just as well.
K-
You're explanation to Sentinel is just a little bit on the weak side, don'cha think? I've heard some excuses before, but that one takes the cake.
I guess in nineteenth century parlance, if an Indian bragged about scalping a white man and raping his daughters, that would bring quite a few chuckles on the old reservation, huh?
Maybe Frederick Douglas should have begun his speeches with tales of how tempted he was to buy himself the fanciest bullwhip he could find and go around lashing random white people.
The power I was talking about exercised by NAACP and other black groups is the power to influence Democratic politicians, to instigate boycotts at the drop of a hat, the power to influence the national dialogue through the media, and the power to influence corporate policy-among other things.
Not all of this power has been expressed in negative ways, I'm the first to affirm that, but when they go around shouting racist at every single person that opposes them on any issue however tangentially, sorry but that's out of line.
Everybody has their own set of priorities. The whole point of the old saying that people want issues resolved that they talk about at their kitchen tables is just that. Everybody has their own set of concerns that are every bit as legitimate as your concerns or those of the NAACP.
Nobody who wishes to express their views and concerns is required to first check in with the NAACP to make sure its all right with them.
But if they don't they might well be accused of racism. Well, they went too far this time. And its been a long damn time coming. Too long, in fact.
But John Lewis, no he's not a nasty piece of work just because he falsely accuses an entire group of people of shouting racist slurs that remarkably enough they somehow shouted loud enough for him and his fellow black congressional caucus members to hear clearly at least fifteen time, yet somehow not loud enough to be recorded on tape or video.
But John Lewis is a hero, so we are required to take his word for it over the words of everyday law-abiding citizens. After all, this is Saint John Lewis, who is so magnificent he will doubtless be canonized even though he's not Catholic. After all, even though he's still alive he has already exhibited the divine power to make folks check their brains in at the door wherever he appears.
I'm almost positive that if we lived in the DC Universe he would be the next member of the Green Lantern Corps as well.
So a guy like that, naw, he would never lie, would he?
K,
I reach the opposite conclusion: It's the right that is in hysterics about race.
Well, your conclusion is wrong. In fact, only one person emerged smelling like roses from this whole affair: Glenn Beck, who from the very beginning was strongly defending Sherrod, praising her for her honesty in discussing her own feelings about race.
PT wrote:
"The point Breitbart was trying to make was that the NAACP was fine with her racism."
This is valid only if there's a such thing as black racism. There isn't, so the statement is inherently false.
Are there black people who don't like white people?Sure, just as there are white people who don't like black people. But the latter case stems from stereotyping with no basis in reality, and often reflects whites' justification of their own behavior. The first carpetbaggers wrote many letters to northern friends and relatives describing indolent, alcoholic white plantation owners who spent their afternoons on a veranda getting drunk and cursing the laziness of their former slaves.
On the other hand, black bias is rooted in historical oppression, current day poverty and exploitation, and continuing white racism. When was the last time (outside of a football stadium) that a screaming mob of whites meant anything good to a black man? And yet, the right insists that John Lewis is a vicious liar whose falsehoods stem from a misbegotten sense of victimhood. Why, PT here doesn't mind implying that Lewis' fractured and the apology he received from a remorseful ex-Klansman are both fabrications.
[Continued in next comment.}
Racism is the systemic oppression and exploitation of one group by another, either legally or by leveraging the legal system. Slavery and Jim Crow are examples of legally sanctioned racism. Predatory lending is an example of using the legal system to exploit minority groups.
For example, demographic studies of unsecured mortgages show them concentrated in two places: Inner cities and exurbs. Clearly, wealthy white bankers targeted poor minorities and first-time white homebuyers. The inclusion of young whites in this vile skein doesn't make it any less racist.
In what way have blacks oppressed whites? You can't name one because it's an impossibility: Blacks have neither the numbers or the resources to oppress whites. The New Black Panthers are a fringe group denounced by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The NAACP is a radical organization only in the addled imagination of the most fevered right-wing brain.
The left hasn't denounced anything because there is nothing to denounce.
The election of a black president struck terror into the hearts of right-wing whites because one of their most profound historical fears is that blacks will do to them what they have been doing to blacks. Maybe the right should stop getting hysterical about something that hasn't happened and tend to its own house. We might wind up with a decent country if that happened.
Make your closing statements. This evening I'm going on to another subject.
Sonia: I thought Glen Beck did well, saying Sherrod should be rehired. He went on the air after the NAACP released the whole video. On his own he would have been no different than Hannity.
Black organizations aren't powerful because there is a black president. I know locally they are upset they are not getting much stimulus money. The NAACP messed up, because they are afraid of the right.
I'm for using this incident to bury Breibart. His history is one of doctoring tapes to suit his racist agenda. He lied about ACORN. The national media is underplaying Breibart, because they uncritically followed his leads.
Citizen K: One way to look at it is that Obama, who has been accused of acting too slow on BP, overreacted on this issue. She said the White House fired her.
I think Breibart should go down. That is something that can be won out of this.
Obama a socialist? He is the face of US imperialism.
Daniel H-G: Exactly.
Sentinel: That's how Stalinists argue. They use isolated quotes in no context, and expect it to mean something. You need to talk about the whole 43 minutes.
Pagan: You were probably born after the civil rights movement was active. Lewis was with SNCC, the most heroic, advanced group in the south. Even professional wrestling was segregated. There was a Negro Championship. I wouldn't agree with John Lewis being a Democratic Party politician. He will be reelected forever on the basis of his record as a civil rights fighter.
I don't get it what you are talking about? Sherrod is a relatively low level government worker. Breibart's editing turned her into monster.
Breibart plays on racial stereotypes. He is going to go down for this.
The numbers are against black people. The unemployment and poverty is higher.
Racism is actual practice. It is different than prejudice, which is only at the idea level.
Bottom line is Breibart caused this, by showing only 21/2 minutes of 43 minute speech, designed to make her look bad. The speech was one of redemption.
Make your closing statements. This evening I'm going on to another subject.
Sonia: I thought Glen Beck did well, saying Sherrod should be rehired. He went on the air after the NAACP released the whole video. On his own he would have been no different than Hannity.
Black organizations aren't powerful because there is a black president. I know locally they are upset they are not getting much stimulus money. The NAACP messed up, because they are afraid of the right.
I'm for using this incident to bury Breibart. His history is one of doctoring tapes to suit his racist agenda. He lied about ACORN. The national media is underplaying Breibart, because they uncritically followed his leads.
Citizen K: One way to look at it is that Obama, who has been accused of acting too slow on BP, overreacted on this issue. She said the White House fired her.
I think Breibart should go down. That is something that can be won out of this.
Obama a socialist? He is the face of US imperialism.
Daniel H-G: Exactly.
Sentinel: That's how Stalinists argue. They use isolated quotes in no context, and expect it to mean something. You need to talk about the whole 43 minutes.
Pagan: You were probably born after the civil rights movement was active. Lewis was with SNCC, the most heroic, advanced group in the south. Even professional wrestling was segregated. There was a Negro Championship. I wouldn't agree with John Lewis being a Democratic Party politician. He will be reelected forever on the basis of his record as a civil rights fighter.
I don't get it what you are talking about? Sherrod is a relatively low level government worker. Breibart's editing turned her into monster.
Breibart plays on racial stereotypes. He is going to go down for this.
The numbers are against black people. The unemployment and poverty is higher.
Racism is actual practice. It is different than prejudice, which is only at the idea level.
Bottom line is Breibart caused this, by showing only 21/2 minutes of 43 minute speech, designed to make her look bad. The speech was one of redemption.
PT wrote:
" they have made a name for themselves by pretending to represent the oppressed. It's nothing but a big scam. "
And you know this how?
"The power I was talking about exercised by NAACP and other black groups is the power to influence Democratic politicians, to instigate boycotts at the drop of a hat, the power to influence the national dialogue through the media, and the power to influence corporate policy-among other things"
So, the NAACP guilts liberal white politicians who secretly don't share the NAACP's views even though those views are a cornerstone of liberalism but are too full of moral cowardice to say so. That's a good one. No chance whatsoever that the NAACP aligns with the Democratic party because they share core views.
What boycotts?
Every scintilla of empirical suggests that right-wing media controls the dialogue on race, and yet you claim the opposite because it's what you want to "think." Talk about about embodying today's conservative mindset.
Name a single misguided corporate policy influenced by the NAACP.
"You're explanation to Sentinel is just a little bit on the weak side, don'cha think?"
Not at all. It's called an analogy, and it was perfectly valid. Anyone from Ireland would take the point immediately. You made the weak analogy: No one was talking about torture and murder until you brought it up -- a typical right-wing tactic to drain an issue of rational thought and escalate its emotional content.
Sonia wrote:
"your conclusion is wrong."
The force of your rhetoric leaves me prostrate in the dust.
"In fact, only one person emerged smelling like roses from this whole affair: Glenn Beck"
And if a monkey hacks a way at a keyboard long enough, he'll type out Hamlet. Big deal. He's still a monkey and Beck is still a thug.
I'm done here, my comment laid out my argument clearly and provided a useful 'dry' link to the facts of the matter. The rest is people's opinion of those facts, with their own desires and prejudices clouding their minds.
Except to say well done to K, for some excellent comments here, goo don you sir!
The whole thing that's getting overlooked here is that at the end of the day, that day being the day of the next election, I am going to vote Republican, because they share most of my values. Not all of them by any means but most of them.
Those values? Reducing the size and the scope of the federal government, limiting their power to those that are expressly given them in the Constitution, and no others. Keeping taxes as low as possible and ending intrusive and repressive regulations. Appointing judges who uphold those values and interpret the constitution according to the obvious original intent of the founders based on the actual, literal words of the document.
Those are my values. I don't think they are racist values, I think they are good, worthwhile values. But people like the NAACP will insist I'm racist and should be marginalized in the public sphere of debate as a racist.
So why should I go out of my way to play nice with them? Why should I care what they think? I am not required to check in with the NAACP before I express my views. My feelings towards black people are pretty straight forward. They are American citizens with the same rights as I or any other American citizen of any race, gender, ethnicity or religion. End of story. I am not required to view them in any particular favor above or beyond that.
As far as Breitbart going down, well we'll just see about that. Maybe he will. If he does, it will make precious little difference at the end of that voting day. The sun will still come up the next morning, and after I cast my vote for the GOP, it will go back down that night, as usual.
On the other hand, if Breitbart does go down, there could be yet another backlash. He could be viewed as a martyr. That could swing yet another two or three percent of the soft vote the Republican's way. I still hope he comes out okay, but if he does go down, maybe at least it will work out even better. It might cause us to win the Senate as well as the House.
After all, the hatred of the vast majority of the left toward the right is pretty obvious.
The right does not all march in lockstep. Glenn Beck has opposed "the Breitbart circus" almost from the beginning of this issue. He has defended Shirley Sherrod, steadfastly insisting she has been wronged and should be rehired. I might actually feel the same way, but damned if I would bother.
Why not? Because it doesn't matter. For every one person like Ren who will give Beck credit, there are a million who view him as nothing but a thug, whose advocacy of Shirley Sherrod is comparable to a monkey accidentally banging out Hamlet on a keyboard.
And when one comes out and expresses such comments, there are innumerable others who will view those and all such comments as "excellent" and praise him with "goo don you air".
No, I wouldn't waste my time defending her, and neither should Beck have done so. Let all leftists twist in the wind and choke on their own hate towards the right. I won't bother to defend any of them, because I know it would never be reciprocated.
The right might despise the left as well, but at the end of the day the views of the majority of right thinking conservatives is to end the stifling authoritarianism of big government, and that is good for all concerned, left as well as right.
The purpose of the right is not to run roughshod over the left, it is to prevent government from controlling us all. That is where the right has the advantage, as it is a normal human condition to yearn for freedom from the encroachments of any potential tyranny, as much as one that has actually manifested.
If that is racist, so be it.
Ren,
Black organizations aren't powerful because there is a black president. I know locally they are upset they are not getting much stimulus money.
Powerful people are often upset, because there are limits to their power. If they were truly "powerless", they wouldn't even be counting on any "stimulus money".
I know many black organizations are upset and disappointed with Obama. But this is actually good news.
The problem would be if they were happy.
Obama a socialist? He is the face of US imperialism.
One doesn't exclude the other. In fact, they fit perfectly together. All imperialism is socialist and all socialism is imperialist. It's the same concept, used in different contexts.
K,
This is valid only if there's a such thing as black racism. There isn't, so the statement is inherently false.
A little trip to Zimbabwe would do you some good, to see first hand what havoc black racism can wreck.
Stupid leftists have been ridiculously claiming for decades that since prejudice + power = racism, black racism is impossible. It's a very convenient definition of racism, but Obama's election made it possible...
We're not talking about Zimbabwe, Sonia, we're talking about the United States. Your second statement is a meaningless non sequitur.
For the record, Glenn Beck's initial statement:
"[There is] video tape of a USDA administration official discriminating against white farmers...Have we suddenly transported into 1956 except it's the other way around? ... Does anybody else have a sense that there are some that just want revenge? Doesn't it feel that way?...You tell me what part of the gospel is teaching that."
Beck changed his mind later in the program, but didn't retract his earlier statement or repent of having said it. But, as you and PT have attested, that wouldn't have made any difference even if he had, because the first statement revealed his true and unalterable view.
This is what passes on the right for coming out smelling like a rose. Well, when you live in an intellectual latrine...
K-
Your definition of racism, not that I agree with it, yet fits into the power wielded over black communities by the NAACP and other racist groups. They play the race card as naturally as one breathes, stirring up rancor between white and black, in many cases unnecessarily, hurling charges of racism where not only does racism not exist in many cases, but in a good many cases where not even a crime has actually been committed, such as the Tawana Brawley case.
They have power over their communities, and they promote discord between the races. They thrive over the black population by way of these tactics. That is racism by your own definition.
What about when a strong black man or men invade a home and rob a white man, or maybe rape a helpless white woman. Not only is this a criminal action, but in some cases-maybe not all of them but certainly in some cases-there is a racial component felt and often openly expressed.
So in this assertion of power of the strong over the weak, this too might legitimately be considered racism, depending only on whether or not there was intent of a racially prejudiced nature.
That brings us back to Sherrod. For that brief moment of time, she had the power. They were the weak, she was the strong. Her initial reluctance to help those powerless white farmers based on their race was the absolute essence of racism. Thankfully, it turns out that she overcame her racist proclivities at the end, but they were there, and who knows how many other times she had the opportunity to help white farmers and refused. Who knows how many other black officials in positions of power over whites did likewise, or not?
If they did, that would be racism-by your own definition. To say that racism not only does not exist but can not exist in America is the height of liberal, bleeding heart naivety.
K:
Wow.
You pretty much put the ‘loony’ into ‘loony’ left!
Your odd attempt at rewriting what was clearly said falls down straight away as it has no foundation in reality. (But your right, I don’t need a lesson in irony thanks.)
In your mind we might be in a place equivalent to 19th century Ireland, but in reality we live in a time and a place where this black woman is in a very senior position and presiding over immense sums of public money – and where the only people that it is legal to discriminate against are white people (especially white, heterosexual able-bodied men) so spare me your bizarre analogies.
As for your definition of racism, crack on. The word doesn’t really mean anything anyway, simply being a 1920’s Marxist word designed to divide people and inflame tension.
But by your definition it is wrong to label the KKK as racist as they had no legal power and neither does the Tea Party. Nor the BNP, FN etc
Your grasp of the slave trade is very rudimentary too as black people themselves were the biggest source of slavery. In fact whole African kingdoms were dependent and thrived on slavery, such as the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo to name a few.
In fact historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders.
Then there were the Arab traders and Jewish traders too.
Not just ‘whitey’ I am afraid. Not in reality. In fact whilst 'whitey' may have bought slaves, ‘whitey’ overwhelmingly didn’t actually carry out enslavement. Black people did.
In fact what did the emancipated US blacks who flocked to the western African state they called Liberia do with their freedom?
They created a new racial order in their new country with themselves at the top and the indigenous African populace at the very bottom and wasted no time in enslaving the indigenous Africans and selling them. It was so horrific and blatant that even the League of Nations had to get involved in 1927.
5% of these emancipated US blacks and their descendents lorded it over the other 95% of the indigenous African populace right up until 1980 and it only ended then because they were violently removed.
And if we are going down the collective responsibility route, when is Obama going to apologize for rampant and massively disproportionate black crime? When is anyone going to take responsibility for that? And lets face it, its hardly just in the US, it is in every single western country that black people reside in. And trust me, I can quite easily present the official statistics to back that up.
In fact Obama’s very election told us that black people vote for black people, that race is clearly the prime motivator just as Latinos vote for Latino’s.
But that’s fine.
It’s just when white people organize its ‘evil’ and ‘racist.’
Sentinel-
HaHa good old Citizen K, let's not discourage him too much. We conservative and federalist minded independents and republicans need the help of he and others like him in winning back the Congress, and/or hopefully the White House in 2012.
If all Democrats were as open and honest as him in saying what they really believe, damn if I don't think I'd pay for their advertising myself.
I'll give him this much, you'd never see him walking around with a duck gun unlatched for a photo-op pretending to believe in "hunters rights", or talking about how some crimes deserve the death penalty with a wink and a nod, or talking bullshit about "tax breaks for the middle class", which strangely enough usually ends up becoming the lower end of the upper classes by the time the election is well over and they've been sworn into office and its time to implement the new tax policy.
Citizen K though doesn't seem to understand that those tactics of the old "Democratic Leadership Council" are the only reasons Democrats ever managed to hold on to power through the nineties and this last decade.
One of these days one of them is liable to take him off to the side and tell him, "hey, you-get with the program." Otherwise, K might get his own special Sister Soljah moment.
Sonia: Did you forget where you are leaving comments? I don't even think Castro is a communist. I would classify him as an accident of history. No way is Obama a communist.
Imperialism only has to do with capitalism. It is not synonymous with colonialism. It represents a stage in capitalism. I've never posted on that subject.
Zimbabwe is a bad example. The land reform wasn't because of race hatred, but cronyism. He was supposed to accomplish land reform decades earlier, and he never did.
Obama is in power, not working class black people. They still fill prisons, and unemployment lines. The right has escalated racial attacks, see Breibart both on the NAACP and ACORN.
Pagan: You've become so defensive, it's ridiculous.
Black people are the biggest victims of black crime.
The rotten black leadership like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (Democratic Party) is because the real leaders King and Malcolm X and Fred Hampton were assassinated. The void was filled by Democrats.
You have zero understanding of Sherrod. The point is that she overcame her prejudice. Breibart needs punishment for editing out the redemption part. You are reading more into the video than what is there.
Sentinel: Before capitalism any person with big debt, could become a slave. After the Bacon Rebellion race based slavery was invented.
Again black crime is against blacks, for the most part.
K: If people believe Obama, the leader of the free world, commander and chief of the biggest armed forces in history, president of the US is socialist, what else do they believe?
Obama a socialist? When did the revolution happen?
Ren-
I'M Defensive? You can't even bring yourself to admit that Castro is a socialist or a communist. Yet, I'M defensive?
I don't have anything to be defensive about, and furthermore, in the part of your reply that was to me, you said the same thing I've been saying. It's not about black people, its about the so-called black "leadership". Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Ben Jealous, all of the people whom you have just correctly identified as Democratic Party hacks.
The video is what it is. When Sherrod was talking about not wanting to help that white farmer the NAACP people present, which included Jealous, were laughing. They thought that was hilarious and they were obviously laughing in agreeement and appreciation.
Breitbart presented the video exactly how it was presented to him. He didn't make the damn thing, somebody sent it to him, and he presented it. He deserves a medal.
Now let's go into this bit about Obama as socialist. Look at what he's done since he's been in there, with Health Care Reform, with taking over two major auto companies and transferring part ownership over to the union, and to the government, his attempt to impose a Cap And Trade regime-almost everything the man does is based on increasing the power of the federal government over the private sector, of course in the name of "the people".
Of course "the people" in this case is defined as Democratic special interest groups like the SEIU. Just because he's kicked a few errant teachers unions chapters to the curb doesn't mean much, other than he expects results.
What means a lot more is who has been influential throughout his life and career. Alinski, Ayers, Wright, etc. Everybody who has had an influence on him and his philosophy are anarchists, radicals, liberation theologists, all socialists of one stripe or another.
Your assessment of him seems to be based on the idea he hasn't gone far enough. He's gone as far as he can go without entirely scrapping the constitution. Have you forgotten where we are and who he is? He's the fucking President of the United States, not General Secretary of the Supreme Soviet, or some other brand of tin horn dictator.
You talk like he ought to just one day issue a decree that the US should suddenly become a worker's "paradise" and that would be that.
I wish the hell he would try a stunt like that. I really, really do.
Ren,
I don't even think Castro is a communist.
You can argue that point with your friend Hugo. He would strongly disagree.
No way is Obama a communist.
I never said he was. If Obama was a Communist, he would send all Wall Street bankers to a gulag in Alaska, instead of offering them bailouts, like true socialists like FDR or Hitler did in the 1930's.
Imperialism only has to do with capitalism. It is not synonymous with colonialism. It represents a stage in capitalism.
The books where you read this nonsense were written by people who thought Stalin was progressive. It's total bullshit.
Capitalism means freedom. Freedom to succeed, but also freedom to fail and to starve to death. It's not all good. In fact, for the incompetent, capitalism is very bad.
Imperialism means slavery. One country enslaving another.
Socialism also means slavery. The government enslaving the people. It can be avery comfortable slavery, with all people getting well fed and clothed and provided with free education and free health care. But even if the government treats them well and fairly, people still depend on the government. They aren't free.
Zimbabwe is a bad example. The land reform wasn't because of race hatred, but cronyism. He was supposed to accomplish land reform decades earlier, and he never did.
Zimbabwe is definitely a "bad" example for those who defended and praised the leftist "anti-colonialist" struggle in the 60's and 70's.
Obama is in power, not working class black people.
If they did, they would no longer be "working class". Your sentence is a non sequitur, like saying "a president is in power, not a cleaning lady". If a cleaning lady was in power, we wouldn't call her a "cleaning lady" anymore.
They still fill prisons, and unemployment lines.
"Working class black people" don't fill prisons or unemployment lines. "Criminals" fill prisons and "Unemployed people" fill unemployment lines.
"Working class" people work. When the lose their jobs, they are no longer "working class".
Some day, you'll get those definitions. And you'll finally understand, that neither a worker nor a criminal nor an unemployed can ever be in power. Because when he does, he is no longer "working class" or "criminal" or "unemployed". He becomes "a rich fat exploiter". Same person, different definition.
The right has escalated racial attacks, see Breibart both on the NAACP and ACORN.
They are Speaking Truth To Power.
Renegade Eye:
“Again black crime is against blacks, for the most part.”
I really don’t think you want me to respond to that and go into detail.
Especially not with ‘western’ countries away from the US.
“The right has escalated racial attacks, see Breibart both on the NAACP and ACORN.”
I’d be interested to see proof of this.
But hang on, wasn’t the Rodney King tape an edited release too? Right or wrong, wasn’t the public just shown the selected portion on that occasion – the ‘juiciest’ bit from the medias perspective - and isn’t that why the initial jury acquitted?
Now we know just how many attacks – mostly racial – that spawned:
53 deaths, 2,383 injuries, more than 7,000 fires, damages to 3,100 businesses, and nearly $1 billion in financial losses as well as smaller riots in other cities.
(And isn’t always funny how moral outrage always seems to find its outlet in massive looting?)
Ren-
I subscribed a long time ago to one of your posts comments, and look what came in my in-box today-
Spamming Fucktards
From way back in November of 2007. What are they doing, sending this shit to every single post you ever posted?
No wonder fucking Blogger has a reputation for spam, they either won't or can't do anything to reign these idiots in.
Ren-
When you can find the time, look at your Feedjit. The people doing this are from Turkey. They are visiting every single blog listed on your blogroll and leaving the same spam comments. I picked one out at ramdom, a blog called "Be Fruitful", and sure enough, on the first post on dude's main page is the exact same spam comment you've been getting. I glanced through the list, and noticed they visited Gambone's blog as well.
This is somebody purposely going down the list of your blog roll and spamming everybody with a comment section.
I'll reply tomorrow.
Pagan: They spammed 279 different posts.
Most hits yesterday from Turkey.
I'll report them to blogger and their IP.
Sentinel: The I.P. address is: 95.7.37.33
I found an email address to report abuse.
Renegade Eye:
OK, I have done some tracing on that IP and it is an address owned by a Turkish ISP called TTNET and the hostname for this spammer is dsl95-7-9505.ttnet.net.tr.
Often spammers will use either proxies or socks chain (or similar) to try to disguise their real IP address but having looked at the traceroute output here, there is no evidence of this at all.
Tracing route to dsl95-7-9505.ttnet.net.tr [95.7.37.33]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms xx.xx.xx.xx
2 29 ms 30 ms 29 ms xx.xx.xx.xx
3 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms xx.xx.xx.xx
4 30 ms 85 ms 31 ms xe-11-2-0-scr002.log.as13285.net [78.144.2.131]
5 32 ms 77 ms 32 ms host-78-144-0-252.as13285.net [78.144.0.252]
6 103 ms 31 ms 111 ms xe-11-0-0-scr010.sov.as13285.net [78.144.0.226]
7 60 ms 43 ms 46 ms frankfurt1.ln1.turktelekom.com.tr [80.81.192.82]
8 163 ms 162 ms 162 ms gayrettepe-t2-1-frankfurt-1-x.turktelekom.com.tr
[212.156.101.9]
9 162 ms 159 ms * gayt1-2-gayrettepe-t2-1.turktelekom.com.tr [81.2
2.28.121]
10 171 ms 169 ms 169 ms 212.156.118.42
11 164 ms 163 ms 165 ms 212.156.108.182
12 179 ms 169 ms 212 ms 81.212.217.202
13 165 ms 162 ms 163 ms 81.212.77.86
14 177 ms 181 ms 177 ms dsl95-7-9505.ttnet.net.tr [95.7.37.33]
Trace complete.
So the people to contact in this case are the Turkish ISP the spammer is with; the details are below but best to use the email address monitored for issues like this:
abuse@ttnet.net.tr
Be sure to include as many incidents as you can of this spammer on your blog with screenshots or text output and ensure you provide both:
IP address: 95.7.37.33
Hostname: dsl95-7-9505.ttnet.net.tr
-- TTNET --
NetRange: 95.0.0.0 - 95.255.255.255
role: TT Administrative Contact Role
address: Turk Telekom
address: Network Direktorlugu
address: Aydinlikevler
address: 06103 ANKARA
phone: +90 312 555 1927
fax-no: +90 312 313 1924
e-mail: abuse@ttnet.net.tr
One online open tracker for a blog shows this hostname spamming another blog yesterday at 24 Jul, Sat, 09:54:01 so you might want to include that too:
Tracker
Hope that helps.
Sentinel: I have a great stat counter service. I was able to send a screen shot showing they were at my site 279 times.
I learned about IPs and whois by following 419 baiters.
Thank you for helping. I wanted you to review the issue.
I haven't heard yet from the IP.
ACORN after it was defeated by being disassociated from by the Democrats, won in court against all charges. Breibart without dispute, edits tapes to cause racial friction.
Sonia: The definition of imperialism comes from Lenin, not Stalin. It has nothing to do with colonialism.
All of the anti-colonial struggles, were based on the model of 1949 Chinese Revolution, which was based on Stalin's Russia 1949, instead of the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. They were based on peasants, guerillas, one party ideas. None of the third world countries achieved the democratic revolution as a whole. A democratic revolution is national liberation, land reform and democratic institutions. No third world revolution won that. Nothing unique about Zimbabwe.
Pagan: Obama is a Keynesian. That has nothing to do with socialism.
He may use a Keynesian style method, because that's the closest system he can work with here legitimately without breaking constitutional boundaries. Of course, some people consider Keynesians to be at least quasi-socialist.
Keynesians believe in government investment in the economy and social safety nets, correct? I know their economic outlook is liberal, and involves top down social planning with the necessity of taxes and bureaucratic regulations.
At the same time, I never knew of them advocating the government takeover of entire industries as has been done now with some parts of the auto and soon practically the whole of the health care industries-and who knows what else is to come. The energy sector is an obvious target, you can smell that a mile away.
Of course, again, its to be done with the people's money, on behalf of "the people". Yeah, right.
If you don't want to admit that's socialist, at least admit its somewhat Stalinist Lite.
Keynesianism is one end of captalism, and monetarism is the other. Both have strengths and limitations. To some extent they are suppposed to balance each other. Sometimes capitalism needs free trade and other times protectionism. Keynesianism and monetarism is two sides of the same coin, as free trade and protectionism are. Nothing to do with socialism or Stalinism.
So we have monetarism, Keynesianism, Stalinism, and socialism. Which one of these isms believes in the state taking over entire industries, or exercising dominant control over an industry?
Renegade Eye:
No worries - you’re welcome.
Remember though that the host name is most important too as most ISP IP addresses change regularly when the lease expires, but the hostname remains the same.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t hold your breath on a fast / any response from that ISP. The abuse mailbox will be monitored by the Security Operations Centre but it very much takes third fiddle to the other duties they have. It is in place for standards compliance.
It is also difficult to get resolution on issues like these on non-NA or non-EU countries as the legislation and regulation of these companies and the definition and mitigation for spam is far from uniform or even enforced.
(If you get nothing back in a couple of weeks, try sending the same email to an address on thier sites contact page.)
The more long term solution may to be switch over to a comments service that incorporates some access controls, like the old Halo-Scan (now Echo, I believe.)
It really depends how much this bothers you.
Echo isn't worth a shit. Go to either Intense Debate of Disqus.
It bothers me when they spam about 300 posts, and others linked to me. I think it was handled as well as possible.
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