Dump Obama, Embrace Racism
I’m quickly moving past the “Holy shit, is this really happening?” phase to the “of course this is happening and you were stupid to think it wouldn’t happen” phase. The racism and stereotyping bullshit emanating from certain segments on*** the left is reaching a fevered pitch. I’m actually beginning to respect the Tea Party and their “Obama as a witch doctor with a bone in his nose” placards; at least they are honest and upfront about it.
It started off with a few oh-so-hilarious references to “Chocolate Carter” and “Mr. Presnint.” It moved on to “Dayum, I thought Obama was gonna be a gangster!” and “we elected a brother so he could bust some caps in whitey’s ass, not sell out to the man.” Now, the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics:
[Reposted in full.]My jaw literally dropped when I saw this. The “Progressive Change Campaign Committee,” an anti-Obama group ostensibly on the left founded by the notorious hypocrite Adam Green (who would love for you to move your money to community banks and credit unions but won’t do it for his organization), is running an ad. That Adam Green and PCCC have a vendetta against Barack Obama is not news. That they would put out an ad out essentially calling the President a coward isn’t even a surprise. No, the jaw-dropper was the open race baiting. After claiming that Republicans will cave on tax cuts if Obama just has the guts to make them, the ad switches to a screen with President Obama’s face, urging him to “keep [his] promise.” The President’s face is made extra black.
Here’s what I’m talking about. Below are three photographs of the President. One with a light background but in which he has what looks like same tie as in this ad (and his hair looks strikingly similar too, which makes me wonder if the image was lifted from that event – a campaign event in Flint, MI in 2008). The second is a screenshot of the PCCC ad. Finally, the last picture is what Obama looks like in pictures against a dark background and a wearing a dark suit. The PCCC depiction is in the center. Have a look:
As you can see neither the clothing, nor the setting, nor the dark background can be used as an excuse for blackening the President’s face the way that PCCC chose to do. This is not “simply what happens” when Obama speaks in front of a dark background or in a dark suit. Now, I can’t get into their heads and say for sure if PCCC was trying to be overtly racist or trying to simply put Obama in a bad light (literally) and didn’t care if that made his face darker which could have racial overtones. And it doesn’t matter. The act is this: they are taking the first African American president, and for theatrical effects, blackening him up some more. This kind of depiction is nothing short of racist. One would have to be blind to believe there is no Photoshop dark magic at work here, quite literally. This reminds me of Adam Green’s pal Jane Hamsher and her use of blackface. This is sick. This is disgusting. This is beyond belief and beyond words. For an organization that claims to represent the progressive mantle, this should be out of bounds.
There’s another interesting twist to this ad, beyond darkening Obama’s face as they did. I hadn’t caught onto that, until sherijr mentioned it in the comments. Not only did they put Obama against a dark background and darken his face, they also picked a clip of Republican Leader and Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner against a white background, actually making him look lighter than he usually does on TV. Here’s a split screen:
And here’s what sherijr had to say about it – and she said it better than I can:
I commented on how Obama was darker on a black background and Boehner was lighter on a white background. No doubt in my mind upon not just the initial viewing but several viewings- that they intentionally darkened him to set him up as that bad/failure black guy.1
Oh and by the way, can I just point out that the premise of the ad, that even Republicans like John Boehner would vote for a middle-class tax cuts if forced to turned out to be a false, ridiculous premise as well. You see, the House voted on extending the middle class tax cuts only (my opinion on that is that we should let all the Bush tax cuts expire if the GOP won’t compromise on the millionaire’s breaks), and John Boehner voted No. How is it possible that a group so sinister about President Obama’s motives simply takes John Boehner at his word? How is it possible that they don’t see that the GOP leadership has no qualms about holding the middle class tax cuts hostage to giveaways for millionaires? The answer: it’s not possible. They’re not stupid. This is intentional.
The PCCC and Adam Green have been slamming the President on damn nearly everything they can get their hands on. Green has gotten TV time to do the bashing personally. He and his organization has demonized the President, perpetuated the myth that Obama’s progressive reforms and accomplishments simply did not happen, and represented the worst in Left Puritanism, putting ideological rigidity way ahead of progress. But that the PCCC refused to recognize the progressive triumphs of the last two years is one thing. Now they are moving to full blown, open, racism, and they have the galls to ask people to donate money to put this ad on the air.
If any conservative group or a Republican had run this exact same segment in their ad with this exact same depiction of President Obama, the left blogosphere right now would be abuzz in the outrage against the racist overtones of such depiction. And so should we be when a group claiming to represent the left does it. Especially then. As a movement, progressives champion race-consciousness, and so in progressive discourse, there should never be any place for this kind of despicable garbage.
The honorable thing for the PCCC to do, if it wishes to make amends, would be to take the ad down, apologize to the progressive community, the African American community and the President, and donate every penny they raised to put this horrific ad on the air to the Southern Poverty Law Center or the NAACP. I doubt they will, however. Because I doubt they’re honorable. No honorable organization would put this out in their ad. Ever.
So, keep it up, y’all. Have fun primarying Obama with Kucinich or Feingold or whothefuckever; just don’t come crawling to colored folks when it becomes obvious that your Great Progressive Leaders have fucked it all up; are on the verge of ushering in the Age of [insert name of Republican jerkwad and please let it be Sarah Palin]; and you desperately need our votes and our donations. You won’t get a penny from me; not because I think Obama is the kitten’s paw, but because I’M SICK OF THE BULLSHIT FROM CERTAIN SEGMENTS OF THE LEFT.*** Instead of a productive discussion on how to get progressives out of this ditch, many of you are acting like a bunch of know-it-all asshats, and telling some of us who have opinions that it’s not our turn to speak yet.
If some of you would pull your heads out of your asses for just a minute, you might stop buying into the “Obama sucks and I haven’t gotten my unicorn” meme (which is being pushed by nearly every pundit and prominent blogger), and you might realize that you’re being played like a Stradivarius.
Here’s a poll to help you:
– Blacks: 90% approve/6% disapprove
– Democrats: 82/12
– Liberals: 79/16
– Latinos: 56/33
– Post grads: 56/41
– UPDATE: 18-29: 53/38
– UPDATE 2: NBC’s Ana Maria Arumi notes that in the 2010 midterm exit polls, voters 18-29 said they approved of the president’s job by a 62/38 margin, which is close to how they voted in 2008 — 66/32
– Women: 52/43
– 18-34: 49/43
Or, if you prefer, you may continue your death march off the Cliffs of Insanity. It’s up to you.
1 I am reposting sherjr’s full comment because it’s indicative of our some of our my feelings on this issue:
I received the email from Adam Green a couple of days ago – with this ad linked and of course a request for donation to pay for it.. I commented over at bwd’s site immediately that this ad disgusted me, first because of the ignorance imo of once again going after the President instead of the effing republicans (what a freaking waste of $$). Secondly I commented on how Obama was darker on a black background and Boehner was lighter on a white background. No doubt in my mind upon not just the initial viewing but several viewings- that they intentionally darkened him to set him up as that bad/failure black guy. And it really turned my stomach how they gave Boehner a lightened/angelic depiction.
Then it became personal when someone posted on my Facebook to sign on to this ad and I responded that I would absolutely not support it and that I find it foolish and inept to attack the President when it is the republicans that need to be called out… after that I received several emails attacking me for not ‘pushing’ the president. Its like folks really don’t get or are seriously so fearful of the republicans that all they can do is cry to the President about everything. I am so sick of this crap all around, but from the left it is so ultra stupid. Needless to say I’ve blocked several people from my Facebook. And one other thing, I unsubscribed to Adam Green’s email list nearly a year ago.. and yet funny how I suddenly get his newest email with requests for $$.
Thank you for posting about this, because honestly I really thought I was the only person who saw the darkening of Obama- I’ve not read even one other comment about it until your posting here.
[via The People’s View]
[Partially reposted from ABLC. I’m not touching this comment section with a ten foot pole. I’m sure you’ll understand. Peace, ABL]
***all better now, right?
Hunter Gathers
Teh internets have thusly been set on fire. Prepare for 700 posts. That is all.
Angry Black Lady
word press is being a pain in the ass. sorry for the screwy formatting.
have at it.
Yutsano
@Angry Black Lady: C’mon ABL. You can say it. We all do around here. FYWP. It wouldn’t bug me if JC dumped its ass without so much as a text message.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Not a dime, not a vote; just a loud “Fuck you, so-called progressives.”
FlipYrWhig
I saw Adam Green on Lawrence O’Donnell once. He did the “Obama should fight, because then even if he loses, we’d know he cared” routine, and he looked like McLovin. You could haul a random guy from comments here and plunk him down in the same place and get the same analysis.
I don’t know if I see the racism part, though.
Moses2317
Thank you for this posting. It continues to amaze me why so many on the progressive side of the aisle spend so much time focusing their anger and vitriol on President Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders, rather than on the Republicans who pose real threats to our nation’s economic and national security.
Yes, the Democrats disappoint us too often. But it is up to us progressives to force Democrats to do better, to create the political breathing space for them to move to the left, and to fight back against Republican attacks on our values, our policies, and our President. If we, instead, spend most of our time attacking our own side, how exactly do we expect to achieve progress for the policies we hold dear?
Winning Progressive
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@FlipYrWhig: That’s okay- black folk will and do see the racism. We will comport ourselves accordingly.
Bob Loblaw
Oh look, another blackwaterdog sighting in the last blockquote. How fun, you should make that a running gag.
This is really juvenile and the equivalent of a drive-by flame bait. And you know damn well that nothing productive will come of this, and you don’t care. So where’s the righteousness in that? How does this advance the cause?
On the other hand, here’s the far more respect-worthy TNC on the same topic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/12/wimp/67537/
Anger can be productive, or not, y’all have to decide on your own.
Chuck Butcher
I know of no Democrat of Obama’s caliber as a candidate. This idea couldn’t be any more foolish.
The picture does indeed look wrong, in more than the darker color aspect. Not my area of expertise.
emdee
Without commenting on the folly of the ad or the political fight in question:
It’s fairly standard practice to darken the entire picture when you’re putting words on top of it, particularly if you’re using a light typeface, which seems to convey “danger” more than black type on a white background. (Think about how all the negative political ads seem to have white type on dark backgrounds, and the positive ones have the reverse. If this has something to do with racism, and it might, I’m unaware of it.)
This is seen in the ad in question at the 0:22 mark, when the picture darkens while Boehner is on-screen so that the words will be more visible. It is not done for the captions on Obama’s Iowa promise in the first part of the ad, and sure enough, the words that appear over his white shirt are harder to make out.
As I am loathe to yell “malevolence” where “stupidity” is a valid explanation, I’m going to go with a bad editing decision—they should have pushed the President’s image to the left and put the words to his right, not layered them over each other. Stronger visual and none of this wondering about making him look darker.
Also, the Boehner thing? Sorry, ABL, but that’s not PCCC. That was Boehner, choosing to sit in front of a light background for the interview so he wouldn’t look so orange, and it worked. And that’s the only place he gave the quote that he’d vote for the tax cuts if they didn’t include the top 2%—he got grief for it from the right immediately, so he never repeated it again. That’s the only video where he says it that they can use, so that’s what they use. Stagecraft works, the GOP knows this.
To qualify as racism, my litmus test is “would they have done the same photographic manipulation to a picture of a white democratic president,” and I’m willing to bet they would have—heck, at 0:22, they do it briefly to Boehner in this very ad. But there’s all kinds of subtext to making black people look blacker in photographs (cough O.J. Simpson Time Newsweek cough) and for a low-budget quick-hit ad, they probably just missed it.
I’m not ruling out malevolence, I just need more evidence than one badly-formed shot. ABL could be completely right, but this is how I see it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I knew that Obama winning would drive the far right off the cliff but I never thought the far left would do likewise. I keep saying that it’s our Congress and not Obama that’s the problem but the manic progressives keep zeroing in on Obama as the cause of their agony. It’s like they don’t understand how our government works or just want to ignore reality. Obama has to deal with a bunch of Democrats who aren’t worth a shit for getting anything done or doing it right.
You can be the best conductor in the world but if your orchestra is populated by the Hatfields and McCoys who are equipped with sticks, garbage cans, broken bottles, washboards and empty gas cans, you sure as hell won’t be playing any Beethoven that’s worth listening to. The conductor doesn’t teach musicians to play but rather he tries to get them to work together.
He can’t do a damned thing if they refuse to cooperate, decide to play their own selections or just snooze.
FlipYrWhig
I’m kind of curious. Let’s say that progressive politicians in the House, or even the Senate (where a handful can do a lot of damage), decided to flex some muscle and refuse the deal — basically, to do what PCCC wants. What would happen next? Would it result in a new deal, or no deal, and who would be credited or blamed for it?
flounder
John Edwards 2012!
Nanette
Heh. I have spent the past couple of days wandering around kos and (in a *very* limited way) fdl – (though there is little distinction between the two nowadays) and in the comments here.
It’s just… well. Gotta laugh, a lot of times, but I admit to getting a little freaked out. I did try and clarify some of the worst comments at kos (“are you sure you meant to compare President Obama to a wife abuser?”) and such, but the “reality-based community” is rapidly becoming a ghost town.
Black (or other non-white “progressives” – me, I’m a lefty-liberal-socialist and will never even come close to calling myself a “progressive” again) don’t even enter into their primary fantasy equation, far as I can tell. Or if they do, it’s assumed that we’ll fall into line behind whichever white male (and they are almost all white males, their primary suggestions) they find to try and take down Obama.
La la land.
Villago Delenda Est
I was looking for FDR 2.0.
We didn’t get him. We got someone who didn’t jail banksters, he’s going after leakers.
The color of his skin is irrelevant to his failures.
Cliff
Wait, so I’m confused.
It’s counterproductive to want to primary Obama and other Democrats, but we have to force them to pay attention to the nation’s problems and stop selling us out….
But how do we do that if we’re already taking primaries off the table?
Do we all just write a letter to Obama explaining that we’re very very angry with him, but we’re going to vote for him next election anyway because the other option is Sarah Palin?
What other mechanisms exist to pressure a politician?
FlipYrWhig
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I’ve been thinking about some of those same things… realizing that there really aren’t many ways to _make_ someone do something he doesn’t want to do without applying coercive physical force. Sometimes suasion just doesn’t work, not for lack of trying, but for lack of desire on the part of the other person. It’s actually surprising that it ever _does_ work.
Roger Moore
They’re obviously doing something funky with their pictures. Take a look at the shirt collars, which both ought to be white (or more technically a very light gray). Boehner’s is almost blown out to pure white, but is just far enough from pure white that you can see it has a reddish cast. Obama’s is quite a bit darker and has an obvious blue color.
This is not what you’d expect. Camera’s light meters tend to produce pictures with overall neutral brightness. A dark subject, like Obama in a dark suit against a dark background, will tend to overexpose, so you’d expect his shirt collar to be overexposed. A light subject like Boehner against a light background should underexpose a bit, making his collar darker. The color cast to Boehner’s shirt may be from the lighting, but I can’t understand what’s happening with Obama’s shirt. It doesn’t make sense except for an artifact of deliberately (and incompetently) processing the image in Photoshop.
ulee
It’s clear that Obama-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continued, tax breaks for the obscenely rich–is pretty much George W. Thanks for nothing.
Nanette
@Chuck Butcher:
Well, the picture is dark, rough, a bit demonic… and, conspiracy antenna working overtime… I have never, to my recollection, seen Obama’s hair that long, particularly before an event. He usually has it clipped close to his head, with some gray and scalp showing. In the ad photo has a very dark, fully covering mini ‘fro.
New look?
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
To get FDR 2.0, you would need Obama to agree to drop his support for DADT repeal in order to get Republican votes for his stimulus plan the same way that FDR opposed federal anti-lynching laws to get Southern Democrats to vote for the New Deal.
As long as you’re willing to pay that price, that’s fine, but don’t pretend that the New Deal wasn’t passed at the expense of African-Americans (who, not incidentally, were also almost entirely left out of Social Security by design, again in a bid to get the votes of Southern Democrats).
Mac G
Those pictures are awful. If Democratic politicians do not fight for progressive taxes, what is the point of being a Democrat?
LTMidnight
@Villago Delenda Est: Are we referring to the same FDR:
1) Who caved to the racists in his party
2) Who put Japanese American citizens in internment camps
….just asking.
M.T. Head
Obama is a political eunuch guarding the power elite.
Bob Loblaw
@FlipYrWhig:
We’d end up with a lot of new tax revenue and nothing to spend it on. Which would be bad for the economy but great for those fake-ass deficit hawks to crow about, I suppose.
I see no value in abandoning this “compromise” (that the Republicans weren’t obligated to give up anything in, except I guess their policy of outright sabotaging the economy at every turn if you believe they have one). Getting trapped and then having to make due the best they could (which I believe they did) wasn’t the Obama administration’s mistake, it was getting trapped in the first place. Or more specifically, letting Congress get the both of them trapped in the first place. And that’s past, no sense punishing them for that. They don’t learn jack shit anyway. It’s a neverending cycle of enabling and incompetence I’m afraid.
Now we just have to wait and see about DADT and START. I know they’ll get at least one, but I have no idea which. So that’s something. I don’t know why anybody even bothers bringing up the DREAM Act…
firestarter
I just feel like dumping gasoline on this entire thing, so here we go…
I have a great friend who is getting his doctorate, and one of his specialties is the portrayal of Asian-Americans in the media. One of the things he pointed out to me a while ago was that race baiting that occurs in the least likely places, and most people have no idea it is happening. As an example: flea medicine commercials. No, really. The dog that is the clean dog, with no fleas, tends to be a light colored dog, like a yellow lab. It is almost never a dark dog. And, often (but not always), the dogs that ARE given fleas? Dark dogs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNlt0D_xba4
And this one is just to make you cry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ODC5e3AEa8
Stop arguing about bullshit and go do some good. Rescue a pet from a shelter. ABL did it today. You can, too.
Roger Moore
@LTMidnight:
No, I think we’re referring to the FDR who had massive majorities in both Houses of Congress. I’m sure we would have gotten a lot more of the Progressive agenda passed with 75% majorities in both Houses of Congress, the way FDR had in the 75th Congress.
Silver
It’s such a fucking horrible job too.
Really, it’s horrible. I could teach a 5 year old to do a better job in about 2 minutes.
If you did the “artwork” on that, die in a fucking fire. You’re not even a hack.
Allan
@M.T. Head: Thank you for your voluntary participation in the Internet Commenters Truth in Usernames campaign.
Mnemosyne
@firestarter:
Geez, why do you have to bring up a good point right when I have to go to bed! ;-)
It’s axiomatic that immigrants to the US often become very racist once they move here, and I think it’s because all of us are getting those messages broadcast at us 24/7, but those of us who were raised here learn to tune them out. (Consciously, at least — they come rearing up out of the unconscious at uncomfortable moments.)
But people who immigrate here as adults don’t have that same filter, so they get the 24/7 racist message without having any defense against it, so they buy into it.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob Loblaw:
Right, I realize that if there’s no deal and the tax cuts lapse that on 1/1 everyone would be paying more. What I was wondering was if the deal’s being sunk by “progressives,” affirmatively, would lead to different outcomes, a different political calculus about winners and losers, that sort of thing.
NobodySpecial
Hey, it’s preemptive strawmanning with an ED style swan dive away from the comments to boot!
I especially love this part:
Of course, this comes on a blog where both sides speak plenty, and damn few of them have ever pulled the race card on either side of the debate. Hate Obama’s perfomance? Must hate black people! Love Obama’s performance? Must want to stick it to ‘the Man’!
Bullshit reductionism and bullshit strawman is Bullshit reductionism and bullshit strawman. Progressives are not solely Adam Green any more than centrist black Democrats are solely Harold Ford.
As far as picking on Obama? Like it or not, when he became President he became the standard bearer for the Democratic Party. That means if you want to move the Democratic Party, you have to move him too. What ABL seems to be saying is that we have to give him all the positives that come with the job and not give him any of the criticism. Bullshit. When he falls down on the job, we get to bitch about it, and it wouldn’t mean a damned thing if he were white, black, or orange.
Allan
@Roger Moore: Was that the same FDR for whom a compliant media carefully avoided depicting the extent of his disability, so that the American peoples’ vision of their president as a strong leader wouldn’t be diminished?
eco2geek
Thanks for sharing 9 paragraphs of righteous outrage over something that doesn’t matter. If you really want to find something to get upset about, and tell everyone that they should be offended too, there’s plenty out there — no matter how far you have to reach.
Is this a new series? Are we going to get an “outrage du jour” post every day now?
Bob Loblaw
@FlipYrWhig:
And phrases like “nothing to spend it on” and “bad for the economy” can’t be extrapolated from?
Not taking the deal is worse than taking the deal, at this point, for Obama himself and his party collectively. And the nation as a whole. And, of course, for rich people especially. But we can’t help that last one, they played the game too effectively.
It’s a strong rightward shift politically, no getting around it. It isn’t a good deal for the liberal stance on taxation or the social safety net (since UI should never have been allowed to be bartered with to begin with, it should be taken as a bedrock given in a civilized society for as long as it is needed), but since nothing is ever a good deal for the liberal stance on anything anymore, progressives have to take another one for the team. And not only receive no credit for it, but probably take all the blame instead. Because the world is silly.
Mitch Guthman
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Meaning, what?
Sammy
@Cliff:
“What other mechanisms exist to pressure a politician? ”
We can’t exert pressure on President Obama because that would make some black people feel bad.
Mnemosyne
@eco2geek:
Dude, her name is Angry Black Lady. Are you actually shocked and surprised that she doesn’t post about kittens and sunshine?
Though I suppose you’re right — if she posts an “outrage du jour” post every day, this place will quickly turn into a clone of DKos or Firedoglake, and that would be pretty dire.
Moar kittens and sunshine, pleaze, ABL! Or at least Nate Dogg.
Chuck Butcher
There will be a Primary, the only questions is who will run. The fucking rules say there will be one.
Now if you have some idea that some knight in shining armor is going to swoop in and … whatever the fuck; you’re crazy. I don’t know if Dennis is tired of it yet or not, but somebody like Dean knows real well how a Primary race is run and financed and that he’d be an ant on an elephant’s leg with sex on its mind. The same is true of anybody I can think of, an Obama campaign has everything and then it also has … Obama.
If you want to “push” Obama then you have to persuade the electorate to put people in who will help him and push him. I keep looking but I don’t see that elecorate.
I do actually know how it is done, not how to get there, but the mechanics aren’t real complicated. It is face to face conversations at the local level. At the very most talking to small groups. You have to build a trust and a willingness to hear and it has to be constant. Along with that is the creation of a sense of community or belonging and a sense of personal power as an outgrowth. It is an act of creation of subversive cells that act like cancer when you’ve built one. That takes a shit load of time and dedication and some real nerve (self-confidence). This isn’t a campaign for a person or office – it is quite simply subversion.
NR
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Right. The people who donated to, volunteered for, and fought like hell to elect a black president are all just a bunch of dirty racists.
Your comment is a perfect illustration of how intellectually and morally bankrupt the Obama apologists are these days. Thanks.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Mitch Guthman: Meaning that black people will keep our wallets closed and stay home on Election Day- and we’ll see how successful these “progressives” are when they’ve disaffected the most loyal and dependable base of the Democratic Party.
Good luck with that.
Allan
The commercial itself isn’t the only PCCC action in this campaign with an ick factor attached.
PCCC’s designated person posted a dKos diary about the campaign under the misleading title “Obama staffers speak out.”
They provide three quotes from people who held state-level positions in Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign, with no clarity as to whether they were paid staff or volunteers, who wrote letters saying they were through with Obama if he caved. Not the current WH staffers that the title encourages one to expect, of course.
If you’ve signed their petitions and are on their email list, you got an email asking you to go to dKos and help rec their diary to spread the word. And of course, they’re buying banner ads for this campaign on the site. Keep collecting those email addresses!
NR
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: By the way, here’s someone else who says we need to seriously consider primarying Obama.
I guess you’ll call him a racist, too?
Dollared
Mnemosyne, I am sick of your crap about FDR.
You need some perspective. In historiographical terms, you are committing the error of “Anachronism.” In other words, you are imposing the standards and context of your time on that time in the past.
You can’t seem to put yourself 80 years back in time. Well, I’ll try for you. So let’s move to 1932. People were dying of starvation. It was a lifeboat exercise and if you can’t manage the lifeboat, then everybody dies.
For the upper classes of the world – not just the US – in 1932, there were no rights of the common people. Seventeen years earlier, the common foot soldiers had been the legendary cannon fodder of WWI, dying by the millions in frontal assualts on machine guns, ordered by upperclass generals.
A majority of human beings on the planet were residents of colonies owned by European nations, with no citizenship rights. There was no Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There was no UN. There was no right to organize into labor unions. Eleven years earlier, with complete impunity, private security guards asassinated two coal mining union leaders on the fronts steps of a West Virginia courthouse, setting off a war in which more than a hundred miners were killed. The result? 985 miners were indicted and most were sent to prison. No union for miners – until Roosevelt made it happen in 1935.
So was Roosevelt wrong to get rights for 90% of Americans for the first time ever? Was he wrong to sell out the other 10%? You tell me.
No, I’ll tell you. Jesus Christ on a stick, Mnem, do you understand how great an act FDR pulled off? Do you think we would have had a national civil rights movement in the 1960s if Roosevelt had not established the expectation that all Americans have equality of opportunity? Do you think the grandchildren of the jews on the Lower East Side would have marched into Alabama in the 1960s if their parents had not been able to send them to college?
Gain some perspective. FDR was a great, great man. And in some ways he was great because he kept his eyes on the prize, and made the kind of decisions that leaders of huge political movements have to make.
And yes, I support DADT, and I think it’s about number 7 on the list of priorities. Eliminating the Bush Tax cuts and protecting our citizens from “free trade” and “the genius of the market” are the 1-3. Really. Because people without hope or a future do not care about gay rights, or black rights, or latino rights.
Mitch Guthman
@ Angry Black Lady: Look, I understand you are an angry black lady. Indeed, you seem to be a caricature of an angry black lady. When you first started posting here, I read what you had to say with some interest. Didn’t always agree with you but I didn’t see “Angry Black Lady” and just scroll past to the next post. But lately, I’ve started doing exactly that because I don’t think you have much to say except that you are an angry black lady and anyone who disagrees with you is a racist. That’s what I think. Naturally, I am sure that your response will be to casually impute the motive of race hatred to me just as you have done to others like Adam Green.
But this post caught my eye and I so I read it. Just for future reference, could you answer this question: Are there any circumstances under which you feel it might be permissible for people of other races to criticize Obama or to call for him to step aside without being accused of racism? Perhaps you might be willing to provide a sort of guide to the kind of criticism of Obama and his presidency that you might bless as being racially neutral ?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@NR: I don’t know wtf you’re on about, but if you want to try to primary the guy, fuck you too.
Man takes office under the most trying economic circumstances the US has faced in decades, succeeds in starting the ball rolling toward universal health care, keeps the US based auto companies afloat so they can reinvent themselves, and progresses toward ending the Iraq war cockup, but that ain’t fucking good enough, is it?
EVERY African American working person is well and truly experienced at this game- ya gotta be more than twice as good and work twice as hard as fucking Biff in the next cubicle if you want any kind of recognition or acceptance.
So i’ll say it again: Primary him. If you ever get as much as 5 percent of the black vote again, it will be after my generation has long been dead and buried.
Allan
@Nanette: I just bookmarked your blog. Really awesome site.
When I went to the Norman Rockwell Museum, I expected that some of the paintings might be moving, but I didn’t cry until I walked in the room with “The Problem We All Live With.”
chaseyourtail
Yes ABL, I see Rovian tactics by the left as well. Number one: The constant, unrelenting “Obama is a coward” swift-boat like drumbeat. According to the left, everything Obama does stems from fear and weakness. Everything! If the president sneezes, he caved to the pollen that flew up his nose. It’s gotten that ridiculous. The left is desperately trying to make this smear stick. That’s why their drumbeat grows louder and louder every day. Unfortunately for the left, their efforts to slime this president will ultimately fail for a number of reasons. One reason is that in order to make a swift-boat smear stick even a little, there needs to be amplification assistance from the corporate media and that ain’t gonna happen.
Yes, Adam Green is a lying little turd and so are all those jokers on the progressive/professional left. Anthony Weiner’s smarmy little ass couldn’t wait to make the rounds with the “Obama caved” talking point today. What a shameless, opportunistic poser he turned out to be. Then again, they all are.
Obama did the right thing making this deal. And it took political courage to do it, not cowardice.
Karen
@ABL
There’s an adage that I’ve been hearing a lot lately. It’s easy to be liberal when it’s not in your back yard. I always knew this was in the propaganda peddled by the Hamsherites and Hillary Clinton’s team. Notice I didn’t say Hillary Clinton herself, though some of the things she said sure borderline. I wish I could say I was surprised with how blatant they’re becoming but the only thing that surprises me is that it’s happening this soon.
I suspected that their support was so conditional that the first time he did something they didn’t like or act the way they wanted or, dare I say it, be submissive enough to them, that they’d lash out with this.
They hate him because he didn’t stay in his place and now they plan to punish him because he didn’t produce in less than two years.
Angry black lady, I am in total agreement with you.
Chuck Butcher
One thing I’d like to point out is that Obama himself said in effect, make me do it. Not a taunt, a direction.
Now I took him to mean the “electorate.” If I were one to guess and psyco-analyze someone I’ve met briefly and worked with long distance through aides, I’d bet he’s continually shaken that the GOP is so intransigent and hateful to someone so deliberately centrist and pragmatic because he believes that the good of the country must create a place of some cooperation. I wonder if he’s ever dealt with adversaries who just didn’t give a good goddam and cared only to beat him and hate him.
I’m sure that is all horse-shit btw.
NR
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: It’s okay, I understand exactly what you’re on about.
If you want Obama to keep his campaign promises, you’re a racist.
If you don’t want hundreds of billions of dollars in giveaways to the rich, you’re a racist.
If you don’t want drones killing children in Afghanistan, you’re a racist.
If you don’t want massive expansion of the surveillance state, you’re a racist.
Your message is coming through loud and clear, don’t worry.
Jewish Steel
@firestarter:
You bastard. I made it as far as, “For every dog that’s…”
I already have two rescues. Now I want a 3rd.
And no, I just have something in my eye…
jacy
@Dollared:
Not to jump in and start something, but I read the comments about FDR totally different.
The way I read it Mnemosyne was answering the comment that said:
What I got was trying to put some perspective on the current “Obama is a bad as ____, Why can’t he be like ___.” Well the truth is that pragmatic leaders make choices that are either unpopular with the base or flat-out unpleasant in order to get some shit done that has to get done.
The way I read it, Mnemosyne was not so much ragging on FDR, but pointing out that history tots up the plusses and minuses, and everybody screaming about what a failure Obama is should just take a deep breath and get some perspective.
Course, I could be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time.
NobodySpecial
@NR: Don’t forget, if you want Obama to close Gitmo like he promised, you’re a racist, too.
chaseyourtail
@Mitch Guthman:
You should start a blog and call it Dumb White Person.
Karen
Gotta love the lesson they learned from the GOP. Oh, unless we can imply he’s an N and oh by the way, he’s black. that means we can’t criticize him.
Please. You’re beginning to believe your own hype.
Mitch Guthman
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: I don’t think that actually clarifies anything. Are you suggesting that, because we elected a black man as president, people of other races should stay silent when we disagree with him out of fear that black people will retaliate politically out of a sense of racial solidarity? You seem to be saying that black people value racial solidarity above all other things. More than advancing civil rights, more than advancing economic equality, more than providing good education, medical care, school lunches, more than than social safety net. More than anything. It’s just racial solidarity. Period.
I just can’t believe that. Maybe there’s some who think that way, but I believe people in general are better than that.
mclaren
@Dollared:
Precisely.
Mnemosyne is savagely attacking FDR because, of course, despite his very serious flaws (and calling the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-American citizens for 3 years without a trial or charges a “flaw” is extremely generous: that was a heinous act) FDR remains one of the most effective progressive politicians of the last 80 years.
And the truth is, Mnemosyne hates progressive change.
So naturally she attacks FDR like a rabid dog. The real surprise is that she hasn’t savaged Martin Luther King and Ghandi. But if history is any guide, she’ll get around to attacking them any day now.
Meanwhile, the fact of the matter remains that two of the most successful liberal Democrats of the last 70 years, FDR and LBJ, had some very big flaws. LBJ gave us goddamn Vietnam, and FDR was responsible for Manzanar and tabling the anti-lynching bill, as well as refusing the desegregate the U.S. army (that was left to Harry Truman, interestingly enough).
So both LBJ and FDR had big big blots on their records. Out here in the real world, no one is perfect. Despite their crimes and injustices, LBJ and FDR together did more to move forward actual liberal policies than any ten other politicians after WW II.
Truman caved and agreed to McCarthyite loyalty oaths and blacklisting of federal employees for vile crimes of association. Eisenhower kicked the racial desegregation can down the road, although he did order federal troops into Little Rock to enforce segregation — but he refused to go the rest of the way and end Jim Crow law down south and he absolutely would not touch civil rights legislation. JKF, to his credit, sicced the FBI on the Jim Crow sherrifs and other murdering thugs down south when they starting abducting and killing MLK’s voting rights workers, but JFK did not introduce civil rights legislation and he couldn’t get medicare through. It was left to LBJ, flawed as he was, to get both of those huge projects done.
Mnemosyne loves to viciously savage anyone who tries to make the world better because, like all sociopaths, she reacts with hatred and loathing to the prospect of reduced suffering in the world. The rest of us look at terribly imperfect politicians like FDR and LBJ and, while we can’t forgive their injustices, we recognize that out here in pragmatic reality, you have to take the kind of effective liberal politicians who get things done for the sum of their accomplishments, and not hysterically assault them because they proved unable to rise above the prejudices and brutalities of their times.
Chuck Butcher
Let me try this again,
a Democratic majority Congress had 4 years to get ready for the expiration of GWB’s little poke in the eye. Four fucking years and it’s down to the wire in a lame duck. I don’t give a flying fuck all what Obama said about the top rates in the campaign, every ass in Congress knew what those rates were doing to the budget and the dislocation of wealth.
Every fucking one of them knew. It ain’t a big left secret that just got out. It is governmental malpractice, period. If you think there aren’t thumbs to jamb into member’s eyes when they play stupid destructive games I will just mention a dirty word like earmarks and there are a few others.
Mitch Guthman
@chaseyourtail: Thank you for your well-reasoned critique.
Karen
@LTMidnight:
Let’s not forget how he turned back boats with Jewish Refugees.
FDR isn’t a saint.
Bob Loblaw
@chaseyourtail:
No it didn’t. That’s mindless sycophancy. What exactly did this deal cost the President politically? “Enthusiastic” support from the left? When has that ever been found to matter? This deal cost him nothing except rhetorical righteousness. Stop mythologizing.
@NobodySpecial:
Also mindless, from the other direction. There’s no conspiracy. Obama doesn’t want to keep Gitmo open. He wants to keep a couple dozen guys in prison forever without trial, which is no small Constitutional malice, but he doesn’t want to keep the Gitmo facility operational. That’s all Congress’ doing, it’s all on them.
chaseyourtail
@Mitch Guthman: Your welcome. I think my response to your comment is self-explanatory as well.
chaseyourtail
I usually see this level of defensiveness from white people on Daily Kos not BJ. Oh well, times are changing, I guess.
chaseyourtail
@Bob Loblaw:
Well, that remains to be seen. According to the left, the depressed Dem turnout during the mid-terms was due to progressives being mad at Obama and staying home. And aren’t they always threatening a primary challenge? Who knows how many progressives will turn away from the polls or vote for someone else because of this in 2012.
It’s not mythology. Obama made a decision he knew was going to make angry people in his own party even angrier…and he did it because he felt it was the right thing to do. And yes, that takes political courage.
Wil
I don’t see any intentional racism in the ad. Spending lots of screeching paragraphs about how this image in the ad is the WORST MOST ABOMINABLE THING EVER CREATED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD is fucking silly, especially when it’s based on an assumption that is quite likely wrong or at least potentially wrong.
Yes, whoever photoshopped the image upped the contrast and ‘thresholded’ it a bit to bring out the blacks and whites for effect. I’ve seen this in lots of political ads. And the image looks darkened so the letters can be read.
To just assume that this is deliberate racism, and then based on that one assumption about this one image, an assumption that you CANNOT CONFIRM, to get so super-pissed off and bent out of shape that you spout this:
Come on….that’s a lot of hyperbole for an assumption about an ad that you can’t even confirm.
I mean, let’s say they chose to just cut a black and white image with a light high-contrast background….I’m guessing that Obama would probably appear pretty dark in that image too. But would that justify screaming RACISM at the top of your lungs? Would it even BE racism?
It just seems like you are going completely nuts based on an assumption that could easily have other, less sinister explanations.
I really hate it when people on my own side start sounding as crazy and off-their-rockers as the nutcases on the right. Can we please not become like them? Please????
kay
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
I don’t know if it matters, Ivan, but I haven’t heard one word about this in the real world. Not one person. Not a precinct captain, not a county chair, not nuth’in. Now, it’s not a representative sample or anything, it’s one small corner of the country, but we just lost an election (so the purge must begin, right?) and I’ve heard calls for the state and county chair to resign but nothing about Obama.
I’ll tell you what it reminds me of, though. Remember how there was going to be some revolt at the convention and HRC was gonna use some procedural move to grab the nom? That was actually posited, by Rachel Maddow (who I love) and many, many others. It wasn’t true.
That was never going to happen. You heard it on cable and you heard it on the internet and it drove a narrative (and conflict) for months, but it was never going to happen, because no one wanted it to happen. It was the most bizarre disconnect between reality and media. Like another world, between what was actually happening and what I was reading and hearing.
And so it goes. Controversy number 5,987. The midterms are over and we need conflict to fuel the machine because Obama’s the presumptive nominee, and that’s not sexy and full of intrigue and dastardly actors and a storyline. It’s routine. Can’t have that.
Valdivia
So glad you posted this. That is all.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@NR: Hey, you don’t have to convince me- but you WILL have to convince those millions of African American voters.
That’s the iissue in front of you… how to convince those millions of voters- (who by and large believe he’s doing a damn good job, even if we don’t agree with his every position)- that his race had nothing to do with this primary challenge.
Good. Luck. With. That.
stuckinred
Joe and Mika agree that Obama is a bum!
El Cid
The rest of the case can stand on its own, but I see no reason to conclude that the photoshopping of the pictures is evidence of racism.
Maybe they are racists. But I’ve seen this coloration change shit a lot, and even when it has nothing to do with politics.
But, as was stated in the post itself, it doesn’t matter whether or not it was racist, because, you know, whatever.
Michael
@Cliff:
You create some breathing room for him to move left – you actually make the public dialogue about the positive aspects of the policies as opposed to attacking and lobbying the people who actually support more of your aims.
Of course, this means energizing at the local level – not as ego stroking as walking around the halls of Congress or appearing on national TV or at big national “preach to the choir” rallies. It means you talk to your family, friends and neighbors in a way that runs counter to the neverending stream of bullshit from right-wing talk radio, Glenn Beck, the internet echo chambers and the accomodationist cable news channels. It means letters to the editor and sign-carrying at local political events.
It means that paid progressive activists actually have to earn their pay, as opposed to blogging in jammies or calling Dennis Kucinich’s or Alan Grayson’s office to whine.
gibsojj
Ivan, no one cares. Black people are 13% of the population and falling fast. We’ll just recruit the Hispanics instead if you stay home.
Ranger 3
Remember kids, 3 years ago (damn, can’t believe it’s been that long) virtually all of these clowns were backing John Edwards in the last primary. They have zero credibility. Zero. They trusted that charlatan and would have followed him off of a cliff if Obama hadn’t knocked him out in South Carolina.
Many of the Clinton supporters are racist, but most are sexist, as in they hate men. Obama saved the Democratic Party from the naive idealistic white socialists, the paranoids truthers and the damaged misandrists which make up a good chunk of the modern left. However, when they talk about the “democratic wing of the democratic party”, I think we can all be fairly certain they aren’t talking about black people.
cleek
this just in: graphic designers sometimes use exaggerated contrast for emphasis. even on white people. even on still lifes. no racism required.
QED
Scott
I agree with ABL — the pic was definitely photoshopped, and it’s depressing as hell how many supposedly super-progressive Democrats were closet racists all along. Not surprising, ’cause I remember the campaign.
Mike M
Really? We’re supposed to believe that some progressive group nobody has heard of is igniting widespread racism from the left.
Hippie punching and link baiting is fun, but can you try not to insult my intelligence while you do it?
Lysana
And I see exactly why ABL stayed out of this comment set. The white privilege bullshit is getting thick enough to fertilize Kansas.
Simply put: racism isn’t always deliberate.
Burn THAT into your fucking brains.
Lysana
@Mike M:
FTFY.
cleek
BJ’ers ! Let Us Unite in defiance of the racism inherent in the Adjust Brightness Slider!
4tehlulz
@Lysana: But some of my best thoughts are black!
Wil
@cleek
No shit…..can’t believe all this hyperventilating and clutching of pearls over a single unconfirmed assumption about a single ad.
Those racists at Adobe were really being sneaky when they made that Brightness slider. You can tell how racist they were because they didn’t call it the Darkness slider!
Jesus people….get a grip.
Wil
@cleek
No shit…..can’t believe all this hyperventilating and clutching of pearls over a single unconfirmed assumption about a single ad.
Those racists at Adobe were really being sneaky when they made that Brightness slider. You can tell how racist they were because they didn’t call it the Darkness slider!
Jeebus, people….get a goddamn grip.
dan
This act is getting old.
Lavocat
Obama isn’t a chocolate Carter. He’s a vanilla Clinton. Clinton was, after all, our first black president.
Yum-yum. Just savor that triangulation flavor!
Primary Obama in 2012!
Mike M
@dan
Seriously, this schtick is so transparent. What’s worse its lazy. Hippie punching on Balloon Juice? What are you going to do for an encore, talk about those awful illegal immigrants on the Lou Dobbs show?
Just be sure to mention all this banality is also cross posted on your blog. Wouldn’t want this “effort” to be wasted.
One last thing before I go live my life. Anybody who thinks “the left” is abandoning Obama as fast as they can because of racism is a fucking idiot. No words to mince here, you are dumb dumb dumb.
cleek
@Lysana:
but mind reading nearly always is.
MattMinus
I’d never heard Chocolate Carter before, but I think it’s kind of funny. I guess I’m a racist.
And wasn’t “Preznint give me turkee” a meme from the Buh years. I guess progressives were racist against him too.
Is it racist to think Angry Black Lady is a fucking retard?
rickstersherpa
Like a lot of folks in politics professionally, whatever ideals they start out with, people like Adam Green become grifters, like their counterparts on the right (think of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Richard Viguerire, the Rovester himself — all of whom have made large fortunes by being political celebrities). Really, it would be more productive if liberals and progressives could figure out why the over 65 vote went from 50/50 Democrat/Republican to 40/60 in this last cycle.
It is good to remember, if you go back and actually read the history, that “liberals and progressives” were usually unhappy with FDR, they actually ran a 3rd party against Truman (Henry Wallace), they were unhappy with JFK (who really was not much of a liberal, but was rather a center-left pragmatist, somewhat like our current guy), they were (justifiably over Vietnam) furious over LBJ (who also was tragically the most liberal on economic and social justice issues), they were constantly disgruntled with Jimmy Carter and urged Ted Kennedy to primary him (even though when Roger Mudd asked him why he would be running, he could not answer the question), and finally they constantly sniping at Bill Clinton.
If we liberals and progressives want to see our agenda advanced, it might be a good idea for us to go out and convince the casaual, not that involved, voter, particularly th white voter, that we have his interests at heart.
For the economics, given the 60 votes needed to get anything through the Senate, this imperfect Fiscal “stimulus” is just what the economoy needed for 2011 and 2012. And the most important thing for Obama’s reelection, and the reelection of Democrats in the Senate in 2012 will be a good economy. In this case, I hope Goldman Sachs and Calculated Risk are right, that housing market will finally bottom in 2011 and both housing and employment will accelerate through 2012.
Emma
It is amazing to me how many of the best so-called “progressives” are willing to find excuses for racists. Tells me a great deal about the reality of American politics.
matoko_chan
ABL, i love your rage, but not your despair.
scientists 94:6
cell only households 92:8
geeks 98:2
hackers 99:1
cultural elites (film, musicians, artists) 99:1
post baccs 70:30 (different than post-grads)
that poll reeks of landline bias.
1 out of 4 households in the electorate is cell only now.
asides, it is true that there are racist oligarch fuckers on both sides.
the leftside ones just tried to exploit O instead of fight him.
our media has mostly devolved to fight promoters that would sell their souls for a chance to bury their snouts in the FOXnews trough.
Obama is trying to be Lincoln, and heal the nation.
’tis a noble goal, but just like with Lincoln, not one that designed to win any him many friends. he is percieved as being too easy on the enemy, but he does not see them as the enemy. he thinks he was elected to be the president of all americans.
the Tyranny of the Stupid is the conservatives greatest weapon, but in the end it cannot beat the demographic timer and Salam-Douthat stratification.
And they know it.
That is why they never talk about it, and instead go full frontal racebaiting and IQbaiting. it is a tactic that has worked for a half century.
but the first thing one learns in classic game theory…..is strategy beats tactics in the long game.
we shall overcome.
bi lal kayfah
brendancalling
it’s pretty SOP to make the background behind “the enemy” darker, as has bn done in ads against Kerry, McCain, Palin, and more for decades.
I’ll agree that the “gangsta” stuff is weak-ass cornball shit, but “Preznint” is a word that’s been used for Bush since day one. I’m not gonna get outraged about that.
What I’m outraged about is a tax cut for the rich, undermining social security, and the rest. I am tired of a president who ran as a progressive and turns out to have been a blue dog or worse.
brantl
Okay, this is just oversensitivity. Tell me that you can’t find some picture, somewhere, that makes Obama look blacker than other pictures. If you can’t, then you can’t draw these absolute conclusions from a picture, put both ideas and words in other people’s mouths, and beat them up for it. Period.
gogol's wife
I am depressed and demoralized by the unconscionable treatment of President Obama, and as a white person I am ashamed. He has worked tirelessly to bring about important changes, against Herculean odds, and no one will give him a break. My husband and I have discussed it again and again and we can only conclude it’s because he’s African American. He wouldn’t be treated with this kind of disrespect by left and right if he were white. (And don’t bring up Bill Clinton — there was never anything like this against him, even when he pulled that stupid trick with the blow job.) I had to laugh when I saw Paul Krugman’s name among those being considered for the progressive presidential candidate. Anyone who thinks that Paul Krugman would leave his cushy Princeton office to lift a finger for anyone but himself should have his head examined. Obama could have had any soft, well-paying job you can name, but he chose to become president and work his tail off for the country. As a Christian, I’m also demoralized that his true Christianity — where you don’t talk about it, you just live it — is not recognized. I didn’t vote for a Bush-style bully-boy, I voted for exactly what I got. Whatever differences I have with some of his policies are trivial compared to what President Palin is going to be like (thanks for that, Paul). My consolation is that I think people like him, people of QUIET strength and determination, do prevail in the end. And I don’t get the sense that he is losing it the way I am.
tomvox1
While I’m not sure I see the racism inherent in this particular example, the vitriol by some on the Left directed at Obama defies rational explanation. I cannot get my head around it. Is it just butthurt from former Hillary supporters? I guess that is not completely without precedent if we go back to scarring, self-destructive Dem primaries like 1968 and 1980. But the near-instant conversion of that disappointment into “He’s Worse Than Bush by a Power of 100!” and genuine hatred of the man by a statistically insignificant but hyper-vocal sliver of what is ostensibly the progressive edge of American politics is genuinely baffling. Sure, some of it comes from PUMA types who are not really progressive at all. And some of the bitching comes from uber-idealists who wouldn’t understand how government really works after a 4-year course at Georgetown followed by an internship with the ghost of LBJ. But the hardcore purity police are definitely flirting with some other motivations for their real, true hatred for a man who is probably genuinely more decent than nearly all of us. Even if they don’t understand the source of their animus and even if they can justify it with a litany of examples where Obama has let them down (some certainly justified), to essentially quit the process and stop trying to work with what well may be the last Democratic administration for the foreseeable future of it fails by just out and out calling Obama a traitor to everything you believe in…well that is genuinely strange and normal passionate political differences don’t really explain it fully.
Carter just made his opponents on the Left apathetic to him and yearn for the more romantic, dynamic leadership of their youth. Obama brings out something much more angry and mean in his opponents on the Left. All other excuses for it being willingly considered, might not racism, even subliminal in form, factor in?
Anya
@emdee: Then explain why they picked the most unflattering picture of Obama (the middle pic). This is what that great progressive Rush Limbaugh said about the picture when it was posted on (where else Drudge):
Adam Green and his merry progressive chose that particular pictue for the same reason that Drudge posted it. Any other conclusion is just a blatant refusal to accept reality.
Omnes Omnibus
@gibsojj: Wow, that is possibly the stupidest thing posted on a thread full to the brim with stupid.
cat48
@stuckinred:
Of course they do because Joe & Mika’s new NO LABELS Party Starts on Dec 13th & It’s Centrists & Awesome Party going to elect Bloomberg!! He’s trolling for dissatisfied, disaffected Liberals. So there you go…..Obummer is worse Daily! The last month they’ve sounded JUST LIKE “progressives” He’s weak, a pussy, a wimp, a wuss, feckless, Hillary’s got bigger balls, o but wait, a new one today a fuckin EUNUCH wins the thread. The Right appreciates you guys!
cleek
this assertion is nothing short of bullshit.
Nick
@chaseyourtail:
there was no depressed turnout
Suck It Up!
This is why Rahm called a group of progressives that wanted to run ads against blue dogs, “fucking retarded”. I wouldn’t have used those words myself but it points out how ridiculous their strategy was. We ALL need to be attacking Republicans instead of giving them a free pass like the public did in the last election. We ALL should be blowing up their phones, jamming their fax machines, and filling up their e-mail boxes.
Lee from NC
Look, I can only speak for myself. My anger at Obama is not because he’s black. I’m mad at him for a LOT of things. But mostly that he doesn’t seem to fight. In fact, he often seems to give the bully his lunch money before the bully has even asked for it (pay freeze, single-payer, etc).
If I say blacks support Obama because he’s black, that’s racist (and I would agree that it’s racist). But somehow ABL can accuse white people of racism because they no longer support Obama, yet that’s somehow not racist?
As for those polls, where were all those people on election day? Don’t give me midterm, blah blah. The last midterm (2006) saw Democrats take control of Congress. Yet this midterm they took an historically bad beating. People may overall approve of Obama’s performance. The better question is, why didn’t they vote as they did in similar numbers to the past midterm election? Are they supportive of him enough to vote again in 2012? Maybe they’re just mad at Democrats in general, but still like Obama in particular. Will that be enough to get him across the finish line in 2012? I don’t know.
There are many reasons to be very disappointed in Obama. Being pissed at him is not, by itself, racist. And that’s what ABL is doing here.
In general, though, I don’t particularly support a primary against Obama either. But I certainly understand why others do and I really don’t think it’s racist.
will
@46
You make it sound like black people all share the same politics and will automaticly vote with Obama because they share the same skin color. Then you accuse everyone else of being racist? WTF?
Suck It Up!
@rickstersherpa:
There ya go. Personally, I think its that Republicans scared old people into thinking that Obama was going to cut medicare – he did, but it waste – and in their heads they think he’s cutting their benefits/services.
cat48
@gogol’s wife:
I feel this way too. I’m just going to have to give up my online activities plus cable. Their everywhere, Progs screaming about Obama, with all the variations of “Weak” which he’s not. I’m just afraid someone will harm him since threats are up 400% from Bush. His little girls need him.
Anya
@Lee from NC:
Obama was not on the ballot!
kay
@Suck It Up!:
People love Medicare and they’re scared. I don’t think it was any more complicated than that. They came out in droves to protect what they have. It doesn’t help that every single one of our political and policy questions is discussed using the language of scarcity and fear.
“There’s NOT ENOUGH HEALTHCARE TO GO AROUND!” It’s fucking insane. Why do we talk like this? Of course we make poor decisions. We’re all flat-out terrified, and no one trusts anyone else.
glasnost
Seconding this:
No shit…..can’t believe all this hyperventilating and clutching of pearls over a single unconfirmed assumption about a single ad.
Those racists at Adobe were really being sneaky when they made that Brightness slider. You can tell how racist they were because they didn’t call it the Darkness slider!
Jesus people….get a grip.
There’s a serious loss of perspective at work here. And, honestly, – and this does not make me a racist – even if this ad was made darker to make obama look physically bad, I don’t care. This is a standard trick done on people of all shapes and colors – messing with photos to make them look uglier and more threatening. The specific methodology may be different here to take advantage of Obama’s dark skin, but the net result is the same for everyone.
We need better vocabulary on the internet to distinguish between ‘not-nice thing done to a member of minority group X that someone else can construe or perceive as resembling some other genuinely racist act in some way’ and ‘racism’.
Carol
@gibsojj: Hispanics are pretty much on the same page economically, and BTW, black people are located pretty strategically as well. Think about several states that needed the votes of Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, and for that matter, Virginia and California.
It’s easy to screech about being a sellout if you are an independently funded (well-funded) blogger, or a tv pundit that recieves pundit money. What about the millions who would have been living in their car during the winter if this deal wasn’t made? Or the millions already on the edge who would have been faced with higher withholding and smaller paycheck next year? Can we really afford to have people lose an extra 3000 a year and get nothing in return?
lacp
Show me a Democratic politician – progressive, Blue Dog, neo-Nazi, whatevs – who would primary the President, and I’ll show you a moron. Not only would that destroy the Democratic Party (which might actually be the point of such a move), but it would also destroy such a politician’s career. The only person who got away with that in recent years that I recall was Ted Kennedy, and the only reason he didn’t wind up in political Siberia was ’cause his family owns Massachussetts.
liberal
@NobodySpecial:
This:
That was exactly my thought. What kind of bullshit sampling technique did ABL come up with to conclude that progressives who whine about Obama, like myself, are using racist techniques to do so?
Exactly. Well said.
cleek
@lacp:
i’m sure someone will try it. and they’ll fail spectacularly. and their failure will be seen by the dim-witted as CLEAR PROOF of an insidious conspiracy by the Chicago Machine to keep TRUE PROGRESSIVES down !
and from their bullshit, there a whole new crop of lunatics will bloom.
@glasnost:
10^6x this.
John W.
Primary Obama, and you get a year (if not 5-10 years) of this.
liberal
@tomvox1:
LOL! Talk about proving Glenn Greenwald’s point about worshiping Dear Leader.
Nick
@lacp:
I’m looking forward to the Evan Bayh challenge from the right.
lacp
@Nick: I think with Evan Bayh we can go straight to moron without detouring to primary challenge.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Is it ever ok to darken a picture of Obama?
edit: clarity
Suck It Up!
I don’t think some of you here get it. No one is telling you you can’t criticize the president. No one is saying every criticism of the president is based on racism.
What is going on is that some of the criticism that is seen on tv, on the blogs and in the comment threads involve a lot of stereotyping and laced with racism: ‘Maher saying he thought we were getting someone who was gangsta. We wanted Suge Knight and we got Wayne brady’ – oh yeah that’s hilarious. wayne brady has been joked on for acting white and since obama ain’t a real black man (gangsta) like suge then he must be wayne brady.
When we’re not hearing that garbage, we hear him being called a pussy, girlie man, or Michael Moore telling him to take off the “pink tutu” or saying Pelosi/Hillary has more balls than Obama. I’m sorry, is it ok to make sexist and homophobic jokes if you’re a liberal?
Then I see comments that creep into right wing territory like saying he’s stupid, ridiculing the schools he went to when once upon a time it was a source of pride, or criticizing him for dumb shit like where he was when congress was working out the tax deal.
This post needs to be taken seriously. The AA community is paying attention to what’s being said about Obama. What they see is one of their own being torn down in a nasty way every day. They see one of their own being taken down for not fixing in two years what the white man has been slowly destroying for decades. Obama has racked up quite a list of accomplishments, enough for Rachel Maddow to point out that its the most since Johnson and we’re not supposed to get suspicious when we here calls for him to resign or to get a primary and the list of alternatives is a bunch of white guys no one has ever heard of? And no I don’t care if some black guy on HuffPo called for a primary also. Michael Steele is a Republican, doesn’t mean the Republican party is not racist. Stupid comes in all colors ya know.
The left is always saying their complaints are being dismissed, that no one is listening to the base. Well, AA’s are a very important part of the base and our complaints of racism are being dismissed. So even if you don’t see racism in that ad, we see it in the criticism being thrown at him, and we hear it on TV. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve had the left’s racism issue in my head long before the left started attacking Obama.
Lisa
I have become less and less interested in internet progressives. I still work for worthy progressive causes, and the great people I work with face to face keep me coming back to the base of the Democratic Party. But I am totally over the “superstar” progressives of the internets. They get popular and turn into total fuckers (who may or may not be bigots) in love with seeing themselves on teevee.
I am retreating to Wonkette and Gawker. At least I can laugh to keep from crying. Screw the rest of you assholes.
liberal
@Suck It Up!:
It’s not fucking retarded; it depends on the Blue Dog.
Take Ben Nelson (NE), for example. Am for Dem Action has his score as quite a bit more liberal than any Rethug in the Senate, including the Senators from Maine.
OTOH, the scores of the BDs in the House varied widely. Some guys were at about 60%; depending on the district, you could quite reasonably argue “that’s as good as you’re going to get.” One guy, though, was at 20% or so. That’s better than the 0% some Rethugs garner, but not by much.
J
@Angry Black Lady: Your formatting is always terrible. As is your bold, CAPITAL, italics laden ranting. Give it a rest. Or at least learn how to use the “click to read more” feature and spare the main page of line-after-line of your crappy, demented and overcoded prose.
liberal
@gogol’s wife:
Yes, of course. If Obama were white, I’d be entirely fine with him appointing Rubin and Summers. /snark.
liberal
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Yep, Congress forced Obama to appoint Geithner and Summers. That really pissed me off, too.
Berto
coward:no
bought and paid for corporatist: yes indeedy
The Democratic Party is dead. Shot to death in a dark alley, gangland-style by Clinton and the DLC.
Lisa
Oh and also, I am tired of the immature fuckers who think they are the guy from “V is for Vendetta” slamming anyone who has the nerve to like an elected politician. Apparently, for these fucking dorks, it is totally passe to like a politician once he or she gets elected. You are some kind of “Robot fo’ da’ Man” if you continue to even semi-support someone after they get elected. It is much cooler to pine for the election of some obscure jackass who has never been heard of outside of Pacifica Radio.
Ugh. Tired of hearing “Obot” “Dear Leader” “Worshipper” etc. I am positive that if Hillary Clinton had won, she would by now have been an evil, castrating bitch with zombie-like supporters who were all brownshirted nazis. Because these people who sit around playing with themselves and calling people “mindless followers” do that to EVERYONE who stumbles into the majority. Being in power or having a majority automatically makes you evil and makes your intentions bad – because these posers (who probably have awesome, high paying jobs and have never had to struggle for a fucking thing) consider themselves outsiders and “fighers for the underdog (Just don’t touch me, icky brown/poor person….but I am totally fighting for you. Really…didnt you see me on dylan ratigan? I am so rad! Stop being an Obot!” Just shut up and let me tell you what to think! Because I am totally smarter than you, with your worshippy and stupid ways.
liberal
@brendancalling:
In defense of Obama, he never ran as a progressive. His campaign revolved around abstract, meaningless things like “hope”. Anyone who was interested in his progressive bona fides could have consulted Senate voting scorecards, which showed he was pretty much like Hillary, and not a true Senate liberal. (Despite all that, I favored him over Hillary, since H seemed like a weathervane, and Obama seemed perhaps marginally better on things like Iraq.)
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
and you voted for obama?
Suck It Up!
So if the left doesn’t want to talk about the R-word, I think ya’ll need to have a serious discussion about your tendency to self-destruct.
You ask when is the president going to see that Republicans are out to destroy him (a stupid question by the way) but I want to ask why do you guys keep using the same tactics to get attention from the party? Running ads against the blue dogs, primary a blue dog with a “progressive” in a blood red state where you have no roots, getting behind pols who are so obviously conservative and then cry betrayal when you see how they vote, dismissing everything that the party has accomplished in the past two years because it wasn’t “enough” (no kidding, its congress), never taking the fight to republicans and choosing to tear down members of your own party instead. I mean, it just boggles the mind to hear that Kucinich was asked to give back donations because he voted for HCR or Jane Hamsher suggesting that Sanders get a primary because of his yes vote. How is the party supposed to take you seriously when you do shit like that?
liberal
@Lisa:
If you don’t think it was reasonable to (for example) attack Obama for appointing Geithner and Summers, you’re a fool.
chopper
@LTMidnight:
don’t forget jewish immigrants escaping the holocaust. oy gevult.
Suck It Up!
@Lisa:
Oh no, its okay to like an elected official. See Grayson, Feingold, etc. Its not okay once that elected official becomes well liked by the mainstream, when they start getting shit done, or when they get elected to the highest post in the land. basically once that pol has “arrived” it is no longer cool to like that elected official.
Berto
Great. Obama is now being defended as “not worse than Bush”.
It’s a kabuki, folks. The Dems are in the same corporate pocket as the GOP.
6 months of hearing how the deficit is the worst thing in the history of the nation. Then a tax break extension, which will increase the deficit. The politicians are so in the bag, the corporate-rich don’t even have to try anymore.
Suck It Up!
@Lisa:
Gawkers commenters are hilarious.
Lisa
No, I don’t like a LOT of the shit Obama has done. I don’t make excuses for it. But I am tired of being called an “Obot” because I would likely vote for Obama if the election were held today. Jesus it is not zero sum you fucking nerds. You can actually disagree and be angry about things without descending to “I hate him hate him hate him hate him so much (foot stomp foot stomp)”.
Okay well SOME people can do that. Clearly many people are not capable of that. Many of them like to have internethissies here and on Salon.
Suck It Up!
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
why would you need to darken a pic of Obama?
JMC in the ATL
The amount of unexamined white privilege in this thread is pretty astounding. It’s like 2nd wave feminism writ small.
A pretty good rule of thumb, when a member of a less-privileged group tells you something is out of whack, is a) don’t go for the “I don’t like your tone” response or one of it’s multitude of variants, and b) approach the situation from the perspective that the person’s life experiences lead them to see the world differently, not incorrectly, and c) don’t show your ass by making excuses for bad behavior.
There is a direct line from defending “hard working white people” to the PUMAs to “he’s an inadequate black man” to this round of BS.
Berto
Re; Obama-Hillary
You couldn’t slide a piece of tissue-paper between them. Is there really someone out there that thinks Hillary wouldn’t be running interference for the corporate overlords the way Obama has?
Suck It Up!
I don’t think some of you here get it. No one is telling you you can’t criticize the president. No one is saying every criticism of the president is based on racism.
What is going on is that some of the criticism that is seen on tv, on the blogs and in the comment threads involve a lot of stereotyping and laced with racism: ‘Maher saying he thought we were getting someone who was gangsta. We wanted Suge Knight and we got Wayne brady’ – oh yeah that’s hilarious. wayne brady has been joked on for acting white and since obama ain’t a real black man (gangsta) like suge then he must be wayne brady.
When we’re not hearing that garbage, we hear him being called a pussy, girlie man, or Michael Moore telling him to take off the “pink tutu” or saying Pelosi/Hillary has more balls than Obama. I’m sorry, is it ok to make sexist and homophobic jokes if you’re a liberal?
Then I see comments that creep into right wing territory like saying he’s stupid, ridiculing the schools he went to when once upon a time it was a source of pride, or criticizing him for dumb shit like where he was when congress was working out the tax deal.
This post needs to be taken seriously. The AA community is paying attention to what’s being said about Obama. What they see is one of their own being torn down in a nasty way every day. They see one of their own being taken down for not fixing in two years what the white man has been slowly destroying for decades. Obama has racked up quite a list of accomplishments, enough for Rachel Maddow to point out that its the most since Johnson and we’re not supposed to get suspicious when we here calls for him to resign or to get a primary and the list of alternatives is a bunch of white guys no one has ever heard of? And no I don’t care if some black guy on HuffPo called for a primary also. Michael Steele is a Republican, doesn’t mean the Republican party is not racist. Stupid comes in all colors ya know.
The left is always saying their complaints are being dismissed, that no one is listening to the base. Well, AA’s are a very important part of the base and our complaints of racism are being dismissed. So even if you don’t see racism in that ad, we see it in the criticism being thrown at him, and we hear it on TV. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve had the left’s racism issue in my head long before the left started attacking Obama.
I’ve said my piece and I won’t say anymore. Obviously the left is not ready to discuss its own issues with race. They’ll talk about it endlessly though when the same bullshit comes from the right.
chopper
@Lisa:
political version of hipsters. they have to like the underground band you’ve never heard of. once you sell more than 1000 records you’re dead to them.
Suck It Up!
@chopper:
A most recent example is Nate Silver. I didn’t want to hear his predictions either (denial) but the second he went over to the NYT, he was no longer cool and people didn’t waste time calling him a sell out.
Suck It Up!
Why is post in moderation? come on, man.
Lisa
@chopper: Exactly.
@Suck It Up!: OMG that is true.
It is totally okay for the poutrager to have a rad job making a bajillion dollars at Google or wherever they work – so that they can have lots of leisure time to get on their MacBook Air and whine about everyone else being sellouts. Motherfucker, thy name is irony.
FormerSwingVoter
I am so fucking sick of this bullshit from the firebaggers.
Stop blindly accepting the Republican narrative! They’re the ones who’ve been pushing the “Obama is weak” and “scary black man” bullshit since day one! PROTIP: If you’re repeating something that was said on Fox News, you’re wrong.
rapido
So, let’s concede that the ad was photoshopped and that it was done for some sort of racist dog-whistle reason – which I don’t agree with but let’s. And let’s concede that there are a lot of people out there who are first and foremost disappointed in Obama’s skin color and then support a primary for ostensible, but false, policy reasons – which I do believe is the case (hillbuzz?).
Why should my disappointment in Obama’s policies and efforts be conflated with racism again? When I arrive at the conclusion that he is insufficiently aggressive, assertive, and too quick to compromise, notwithstanding the necessity in some cases to do so because of a strongly organized, one-voiced, centralized opposing party, and that this attitude of concession partly leads to watered down or non-existent policy changes, how is that racist?
I will campaign for him the next time around, and I will be over-joyed if he is re-elected. But I’m not going to be quiet for some kind of identity based bs that you seem to be pushing, particularly in your threats to withdraw from the political process as a black voter bloc, if people continue to criticize or call to primary the man.
And your warning that you won’t participate in comments is a great indicator of the lack of thought in your post, and your anticipation that you won’t be able to support your assertions. It’s also pretty fucking lame.
DS
Perhaps actually directing some energy to pointing out that the Republicans would rather have people hungry and dying on the street than pay out social benefits is a better use of energy than comparing the tone of Obama’s skin in an add that nobody has seen is a better use of one’s energy
brendancalling
@liberal:
oh really? he never ran as a progressive?
and here he is again:
Coulda fooled me. Oh wait, HE DID!!
cleek
@Suck It Up!:
because using darkened, contrast-and-saturation-reduced images is the standard way to depict evil politicians in political ads. has been for decades. it’s not racist.
Corey
You know, I always laughed at Republicans when they’d claim that any criticism of Obama was met with cries of “RAACCISSTT”. And they’re still mostly full of shit. But this awful post makes their claims a little more plausible.
Did they really let you graduate from law school? I mean, the basic conceit of this post is, if you think Obama’s a weak, ineffectual milquetoast moderate, just like every single other national Democrat of the past 25 years, you’re…racist?
Alex
If racism can be found in background lighting, the word has lost its meaning. If there is any further evidence that ABL should no longer post on this blog, this is it. Never has a purer exhibition of sheer incompetence been demonstrated.
beergoggles
ABL, If you applied these same standard to Obama wrt to the gays, he would qualify as a professional homophobe.
plasticgoat
Not touching the comment section with a ten foot pole. Nice to see you have the courage of your convictions and all that. Drive by posts, how delicious.
Corey
Also, you sound like David Broder up there, bitching about “the Left”.
El Tiburon
I don’t mind the anger, I have a lot of it myself, especially on how Obama is doing.
But ABL seems to be driven by nothing but anger to the point she can’t see straight. Therefore her posts become about HER and her anger and not the message.
Is there racism on the left? There will always be some kind of divide between races and religions and genders. It is simply inescapable.
But to claim that progressives have jumped some kind of racist-shark is insane. It’s probably better to simply ignore ABL’s posts, because as the old adage goes: argue with the town fool and nobody will know the difference.
El Tiburon
@Alex:
I’m beginning to agree.
Earl Butz
Wow, so…a lot of you DON’T see any racism here?
Words fail me.
brendancalling
oliver willis is a racist I guess.
The more i think about this post, the sillier i think it is. Political campaigns have darkened the image of the opponent for decades: see here, for one example, and here, for just two examples, and also here. While I want to be sympathetic to ABL’s point of view, especially in light of truly racist imagery like Time Magazine’s infamous OJ Simpson ad, I don’t see the same thing in the PCCC’s ad, not in light of similar ads against all manner of white people.
sorry, one does not have to be a racist to be angry at Obama. These tax cuts for the rich are going to hurt low-income people of all colors by blowing a significant hole in the budget. Worse, we’ve seen what happens when a democrat caves to the GOP: they demand more and more and more.
i have given up on Obama, and not one of the reasons has anything to do with his race.
jman
IMHO the image of BHO looks to be the same with the blue background as with the black background in the video. The image is supposed to show the Fighting Obama, what we want him to be and do. You are right to call out race baiting but I don’t see race baiting in the color balance comparing the images in the video with the call for a primary challenge.
Are you sure you aren’t upset because of the call for a primary challenge? Don’t abandon Obama just because of a primary challenge! Stay and fight and vote. The debate is worth having. You can’t bully people into silence with threats and intimidation and you will never win a debate by indignantly storming off in a huff. You are a lawyer, you are supposed to be good at this kind of stuff.
cleek
@Earl Butz:
if only they could have failed ABL
Cat
@tomvox1:
I wasn’t going to comment in this thread, but this right here is some BS.
A decent person doesn’t order drone strikes that have a 10:1 civilian to alleged terrorist death ratio.
Lisa
Sorry Corey, but no one ever said that white, hipsterish “progressives” were NOT racist.
And no, no one thinks that critique of Obama is racist. Just darkening his face to look like a really scary blackity black blackass motherfucker is racist.
Take your meds and then come back and reread the post.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s your fault you saw FDR in Obama, because he never cast himself in that way. Don’t blame the man for not being what he never claimed to be.
Lisa
@Cat: I am all for ending the “War on the Arabs and Other Swarthy, Muslims”. But I guarantee you that the Good White People of America (liberal and otherwise) will have us back there bombing the swarthy browns the minute a bomb goes off on a bus or a plane. And one will. Because terrorism hasn’t gone away. They will hit us again, and really hard because we REALLY fucked them over this time. Not just in principle with our shitty support of that crappy hell-hole terror-state called Israel. This time, we bombed, tortured, kidnapped, and generally fucked a lot of people up for a whole decade.
But I will bet good money that people like Jane Hamsher and all the other “concerned” progressives will be pooping their pants and calling for blood after the next terrorist blows some fucking mall to pieces. Then maybe three years into the next pointless, bloody, revenge-war they will suddenly climb out of their Depends and start mumbling about illegal wars and pretending they were always concerned about our 9-11 revenge wars. I never supported Afghanistan or the first or second Iraq wars. Because I don’t trust any of you or your motives. White progressives love bombing people just as much as white conservatives. The conservatives are out front, while the progressives pretend to be concerned about war when it is convenient and they feel safe.
Cat
@Lisa:
GAH.
Why is a black person who has really dark black skin scary? Am I really missing it?
Or is it that people assume other people find black people with dark black skin scary?
brendancalling
@Lisa:
that’s hilarious. can I have some of your LSD? i want to live in YOUR world.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
And just a word to all those people saying they don’t see racism in this ad. Here’s a PROTIP: when a person tells you something is racist, the best way to respond is to take them at their word and try to figure out why you didn’t see it that way before. Telling a person who deals with racism on a daily basis–especially when you’re not a member of a minority group–that they’re mistaken and just being silly is beyond stupid. Instead of getting all defensive, maybe, just maybe, you can consider that you are the wrong one here and that maybe you can get a little enlightenment on the subject.
Admiral_Komack
@gogol’s wife:
Thank you.
Lisa
Yes, that is why your people always darken black skin to ring your fellow’s race bells.
Go dig up Lee Atwater’s stinking corpse. He will tell you how awesome it works.
Lisa
Brian that trait of denying racism – actually getting in a minority’s face and saying “you are not seeing what you are seeing so shut the fuck up and listen to ME because I know better than you” is an American thing. Seriously, conversations about race rarely go in that direction anywhere else in the world. This country is the epicenter of assholery and white – privilege – denying. WTF with the overstrike?
Lisa
Shorter “this thread“
Lisa
@brendancalling: You would shit your pants and suck your thumb in a corner living one day as a woman/woman of color, doughboy.
NobodySpecial
@FormerSwingVoter:
Would you REALLY like to push that line? Okay.
This sounds a lot like…
this.
ABL can quit using Gingrichian talking points just any old time she gets tired of pimping her blog out for hits.
Cat
@Lisa:
You should probably rethink those sentences:
A) I’m not white.
B) Painting white American’s as war Mongers who can’t be trusted is probably not what you meant.
C) There were plenty of progressives against bombing the color of their skin is irrelevant.
trouc
Totally ridiculous post and comment thread… I voted for Obama in the primary and the general and defended him for the first year against charges that he wasn’t liberal enough… but the man just hasn’t come through.
This is going to be a sensitive issue, and I understand that… so stop bomb throwing and try to engage with people. There’s nothing more likely to get white people riled up than being called racist… but sure, a lot of the time you’ve gotta do it. Here though, you’ve not really made any sort of argument as to why this would be popping up right now, just compiled a couple tenuous examples. You don’t even have the makings of a theory, really. Given this, don’t be surprised when people get their backs up.
I’ll admit that I’d vote for a credible challenger in a primary held today… but that’s no different than if Hillary was president and enacting all these miserable policies. I have a list of priorities, they’ve been my priorities since before the election, and Obama has not delivered. If you have a different set of priorities, if you want different things from him, great… but wanting to see Gitmo shut down, wanting to see higher taxes on the rich, wanting to see the dismantling of the surveillance state… these are reasonable desires and I have a right to be disappointed at the direction he’s taking.
NobodySpecial
@Lisa:
Or you could ask blacks on the street about the difference between ‘high yellows’ and ‘redbones’ or some such. There’s a lot of hating on dark skinned blacks in the black community too, don’t let Lisa fool you on that one.
brendancalling
@Lisa:
thanks for the racist insults, racist. you don’t know ANYTHING about me, where i live, who my neighbors are or where i work.
you don’t know fucking squat about me, and you come off this this racist “doughboy” shit? if anyone’s proving their racist bonafides here, it’s you, accusing white people of wanting to bomb people into the stone age (i guess colin powell and barack obama are white people now?).
Lisa, YOU are a racist. And that’s really really fucking ugly.
The Raven
I don’t think there’s any need to blacken Obama. He has self-destructed. & when, in 2012, he is lambasted by the radical right for exploding the deficit for the sake of the poor (which in radical-right speak means black) they will be blaming blacks.
Will you blame liberal racism then?
Cat
@Lisa:
So you are saying racists aren’t scared by black people, just black people with dark skin? This is news to me.
cleek
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
that’s a racist statement.
(let me know when you’ve figured out why you “didn’t see it that way before”)
Lisa
Brendan, yes…I love the Self Righteous Privileged Guy Who is Outraged about the Prejudice of the Coloreds! It’s just fucking ulgy, dude. Like totally. Really.
WyldPirate
@Alex:
Well, the logic fail, lack of integrity, hurling of false accusations from ABL on her last post was pretty spectacular as well, but this post might top the last one in those categories.
Good to see that some are finally pulling the blinders of and seeing how hyperbolic and poorly thought out ABLs rants are.
I’m sure some of her cavalry will soon arrive to call me a racist for criticizing ABL, because as has become quite clear from some of her defenders (who happen to be the most virulent Obama defenders here also), one can’t criticize a black person’s thoughts or actions without being a racist.
Whitey just can’t call bullshit on sloppy thought and sloppy argumentation when the person being criticized is black. Or lack of leadership, and capitulation on key issues and getting played by the GOP, from a black president either.
chopper
@brendancalling:
despite her harsh-ass tone, i for one am willing to bet that you would indeed probably “shit your pants and suck your thumb in a corner living one day as a woman of color”.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
lol, irony. the histrionic calling others histrionic. maybe if she used more anal rape analogies?
brendancalling
@Lisa:
like i said, you don’t know anything about me. Not one thing.
so take your “privileged” racist shit and stuff it up your racist ass.
i’m sure you think all white people look the same. we do, too. we’re all the same.
i’m sorry you’re so filled with hatred and racism. You should look in the mirror sometime, because you’re what a racist looks like.
lacp
Well, this has been quite the charming virtual lovefest, hasn’t it? Nothing quite like a gaggle of blawging Democrats to show the true spirit of solidarity.
Lisa
Maybe he will be toast. But so will liberalism. It is self-destructing right now. Will you blame that on Obama? Probably. But he is just the mast of the sinking ship. The last thing we see as a movement runs aground and sinks into the shallows. Liberals don’t even believe strongly enough in liberalism to do any more than post angry shit on the internet and maybe send some money to someone via PayPal (you are damn near considered Rosa Parks if you actually took time from your busy calendar to make a few calls during elections – that is how far we have wandered from our forefathers who sacrificed life and limb for equality).
Once upon a time, blacks, latinos, women, and working class white people had a common cause of equality. When the “New Democrats” started trying to convert liberalism into some theoretical movement more comfortable for super-educated white collar types, it lost it’s mojo.
The real death knell of liberalism is their failure to keep the support the working guy. To TRULY rally the unions, the trade coalitions, and other labor groups. If you don’t have the imagination and support working person, you don’t have a damn thing but a shitty bunch of blogs populated by privileged assholes.
cleek
@Lisa:
when was that ?
chopper
@brendancalling:
man, she struck a nerve. there was one sentence there where you didn’t include the word ‘racist’ tho.
WyldPirate
@chopper:
ABL can’t even interpret an analogy, much less make one.
She doesn’t seem capable of making any sort of logical, persuasive argument either. It amazes me that she was able to get through law school and I wonder what sort of law she practices.
Nice drive by sniping, though, chopper. At least you are consistent with your only contribution here.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
lol, ‘drive by sniping’. you get more ironic every passing day. at least you’re consistent with your complete buffoonery.
El Cid
@Lisa:
Once upon a time there were mass and extensive and well-organized and quite disciplined movements which could both create and channel these sorts of groups who simply cannot be expected to organize spontaneously to promote their group interests.
There were labor unions with wide and deep reach. There were active and strong soshullist movements (not all of which were identified with that particular political party). There were strong black labor and regional and political and church organizations which had sway even over President Roosevelt himself (i.e., A. Phillip Randolph simply forcing FDR to bring equal rights of race into defense hiring, without any negotiation or pleas).
There is basically little to no continuation of that. An all-out war was conducted against labor union power since the late 1960s, not just by the destruction of labor protections but by the mass move to outsourcing to break the ability of labor unions to represent workers in any long-term fashion.
What we’re left with are often valiant but weak and shallow campaigns to use the internet to at best create temporary connections at the time of election campaigns. Organizations which seem like they may begin to be a bit farther and deeper reaching, such as DFA–>OFA are soon converted into organizations existing only to promote votes for the next election.
Marmot
I won’t get into the divining-of-motives-via-visual-symbolism that ABL finds so compelling–that shit is for more literary types than me. It’s this bit that’s most confusing:
So is criticizing Obama out of the question, or is it just primarying? With all the CAPS LOCK and whatnot, it seems like you’re responding to more than some blog comment about wishful primaries.
Is withholding your help contingent upon a primary? Or is it the “bullshit from the left” that’s convinced you to show us how you’re going to help the left by not helping?
You’ve got a front-page spot, CAPS LOCK, gratuitous bold, a weak accusation at your own political teammates, a threat, and “many” of us are acting like know-it-alls who are keeping you from speaking? It just doesn’t follow very clearly from your premises. If you don’t mind, would you take a bit of time to edit these things?
Lisa
@chopper: LOL!
@El Cid: I agree. I know that some of our hearts are in the right place, but I still think that as a movement, progressivism is dead. The same people that kind of want the things like a social safety net, healtcare, and strong, well funded schools still pull the lever for conservatives and mumble about “taking the country back”. Nativism and authoritarianism totally trump the shit out of progressivism at the ballot box and in congress. There are SO many people who flat out supported national healthcare. So why was it SO hard to get that shit passed? Because Americans want healthcare for THEMSELVES, not for their lazy, shiftless neighbor. The idea of themselves or their family having guaranteed healthcare is AWESOME. The idea of their (undeserving) fellow having it is abhorrent. The conservatives won, because we no longer think that extending anything to our fellow is good for this nation. Thus, liberal policy is probably dead for at least a generation. Maybe more.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Fuck the “who’s a racist” shit. There are plenty of reasons to disagree with and criticize Obama over (I disagreed with him on day one about Afghanistan, because I knew that C-Plus Augustus had shit that bed with his Excellent Iraqi Adventure).
I don’t really even give a shit whether the image was intentionally darkened to make Obama look more threatening (hack!cough!OJSimpson!); if you don’t believe it was that’s fine.
I’m telling you that most African Americans are NOT going to accept that it was not intentional. And I’m telling you that most African Americans will feel personally insulted if Barack Obama gets a primary challenge. Obama (god, I’m so fucking sick of having to point this out) is: a) acting like the pragmatic centrist he always said he was, and b) doing a pretty goddamn good job considering the shit sandwich C-Plus Augustus and his merry wrecking krewe left us.
I’m telling you silly fuckers that if you want to primary Obama, GO THE FUCK AHEAD AND DO IT. It may not be “racist.” But you may rest well and truly assured that it WILL be perceived as such.
If as was mentioned above you don’t give a shit about the black vote, then you just go right ahead and win all the elections you can without it.
GOOD. LUCK. WITH. THAT.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Whenever I see words like this I know that I’m in for a monumental waste of time if I read any further. In future could you please put these words at the top of paragraph one instead of the end of paragraph two so that I won’t have wasted even that much time.
kc
First of all, that ad looks racist to me. If it wasn’t intentional, you’d think someone would have had enough senstitivity to catch it before it was published and say, “Hey, um, this looks kinda bad.”
Secondly, I am hugely disappointed in Obama (esp. after he just gave away the store on Social Security). I hope that doesn’t make anyone think I’m a racist.
chopper
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
jesus, i spit coffee at that.
emdee
@Anya:
Of course they picked unflattering pictures. That’s what you do in an attack ad, and this is definitely an attack ad even if from the left. I did not intend to comment on whether the left attacking the President was appropriate, only to comment that I don’t see enough evidence that they deliberately made him look “blacker.”
Someone else said that Boehner’s picture appears lightened, as in some light areas are almost blown-out. Without comparing it to the original, I can’t comment on that, but I can’t rule that out either. It’s possible that they adjusted the chroma on the Boehner clip so that his point about caving on taxes was not distracted by visuals of the man being himself (i.e., intensely orange). And if they did that, it’s more evidence supporting ABL’s initial reaction that Obama’s pictures were made to look “blacker.”
Again, without supporting or refuting the message but purely as media critic, the final shots would have been stronger had the President’s picture been in full, accurate color and the scary words appeared entirely to his right, with no overlap. Since they already made that mistake, they may have screwed up by darkening the President’s picture to make the words stand out, as is generally done in these ads regardless of who is being attacked.
But yes, it is an attack ad. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Lisa
You can have “productive discussions” coming out of your ass. But if only you and your fellow internet progressives are listening, it doesn’t matter a hill of beans.
It is getting all of those people out there who actually make up the electorate to change their minds about why socialist policy is not evil….why having policies that help everyone have a better quality of life is GOOD for the country rather than the conservative idea that we should all be in a economic melee where we all rip each other to shreds to get the scraps thrown down to us by the super-rich.
We pretty much failed. But that does not mean that we are not right.
Alex
I’m also coming to the slow conclusion that ABL chose her name without a scintilla of irony.
FlipYrWhig
@Lisa:
Yes, this has been hard to witness, the total unraveling of empathy, substituted with resentment. Not “I want him to get help because I would want help in the same situation” but “That mooching bastard’s getting nothing from me.” Inflamed by racial, ethnic, and religious differences. I think Obama does a pretty good job talking about common cause and being your brother’s keeper, but that whole sentiment is going dim.
lacp
@Lisa: Agree 100% that liberal policy is probably dead for a generation. And if that’s true, the whole country is probably dead – I can’t see how we’d survive a generation’s worth of conservative policies.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: I think C+ Augustus was first coined by Charles Pierce, or at least he used to use it all the time when he guested at Eric Alterman’s blog.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
isn’t that great inna ‘christian country’?
brendancalling
@chopper:
Probably. God knows life sucks for low-income black women in southwest Philly, where I live. It’s got to suck shit to worry that your son is going to get shot, or harassed by the police for nothing, or any number of shit-end-of-the-stick situations just because you’re black.
Tellya what, i’ll ask my neighbors if they think i’m a racist. They’re probably the best people to know, given that they’re all black and I’m the working-poor white guy on the block who can’t afford to keep up his house the way everyone else seems to.
In fact, i expect to see Caralyn (whose house is attached to mine) later this week: we have some squash from the garden we’ve been meaning to give her (she’s on social security primarily, and as good neighbors we like to help out when we can). If anyone’s well-placed to comment on my racism, it’s her. Over the past couple of years, we’ve worked hard to save our community’s rec center, our libraries and pools in the face of brutal cuts from our mayor.
If people like Caralin and my neighbors think i’m a racist, after having known me for nearly a decade and knowing the advocacy i’ve done on behalf of our low-income, majority African American neighborhood, I’m willing to accept that judgement. But coming from some racist asshole who’s never met me and knows nothing about me? That’s a non-starter. You might as well call me an anti-semite, which is just as ridiculous an accusation.
You know what happens when people assume, don’t you Chopper? they make an ASS out of YOU (but probably not me. I try not to make assumptions. I try to treat people fairly and give them the benefit of the doubt before i unload. Unlike Lisa the racist.)
You know why that is? BECAUSE i’m NOT a racist. When i was about 8 or so, I remember my mom chasing the woman across the street off our porch, for trying to get my best friend’s family evicted from their home for being black. Not only did my parents make sure that racism was untolerable and harshly punished when i was a kid, I used to get beaten up in the school yard for being jewish by good christian children, every fucking day. I may not know what it’s like to be a black woman, but i damn sure know what it’s like to be on the wrong end of a bigot’s fist. Those are the kind of experiences that sticks with you.
So I’m SO SO SO sorry that I can’t experience what it’s like to be a black woman. But don’t even try to tell me I’m a racist when, until you read the paragraphs above, you don’t even fucking KNOW me. Assholes.
So fuck you if you think I’m a racist. Go fucking die in a fire. My whole adult life has been marked by sticking up for people who can’t stick up for themselves, by taking low-paying jobs in human services because i want to help people, of all colors and backgrounds, who are down and out. Fuck you. fuck fuck fuck YOU.
FlipYrWhig
@kc: The payroll tax holiday has gotten kicked around a lot by people on the progressive/leftie side, though; ISTR Robert Reich talking it up a few times as a guest on Olbermann and/or Maddow. I don’t think it’s an insidious plot to kill Social Security, or, at least, I don’t remember people having been worried about that other times it’s been discussed.
MikeMc
I wouldn’t worry about a primary. This is going to offend some, but I think it needs to be said. The progressive community is fairly useless. They do a good job of fundraising, but other than that they don’t do all that much. Am I wrong? They never seem to get their canidates elected. In fact, when they inject themselves into the campaign it can harm the candidate. Remember, Ned Lamont? He takes out Leiberman in the primary. The FDL and DKOS people swarm into Conn. and freak out the squares. Leiberman cruises to victory. They’ve hated Leiberman for a very long time. Now, he’s shaping up to be one of the main forces in the repeal of DADT. They’ll hate him anyway. Also, what policies have they championed that have passed. What’s the use of the PCCC? If they can’t get their people elected and can’t get their policies enacted…what’s the point? They merely talk shit.
Certain sections of the progressive community are becoming an embarrassment. With a hazey memory and a galactically weak grip on reality. When did they get it in their heads that Pres. Obama was some wild-eyed, fire-breathing, progressive? I mean, was I not watching the same election? He’s calm, pragmatic, and thoughtful. He never tried to sell himself as anything else. This is why I like and voted for him…and will again. Still, it baffles me that some progressives hate Obama for not being what he never claimed to be.
ABL, don’t worry about these people. Barack Obama is, and will always be, the first minority elected to the highest office in our country. A feat I didn’t think I’d ever see, frankly. He saved our economy. He saved our the auto industry. He reformed our healthcare system. He’s done far more in two years than most Presidents will do in eight. No matter what happens in two years his legacy will endure.
His critics on the left major accomplishment seems to be starting a website. A website! Just consider that for a second. It’s a place where they can go and complain to other like minded yahoos about the very difficult work other, more accomplished people, do.
Marmot
@lacp: Everyone was saying liberalism was dead back in 1994, during the Republican Revolution. Then it was all “permanent Republican majority” around 2002.
Your despair does nothing to help, and it actually hurts. Buck up–it’s not as bad as all that. The Repubs will shoot themselves in the foot, like they always do.
Hugh
@plasticgoat:
I actually appreciated ABL staying out of the comments. My interpretation was she knew she threw a bomb and made space for reaction.
– ABL
That’s not a very accurate take on a lot of folks’ frustration with Obama. I read lots of progressive blogs that are far more nuanced than this statement implies when it comes to Obama. TPM, MY, EK are just a few. The ridiculous bomb-throwing blogs are not solely representative of the progressive world.
I’m certainly not for a primary challenge. But I am frustrated. Along with my frustration I also respect Obama’s motivations. He said very clearly what they were with this agreement. He didn’t want to pick a fight that would risk people not getting unemployment insurance. That comes from an empathic place, something conspicuously lacking in Bush.
Having said that I think his decision to go for the Federal pay freeze and validate the Republican talking point regarding the debt was a big mistake, and his doing this without getting anything back was another, though smaller, mistake. Terrible negotiating. It didn’t help the deficit and it took some money from people who were innocent bystanders. It sent an awful signal to his base and to the Republicans. Progressives for good or ill need Obama to show some fire from time-to-time. It drives me insane whenever I hear him talk about reaching out to Republicans, who manifestly can not be trusted.
He has an overarching political frame that drives his actions. He’s a consistent and very smart guy. I do not think he has sufficiently recognized the nature of his political foes though (or he overestimates his ability to get through to them) and therefore lets them get away with a lot of terrible stuff. If he showed a bit more drama, so to speak, things might be a little different. He waited far too long to engage the smears regarding his health care plan.
I have read many comments in Balloon Juice that suggest Obama is really beyond reproach because his base has abandoned him and the media and Republicans are just too tough. Any mistakes he makes are not really his mistakes. They’re only an example of how much his base has betrayed him or how mean the Republicans are. The truth is that Obama is shockingly bad sometimes at maintaining a line to his base. He has shown he can leave folks who fought for him feeling very left behind in his efforts to make peace with the other side, as he did when he invited that asshole Rick Warren to speak at his inauguration. It was an attempt to build a bridge. But I can tell you it felt like a punch in the stomach.
Obama is complex. So are his supporters. If someone calls for a primary challenge take it with a grain of salt. It’s mostly venting I bet. And Obama is President of the United States of America. He is allowed to be criticized even if sometimes the critiques aren’t terribly well thought out.
Nanette
@Michael:
———————–
Exactly. I am so glad you said this because I was beginning to wonder if I was just a “way out there” idealist, or something. Create positive space for Obama (or whatever politician) to move left and the public itself will demand it – and enforce it by electing people who will work toward whatever goal.
Instead, from the first, some of the most vocal “progressives” decided that the best way to move Obama in the direction they wanted was to verbally beat him like a mule. In the process, in my opinion, very much closing down any space to the left as much of the electorate pays very little attention to substance, but are mightily moved by hyperbolic rhetoric and imagery.
Mind you, I do blame Obama (and OFA, I guess) for not, apparently, being prepared to immediately transition to a grassroots, outward and community focused organization, and take advantage of the army of volunteers and people willing to be put to work doing anything to move leftish ideas forward. No doubt there were some legal issues involved, but still it left a vacuum. You could pretty much watch as doubt set in and disappointment, skittishness, so on, with some who were just raring to go and needed guidance.
This left room for “progressive” bloviators and poutragers (lol, I love that word) to move right in, start bleating about the conservative’s “Overton Window”, and convince some that the way to move that window left was to do exactly what the conservatives did to move it right – relentlessly attack and denigrate every move Democratic politicians made, most especially Obama.
By the time OFA, and other like organizations, got their act together it seemed all many wanted to do was shout.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I don’t know who originated “C-Plus Augustus,” but it’s the most damnably appropriate appellation for that… gentleman… that I’ve ever seen.
FlipYrWhig
@MikeMc:
Same thing happened with Bill Halter over Blanche Lincoln. And, before that, with the orange-hatted Deaniacs. I actually supported all of those efforts, but the track record ain’t great.
I just wish the core complaints were about policy and issues, not about “optics” and “framing” and, now, character. Yelling about how Obama is “not tough enough” is not going to get anyone any closer to a progressive position on policy. Yelling about how the right tax policy is to phase in higher taxes to fund the common good, or how unemployment payments should be a matter of simple human decency rather than a political bargaining chip, actually would put progressive ideas into circulation _while_ being a basis for criticism of Obama. “The guy sucks and is a pu$$y and he makes me sad and hopeless” isn’t really accomplishing anything. We can do that here, but doing it in the media is squandering scarce opportunity.
Rhoda
The ad is racist. I don’t think anyone can deny it while watching; it’s just hitting all the buttons and whistling Dixie to all the bigoted dogs out there IMO.
That doesn’t mean progressives angry at the President are all racists; but ABL is right when the left is using the Nixon strategy to try to cut down the support POTUS has among his base. Because that is what is happening; a deliberate campaign to divide the base and force Obama to the Left. He doesn’t have to worry about the left right now; they’re down with him. He’s got to worry only about independents and that’s the mistake PCCC is making. Instead of trying to change the minds of independents on the policy; they’re attacking uselessly their party leader.
MikeMc
@Nanette: “Mind you, I do blame Obama (and OFA, I guess) for not, apparently, being prepared to immediately transition to a grassroots, outward and community focused organization, and take advantage of the army of volunteers and people willing to be put to work doing anything to move leftish ideas forward.”
I kinda’ agree with you, but why didn’t the progressive left build the grassroots and community focused organization on their own?
yeahokay
Reposting the complete and utter nonsensical ramblings of the idiot who runs The People’s View?
Goodbye credibility.
Lisa
@Marmot: Marmot, it is not that the republicans are not awful. We KNOW they are going to fuck shit up. It is that we are not all that great. They may or may not completely implode by 2012 or whenever. But we will pick up the ball and – NOT RUN WITH IT – we will play mean-kid dodge ball and throw it at each other for a few years until the Repubs regroup and kick our asses again. Because we have a crisis of faith in liberalism right now. Maybe the “talkers and thinkers” believe enough to write interesting articles for HuffPo, Salon, FDL, etc. But the regular folks in the congregation just aren’t really THERE with us. They don’t like what Bush did to our country, but they are not willing to completely reject the Trickle-Down Faerie tale. Also, resenting other people for getting the same shit that they themselves are getting is a Great American Tradition.
brendancalling
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
by “gentleman”, I’m sure you mean “graceless, classless, warmongering turd”.
that’s what i mean when i use that word for Mr. Bush.
lacp
@Marmot: I don’t think it’s realistic to conflate “liberal” and “Democrat.” I was agreeing with Lisa’s comment that she thought liberal policy was dead for a generation. I’m not seeing a hell of a lot of liberal policy coming from anybody recently.
FlipYrWhig
@Hugh:
I’m not sure that message is for you. When he talks about Republicans, he takes a few swings. But he also talks about “reaching out” and “working together” because there are a lot of people who like that rhetoric, and like the idea of Democrats and Republicans working together, and some of them are even Democrats. Even Republicans after the “Slurpee” meeting left talking about common ground and whatnot. They wouldn’t even make gestures about that if it didn’t serve a political purpose, because, God _knows_, THEY don’t believe it.
WyldPirate
@chopper:
Actually, after some reconsideration, drive by sniping isn’t really your gig.
Instead, it seems as if you are either too fucking lazy to think of something that is longer than one sentence to post in response or you’re a frustrated comedian trying out lame-assed jokes.
In other words–you’r either lazy or one empty-headed fucker judging from your posts. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I’m just sayin’.
Whatever it is, your material, humor and analysis is weak to non-existent. But it if it gets you off–which it apparently does–drive on. Even lamebrains deserve to get off.
The Raven
“Maybe he will be toast. But so will liberalism. It is self-destructing right now.”
Not self-destruction. We lost.
What surrender terms would you suggest?
Lisa
Surrender to whom? Sometimes losing just means you get your ass up and brush yourself off. Nothing as dramatic as surrendering.
Nanette
@Allan:
Thanks! I think that painting is very powerful, not only for the scene it depicts. The imagery is powerful enough on its own – but the fact that it was painted by Rockwell, white America’s quintessential chronicler of “real Americans,” and that he put that story/image of a little black child into a white space, meant that white people of that time could see it, too.
If it had been painted by a black artist and placed in that same space, I don’t think as many white people would have had the ability to see it. If you know what I mean, which you may not because I am terrible at explaining things.
Anyway, thanks again! :)
Marmot
@Lisa: All true. Well, you’ve been doing a bit of mean-kid dodgeball yourself with casual accusations of racism, but you did say “we” will be playing thusly, so I guess you’re consistent. You’re basically right about the difficulties we face.
It’s the goddamn despair — “liberalism is dead!” That shit. Why would you bother, if that’s what you truly believe? Me, I would pack up and move if I believed that, and I’m not alone. “Dead” is forever, and an eternal defeat isn’t something you can fight against. But the fact remains that we will beat those fuckers back once again, perhaps as soon as 2012. Now pick yourself off the floor.
fasteddie9318
@Suck It Up!:
I know the chances of fishing a substantive argument out of an emo post followed by an emo comments thread are next to none, but this is a serious question: how do progressives get themselves taken seriously? Because conservatives, within the Republican Party, do all these things: they attack and primary insufficiently conservative Republicans, even in blue areas, they dismiss what their party accomplishes as not enough, etc. And conservatives are taken so seriously that a collection of nutcases like the Tea Party is given credence as a serious and sober reform movement instead of a group of asylum escapees. The Republicans in Congress are afraid of their core supporters and act accordingly, even the “liberal” ones like Presidents Snowe and Collins. Sure, some of it is only lip service, but even that lip service may serve a purpose by dragging public discourse to the right.
Meanwhile, progressives have tried going along with whatever could be gotten, voting for the lesser of two evils, big tent, triangulation, all that bullshit, and Democratic elected officials can’t get in line to piss on them fast enough or often enough. Now, they’re trying the conservative tactic, attacking insufficiently liberal Democrats and enforcing some ideological purity, and that’s failing too. What are progressives supposed to do?
fasteddie9318
@Nanette:
So you blame Obama for not creating a grassroots movement from the top down? Or not “pulling a Dick Armey,” as they say?
Mitch Guthman
@fasteddie9318: Learn the words to “O Canada”?
NobodySpecial
@fasteddie9318: Suck it up, because according to our betters, we’re not worth anything.
WyldPirate
@Nanette:
This is just silliness.
Obama had the numbers in the public to “move left” on the tax cuts He especially had them on the issue of keeping rates at 35% for the first 1 million in income.
What he didn’t have is the votes in the Senate to pass the issue.
He had the choice of saying hell no and sticking to his guns and vetoing the tax cut fix. This would have hurt people economically (unemployed and middle income). In the long run, this deal is a lose-lose for Dems and the poor and middle class.
Obama’s failure is one of leadership on the tax issue. He did not effectively push the the House or the Senate to take up the issue at the proper time. Maybe this can no longer be done, but there was a lot of dawdling–much of which is caused by the Senate and the filibustering Rethuglicans.
Obama has definitely come in at a difficult point in history. Much is broken and much is wrong. But people expect leadership and many view his leadership as being ineffective and of a capitulating nature. This is what is pissing many on the left off.
It’s not unlike what happens with big-time athletic programs, particularly in football. A coach can be a great coach, but events can happens that cause losses. The fan base eventually demands someone to be held accountable and fire the coach. Obama is the coach. He’s on the hotseat now.
Jules
This.
Word.
Whatever else lame ass thing I can say.
I love your posts ABL…..
Marmot
@lacp: I see your point. Still, I disagree. After all, health reform eventually passed, etc., etc. No, it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly liberal compared to what it fixed (well, sort-of repaired).
But I want more oomph out of you, not this “Awwww we can’t do it, we’re done, finished, used up …” stuff. That isn’t going to help, and you and I know we’ve got to be ready for the next fight.
Mitch Guthman
@FlipYrWhig: And who supported Liberman at every turn and pushed high-profile Democrats not to support the party’s candidate in the general election? Obama. Same with Lincoln. Obama backed her all the way even though she did everything she could to sink every one of his policies.
Angry Black Lady
@Bob Loblaw: that’s where you wrong. there have been people who have emailed me to thank me for bringing this to light. but what’s not productive to you isn’t productive to anyone, right?
be gone with ye.
Jules
@WyldPirate:
You mean before the Nov. election when he talked and talked and talked about it in interviews and speeches all over the country?
NMP1
It’s a white liberal lynch mob. After Obama leaves office, I would kick my own Black ass before I pull another lever for a Democrat.
Larry Bird
Photoshop racism? Right. Haven’t people been using unflatterting pictures of people they oppose in political ad’s since like forever? Didn’t the right use a hung over looking Bill Clinton picture with the big bags under his eyes all the time? So now Obama gets the same unflattering picture treatment so it’s racism? Either way the only people who would be swayed by your insinuation that he looks too dark and menacing are people with racist tendencies already. Chances are they didn’t vote for a black president in 2008 anyway so who gives a shit?
cleek
@Jules:
note the word “effectively”
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: do you enjoy putting words into people’s mouths and then arguing from that baseline?
i posted this late last night and i wasn’t about to wade into the comment section again since i was up until 3:30 the night before wading through that comment section. i’m not surprised you choose to ignore the point of my post, though.
Lisa
I don’t think we are finished. But the stuff that is doing us in right now needs to be addressed before we are handed the golden chalice again. Or, we will be doing the same stupid shit again no matter how many times we win or how handily we win.
Angry Black Lady
@Larry Bird: oh you’re right. who gives a shit. if you don’t, nobody should.
Angry Black Lady
@eco2geek: please, tell me what i should get upset about, and then i’ll be sure to write about that. i wouldn’t want to upset you with the issues that matter to me.
brendancalling
@Lisa:
“mean kid dodgeball”.
you mean like calling people you don’t even know racists?
FlipYrWhig
@fasteddie9318:
I think people need to realize that the project of rebuilding progressivism and the project of winning upcoming elections are potentially antithetical. I think there’s a feeling out there that if Democrats were more progressive, they would win more battles and win more elections. I don’t think that’s right. I think to truly rebuild progressivism, you need to grow a new crop of economic populists across the country, and train them how to win in “red states”–maybe along the lines of Bobby Kennedy touring Appalachia; and you also need to cull the herd of the pro-corporate and “Blue Dog” Democrats who make life as a Democrat so difficult. But, here’s the thing: to make the latter happen means losing _a lot_ of elections in the meantime, and watching a lot of people suffer through a lot of pain.
To me, that’s the choice: muddle through with a coalition of Democrats that includes non-progressives and get, through exasperating and slow processes, some weak-sauce version of what you want; or purge the non-progressives and get none of what you want for some unspecified-but-probably-prolonged period.
I think Republicans can do this more easily, because deep in their hearts they know that Democrats will try to keep the system functioning. I think it’s very hard for Democrats to pull that trigger and risk having the whole system collapse in a heap.
Allan
@Nanette:
This was my experience as well in northern California.
When OFA was merged with the DNC, it was probably inevitable that it would evolve into what it eventually became after that awful wasted year.
Here, the problem was that, as a blue state, all our OFA efforts here were focused on other states. Once our primary was over, everything was about phonebanking into swing states, then we adopted Nevada and many of us spent large swaths of time doing the field organizing and door knocking there.
So we got Obama elected, all our volunteers were exhausted, and almost nothing we had done had prepared them for doing at home what they had done for others, and they were pooped and just wanted to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor instead of accepting that their labor had only just begun.
Angry Black Lady
@Mitch Guthman: that you find me to be the “caricature” is a testament to your judgment. i explain on my blog where the moniker came from. you go on thinking what you want to think, though.
Lisa
Also, Marmot: I am not in despair. I am just looking realisitcally at the fact that we suck at some things: Actual hardcore rank and file belief in the power and goodness of progressive values; and messaging. You missed the part where I said “It does not mean we are not right”. I totally believe we are right. We are just in a crisis right now.
Nanette
@MikeMc:
I really don’t know. They – we – *should* have. (In fact, I tried to build an “Obama for America” type organization (only not connected with any particular politician or anything) in 2004 to do just that – but as I am good at ideas but have no technical or organizational skill it went nowhere, lol.)
I think part of it was competing ideas of what should be done, and, frankly, competing goals. Many of those who were excited and wanted to do something had no idea what to do. No need to knock on any more doors, so now what? They had no community organizing or other experience. (Of course, there *are* people who are doing this sort of thing on the ground, neighborhood by neighborhood, but they don’t have microphones.)
The ones who gravitated to places online mostly went to the largest community sites and looked to the “leaders of the progressive blogosphere”, as they call themselves, for direction, but for all the “building a progressive infrastructure” talk over the past few years, they also were not ready to do anything much beyond function as an ATM for politicians (and causes) and possibly petitions and letter writing campaigns.
We lost a huge window of opportunity in the months after Obama was elected and I think there is plenty of blame to go around, but of course there is still time. I have never thought of Obama as some sort of lefty savior – but I do think he is an umbrella (or at least was – kinda tattered now from buckshot from the right and left, lol) under and around which we can organize. Not him, himself, but … well, as I mentioned somewhere else, I am bad at explaining. But any movement needs a narrative, even if the reality doesn’t quite fit – we had one, a good narrative, almost bullet-proof from the outside, but we did not know how – or did not wish to – take advantage of it. Also, I think some were frightened of what it could mean for the future.
So instead we sort of gave space and allowed a different narrative to spring up – which, sadly, was partially created by “progressives”, again some with possibly different visions and competing goals.
lacp
@Marmot: I probably haven’t expressed my thoughts as clearly as I would like. After an awful lot of years getting jerked around by conservative policies, the US of A couldn’t take another generation’s worth. No, that doesn’t automatically mean that this will happen, just that if it does we’re screwed.
How to keep it from happening? Not sure – the Magic 8 Ball isn’t clear….
FlipYrWhig
@Mitch Guthman:
Obama supported Lieberman in the primary and then supported Lamont in the general. Google it. I don’t recall anything about “pushing high-profile Democrats” not to support Lamont, but if you had a cite, I’d read it. The only thing I remember along similar lines was Obama urging sitting Senators not to yank Lieberman’s chairmanships after he prevailed in the general.
True, but she did ultimately vote for the final HCR bill, and without that, it doesn’t happen. If Obama threw his support to the other guy, would she have gotten even that far? My intuition tells me no. Those red-state Democrats have a lot of leverage because of how awful their Republican replacements would be.
BTW, I hope that Democrats are looking for ways to badger blue-state Republicans like Brown and Kirk as well as the infamous Snowe and Collins. Toomey is going to be unreachable.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
well, you have been here for many years, right?
you seriously are a buffoon. the fact that you’re a histrionic asshat with an anal rape obsession is just icing on the cake.
seriously, i’ve been here a long time. i’ve seen many a buffoon come and go, and you’ll walk away eventually. shit, you won’t even make it into the top ten list, if that’s what you’re after.
chopper
@brendancalling:
you can’t call someone a racist if you don’t know them?
Nanette
@fasteddie9318:
But they did that after years – decades! – of ground work. Remember Reagan’s “11th commandment”? And, of course, even before that, conservatives have been insinuating themselves into local politics, clubs, church basements, etc, pushing their ideas – along with tea and food and shelter, sometimes – and quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) building resentment against anything that smacks of “liberal”, of minorities, of this or that. So now, all they really have to do is point and say “Look! That Republican is not adhering to OUR values! – yours and mine, the ones we fought for for years. They are not ONE OF US!” and away they go to the polls to teach that defector a lesson.
Basically.
We have not yet gotten to that point and, I think, never will if we just attack Democrats and don’t do the hard work of promoting liberal values one neighborhood at a time.
Lisa
@chopper: Only he can. Because he Rulz teh Internetz.
Allan
Lots of white people seem to think that it’s the most horrible thing in the world to be called a racist.
Of course, the most horrible thing in the world is to be a victim of racism, not the word.
Once you accept the role white privilege plays in everyone’s lives, you learn that it’s just an opportunity for more learning.
Or as they put it on Avenue Q:
LTMidnight
The same moonbats trying to defend this ad are the same moonbats who lost their shit when this image came up
http://www.democrats.com/node/9698
“wait…is that a hitler mustache photoshopped on Howard Dead….teh horror”
But it’s from a “progressive committee” bashing Obama, so there can’t even be an inquiry about it.
Thus proving my point.
chopper
@Lisa:
on one hand, we have a guy who’s accusing someone he doesn’t know of racism, while decrying her for the same thing.
on the other side we have wyldie, who will slip into a thread about tunch going to the vet with a non-substantial drive-by post about how obama’s a total loser, complaining about drive-by posts.
i love ABLs threads, because the buffoons come out. it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
lacp
Much of this thread reminds me of the late Fred Rogers:
“Who are the racists in your neighborhood,
In your neighborhood,
In your neighborhood?”
“Who are the racists in your neighborhood,
The creatures that you meet
When you’re sleeping in the street,
The creatures that you meet each day?”
chopper
@Allan:
i love it when white american men bitch about ‘minority racism’. it’s like rich dudes complaining about ‘class warfare talk’ out of poor people, or christians bitching about ‘the war on christmas’. boo fucking hoo.
we white american men run the world. we won the lottery of birth. of general groups of people, we were born into the single most affluent and powerful one in the history of the universe. we were given advantages over most everyone else in history, and even though we’ve been conditioned to not notice them, they are there and we’ve used them whether we like them or not.
the cost of this advantage is dealing with resentment out of those not born into this type of luck, and further having to deal with the shared responsibility for the kind of boneheaded shit white guys in this country do to the rest of the country and the world. a very small price to pay for being born on third base (shit, looking at the history of humanity it’s more like being born an inch before home plate) yet we piss and moan about even having to deal with that, because it isn’t ‘fair’.
tiny violin sales must be through the roof.
Nanette
@WyldPirate:
I can certainly understand that, including the disappointment and anger. And what are many on the left doing about that? So far as I can see (and I don’t see far, really – blogs and sometimes a snippet of a television “progressive pundit”) they are mostly shouting about how weak and wimpy Obama is, “you better not CAVE, Obama, or we’ll get you!”, how disappointing, how he has GOT TO GO! blah blah blah.
What if, instead, all the shouters were shouting about how strong Obama’s position is, how the majority of the country supports his tax and other policies and said, “We, and America, has his back on this, Republicans! America wants its tax cuts, the middle class does not want to be burdened with the excesses of the rich, and we are backing President Obama ALL THE WAY to make sure you, Republicans, listen to the American people. Or else!”
Or some such stuff… I am not a message person. But do you see the difference? So what if you think he is weak? Make him strong. Make people afraid to cross him. To cross *us*. As it stands right now, I see very little vocal backup or strong voices indicting the other side – just a lot of shouting about how “Obama is going to disappoint us again.” And absolutely no one is afraid to cross “progressives” or to block policies that are even a tiny bit liberal, because there is no drawback to doing so.
Lisa
I admit that I really am an angry black bitch. I probably read too much Sabina Virgo. But I do remember being tut-tutted and even outright lambasted for not going for the Afghan war after 9/11. It seemed stupid to me – and completely unrelated to the issue at hand…..except that someone said that the hijackers had rolled through there at some point.
It made me angry to see wingnuts and progressives come together in support of such stupidity and poopie pants terror. It is racist of me to generalize that it was mostly white people that were war mongering. A hell of a lot of people were war mongering – all colors. I apologize calling all white people warmongers.
tomvox1
@liberal
@Cat:
Jefferson kept slaves and fucked some of them. Lincoln was originally willing to maintain slavery in the South to stave off the Civil War and suspended Habeas Corpus after it began. FDR ordered massive bombing of civilian sites in Europe and Japan, technically a war crime, and interred Japanese American citizens during WWII. And they were all better people than us as well, no doubt, whatever their shortcomings in life or in the pursuit of their duties. Greater, better leaders with better vision and ability than the average thread commentator by far. And certainly better than Greenwald and his endless bitching missives.
Being president is a dirty job and nobody gets out of it without blood on their hands. In the end our leaders are only human and subject to unimaginable pressures to keep the country and their fellow citizens safe. Inevitably they make decisions that can be seen as morally questionable, particularly in hindsight. But there are no do-overs in that job. So come back from Narnia. All men and women may be created equally but fair or not, those who lead the United States will be judged by solely by history on the balance of their decisions. And no one gets 100% on that test. Barack Obama is probably as good of a human being as we are likely to see elected to this job for a generation. Folks like you will be crying in your lattes when he’s out of office.
Tonal Crow
This is the stupidest article I’ve ever seen here, and one of the stupidest I’ve ever seen on the ‘net. Maybe John should make B.O.B. a frontpager next.
chopper
@tomvox1:
more importantly, just like the liberals of FDR’s day, the liberals today who are screaming up and down about how obama’s a loser and a sellout are going to be telling their kids and grandkids about how he was the greatest president of their lifetime and they were proud to support him.
Nanette
@Allan:
Allan, exactly. I heard that from so many people. And I was like… just wait! I’m sure they have something in place to take care of this. But as time passed, I realized they didn’t. Well, not really. And, again, I have no idea of the legalities of the matter, but I think some of the places on the left who could have gathered people in and done something were waiting to see what the former Obama operation was going to do, because that was already kinda in place.
A missed opportunity for them, and for the rest of us in that we didn’t take it on ourselves to start something.
low-tech cyclist
Is describing this post as ‘nutpicking’ racist? Because that’s what it is.
A blogger I never heard of, and someone else I never heard of, and some idiot in comments somewhere, have made racist remarks. And apparently this means that “[t]he racism and stereotyping bullshit emanating from the left is reaching a fevered pitch.”
How about “the stereotyping bullshit emanating from ABL has reached a fevered pitch.”
Yep, that’s more like it.
We really don’t need to match the right in the ‘nutcase’ department.
Glinda
@Allan: Aha! That’s who that diarist is. It was the silliest title for a diary that lacked any meat to it.
lacp
@Lisa: Yes, it was really ugly out there being against the war. The majority of people in this country went completely nuts; after being force-fed American Exceptionalism horseshit all their lives, 9/11 just HAD to be the worstest most evilest terroristy terror attack ever in the history of ever. Plus also too (as noted above) they hated us for our freedoms.
Angry Black Lady
@liberal: did i say “all of you”? no. i said “some of you.” but keep on arguing against a point i didn’t make and keep refusing to think that maybe… just maybe… i (and others who agree with me) have a point.
OR.
refuse to examine why people of color are not thrilled. i’m not sure we matter anyway.
Angry Black Lady
@low-tech cyclist: did you read the post? did you follow the links? the PCCC is leading the primary obama drumbeat. adam green is routinely on msnbc. they are asking us to donate to this cause.
my point is that you’ve already matched the right in the nutcase department, but you may continue to ignore my point if it upsets your worldview.
Lisa
@lacp: LOL. Yes.
Larry Bird
@Angry Black Lady:
Its not if I care but you throwing around the racism charge when its not warranted that matters. Politics is a brutal game no matter the color. Get a box of kleenex to dry your tears and get over yourself.
lol
@Allan:
When they did that newspaper ad last year with all the “Obama staffers”, it was almost uniformly volunteers and field organizers hired for the general election. In other words, there was almost no one on that list who worked for Obama during the primary.
Nanette
@low-tech cyclist:
low-tech cyclist, you may not have heard of this group (or Green) but he is one of the “go-to” people guaranteed to bash Obama and declare the disappointment and anger of “progressives” that the media calls on (along with others, of course
Images such as the one used in the ad are effective *because* of their ambiguity, not in spite of it. Thus, to people who are well-versed in viewing the efforts used to send a “race message”, the message is obvious. To those who are less experienced, because messages like this affect them so much less, the possible “deniability” of the effect or intent of the imagery works as well. That the image was produced by “progressives” makes the “innocence of intent” all that much more readily accepted. By some.
fasteddie9318
@chopper:
When the day comes that I’ve got grandkids, if I’m telling them that Obama (at least the Obama of his first two years in office) was the greatest president of my lifetime then this country is going to be in a world of hurt. I’m not saying that won’t be the case, because he’s been the greatest of my life so far, but I’m hoping for, and frankly we need, better.
lol
@Mitch Guthman:
That’s just a blatant lie. Obama supported Lamont in the general.
cleek
@LTMidnight:
prove it.
Sarcastro
We’re being played?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…. breathe… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
The Republicans have danced a fucking ballet on Obama’s ass and WE’RE getting played!?
Have you centrist asses ever considered for a second that you just might be dumber than a box of fucking rocks?
Nanette
I have a question on the “click to edit” thing. If you move away from the page before it stops its countdown, do you lose the comment?
FlipYrWhig
@chopper:
Probably also saying how the worst part of it was how Republicans never gave him a break. And being upset that the Anthony Wiener administration was having such a hard time getting its progressive wishlist through Congress, probably because he wasn’t fighting hard enough for it.
Lisa
@Larry Bird: Who decides whether it is warranted? You? I will be sure to check in with you next time I see something racist. I had no idea racism needed your Seal of Approval before I could form an opinion about it.
Thanks, buddy!
Angry Black Lady
i’m throwing out a catch all comment:
nowhere did i say that everyone who disagrees with obama is racist. many of you love to ignore the fact that i disagree–and have stated that i disagree–with obama’s policies. but i raise an uncomfortable subject, you interpret my statements in a manner most suitable to you, and then you circle the wagons.
some of you would rather deflect: this black guy wants to primary obama too; i can’t believe you’re saying that just because i don’t like obama’s policies, then i’m racist; you’re so incompetent that you should be banned from writing; you’re playing the race card; you pointing out the racism in the criticism of obama means that you’re racist!
it’s like derailing 101 in here.
sad.
Angry Black Lady
@Sarcastro: do you have a point, or did your cat step on your keyboard?
Angry Black Lady
@MattMinus: no, but it’s ableist, so you’re awesome. high five, good buddy!
FlipYrWhig
@Sarcastro: Who’s a “centrist”? The big division among the commenters is between liberals who want to see more liberalism and liberals who think they’re seeing about the most they’re gonna get. I’m not sure there are many “centrists” here. Maybe E.D. Kain, who’s on the left edge of the right.
Elie
@Moses2317:
One can only have a cynical interpretation of what may be leading to this. Mine is that there are people on our side, posing as members of the progressives who are actually agents for the right. Its the perfect strategy. The right can seem to clean themselves up and be above the fray while it seems that the left degenerates into internecine battles with self. Its actually incredibly brilliant and only takes a few plants to stimulate the arguments and internal attacks. It assures that the left stays fragmented and we begin to look as crazy as the right tea partiers. The American people after a while of doing this will think both sides are crazy and make a false equivalency between the left and right.
As I say, its not all of the left who are critical of Obama, but just enough to “keep things going”. That requires fairly little effort anyway since we have a long history on the left of eating our young anyway.
This will not stop. It will get worse and is a designed and deliberate strategy to keep the left progressives from making much, well, progress. Obama is just an easy target compared to having to target multiple legislators or other parts of the government structure that are less visible to the average American. His being black is another plus.
Too bad we can’t see Adam Green’s bank account/s…
Hell, you can call me paranoid, but it aint paranoia if it is really happening. The proof is hard to get — but probably not impossible.
Angry Black Lady
i’m done with this thread. it’s like talking to a dining room table.
Lisa
@Angry Black Lady: That shit is par for the course. If person A says or does something racist and person B calls it out, instead of saying “you might have a point there. Or, I disagree and here is why….” a peanut gallery of person C’s screech “oh……so everyone who does X is a racist?!?!?!?!??!1111!!!!?”
You can predict that shit like your monthly cycle.
Alex
ABL, you not so subtly conflated an insanely obvious and merited point — it would be downright stupid to primary Obama in 2012 — with an almost wholly unsubstantiated insinuation of racism. Please do not lash out at those who might infer some type of smear here. You would do well to retract, or at least clarify, your post.
Larry Bird
@Lisa:
Ok Lisa you decide this for me. If a political organization or group chooses to run a terrible looking picture of Bill Clinton and or Obama in a political ad why is one picture racist and the other just dirty politics as usual? Help me out on this. Thanks!
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady:
Coming from someone who just posted the argument that progressives are not-so-secret racists and want to tear down Obama because he’s a zebra and some dumb guy’s commercial and a couple of comments at liberal blogs by anonymous people proves it….
….that’s fucking rich.
Your argument wasn’t strong enough to even be called weaksauce. It’s nonsense wrapped in a shell of misguided outrage. There may be a valid point in what you were aiming at, but the combination of lines like “Now, the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics” and “I’m actually beginning to respect the Tea Party and their “Obama as a witch doctor with a bone in his nose” placards; at least they are honest and upfront about it. ” means you deserve nothing but derision, preferably of a kind the folks at LGM or Sadly, No! would give to such looniness if it came from the likes of Jonah Goldberg.
You should have used ED’s dodge of ‘I work’. It’s much shorter to type.
EDIT – And away she goes again. Gee, who would have guessed?
Lisa
@Angry Black Lady: You know, there are really cool people on this blog. But you can predict the people who are not going to do well with race. (Me, for one. I just get angry.) Then, there are the same people who always act like they know EVERYTHING and everyone else is just a bunch of stupid, brainwashed lemmings for [insert politician/movement here] . They are already assholes. It does not matter that they fly their “liberal” flag high. They are fucking dicks on all subjects and are DEFINITELY going to pinch off a load in their pants in their strenuous efforts to deny that there is racism and convince you why are The Stupidest Person Evar and should check with them before you get offended at anything next time.
Angry Black Lady
@Lisa: yup. and when i throw in the towel because i don’t feel like arguing with uninformed people, then i’m lashing out, they can disregard my point because i’m angry or emotional (so they think) and it makes them feel okay about being a fool in the first place.
it’s nothing new to me.
@Alex: it was not unsubstantiated. you choose to ignore it. please do not tell me what to do or how to feel. i’m not retracting or clarifying anything to suit the readers here. i’m not sure how many time i need to say that. i’m not lashing out, although i imagine it makes you feel better to think i am doing so, so that you can ignore that discomfort you may be feeling inside.
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#hostile
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#notlistening
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#wrong
Lisa
Racism and dirty politics are not mutually exclusive. Racism is a tool of dirty politics.
How about this:
1. Running a picture of Obama with his skin darkened is racist.
2. Running a picture of Obama looking ugly is not racist.
and
1. Running a picture of Bill Clinton dressed in Klan robe would be racist.
2. Running a picture of Bill Clinton looking ugly is not racist.
Any questions?
Nanette
@Larry Bird:
Seriously? (please say no. I fear for our “progressives” (if you so self-identify) if you do not seriously know the answer to that question.)
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: you’re a jackass.
NobodySpecial
@Lisa: One question.
How do you get from one group’s commercial with one suspect image to
?
Angry Black Lady
@Lisa: or this: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#educate
figure it out for yourselves, people. or don’t since many of you don’t seem to want to and want to just tell me to calm down. let me know when it’s appropriate for me to raise concerns that i have. i can’t tell on my own! oh noes!
cat48
@DS: That ad ran in Iowa only, the First Primary State…….Hmm! A very white state……..Hmm! Makes me go Hmm!
Tim I
@NR:
Do you think that having dark skin, is immunity from racism?
Who the fuck is Clarence B. Jones? I’ve never heard of him in my life. He is an African-American critic of the President. Big deal!
There have been a number of others, from Jesse Jackson to Tavis Smiley. It is kinda racist to assume African-Americans march in lockstep.
MaximusNYC
Sorry, but I think Cleek called this correctly. I’m not going to call myself a “Photoshop expert” (the intertubes have enough of those already), but I have done plenty of digital photo retouching. I’ve also worked as a photographer, videographer, and cinematographer.
This image has been desaturated (had much of the color drained out of it) and has had its contrast increased — making darks darker, but also making light areas lighter. The overall effect is to make a person look a bit more zombie-like.
Anyone who’s watched TV in the last 20 years has seen this done to dozens or hundreds of politicians, of various races (but usually white) in negative ads.
The post quoted here is absurdly histrionic in its certainty: “My jaw literally dropped… beyond belief… beyond words… open race-baiting… nothing short of racist”.
Making those kinds of accusations on such flimsy grounds just discredits the accuser, and in fact cheapens any future allegations of racism (even true ones).
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that all kinds of truly racist garbage has been thrown at Obama over the last few years. This simply isn’t comparable.
I’ll accept that there are people who don’t have much knowledge of photo manipulation, advertising techniques, etc., who genuinely believe this is a nefarious attempt to “blacken” Obama. I don’t claim to know what the ad-makers’ motives were, but the techniques they employed are quite common and are used without regard to race.
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady: Yes, I am. Particularly to folks who like to parrot right wing talking points to slander ‘the left’, which I assume you think you’re not, because you’re not out to primary Obama like all the EEEEVIL progressives.
But then again, you’re the one at your blog agreeing with Michelle Malkin. Given how BJers treated Hamsher working with Grover Norquist, it’s a wonder this thread isn’t 700 posts full of angry screeching by now.
BobS
@Angry Black Lady:I’ll ask you the same question you’ve posed here in the comments: have you read your post? For instance, where you wrote “The racism and stereotyping bullshit emanating from the left is reaching a fevered pitch”, or ” the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics”. Your implication, whether intended or not, is that racism on the left is widespread, mostly because a guy few of us have heard of who heads some obscure organization said some things you found offensive on a cable network with shitty ratings.
Angry Black Lady
@Angry Black Lady: i’m above name-calling.
why is it so important to you to belittle (and disingenously at that) my point? “some dumb guy’s commercial.” some dumb guy happens to be on the television box quite frequently and who is a part of the progressive answer to the rightwing PACs.
some commenters at liberal blogs = prominent bloggers (FDL, MYDD)
anything else you want to throw in to belittle the point?
have you ever ventured to any primarily POC blogs? if not, you might try it. it might be a real eye opener for you.
but you can continue to try to belittle me if that’s what you’re into.
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: yes, agreeing with malkin that the use of blackface is never appropriate, nor can it ever be “taken out of context” as someone here claimed.
what else do you have?
Nanette
@Tim I:
Thank goodness! I was hoping I was not the only one who hadn’t a clue who this man is. But as long as he is a convenient “See? A Black person said they agree with me, and not you!” person for some to point to, he’s all right. With them, anyway, lol.
Angry Black Lady
@MaximusNYC: as long as you say so, then my view doesn’t matter. good to know.
when elle magazine lightened gabourey sidibe’s face when she was featured on the cover, i suppose that was just photoshop gone awry too? oj? that terrorist from socal?
at a certain point, a pattern emerges, and continuing to flounder for another explanation becomes an attempt to ignore what is in front of you.
Lisa
@NobodySpecial: Nobody Special – I don’t know if the left has embraced Rovian race baiting. They have embraced Rovian messaging about every damn thing else though….so it would not be a stretch. The primary a couple of years ago told me everything I needed to know about the state of race relations on the left. That was shocking. A commenter at Pandagon put it this way: “Many white liberals embrace civil rights as long as they are the ones at the helm. The idea that one of the non-white people that they have been championing might want to grab the steering wheel has laid bare their feelings of entitlement.” I never forgot that. So none of this crazy shit is surprising. I see it as inevitable. We have to get all this crap out in the open and THEN move on. As long as we are in denial about the pretty nasty feelings generated by the change in the left’s power structure/racial dynamic, we will keep circling each other in the cage while the wingnuts take bets and cheer us on.
Angry Black Lady
@Larry Bird: i don’t need kleenex, but thank you for your concern. have you tried getting over yourself? maybe if you show me how, i might be more adept at it.
Lisa
@Nanette: That is fucking hilarious.
Angry Black Lady
@Lisa: it’s amusing that every time i make a point, someone latches on to a few words, and then demands a retraction.
I’M OFFENDED. HOW DARE SHE. I CAN NOW IGNORE ANY POINT SHE HAS MADE BECAUSE SHE’S ANGRY AND EMOTIONAL.
ho hum.
Admiral_Komack
@FlipYrWhig:
@chopper:
the liberals today who are screaming up and down about how obama’s a loser and a sellout are going to be telling their kids and grandkids about how he was the greatest president of their lifetime and they were proud to support him.
Probably also saying how the worst part of it was how Republicans never gave him a break. And being upset that the Anthony Wiener administration was having such a hard time getting its progressive wishlist through Congress, probably because he wasn’t fighting hard enough for it.
…and he should have used the bully pulpit more…
Larry Bird
@Lisa:
Are you 100% sure that picture was retouched for racist purposes? You seem sure but I don’t see how. He looks more sinister for sure but who wouldnt in that lighting? I’m under the impression most people already know Obama is half black.
Lisa
@Angry Black Lady: WOW!!!!!!!!
She is evil for agreeing with someone that blackface is not ever cute or funny? Even if that person is a rightwing blowhard (she is a rightwing blowhard of COLOR and does not find blackface amusing…)
So, am I to take it that this guy is pro-blackface? Dayum. He is hardcore.
McJulie
Dear Angry Black Lady,
I love you.
Love, A Liberal White Chick who is, actually, on the whole, much happier with Obama than with the whiners and drama queens who seem to be dominating the lefty blogosphere these days
PS: While we’re on the topic, a few things I just want to get off my chest.
To anybody who claims they now “regret” voting for Obama: have you forgotten that your actual, real-world alternative was President McCain and Vice President Palin? And are you actually saying that you would prefer to have President McCain and Vice President Palin in the White House? Because if that is what you are saying, you are clearly insane — or a Republican, but I repeat myself — and I don’t think I need to pay attention to anything else you have to say.
I mean, I know this is the Internet and all, but — for the love of ponies, couldn’t people try to have an itty-bitty teeny-tiny iota of perspective once in a while?
I won’t say I’m not disappointed with Obama sometimes, but for FSM’s sake, I remember the Clinton years, and I am surely not more disappointed with Obama than I was with Clinton.
I’m sick of all the dumping on Democrats, for being half wrong, when the Republicans are still out there getting absolutely everything wrong, with bells on, and inventing new and astonishing ways in which to be wrong on a daily basis.
Also, when you say that Obama/the Democrats are not “getting the message out there,” remember who actually owns the media narrative (Republicans) and put the blame where it’s due
PPS: My husband believes that left-leaning blogs have in fact been deliberately infiltrated by right wing naysayers, rabble-rousers, and spirit-sappers. I am not certain about that. Most of the ostensibly progressive anti-Obama-ites are actually more coherent than I expect from genuine right wingers.
But sometimes I think, you know, if you guys were secretly Republicans, how would your behavior be any different? And I have a hard time coming up with anything.
Admiral_Komack
@Suck It Up!:
Thank you.
Nanette
@NobodySpecial:
The shame is not in agreeing with Malkin that blackface is offensive and never appropriate (especially for political commentary, good god.) The shame is that so many on “our side” then – and continuously since – did not rise up and condemn that action, full throat (some did, I’ll mention), but instead attempt to justify, excuse and even celebrate Hamsher’s use of that tactic. And then point to her non-apology apology as proof of… who knows what.
Now *that* is weak and disappointing.
Lisa
[email protected]Angry Black Lady: Yeah but you are GIRL and you are prone to hysterics. Also, you are BLACK with all of your blackity black anger issues.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was. but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
eemom
yer doin fine ABL. Fuck these moth-brains.
I’ve never been more disappointed in a politician in my life as I am today over Obama with the tax cut deal — possibly because I’ve never had such high hopes for one before.
But does the fact that I’m disappointed mean it suddenly no longer matters that this man has been treated with a level of disrespect that is unprecedented in the history of the presidency? And that there IS racism crawling out of the woodwork on our side of the political spectrum as well as on the right?
Lemme tell ya something else that really pisses me off big time — if Hillary were president, and she’d been treated anything like this, the “Progressive” Left hate brigade would be fucking foaming at the mouth 24/7 about MISOGYNY.
McJulie
Dear Angry Black Lady,
I love you.
Love, A Liberal White Chick who is, actually, on the whole, much happier with Obama than with the whiners and drama queens who seem to be dominating the lefty blogosphere these days
PS: While we’re on the topic, a few things I just want to get off my chest.
To anybody who claims they now “regret” voting for Obama: have you forgotten that your actual, real-world alternative was President McCain and Vice President Palin? And are you actually saying that you would prefer to have President McCain and Vice President Palin in the White House? Because if that is what you are saying, you are clearly insane — or a Republican, but I repeat myself — and I don’t think I need to pay attention to anything else you have to say.
I mean, I know this is the Internet and all, but — for the love of ponies, couldn’t people try to have an itty-bitty teeny-tiny iota of perspective once in a while?
I won’t say I’m not disappointed with Obama sometimes, but for FSM’s sake, I remember the Clinton years, and I am surely not more disappointed with Obama than I was with Clinton.
I’m sick of all the dumping on Democrats, for being half wrong, when the Republicans are still out there getting absolutely everything wrong, with bells on, and inventing new and astonishing ways in which to be wrong on a daily basis.
Also, when you say that Obama/the Democrats are not “getting the message out there,” remember who actually owns the media narrative (Republicans) and put the blame where it’s due
PPS: My husband believes that left-leaning blogs have in fact been deliberately infiltrated by right wing naysayers, rabble-rousers, and spirit-sappers. I am not certain about that. Most of the ostensibly progressive anti-Obama-ites are actually more coherent than I expect from genuine right wingers.
But sometimes I think, you know, if you guys were secretly Republicans, how would your behavior be any different? And I have a hard time coming up with anything.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was, but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was, but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was, but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on, my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was, but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on, my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady: There is no shortage of dumb people who get on TV to say dumb things about the President, on the left or the right.
I can also safely say that that commercial hasn’t been seen by upwards of 90% of America, and has had a miniscule effect at best on anyone.
But when you start conflating ‘The left’ and serious criticism of the President with right wing talking points while using right wing talking points…that’s not kosher at all. Especially not in a hit and run post.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to give my opinion in various places about the deliberate darkening of minorities to make them look scarier, from the OJ to Jose Padilla pictures. I don’t like it. I also don’t automatically jump to the conclusion that whenever you see a person with darker skin looking darker than you usually see him, that it’s of necessity because whoever showed you the picture is an out and out racist.
One example – do an image search for Joakim Noah. Look at the variation of his apparent coloring from picture to picture. Is that all racist camerawork or Photoshopping? No.
Does he look darker in some of it? Hell yes.
I’ve voted for Obama three times now. I’ve also, thanks to the wonders of the school district I’ve lived in when I was going to school, seen discrimination and segregation first hand, and been collateral damage as a part of it, by being stuck in the same substandard schools as the blacks and Latinos in my town were. I’ll be damned if I’ll have someone call me a racist merely because I want to move Obama to a more left position while he’s in office.
Angry Black Lady
@Hugh: i understand it’s not an accurate reflection of a lot of folks take on Obama. which is why i never said it was, but i appreciate your comment. a lot of obama’s political strategies and policies (afghanistan, civil liberties) are wrong. the vitriol coming from the left, in my view, is disproportionate.
mostly, i was pleased to see that the progressive hissy fits are not having a large impact on his polling among the “hidden” base.
and with that, i really must do some work.
carry on, my wayward sons. i’m sure i’ll be back in a few hours to call every single former obama supporter a racist.
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady: There is no shortage of dumb people who get on TV to say dumb things about the President, on the left or the right.
I can also safely say that that commercial hasn’t been seen by upwards of 90% of America, and has had a miniscule effect at best on anyone.
But when you start conflating ‘The left’ and serious criticism of the President with right wing talking points while using right wing talking points…that’s not kosher at all. Especially not in a hit and run post.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to give my opinion in various places about the deliberate darkening of minorities to make them look scarier, from the OJ to Jose Padilla pictures. I don’t like it. I also don’t automatically jump to the conclusion that whenever you see a person with darker skin looking darker than you usually see him, that it’s of necessity because whoever showed you the picture is an out and out racist.
One example – do an image search for Joakim Noah. Look at the variation of his apparent coloring from picture to picture. Is that all racist camerawork or Photoshopping? No.
Does he look darker in some of it? Hell yes.
I’ve voted for Obama three times now. I’ve also, thanks to the wonders of the school district I’ve lived in when I was going to school, seen discrimination and segregation first hand, and been collateral damage as a part of it, by being stuck in the same substandard schools as the blacks and Latinos in my town were. I’ll be damned if I’ll have someone call me a racist merely because I want to move Obama to a more left position while he’s in office.
tomvox1
@Elie:
Not even that hard:
Glenn Greenwald works for Cato, at least some of the time, and he’s not shy about it.
And since Glenn’s PAC partner is Queen ‘O Hearts Hamsher…well, you don’t have to be Sam Spade to figure that, either. Although she’s not so big on transparency when it comes to her PAC expenditures, I’ll tell ya that.
PROFESSIONAL FUCKING DEMOTIVATORS, bought and paid for. I guarantee it.
WyldPirate
@Jules:
You’re not a leader if you can’t convince people to follow you. That’s part of the deal.
And yes, I know he is trying to herd cats dealing with Congress.
Lisa
Can I just say that this thread wins the internets for finally trotting out the “Look at this random black gentleman. He agrees with me, thus, I know more about how black people should feel than you, dear black person.”
LOL.
BobS
@Lisa: We must have watched different primaries. The “left” was represented by Dennis Kucinich and …
Don’t blame “the left” (by the way, it’s pretty chickenshit to write you “don’t know” whether “Rovian race-baiting” has been “embraced” when much of what you’re writing suggests you’ve made up your mind- trying to leave some room to walk away at a later date?) for the execrable conduct of the centrist-right Clinton campaign.
And in case you’ve been in a coma since the summer of 2008, a centrist-right black guy won the primary and the presidential election. There has been no “change in the left’s power structure”, however we have managed to put a guy in the White House for what has effectively been a 3rd Bush term, only this time with the apparent widespread approval of the black electorate.
Bobby Thomson
That you are a coward and a fool, have libeled people, and have generally written checks your ass can’t cash?
Yes, I understand that very well, indeed.
rikyrah
ABL,
YOU ROCK.
So, keep it up, y’all. Have fun primarying Obama with Kucinich or Feingold or whothefuckever; just don’t come crawling to colored folks when it becomes obvious that your Great Progressive Leaders have fucked it all up;
tell me about it.
tell.it.
we know dogwhistles when we see them.
it’s how we’ve survived this long in America.
and no, they will NOT be forgotten.
NobodySpecial
@Nanette: The irritation on my part is solely based on her blaming all progressives with this turd Green and this joke ad. The Malkin thing was a gratuitous dig because I’m a jackass.
cat48
The president is speaking of “purists” on my TV…….Another Fucking ShitStorm is coming!!!!!!!
Edit: Also2 “betrayal” & “held hostage” & “this is the PO Debate all over again!” The prez be pissed me thinks.
Angry Black Lady
@Alex: you’re slow alright. i could draw you a map where you could find information about why i chose my name (spoiler! it’s on the intertrons!), but i frankly don’t care about your opinion.
toodles.
WyldPirate
@Angry Black Lady:
The point of the vast majority of your post is bullshit and that is what the criticism is about.
You don’t like criticism of Obama. You yell and scream and raise hell about it and you get so irate you find imaginary Klansman under every bush.
You played the race card at the drop of a hat. You did it late in that your last nonsense post you made when you got your petulant, whiny ass tied up in a knot over GG. It was late in the thread somewhere close to the 700 mark and you dropped it on someone that said nothing even approaching racism. Just ouut of the air–boom, you were insinuating that their comments or attitude was motivated by racism.
You’re like Al Sharpton was back in the day–your arguments suck, you make shit up out of whole cloth and you squeal “racist” when someone calls you on your bullshit reasoning.
You need to pull your head out of your ass. Black folks may not “ever vote” for a Dem again if the criticism of Obama continues. That’s fine, that is their prerogative. But Obama wouldn’t have been elected if it were not for a lot of white Democrats and Democrats of other creeds and nationalities hadn’t trusted him enough to vote for him. Those very same people have the right to criticize Obama if they are unhappy with his performance–even if they are wrong and many of them make very valid points in their criticism.
Angry Black Lady
i cannot quit this thread when i know there is so much fuckery, which only means i’ll have to work later. gah.
@NobodySpecial:
tell me where i blamed all progressives. please. tell me. point it out to me. if it’s there (which i’m fairly certain it’s not), i will take it back.
Angry Black Lady
@WyldPirate: you’re still talking. you are a tenacious one, aren’t you? i don’t read your comments. you’re pissing into the wind. move on.
lacp
@Lisa: But how do we know this random gentleman was black, Lisa? Couldn’t that picture have been Photoshopped and he’s actually…..white? (Sorry, too good to resist – this whole thread is one of the most insane that I’ve seen on the Intertubz recently.)
Z
this is stupid. i won’t read the entire thing, based on the merits of what i did read, but image/video editors often distort or render colors when processing them, presumably to some innate process of the fixed color schemata of the program applying itself to the picture. it’s crazy to say it was intended.
also, real grown up of you to insert a caveat that you won’t engage your critics – i don’t expect a person to carefully analyze their comment sections, but apparently you revel in the thought of posting a profoundly unsubstantiated screed for no discernible purpose other than to elicit anger from those silly cretins who disagree with you and as such aren’t worthy of your high-minded time. get a new career.
Socraticsilence
@Mnemosyne:
But see that’s different because liberals know gay people while Black people were an abstraction so selling them out was cool. (Seriously, this is essentially the thought process as far as I can tell).
NR
@WyldPirate: Get with the program, WyldPirate. Any and all criticism of Obama’s policies is racist. Sure, he’s going back on his campaign promises, but if you point that out, you’re a racist. You need to think about what’s really motivating your criticism of the president’s policies (hint: it’s racism).
BobS
@Angry Black Lady: I’m nobody special, but you did write “The racism and stereotyping bullshit emanating from the left is reaching a fevered pitch” in the first paragraph of your post, followed by “the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics”.
No, you didn’t exactly blame all progressives, but your implication is that racism is roiling and widespread on the left.
Elie
@BobS:
I think that you are missing the point a little.
I don’t think that ABL is trying to say that this one instance by itself indicates that the left is racist in the same prevalence that you see on the right. That said, however, it has been something of a “rule” that the left CANNOT by definition, somehow, be racist, even if it is just a few jerks.
Why is this important? Because it is important to review all comments and criticism with an open mind and to perhaps not swallow whole, criticism from even our left progressive side without looking at bias and prejudgement of all types. By that same token, some on the left may be anti-semitic, may be misogynist, etc. I am not saying that the left IS any of these things. Only that there is no magic attributes on the left than rules out that these potent and closely held biases cannot be operating to some extent in influencing the thinking and commentary of some…
It seems that some of you are argueing somehow that racism just could never be present in the left progressives and are using some rather weak reasoning (this is only one obscure person, show me irrefutable proof that he is racist, etc) — rather than saying, “you know, that just MIGHT be happening to some degree”
Once that settles into the old cabeza, you can maybe more critically unpack a lot of stuff rather than accepting these sources as trusted without question just because they call themselves left/progressives.
Just my two cents…
NR
@BobS: The same left that worked their asses off to elect a black president in 2008. I guess they just forgot they were racists… for almost an entire year. But now they’ve remembered, and they’re gonna get Obama! Because they’re such racists!
Elie
@WyldPirate:
Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Back again, Wyld Thang….
Yummy yummy for you! Another anti Obama opportunity…just couldnt miss it could you?
MaximusNYC
@Angry Black Lady:
Huh? I’m telling you what I know from my experience in film, video, photography, and digital retouching. How does my input constitute a claim that “your view doesn’t matter”?
I’ve never heard of the Elle magazine case or the terrorist you refer to. The OJ case may well have been done for racial reasons. But I said nothing about any of those. I referred specifically to a common set of techniques used in political advertising.
I’m not “floundering” for an explanation — my explanation was precise and focused.
It would be good if you didn’t attribute views to me I don’t hold and have never expressed. I find that internet discussions of race, or really anything, tend to go off the rails when people start doing that.
fasteddie9318
@Angry Black Lady:
__
So, by “the left” you just meant that one dude at the PCCC and some bloggers? Do you think you could have clarified that a little better?
BobS
@Elie: If that’s her point, maybe you should be editing her posts for her. You obviously understand her hidden message, as opposed to the one sent by the words she writes.
Nanette
@NobodySpecial:
But she didn’t. Blame all progressives, blame all the left, blame all white people – for this or anything. I reread it because most of us (non-white folk), if we don’t learn it at our parent’s knee, at least learn as we grow older to *always* include “some” or “many” or “a few” or “some portion of” or … well you get the picture, when we are discussing the actions of white people in relation to non-whites, or otherwise. Because if we don’t, the howls of “but how can you say that about ME?” or “YOU are the racist because you said “all” white people do this or that” start immediately in the attempt to deflect the conversation away from whatever it was about and back on to the person bringing the issue to attention.
White folks are individuals, you know (no need for a “some” qualifier there, you see) while black folks are supposed to really, /really/ care – and think *hard* about what they are saying! – because some black person somewhere said something about something that was in disagreement, so … you know. Black here, black there – the same!
Anyway, ABL indeed has her “some” and “many” in the text – does she put them *every* time she mentions the left or progressives or something? No, but why should she? Shouldn’t the one or the two or the ten be sufficient for people to get the picture? If they wish to, that is?
Oh. Congrats? ;)
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady:
Thereby implying that ‘the left’ is racist. And that they’re devious liars about it. And how they’re embracing race-baiting tactics, and how it’s BULLSHIT FROM THE LEFT.
You don’t like this commercial? Fine. I’m not a big fan, either. Don’t go pushing that shit on me when I criticize Obama, though. And don’t go pushing race-baiting on me, either, because I’m on ‘the left’. That makes you look profoundly unserious, which is the last thing you want when you finally get around to discussing real issues of race and gender, rather than this bullshit strawman.
Amaliada
Sorry, ABL – I’m Black, a woman, and I had no idea Obama was a Blue Dog Democrat. I wasn’t expecting the Messiah, but I was expecting change.
I just watched the President’s press conference to explain why he made this deal with the Republicans and it was pretty damn pathetic unless you believe every thing he says because he’s saying it.
I’m getting social security (its the bulk of my income) – there was no hesitation to freeze my social security payments. I need knee surgery, badly. But its a preexisting condition and Medicare will cover me before the Health Care Reform bill.
My 41 year old son, will have to work at least 25 more years before he can collect Social Security, which he has been paying into for his entire working life. Bet he doesn’t get as much back as I am.
So, I want to hear your righteous rant when the President agrees with the Republicans to cut Social Security and Medicare because of the deficit, all the while the richest 2% of the population will not only keep their tax cuts, but their heirs will keep their intact estates.
WyldPirate
@Nanette:
That is a nice theory that you have but it is pretty authoritarian in nature don’t you think? It is also unworkable.
The Dems are a very diverse group of constituencies. Much more so than the Republicans are. They have gotten even more so in recent years because the Republicans have moved further right. That leaves more room for centrist Democrats and to who independents who might jump off the fence in one way or another.
Your motivation is noble, but you can’t shut the voices up from complaining. It is senseless to even try. On top of that, I think you get a bit if a skewed view reading political blogs because we are the most passionate about our specific issues. We are, by our nature as followers of these issues, quite ready to believe in our own rightness.
The liberals, the “far left” or “dirty fucking hippies” are much like the far religious right in many ways. They go “hungry” and get tossed an occasional scrap, but they are pissed after Clinton went Republican lite and now Obama is going centrist and getting outmaneuvered. That is where the heat is coming from for the most part.
Lisa
@BobS: When the fuck did I write that Rovian race baiting has been embraced – then walk it back? Oh that is right….ANOTHER black lady said that….and we are all alike so it is the same as if I said it. I honestly don’t know if the left has wholeheartedly embraced racebaiting. But I find ABL’s post intriguing and definitely worth thinking about. She sights some disturbing trends. The fact that I found what she had to say thought provoking and worthy of further discussion must mean that we have gotten together to attack you, Nat Turner style (hide yer white wimmin!)?
Really?
Socraticsilence
@Nanette:
I’d also like to point out that they actually don’t do these things on a ton of issues- especially spending and social security- seriously has the Democratic Party ever abandoned its leader for supporting a basic precept of its party in the way the GOP deserted Bush for pushing Social Security Reform- the only thing I can compare it to is Dems on Gitmo (where the President pushed hard and went out on a limb for what was supposedly the Democratic position only to be undercut and left alone by his own party even by those members supposedly further to the left on Civil Liberties). One could also argue that the GOP has never really attempted to outlaw abortion at the federal level because they know that doing so would destroy them politically.
Elie
@tomvox1:
Un huhn…
I think that it is good to have this discussion amongst our own as long as we try to keep it reasonably productive.
There is a reason for why things are the way they are and if the patterns repeat over and over, it needs to be investigated more clearly and viewed with great skepticism.
Lisa
@Bobby Thomson: Coward? You are sitting on your doughy ass behind a computer….your flesh has likely been welded to your computer chair with a combination of Dorito crumbs and dried semen…..yet you call someone a COWARD? What the fuck?
That shit is laughable. I love the internet badasses.
NobodySpecial
@Nanette:
No. I don’t do that shit when I talk about blacks – I’m bright enough and have enough personal experience to know that there is no such thing as a Unified Black Theory, but I don’t presume that the rest of America either knows that or grasps the concept fully. Always put qualifiers in unless you want those kind of arguments. That’s why I’ll be happy to say that Adam Green doesn’t strike me as a very good stand-in for ‘the left’ or is even representative of it, no more than I would argue that because ABL made a bullshit argument here, that all similar arguments from all blacks are equal bullshit.
As my Latin teacher said, English is a lazy language, and you have to take extra care to make it do what you want to. Since all cats are grey on the intertubez, I try and take care to limit my arguments to individuals and qualify all my arguments with words like ‘some’ rather than assume that everyone on here reads my words like I write them. I fail at times, but then again, I’m not a frontpager on a widely read blog, either. I’m just a jackass.
cleek
@NR:
what a racist thing to say!
racist!
Angry Black Lady
@Bobby Thomson: i have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean, but if i’m supposed to be insulted, then you have failed. next.
Socraticsilence
@NobodySpecial:
Given how you gave Hamsher a free pass for working with Norquist I guess I’m suprised that you don’t approve of Obama working with the GOP.
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: oy vey. i missed one qualifier word. i imagine if i had written “has been embraced by some on the left” the shitstorm wouldn’t have been any less tempestuous.
i don’t think it’s the semantics that is bothering you, but fine. point taken.
and i had no idea that the left was an oppressed minority such that a comparison could be drawn to a unified black theory.
give me a break.
A L
Angry Black Lady, are you so obtuse to not realize that Barack Obama is not your friend, nor will you get any reward for going to bat for him?
WyldPirate
@Angry Black Lady:
Why do you continue to choose to ignore the very shit you wrote in your own post that people are quoting back to you verbatim?
Next thing you know you’ll be coming back asking them to show you where you said it–over and over and over.
Here’s a protip:–read the quoted part from the person quoting you. Then go read your own goddamned post to confirm you wrote it. . You will find that these people are quoting you verbatim and if not, paraphrasing you accurately.
Alex is at least the third person in this thread that you have done this to. Then you flounce off like some whiny, petulant 7-year old girl that is going to take her toys and go home, tossing out harrumphing “Whateva’s” like a spoiled little brat.
Can’t stand the heat? Get the fuck out of the kitchen.
Angry Black Lady
@A L: are you so obtuse as to think that i am going to bat for him rather than having the capacity to hold a nuanced view of a person and his policies?
you’re not clever. next.
NobodySpecial
@Socraticsilence: I don’t give her a free pass, and I didn’t then. I understand that she wanted the PO enough to want to work with the little weasel, but that doesn’t mean I thought it was the neatest idea since Mint Chip ice cream or even very wise.
Here’s my thing: Hamsher doesn’t speak for me. My criticism of the ACA and my wanting the PO does not mean I approved of everything every other person who wanted the PO did, or backed it, either. There was a deliberate attempt by certain persons on this blog to turn all the persons arguing for the PO or against the ACA for whatever reason into an amorphous mass of Hamsher clones so that all their arguments could be dismissed as ‘Firebaggers’ or ‘PUMAs’.
Elie
@eemom:
Here here, eemom —
I have to add, that despite the intensity here on this comment thread, this is an important and very good discussion to be having with ourselves. We have to talk about all of it — look at our biases and also be truthful and faithful to our expectations as we do that. (I too am having my disappointments with Obama’s decisions and leadership through here)
We all so desperately want a hero. But heroes are creatures of our imagination, in the whole cloth way that we seem to want. Obama, as it turns out, is just a human and obviously imperfect. He has made mistakes. He will make mistakes. We should try to get him to listen to our needs and desires and hopefully influence him
to be a better leader. But with respect. As much respect for each other in this debate, as for him. When he is long gone, we will still have this country of ours and will still presumably have our left progressive values. We have to be in good enough shape to be there for each other and get the leadership we need from the most can do and positive place possible.
Angry Black Lady
@WyldPirate: ok, where is this pie filter people keep talking about? i’m growing tired of reading this person’s name so i can scroll by.
A L
There’s no nuance about Obama. Like the last bunch of presidents, he’s been unequivocally bad, a bad person, and a bad politician. You think you’re doing anyone a favor looking for a nugget of goodness in a clearly terrible politician?
And no shit I’m not clever. You don’t need to be clever to see how foolish you’re acting. My God, I’ve seen Stalinists with more self-awareness than you.
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady:
Actually, you missed at least four. You’d have done better to confine your outrage to the PCCC, in which case I’d have been right with you, if not necessarily all the way. Instead, you pulled a Stuck or a Mike Kay, which is highly uncool.
On this blog? Do you read the comments?
NobodySpecial
Too late to edit my comment, so I’ll thank ABL in this one for modifying most of the offending comments.
cleek
@Angry Black Lady:
pie filter.
it also works on the BJ front page, now… in case anyone wants to nuke any particular BJ FP’er.
rapido
“emanating from the left”
“Now, the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics”
” I’M SICK OF THE BULLSHIT FROM THE LEFT”
You actually missed a lot of qualifiers. But then if you had restricted this to people like Adam Green, the post really would have been pretty unremarkable – nothing like a flaming bag of shit to get a reaction.
Tip: these folks have been dog-whistling since around the time Obama announced his candidacy – think Hillbuzz and Larry Johnson – and continue to the present. Nothing new under the sun.
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: in case you hadn’t noticed, i don’t take kindly to people telling me how to feel or how best to direct my anger, and i don’t care whether or not you’re right with me.
Angry Black Lady
@cleek: oh thank you. i hope some of you filter me so i can get some work done.
@A L: hyperbole is killing america’s children.
Hugh
@Angry Black Lady:
Thanks for the response. My comment evolved as I was writing it to become a response to lots of other comments I’ve read over the past few days and not only your post. I didn’t make that particularly clear.
On another note, I didn’t love this tax deal but I do find it very amusing that the compromise is now being portrayed in the media as Obama gets money for the unemployed and workers via their paychecks while the Republicans get to keep tax cuts for the wealthy.
Intentional or not this is bad optics for the Republicans. Now can our side make full use of this and force an issue where the Republicans must prove they aren’t only for the rich?
I’m not terribly hopeful but Obama has often had a way of coming through after first scaring the shit out of his supporters.
BobS
@Lisa: Sorry, I guess I confused you with “ANOTHER black lady” who wrote “I don’t know if the left has embraced Rovian race baiting. They have embraced Rovian messaging about every damn thing else though….so it would not be a stretch”.
A L
Hey everyone, it’s Angry Black Lady here to tell us that the trains are running on time, so shut up, that’s why.
Y’know, at the top of this blog is a very insightful post about the gulf oil spill, and how it is literally killing people in terrible ways. And Obama didn’t do a damn thing to mitigate it. In fact, he’s provided cover for BP to escape scot free while the victims get no compensation.
So Obama is directly complicit in the deaths of what could be hundreds or thousands of Americans, plus the destruction of the livelihoods of countless more, but we’re not supposed to call Obama names because that would be petulent. Heaven forfend some nobody at some nothing organization darken Obama’s picture. No, THAT is the outrage, not Obama’s criminal actions.
The kicker? A lot of the people who are going to die are black. So much for that, eh, Angry Black Lady?
Nanette
@A L:
Um. Parody?
(I’m the one that ruins all the jokes by needing them explained. So, sorry for ruining yours!)
Tonal Crow
@cleek: Thank you for the much-needed update.
WyldPirate
@tomvox1:
I had reserved judgement on you, but now I don’t have to anymore.
You’re a conspiracy theorist.
Greenwald was commissioned by the CATO institute to study the efficacy of drug decriminalization policies in Portugal and write a report on it. I can’t imagine why other than the fact that he is a lawyer and is in fact fluent in fucking Portugese which, last time I checked, was the official language of Portugal.
Next thing you know, you’ll be pulling an Elie and accusing people of working for the Koch brothers that post criticism of Obama here.
NobodySpecial
@Angry Black Lady: /sigh.
Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. – Diane Ackerman
Lisa
NR, yes, because not supporting Obama is racist. That is EXACTLY what she was saying.
Don’t be like that.
A L
Nanette, you’re under the impression that Obama gives a crap what you or anyone else on this blog has to think (including ABL for that matter). All your talk about “breathing room” is something a political neophyte mutters about.
Once again, you people need to get it through your heads that Obama is, like 99% of the rest of America’s political establishment, not your friend. He is not your buddy. He doesn’t want to have a beer with you. He does not care what you say or think. He is not interested in advancing your agenda. He has his agenda. You’re not a part of it. You need to stop acting like you can influence him. You can’t. You were duped and used and you need to accept that. Then you can start figuring out something productive to do.
Or you can keep acting confused why Obama and the Democrats just seem to be so darn snookered all the time. Why, if only we just Did A Thing, then maybe he’d listen to us! Instead of those wascally Republicans! Yeah, that’s it, then he’ll finally love me…
WyldPirate
@Angry Black Lady:
Yeah. It’s better to ignore the fact that your a dishonest hack who has zero integrity when half the people here are ragging your ass for your sloppy fucking thinking and writing and you refuse to own up to the obvious.
Keep it up. You will be getting the full E.D. Kain treatment soon. Just a matter of time.
Bobby Thomson
@Angry Black Lady:
Unsurprising.
Eva Tarr
Thank you ABL. I tried supporting someone who responded to Ms. HuffandPuff with this same reasoning and we were both cut from the comments. This whole thing about needing a Gangster-In-Chief is straight-up racist. Here’s another one, circa Sep 2010 from the crazy editor of the SF Chronicle entitled, “Should Obama have smoked crack?” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=72279
These fauxgressives have lost their minds.
WyldPirate
@Elie:
Ah, I see you are out of your strait-jacket today and the asylum has allowed you posting privileges because yo9ur conspiracy hallucinations are at low ebb.
Meds must be working good, huh?
Show me where I criticized Obama in this thread. If anything, i was supportive of his dillema.
Now what I have been doing is pointing out the hackery and piss-poor thinking of an FP’er here who happens to have zero integrity and won’t own up to the fact that she lies and falsely accuses individuals and broad groups of folks of shit she has no evidence for.
One would think a lawyer would give a shit about evidence, honesty and coherent thought. Evidently not.
Lisa
ABL: I love your blog. But I bet you would be much happier if you kept the interesting, nuanced talk about race and African Americans to people who can handle interesting, nuanced talk about race. Look at this thread and see if you don’t agree. My parents and grandparents saved the “getting real and down to the nittygritty” talks on race to conversations with the people who they knew could handle that shit. For the most part, they just smile and change the subject when white people that they don’t really know try to engage them on racially charged issues (unless they are overseas – oddly you can really get down and talk race at a deep level with white people in most other countries). I used to think they were being unfair….but they were just saving their marbles. Because they can easily fall out and roll away during a conversation like this one.
There are some cool-assed people on this blog that I would love to have a bottle of wine and a conversation about damn near anything (shout out to Flip, Nanette, and Chopper among many other awesome people that frequent BJ). But conversations about racism in the progressive movement are, for the most part, just fuel for a flamefest — deep deep denial there. No progress will be made from such a conversation on this blog. The conclusion will be that you are stupid and racism is over because there is a black president so “whatup, nigga? – whoa….don’t get pissed….black prez – we can totally say that now!”
BTW, I am a newly minted fan. I am all over your blog, girl. Daily reading now along with Field Negro and Jack and Jill Politics.
WyldPirate
@Angry Black Lady:
Sorry, ABL. You have way bigger problems than me.
Other people do read my comments and other people can also see that you are as full of shit as a Christmas goose and a petulant, whiny drama queen that can neither write nor think in a coherent manner as evidenced by your latest posts. That is what I was pointing out in the Greenwald thread when you were having a cow over nothing.
And you could get this behind you if you would just own up to it and say, “well, maybe I over-reacted” and “maybe I am wrongly accusing folks”. People would forgive you if you would just do that.
You’ve got way bigger problems with the readership here than just me. Your credibility is eroding away like an earthen dam that has broke.
Toodles
@tomvox1: Ditto. Ditto.
Angry Black Lady
@A L: so if i don’t talk about what YOU want me to talk about, then i shouldn’t talk about anything. A tried and true tactic, indeed. Next time, I’ll just wait for your cue before I discuss issues important to me, mkay?
got [email protected]Bobby Thomson: why are you still talking?
@NobodySpecial: nice deflection.
Nanette
@fasteddie9318:
Well, yes. And no. Remember, we’d just come off a very intense primary season and election – intense for many reasons, not the least the fact of electing the first Black president. And the activist focus was all (or primarily) on Obama and in getting him elected as well as making sure that his coattails spread far and wide for the down ticket elections.
So, yes, I think that if there had been an immediate pivot, after the election and even before the inauguration, to continual training and such of activists, (or even just informal “decompressing” rap sessions!) that a momentum could have been maintained. Plus, they already had the infrastructure in place. After that it was a given that some would take their knowledge and skills and move out on their own, or as part of other organizations, and put those skills to use. Some did, in fact. But too many who weren’t activists, weren’t trained, had limited time to commit to this that or the other thing were, in my view, just sort of left hanging.
We still only have bits and pieces of infrastructure in place, not for the purposes of electing leftish politicians (though that is a by product, sometimes), but for fiercely and without apology promoting liberal policies, and making sure people know who it is that supports and implements these policies, and so on.
Anyway, I think if OFA (in either of its incarnations) had taken the lead at the first, it would have allowed a bit of breathing and decompressing space for other things to move in. Or something like that.
WyldPirate
Angry Black Lady sez:
@Lisa sez:
“Interesting and nuanced”? Seems more like incendiary rhetorical flame-throwing to me.
Do you have a problem with crack or meth abuse, Lisa?
News Reference
Bigotry is bigotry.
Calling an incredibly diverse group, especially one that has historically been one of the strongest forces working against racism, “racist” is extremely bigoted.
Racism is racism.
Supporting a person based on their race can be (and often is) just as racist as rejecting a person based on their race.
The poster explicitly states that dumping Obama is the same as embracing racism: “Dump Obama, Embrace Racism.”
Authoritarianism is authoritarianism.
Attacking the weakest voices for speaking up and speaking out is authoritarian.
Demanding a leader be followed even if those being led feel that leader is working against their interests is authoritarian.
Bigotry, racism, and authoritarianism are what the vast majority of progressives work against.
That bigoted, racist, authoritarians see “progressives” as their enemy shouldn’t be surprising.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
You know me, I just sleep on a bench and rarely ask questions, but now I have one:
Is it theoretically possible for a prog/lib/Dem of any kind to support primarying President Obama without being a racist, and if so, what would be the valid, non-racist reasons to primary him?
.
.
Tonal Crow
@Angry Black Lady:
Wow. Just wow. Now it’s virulently racist to suggest having a conversation other than the one that you want to have. I suggest thinking before you type. And no, that’s not a poke at your race, nor anyone else’s. It’s a poke at you.
Nanette
@A L:
Well, you know… I am not sure you are actually talking to me, even though my name is on that post. I’ll answer anyway, though.
Oh, I don’t mind being thought a political neophyte, or idealist or magical thinker or anything else. But I don’t think I said, or even muttered, “breathing room” (I could be wrong – very long thread, senior moments, etc.) What I said, or meant to say, echoing Michael, was “open up space to his left.” Perhaps you were unsure what that meant and thus translated it into something more familiar to you?
But thanks anyway for letting me know what I am thinking! I coulda missed it completely.
I don’t need Obama to be either my friend or my buddy. I have Facebook! AND Twitter, though I admit to not being very twittery.
Definitely reading someone else. Is there someone impersonating maybe? Because not only am I not interested in if Obama or any other politician is interested in advancing my agenda, I totally unsurprised by the fact that they might have their own agenda! Which, often, is why they became politicians, ya know.
I don’t want to influence Obama. Directly, that is. I want to influence the culture, the conversation, the school board meetings, the guy down the street, the local paper, the half-wit mayor, so on. And then I want *them* – as now a part of *us – to influence politicians, no matter who they are.
No. I wasn’t. Is that what happened to you, though? I can do sympathy really well, sometimes!
Er.. please point me to my confusion or accept your own, thanks. (You can accept it silently, I don’t mind.) I don’t recall ever saying anything remotely like that.
There, there. I understand.
Nanette
Well, now that we’re at the endpoint of most of these conversations – to wit, “You Black folks are the REAL racists!” I think we’re done, no?
At least I am, lol.
fasteddie9318
Here’s a deep philosophical question to ponder as we digest all of this: is it wrong to post a comment to a thread just to push the number of comments up to 400?
tomvox1
@WyldPirate:
Yeah, well, you know some conspiracy theories, sometimes they are actually true. Libertarians hate government and Glenn is a Libertarian. Don’t think it matters who the president is–as long as he can show that government is The Enemy and get you to think that it doesn’t matter who is in power (so why bother voting?), he is doing his job. And that suits the “Libertarian” Koches just fine.
Now, he my not be completely conscious of his role in the Kochdom but don’t you feel one should be very careful about taking money from that sort of oligarchical scum when you are a The World’s Greatest Crusader for the Powerless?
Hamsher, on the other hand, is a pro Fifth Columnist and knows exactly what she is doing to try to torpedo Democratic chances in the general. She’ll be cheerleading for impeachment any day now. Book it.
Elie
@WyldPirate:
You are truly so lame. You said that same the last time you tried to be witty and put me in my place..I am not insulted. Just bored – but in a pleasant way
‘thang, you just are what you are.
I love your quirky need to say the same thing over and over. You never disappoint…the perpetual Ground Hog Day commenter…strangely comforting in your repetition…
Lisa
Just ignore Wyld, girl. Serious attention whore. I rarely/never respond to it. It gets creepily excited when spoken to – like a perv at a playground.
WyldPirate
@tomvox1:
Ok, now this is a reasonable exposition of your point of view. I don’t agree with it, but you are arguing your point.
Greenwald may be a Libertarian,,I’m not sure. However, I believe most of his vitriol is motivated by a passion for the “rule of law” and an adherence to the Constitution.
What Greenwald doesn’t do is fail to dole out criticism to members of both political parties. He stands on his principals irrespective of party. I admire him for that reason because so few people do that any more.
This is what is at issue here in this thread. People can and should legitimately criticize Obama. People are even allowed to criticize him when they DON’T have legitimate reasons. Shutting down criticism and yelling “racist” at those that criticize Obama is no different than the smears of the Rethugs that yell “socialist” and “communist” and “traitor” at those that didn’t fall into lockstep with Bush.
Lisa
@Elie: LMAO @groundhog day commenter. Win.
WyldPirate
@tomvox1:
Ok, now this is a reasonable exposition of your point of view. I don’t agree with it, but you are arguing your point instead of sling BS.
Greenwald may be a Libertarian, I’m not sure. However, I believe most of his vitriol is motivated by a passion for the “rule of law” and an adherence to the Constitution.
What Greenwald doesn’t do is fail to dole out criticism to members of both political parties. He stands on his principals irrespective of party. I admire him for that reason because so few people do that any more.
This is what is at issue here in this thread. People can and should legitimately criticize Obama. People are even allowed to criticize him when they DON’T have legitimate reasons. Shutting down criticism and yelling “racist” at those that criticize Obama is no different than the smears of the Rethugs that yell “soshulist” and “comm-unist” and “traitor” at those that didn’t fall into lockstep with Bush.
WyldPirate
@Elie:
I mildly criticized (here) Obama in this thread. It was much of a defense of him as a criticism of him as I acknowledged his situation with Congress.
You are simply a less articulate version of ABL–and that’s pretty damned sad, too. You can’t think and articulate a point worth a shit and you whine at any and all criticism of President
Immaculate PerfectionObama.Pardon me if I don’t join your, Lisa’s and ABL’s Obama Cult of Personality.
JWL
ABC: In the film The Long Riders, there’s a scene in which the outlaw Cole Younger (David Carradine) is on the look-out for a posse. As he scans the horizon, he remarks that they had already had quit trailing the bank robbers. Someone then asks, “Then why do you keep looking”? To which Carradine replies, “Because sometimes I’m wrong”.
Bob Loblaw
@Angry Black Lady:
I agree with you that critics of Obama need to develop (and by that I mean, reach out and find one) an understanding of historical racial coding and attacks on black people, and actively seek to avoid falling into them. Because it ends up hurting, rather than informing.
And that was my point to you, ABL. I think you just wanted to shriek and vent, not inform. Everything about you screams out-of-control, right down to your post formatting. You might as well post in comic sans or all bold or some shit.
And yes, I think this thread turned out to be highly unproductive on a topic that deserves more light than heat.
Suthrnboy
Wait! I’m confused. Am I being accused of being racist against his white side or his black side? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of though, ABL, you are fucking asshole!
Lisa
@Bob Loblaw: I don’t think it was productive for this blog. The post was interesting, but belonged on Jack and Jill or maybe even Pandagon where they discuss that kind of stuff all of the time and often have spirited debates about it. But as much as I love BJ, we just aren’t ready for any race discussion here beyond this:
Commenter #1: Teabaggers are so racist.
Commenter #2: I know, right?
The end.
Lisa
@Suthrnboy: Yeah but your handle is Suthrnboy, an Automatic Asshole Indicator.
Carry on.
rootless_e
@Villago Delenda Est: Y’all have a grasp on history that is on par with that of the teabaggers. And that’s not the only similarity.
snaveca
Whoever wrote that FDL and their fellow travelers are like a bunch of hipsters who drop a band that sells more than a 1,000 records was right on.
If a Democrat’s not bitching about a Democratic president being liberal/progressive enough, they’re bitching about their fellow Democrats. “Obots” vs. “Left Wing Racists”, etc, etc, etc.
Damn. Can’t we EVER LEARN?
Doesn’t anyone around here remember the Clinton administration?
All of the attacks from the “left” because Clinton was a “DNC DINO”?
The attacks from the Democrats in Congress? Speeches vilifying Clinton FROM DEMOCRATS? Lieberman and his sanctimonious BS?
Clinton got it from both the right AND the left. And the corporatist sellout Dems in Congress.
I guess ya’ll are too young or it’s just easy to forget because there were no blogs back in the early intertoooob days.
And what was the result of the circular firing squad? Ralph Fucking Nader taking votes away from Gore. Who, you may remember, was “no different than Bush”. Anyone who believes that a Gore presidency would have been just like a Bush presidency is delusional.
BTW, anyone who says Obama is Bush redux is a moron too.
Unfortunately, this is the dumb shit that Democrats DO. I sure wish we’d learn a damn lesson already.
You know what would be helpful? Stop calling Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries manhaters or Hillbots. Stop calling Democrats “Obots”. Stop writing blogposts where you accuse “the left”, as a whole, of embracing racebaiting. That would be a start. Can’t we keep it to the issues?
Yeah, I know, dumb idea. Never gonna happen.
Elie
@Lisa:
Yep
But maybe we will get better with time?
Its worth trying
Elie
@snaveca:
Right on man…
That said, there is too much payoff for being inflammatory and hence we have what we have… sigh
The hard left and right have always had more in common than they acknowledge. The tea party movement is just so damned compelling to anyone with an ideologue bent on either the right or left — The seductive thought of driving a debate or a decisionmaker by dramatic flair of inflicting major pain and fear is like irresistable to some people…. both sides long for authoritarian certainty and the heady sex appeal of coercion.
I don’t sense for many of my lefty bros and sisters that its the absolute value or content of a policy decision, but the thrill of making the leader do as you insist — or else. Threats are always near on the lips of my lefty ideological brethren .. along with the romantic notion that we should give up everything — winning hard fought, unsexy policy changes, success at the polls, helping the little guy a bit — just to be right… many would rather die in a hail of bullets than through the incremental decadence of influencing and pursuasion…subtle, patient and intellectual — victories at the margins. Nope.
rootless_e
@A L:
And she’s not even grateful that you explain stuff to her condescendingly and wrong.
Lisa
@Elie: Yes, this.
Ija
WyldPirate sure loves calling people crazy, crack addict etc. Surely people can disagree with you because they disagree, and not because they are mentally ill or have substance abuse problem.
Larry Bird
This was pretty hilarious. All because some political ad maker clicked the darken function one too many with what looks to be at least a 50% chance of non racist intent. If it wasn’t really made with racial undertones and just the normal “hey I want to make that guy look mean and sinister since I’m trying to destroy him so I’m darkening the image” political chicanery I hope that guy gets to see this. He’s probably a piece of shit anyway so I bet he’s laughing his ass off.
A Humble Net Lurker
@A L:
*cough* beer summit *cough*
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
.
.
OK thanks, balloonbaggers. Because there was no response to my question, my summation of this case will now have to read, in part: “Balloonbaggers do not allow even the theoretical possibility that one could support primarying President Obama and not be a racist.”
.
.
eemom
now, Uncle. You know better than that. We just thought you’d snoozed back out on your bench and didn’t want to bother you.
But, since you’re awake — and actually perhaps wanted to engage in a dialogue for once — the answer is this: primarying Obama wouldn’t be racist, it would just be political suicide for anyone who doesn’t want to see a republican in the WH in 2013.
But that simple reality does not detract from the larger point ABL is making with this post. If I assume you’re actually NOT as simple minded as you frequently appear to be, surely you must recognize that.
And btw, I have another question: are YOU black, or not? I ask this only because of the handle you have chosen, which is rather provocative on that issue.
low-tech cyclist
@Nanette:
Well, yeah, my point exactly. The MSM have managed to find one progressive (if that’s what he really is) to tell them what they want to hear from progressives about Obama to reinforce their own narrative, so he becomes their go-to guy.
Of course.
What that has to do with progressives, fuck-all if I know. But anyone who remembers the “even the liberal New Republic” stuff from about eight years back should be able to figure out what this is really about: the MSM’s gameplaying.
Anyhow, some angry black lady who must’ve been born yesterday gets totally suckered in by their game. Whatever.
foxtrotsky
Come on — you know full well you’ll vote for whatever Democrat is running against Republican Jerkwad, just like we always have.
Because you don’t have anywhere else to go, any more than we do.