Lawd Have Mercy
I have no words. I may have some words later. But for now, I have none:
I’m a little afraid that West will back down, overall, out of fear of becoming a pariah. See http://my.firedoglake.com/kgosztola/2011/05/18/cornel-wests-disgust-with-obama-should-not-make-him-a-pariah/
Much better would be to go on the offensive, IMO. I.e., exploit this dustup (with West’s blessings, of course), to take things to a higher level. Specifically, West, with the NPA’s backing, could undertake an education program, with the initial target the US black community, of teaching them about, say, Obama’s Top 10 betrayals, and Obama’s Top 5 betrayals of Afro-Americans.
This might draw howls of protest from main stream media’s “service intellectuals” (to use Denis Rancourt’s phrase), but that would be a good thing, provided West and the NPA stick to their guns.
To increase the trouble making factor (with the resultant extra media attention), a 3rd prong of the educational effort could be incorporated, namely one exposing the Top 10 Veal Pen members (and individual service intellectuals whose effect on the public mind is similar). Maybe Ed Shulz will rank as a Veal Pen-nish service intellectual, despite his lefty preferences.
One of the maddening things about American politics is that people are too tribalistic, and tend to demonize their opponents across the board, unfairly. This makes opportunistic and rational cooperation on specific issues very difficult, and is thus dis-empowering for the electorate, as a whole. However, it’s just as maddening when large segments of the population are so ignorant that they can’t identify who their enemy is, on any particular issue. (This is sort of the opposite of dichotomous tribalism.) Obama is not the friend of black or white Americans when it comes to health care, and a whole lot of other stuff. It’s a shame that more black Americans don’t realize this, but this situation is rectifiable.
Time to make – by educating Afro-Americans, and eventually the rest of the counrty [sic] – some enemies in high places, no? The folks at blackagendareport.com could also be key allies.
Cornel West just became every emo white liberal’s “I have a black friend” go-to Negro.
Congrats, Brother.
UPDATE: For those wondering what the NPA is, it is apparently the New Progressive Alliance which has as its favored candidates the following folks (in order): Elizabeth Warren, Russ Feingold, Howard Dean, Richard Trumka, Alan Grayson, Cynthia McKinney, Al Franken, Paul Krugman, Dennis Kucinich, and Jane Hamsher. Notably, the author of the above post appears to have placed listings in Craigslist for potential primary candidates. Would that I were kidding.
UPDATE Also too: This is why it matters… at least to us Niggras
Should I start another “ABL Sucks Open Thread” for the Weekend? Just in case? I really must head to a meeting. I’m sure this’ll be a real barn burner when I return.
[cross-posted]
eemom
give ’em hell, ABL!
Fuckwads.
arguingwithsignposts
Who is the NPA and WTF is a veal pen?
Brachiator
Cornell West’s influence is very much overrated. He’s the black Ralph Nader, trotted out now and then by people who need a fix of pointless ideological purity, and then put back safely in the dustbin of history.
ulyssesunbound
When do I get to declare who is a friend of “Afro-Americans” and who is not? It seems this author has unfairly bogarted that ability.
September
The lack of outrage from FDLers is astounding. I think we can all quit pretending that Jane’s blackface escapades were a fluke or an outlier.
Hill Dweller
The comments on that FDL post are gold.
4tehlulz
>Afro-Americans
lol. this is how white liberals talked in the 1960s, before sending their children to private school.
Zandar
You have got to be fully, completely, totally, early Rapture prank shitting me.
Jewish Steel
So, who are the “Afro-American’s” true friends? Dennis Kucinnich? Nader? The Green Party?
Tangentially, as a infant I had my father’s red afro. We are both Americans. Are we similarly betrayed?
HeartlandLiberal
ABL, you strike me with awe repeatedly.
Having grown up in Alabama in the middle of the Civil Rights moment of the sixties, I just stand back in amazement now that we are here in the second decade of the next frickin’ century, and STILL dealing with the same stupidity and racism in our society.
Sort of discouraging, to be honest about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Holy fuck, where to begin? This is such a stupefying self-parody that I can’t help but wonder if the writer isn’t a double-agent troll goofing on Lady Jane and her ilk.
nepat
It would all make sense if you were psycho too. Otherwise, not so much.
Allan
@Jewish Steel: Apparently, the New Progressive Alliance has identified Elizabeth Warren as their Great White Hope.
piratedan
isn’t Jane the one who keeps repeating the mistake that all Progressives are Democrats ergo all Democrats are Progressive? Seems like she’s so busy broad brushing that she doesn’t realize that she’s run out of canvas….
MattR
I must admit to having a morbid sense of curiousity and wanting to see what makes this list.
scav
To state the bloody obvious , there certainly are pungent whiffs of the whole “white mans burden” in their stance of having to educate people about who their enemies are. It’s not at all about having to learn what issues are and possibly, heaven forfend, cooperating with sane equals, it’s all about bringing the poor dears up to speed.
4tehlulz
>So, who are the “Afro-American’s” true friends?
Bob Ross, z”l
DonkeyKong
Has Firedog run this past the Judean People’s Front, the Judean Popular People’s Front, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the Popular Front of Judea?
Egypt Steve
When I read this shit, I just hear that old Cypress Hill ditty going round and round in my head:
Insane in the membrane,
Insane in the brain!
Insane in the membrane,
Gone insane! Got no brain!
So don’t ask what they’re thinking. They’ve lobotomized themselves with self-victimization. I’ve said it before, liberals got to spend 60 years working at it to get to the point where the rethugs are now. You crucify Obama, we get another 60 years of unbridled Ray-gun Reaction.
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts: Veal Pen refers to anyone on the left not adequately outraged with Obama as Jane feels they should be. She’s arguing that Obama gave them just enough policy that they’ll happily feed there until they get slaughtered.
The obvious problem with this entire attitude is that there is no appeasing them. By their own defining of the problem: “Top 10 betrayals, and Obama’s Top 5 betrayals of Afro-Americans.”
There’s always a top 10 betrayals. My daughter can certainly come up with a list, including that time during Pictionary when I accidentally helped my wife and son with a clue and lost us a game. That one ranks high, I tell you. So, FDL gets their cred from pointing out the enemies from within of the cause. Which progressive causes are secretly in cohoots with the Cylons? I bet we can name the 10 most likely betrayers!
Cassidy
Oh you silly negroes….can’t you just accept the teachings of the more civilized white people? Just vote how we tell you to or accept it when we pass laws to keep you from voting.
/snark
I all seriousness, I like West. I don’t think he’s a bad guy and he has some very pertinent things to say when he’s on Bill Maher.
Scott
Ohh my word.
There really needs to be an emoticon for a proper cartoon wild take.
aimai
Wow. Tonstant Weader Twowed Up. FDL has gone beyond the fringe, beyond the pale, beyond the…well, words fail me.
aimai
Hal
The last three comments pretty much some this all up for me…
Also, you may have trouble having Dr. West on board with you little endeavor since at no point in time whatsoever has he’s been appointed a black leader by any number of black people. In fact, the black community tend to frown upon those black persons who act like they are the arbiter of “Blackness” like Dr. West just did
And yeah, thinking that the majority of black people are a bunch of ignoramuses when it comes to politics and that they only support Obama because he’s black is not going to be very popular either
But I look forward to what you guys come up with.
Log in to Reply malinowski May 20th, 2011 at 8:26 am «
Educating black people? Black people are ignoramuses? (itmidnight)
Um, FDL isn’t really helping its image as the racist-friendly “liberal” blog here.
Holy shit firebaggers suck.
Log in to Reply TomHilton May 20th, 2011 at 8:31 am «
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking.
Also: “Afro-American”? Good lord the stupid burns
Jewish Steel
@Allan: That Elizabeth Warren? Huh? Double take? Is she running as a primary challenger? This is some kind of fever dream?
@4tehlulz: Happy Little Trees by any means necessary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@piratedan:
I think that’s the mistake made by a big chuck of the (for lack of a better word) left-blogosphere, the people who think that Claire McCaskill and the Nelson twins (and the Punditocracy) would fall into line if Obama were a tough guy like LBJ. Hamsher would need about eight years of psychotherapy to get to just “mistaken”.
CT Voter
This is parody, right?
I mean, RIGHT??
The lack of self-awareness is astonishing.
tamied
You know, I’d like to ask just who the hell these asshats at FDL think they’d like to run against BO? Do they have someone better in mind?
Albert Mond
OK I return from the wilderness, any place without Internet coverage, to check out Balloon Juice and find Angry Black Lady ranting about something, Firedoglake, the whole world is against Blacks. OK then. Not a huge Jane supporter but ABL reminds me of those aggressive people who would try to beat up others at the Democratic conventions back in 2008 for even daring to cast for or support anyone but Obama. Hillary? “Let me slug you.” Dennis K? “You’re asking for trouble.” Angry black women who could only be restrained by their husbands who said “Calm down I am sure they will vote for Obama if he gets the nomination. Stop getting so agitated.” Whatever grinds your gears ..
Steve
I haven’t visited Firedoglake in a long time so I don’t quite get how their site works these days, but am I wrong that this is basically the equivalent of nutpicking a Daily Kos diary?
jrg
Good lord, firebaggers are morons.
Leaving aside the fact that this article is transparently racist, how on earth can anyone believe that an unspecified primary challenger would be better than Obama on any issue at all?
Unspecified primary challengers always reflect magical thinking at it’s best. It’s always a Rorschach test for whatever retarded pet belief that particular firebagger is clinging to at that particular time. Tomorrow, that primary challenger (magical pony) will be someone else entirely…
That’s not even taking into account the fact that this magical pony primary challenger couldn’t get elected dog catcher if he followed the whims of these flakes.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
Why does this remind me so very much of the current Anti-Choice campaign targeting us African-Americans?
Allan
@Jewish Steel: It seems they surveyed FDL readers and she topped the list. I’m asking around to find the Top Ten choices to primary Obama they identified to confirm my suspicion that the entire list will be, well, melanin-deprived.
arguingwithsignposts
I feel a little sorry for TBogg making his pitch to support FDL today. If donations could only go to designated bloggers, perhaps he’d have a chance.
John Cole
Um, this is NOT a Firedoglake post. This is a diary by some random jackass at FDL. There is fundamentally nothing different from when the wingnuts attack some random diarist at the Daily Kos and attribute it to Markos than attributing this diary to FDL. This appeared nowhere on the front page of FDL, but in the random rabble section. That’s basically like blaming me or ABL for something Joe Beese said.
Allan
@Steve: Pretty much. And so, one looks to the comments for an indication of the degree to which the FDL community abhors the author’s POV and strategery. And until this post was more widely disseminated, one finds bupkis.
Martin
Question: Does this guy qualify as an Afro-American?
Hal
@Albert Mond
Yeesh…
Martin
@John Cole: Fair enough. Jane still owns ‘veal pen’ though.
dmbeaster
When are the FDL people going to figure out that Obama was never “left” in the sense that they are? I knew this when I voted for him – he was a little too centrist for me, but so what. You cannot complain about lack of ideologicial purity when he was never in your camp to begin with.
You can complain about his reversals on certain key points that go to the odious aspects of Bush policies concerning executive power. He deserves to be taken to the wood shed on that, but not described as some sort of great hypocrite or gigantic disappointment.
In my own opinion, his fetish with centrism and trying to get along with the opposition who will do anything to stab him has been a big weakness. It had a lot to do with the 2010 electoral failures. Part of what electrified support for him was his soaring rhetoric, and he seems to betray that spirit in practice. Not necessarily, but he should keep going back to that rhetoric if maintaining power (and therefore the capacity to get anything done) matters to him. Toning it down in order to get along with axe murders makes no sense.
Tony J
Because, of course, there couldn’t be anything in the initial Top 10 that might make ‘those people’ angry enough to turn on one of their own. You have to give them their own Top 5 based around issues their community cares about.
Separate, but not quite equal.
piratedan
@John Cole: ty JC, mea culpa
Commish
Wow. I am waiting to hear what kind of words you come up with.
EDIT: actually, the line about Cornel West as the emo-liberals’ “black friend” is a great one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tamied: Ezra Klein had a very strange post a couple weeks ago, asking who should run if Obama “pulled a Seinfeld” (left on top after one term). There was the expected rush of PUMAs who saw this odd question as somehow a vindication of Hillary Clinton, but other than that the consensus seemed to be Howard Dean. I saw a worshipful reference to “Dr Dean” on a Firebagger blog this morning. It was kind of endearing.
(edited: no idea why I capitalized “Rush”)
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
meh. I love TBogg’s writing, he is funny as shit — but he’s handed his balls over to Jane just like every other male poster at that shithole.
If he had any self-respect he’d defect to here.
Allan
@John Cole: Those who do speak for FDL in any official capacity have had since Wednesday morning to comment, to object, and to dissociate themselves from the diary content.
Stuckinred
FDL sucks whether it is their post or not.
tbogg
Too be fair…. the link takes you to a MyFDL page which is basically a diary (much like the type of diaries found on Kos) and therefore doesn’t represent the views of anyone who writes at FDL outside of the author.
The only reason to go all Malkin ragegasm over it is because of an already existing antipathy to FDL.
Egypt Steve
In other news, Newt Gingrich has “Dancing Queen” as his cell-phone ring tone. Is that the last nail in his coffin or what?
burnspbesq
I was very impressed by some of Cornel West’s early writings. When did he become a cartoon character?
John Cole
@tbogg: Exactly.
@Allan: Get out of here with your hall monitor bullshit. No one running a website has the obligation to go through every damned comment or diary and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Do you even think before you speak?
ABL
@John Cole: UM, we’ve been through this before, Cole.
It’s not a fucking excuse.
Christ.
ETA: Sure, there was no moderator to step in and sanction this shit as with the infamous “house niggers” post, but it’s not an excuse. Not anymore.
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
Not really. I can understand the comparison to GOS, but comments here do not look exactly like a FP post.
jprfrog
This really puts me in mind of my then recently radicalized SDS friends back in he 60’s, aping the style of argument and “strategic thinking” to be found in the European sectarian left before WW1…the era in which Lenin developed his polemical style.
I grew up in a CPUSA household (that’s Communist Party USA for you young ‘uns) and heard any amount of that psuedo-Stalinist BS. The positive result was the AFT, for which he organized, and the price we paid was my father being HUACed and losing his teaching job. ( He turned out to be a fairly good capitalist in the roofing business.) I gradually freed myself of that, with the Hungarian events of 1956 (I was then 16) completing the process. However, unlike David Horowitz, I did not flip over to the other side, which preserves the style while interchanging the substance.
I remain a mildly liberal Democrat, not overjoyed with BHO but realistic enough to understand the climate in which he is trying to function, and mildly amazed that he has done what he has (while not happy with some of the rest, especially continuing some of the more Orwellian of the Bush surveillance policies). So am I being self-serving if I say I am being an adult here…I ought to be by now, since I’m 71)?
In sad truth, the greatest betrayers of the ideals of the Left (with which I sympathize) were Mao and Stalin, with Ralph Nader as a minor footnote (maybe not so minor, in that his folie de grandeur gave us GWB, but it’s way to soon to tell.) The Firebaggers seem hellbent on pursuing the same path, which is as promising in bringing about a more decent society as were the window-smashers of the Weathermen (one of whom I helped — to my consternation — to radicalize in the early 60’s). Lenin had a term for it, BTW: infantile leftism. FDL is a perfect example of what he meant.
ItAintEazy
Look, I care so little about this “controversy” that I can’t even make the effort to find out what Cornel West actually said.
Whatever his feelings are about Obama, I just want to ask him where he’s been for the past four or five years. Obama pretty much made it clear that he’s not going to pidgeonhole himself as the “black candidate” and that he’s pretty much going to continue the policies of the current liberal consensus, whether they’re good for blacks or don’t go far enough.
stuckinred
@tbogg: Good enough for me.
Zifnab
Blech. I thought this was front page. Nevermind. See tbogg. He knows his shit.
eemom
ah, here comes Sir John of Cole, galloping in on his white steed to avenge the honor of fair Lady Jane once AGAIN. Tee hee.
ABL
I’m out of this thread.
Disgusted before it hits 100.
Robert Green
cornel west was in the worst of the matrix movies, so shut up.
also too, i am very excited to vote for the non-obama option who i assume, based on the argument outlined by FDL, will be better for both the Left and for African Americans.
who? rick perry? mitt romney? really? running for what? how many options? just the two, you say? so if not obama it’s one of those guys? well. now that you’ve outlined for me oh imagined interlocutor the realities of the american political system, realities which until todayi knew NOTHING about!, now i’m going to not say stuff that is obviously idiotic.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
I don’t know about you, but I just LOVE it when hyper-privileged Caucasian pricks take time out of their busy schedule of masturbating to Yanni to set my nappy head straight.
And the fact they’re going to tell me how much I should hate the first Afro-American president just makes me a raging white woman assaulting hard on.
I wonder if the crier baggers will write their education program in Ebonics. Or perhaps set it to rap music so I can better appreciate their message. I’m so anxious to find out I can’t eat my watermelon and fried chicken!
Jesus Christ. Just … FUCK THEM ALL TO HELL.
Brachiator
@dmbeaster:
Of course, it would help matters with little things like legislation or judicial appointments if the Democrats could get a majority or at least a stronger hand in the Congress. Otherwise, it is an odd fantasy to talk about Obama abandoning the center.
White Trash Liberal
If only Winston could convince the proles, then we can rise against Big Brother!
eemom
@tbogg:
which, sir, is extremely well founded.
The woman’s a snake. It’s been proven over and over again eleventy ways to Tuesday.
Observerinvancouver
The most oblivious line in that article:
“One of the maddening things about American politics is that people are too tribalistic, and tend to demonize their opponents across the board, unfairly.”
Maybe some of the professional left should take a look at their unfair demonizing of Pres. Obama.
What else is that idea about teaching the black community about “Obama’s Top 10 betrayals, and Obama’s Top 5 betrayals of Afro-Americans”?
John Cole
I’m not defending Jane, you halfwit (and I realize I may be giving you too much credit by a half). I’m defending myself.
If you think it is ok to criticize TBOGG, Jane, Marcy, DDAY and everyone else and hold them responsible for every diary, I might as well shut this blog down because then I am responsible for every comment here, including the myriad of stupid things you say. It is an unfair standard.
The person who wrote this post was an idiot, and I have no problem with anything ABL wrote (this is evident by the lack of any negative comments from me regarding the content), but I do have a problem attributing it to Firedoglake as a whole. This is nothing more than nutpicking. It’s stupid.
Also, fuck off.
ABL
@eemom: seriously. WTF.
Allan
@John Cole: So John, what you’re saying is that you reject and denounce my comment and want to make clear that it doesn’t speak for your blog?
Hal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
You always know your in the presence of a deaniac when the Dr comes out.
stuckinred
@eemom: Wait. wait, she’s sooo pretty and she’s the only one that tells the truth.
steviez314
With any luck, that post will do to FDL what the “Chocolate Carter” one did for MyDD.
eemom
@John Cole:
aw. my fee fees is hurted. : (
ABL
@John Cole: it is absolutely NOT an unfair standard. we went over this in january.
your lack of moderation is a well-known policy. her “moderate the fuck out of everything” is also a well-known.
your memory cannot be this short, can it?
fuck this noise.
arguingwithsignposts
someone should explain to the fine folks at NPA what a “diary” is, as they seem to be misunderstood, per their “newsletter”:
piratedan
@Allan: well that and the broccoli mandate
Hal
I think we need a patented Rodney King “Can’t we all just get along?” right about now.
burnspbesq
An interesting take on the current dustup.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11140/1147825-153-0.stm
Surely I’m not alone in seeing the irony in someone raised in a middle-class, two-parent household, with degrees from Harvard and Princeton, who has spent most of his life at Harvard and Princeton, calling the product of a mixed-race, broken home, with degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, who has spent most of his life at the University of Chicago and in Illinois and national politics, an “inauthentic Negro.” You can be pasty white and still see that that’s ludicrous.
Villago Delenda Est
Jeeze. Good thing the wingtards have the same dysfunctional purity nonsense going on that we on the nominal left do, or we’d be seriously screwed.
John Cole
I’ts nutpicking, plain and simple. End of story.
The Ancient Randonneur
I can see the end of the world from my laptop! (And it looks like it may get here before the 21st.)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@dmbeaster:
In fairness to Obama, a lot of his “soaring rhetoric” is salted with pleas to unity and comity amongst all Americans and digs at partisanship in DC, and while we may not like the consequences of his acting on these noble but seemingly naive instincts, back in 2008 independents (aka swing voters) seemed to eat that stuff up like little kids gorging on cotton-candy at the State Fair. Time will tell how well this strategy continues to work in the 2012 election, but I for one am not going to bet against Obama’s political instincts for what the electorate taken as a whole wants to hear, given his track record so far.
If nothing else, nobody can accuse him of playing bait-and-switch. Ever since the 2004 Dem convention speech he has been building his national image on “why can’t we all just get along” appeals to the better angels of our nature. If anybody thought they were going to get something different from him in office, then they’ve been working really hard at not listening to what the man says.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Well, his dad was Kenyan, and therefore not of the “authentic” African-American experience, you know.
Never mind that the Sheriff Clark types don’t bother to check into pedigrees when they’re making snap decisions based on skin color…
burnspbesq
@tbogg:
Correct in all respects … but there is ample reason for the existence of that antipathy.
John Cole
And I didn’t agree with you then.
stuckinred
Well shit then:
“Join the FDL Members Program–and let your dollars and your “two cents” combine to make a FDL and our country a better place for all of us.
If you join during this post, you’ll have a chance to get in on a phone call from me–or, better yet, Jane.
If you join during this post, you’ll get to challenge me to sing a song of your choosing.
If you join during this post, maybe I will possibly explore almost running for president.”
If you join at any time, you get to help sustain and grow FDL’s independent journalism and kick-ass activism.
pragmatism
we should all just refute stalin as a sign of solidarity. and the broccoli mandate. i feel better already.
Jewish Steel
@burnspbesq: Not to mention that with a little bad luck he could easily still be “Barrack the community organizer.”
BTW, I don’t think we say “broken home” anymore. Not trying to police your language but it has been pointed out to me that it carries a stigma that has long vanished. I don’t know a good alternative that doesn’t smack of inelegant language engineering.
stuckinred
@Jewish Steel: The Bi-Nuclear family.
ABL
@John Cole: well then. you’re wrong.
end of story.
aisce
@John Cole:
oh cole, you’re such a sweetheart trying to play peacemaker all the time. this war is beyond you, i’m afraid. it’s been going on a very long time, and it will continue for a very long time.
PanAmerican
@tamied:
Pretty much this.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Evidently you were not present for Professor Fuckhead’s lecture series “Barack Obama: Defined By Wealth And White Privilege.”
handy
@pragmatism:
/co-sign
tbogg
@burnspbesq:
Which doesn’t justify the response. This is just looking for a reason to be pissed off. But if you want to be Jim Hoft, knock yourself out.
Jewish Steel
@stuckinred: That sounds like a different kind of engineering.
Villago Delenda Est
@aisce:
Agreed. The war will continue until the utter vanquishing of one side by the other.
Or both sides get out of preschool. Whichever comes first.
Martin
@John Cole:
I think the criticism has been leveled more at the community there, just like the criticism toward DKos is leveled toward the community there, and not Kos specifically.
Nobody expects you to be responsible for what Beese says, but as a community we shout him down quite reliably and if we don’t, then we rightly deserve, as a community, to be criticized. But you have the added ability to shape things as you have by banning Beese, so you can’t pretend that the site owners don’t have at least some power here. Years ago Kos laid down the law that 9/11 conspiracy theories were bannable offenses, and it helped to clean the place up (though they’re still overly prone toward conspiracy theories in general there).
FDL commenters (admittedly only a few) appeared to be either supporting or giving very measured criticism of the FDL piece until we lot showed up and started shouting them down. And as we’ve seen in the past, the community there keeps falling into this same trap. If they want a different perception, they have the power to effect it – both Jane and co and the community itself. I don’t think it’s an unearned perception.
ABL
@John Cole: last word: if you think it’s nutpicking, i suggest you visit WEESeeYou at some point today and you tell me if the black folks there are absolving Jane of this bullshit, and absolving Joan Walsh of Sunday’s bullshit, and absolving Jane and her moderators for interposing asterisks so as not to say the word “nigger” outright as you are so eager to do.
It may be nutpicking to you, but I assure, you it isn’t.
Carry on, my wayward son.
Allan
@tbogg: If only you had a platform from which to point and laugh at the stupidity of this diary.
Fred
Just wow. These are the same people who pretty much ruined that orange site who’s name shall remain nameless.
And the same names keep popping up. Namely, Jane Hamsher.
Ija
@Albert Mond:
Oh yes, that not a racist or sexist statement at all. Nope, nothing to see here. In fact, I’m the racist and sexist for even mentioning the two words.
Steve
@Allan:
Bupkis? The SECOND comment on the diary was critical. And then two more people agreed with that. Not sure how much more you want, on a diary with barely any traffic.
In any event, I don’t accept this whole “if the FDL community had a problem with it, they would all show up to denounce it” line of argument. There is no such obligation. You sound like Michelle Malkin asking where all the moderate Muslims are.
I see that John Cole, no Hamsher-lover he, is serving as a voice of reason here. Say whatever you want about this asshole diarist, but I’m not impressed with the attempt to attribute it to FDL just because it doesn’t have enough critical comments to please you.
arguingwithsignposts
Just curious, are there granite counter tops in the veal pen?
Citizen_X
@Albert Mond:
Wow. Please document where that happened.
I mean in your, parallel universe, of course. Because in this one, it never happened.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
Just lucky, I guess.
jibeaux
It’s nutpicking, but at the same time there’s a reason it was a diary over there as opposed to at another site. But still kind of fun to mock the notion of educating black voters about how they should vote for Obama’s primary challenger, Dennis Kucinich. There was an #FDL10 tag on twitter this morning.
Allan
@Steve: You’ll notice that Mr. Cole has been all over this post to indicate his disagreement with it. Apparently it’s not hard.
ABL
@tbogg: actually, i’m not pissed off. just irritated at the predictability of the responses over here.
having spent two days watching fools in here argue that jane shouldn’t be held responsible for one of her moderators sanctioning calling democrats “house niggers,” i don’t get pissed off when it comes to the Balloon Juice/FDL sexathon.
i posted this shit over here merely so it could reach the people who can be reached which is, sadly, not many.
Cacti
I wish Corny and his BFF Tavis Smiley would just tell the truth about what really rankles them about Obama…
He didn’t kiss their
assesrings and get their blessing to run for POTUS.Do either of these “fine intellectuals” do anything other than show up at haute bourgeois
circle jerksround tables and flap their gums?Linda Featheringill
Oh, Lord, what a mess.
Peace on you all.
I was going to say something but after looking at the thread decided that I probably should just stay out of this.
Bye.
bryanD
http://exiledonline.com/jane-hamsher-unplugged-and-unhinged-dare-to-criticize-hamshers-appalling-labor-record-and-this-is-what-youll-get/
lacp
So, ABL, the diary in question can be briefly summarized as “If only the ignorant AFRO-AMERICANS could be as OUTRAGED by Obama’s BETRAYALS as a progressive, sensitive, caring person of Caucasianaloidism like me is, we could make common cause in nominating the next George McGovern in 2012?” Would that be about right?
Phil Perspective
@Allan: So Kos has to disavow every stupid diary someone might put up at TGOS?
low-tech cyclist
ABL = dump all over FDL if you want to, but what’s your problem with “Afro-Americans”?
You DO know that there’s a chain of newspapers by that name, e.g. the Washington Afro-American.
And fercryinoutloud, this business of cycling through different names for a minority group so that a term that was the ‘good’ term 30 years ago (Afro-American) is supposedly the wrong thing to say now, but an all but identical term (African-American) is the right term to use, is really kinda silly.
If there’s something wrong with using “Afro-American,” please explain this stuff to me.
Allan
@Phil Perspective: I think Martin said it very well at comment 97, so I’ll just point you there.
moops
The stupid has been flung all around today.
If you do rifling through FDL diaries looking for stupid, guess what ?
commenting on a comment saying that you don’t want to be held responsible for comments on comments….is perhaps not effective.
Some people here just can’t seem to ignore FDL. Like a certain commentator can’t stop reading Sullivan.
The media is big these days. Go find something new.
jrg
@lacp: I’d say that’s an accurate shorter.
Tom Hilton
FYI, FDL is currently having a membership drive. They’re trying to get a thousand people to shell out 45 simoleons apiece to subsidize their deranged bullshit.
Seems like the perfect time for those of us who aren’t okay with racist douchebaggery to let them know how we feel.
aisce
this is a crazy theory, but perhaps the people trying to force balloon juice to become part of the exercised activist vanguard are simply barking up the wrong tree? this is probably simply not the site for you, nor will it ever be.
it’s a “white people’s site.” it lives in the comfortable snarky center of american political discourse. it harasses people like david brooks and ann althouse and reason magazine. no crime in that. if you want weeseeyou or the people’s view, go to weeseeyou or the people’s view.
if you want cat pictures and gardening mishaps and outrage at the new york times op-ed page, stick around. just a thought.
Norwonk
Tbogg is plenty reason to justify the existence of FDL. I salute you, Sir!
As for the post in question, I admit I probably would have thought it was satire, which sort of tells you how nice and innocent I am. But I don’t think it can be used as evidence against the bigshots over at FDL. I blog on Open Salon, but if I say something stupid, that’s entirely my fault. You may consider Joan Walsh to be History’s Greatest Monster, but she shouldn’t have to answer for my ramblings. Ditto Jane Hamsher.
Tom Hilton
@low-tech cyclist: There’s also an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I wouldn’t recommend using “colored” to refer to African-Americans.
Trabb's Boy
I don’t usually comment here, because I hate arguing, but there is really are a couple of distinctions between saying that this diary is an FDL problem and that FDL is responsible for all diaries.
First, this is racism, not just dumb political ideas. There is a higher responsibility on blog owners to make sure that very basic levels of civility are maintained, and that serious racism, misogyny, threats of violence, etc. are not allowed. There’s a higher standard there, like there is in employment, housing, etc. Blog owners may not be on the hook for any asshole’s comment, but the are responsible for making sure that the truly awful stuff is, at a mimimum, called out.
Second, there is a history here, and not just of BJ’ers hating FDL. Jane was put on probation after the blackface, and should be trying a little harder on this particular front.
ABL, you rock. I have adored your last bunch of posts!
madmatt
OBAMA
slightly
less
ODIOUS
Gosh how can I resist a campaign like that
Martin
@low-tech cyclist:
Shorter LTC: “For fucks sake, why won’t you niggers pick a name and stick to it! How’s a cracker supposed to keep track of the PC name of the week?”
I know that’s not really what you’re saying there, but it struck a nerve. I don’t know anyone who’s used the term ‘Afro-American’ in anything other than a legacy context in, well, a decade at least. Arguing against how a community wants to be perceived really isn’t the hill you want to die on.
Allan
@aisce: Thank you for spelling it out so clearly.
Culture of Truth
Get Casey Kasem on this shit, now!
Crust
In ABL’s world, Hamsher is responsible for every random diary that appears on FDL; apparently, if she doesn’t denounce it within 24 hours or so, she has implicitly endorsed it. Duly noted.
I trust ABL won’t complain if others hold her to her own standard, as applied to Balloon Juice comments.
Commish
@burnspbesq: That’s how it looks to this pasty-American.
ET
Afro-Americans?
Don’t most people use African Americans? I guess for me using Afro-Americans is a signal for someones words to be ignored because they are going say something stupid.
Phil Perspective
@Allan: Which still doesn’t answer the question. I only even know of the offending post because one of ABL’s friends on Twitter posted about it. If I hadn’t seen his Tweet, I would have never even known the said offensive post existed. Since a bunch of you went over there, did you report it, since there is a “report” button? I just did.
Xecky Gilchrist
Why the narrow emphasis on betrayals, when there are also slaps-in-the-face, rug-yankings, sellings-out, and quislingeries to list?
JordanRules
It’s delusional Friday for me and I’m going to stick to this line no matter what (for the weekend at least)…. ‘This sh*t right here has got to be satire, umm hmm, good stuff’
Trentrunner
Hide the belts! Mommy and daddy are fighting again.
fasteddie9318
Previously, on “As the Balloon Juice Blows”:
ABL posts righteous takedown of some mega-stupid and most likely racist (or, at best, incredibly ignorant…I mean, “Afro-American”? Dude…) diary at FDL, but arguably goes a little too far in attributing the contents of the diary to all of FDL.
Commenters post in firm agreement with ABL RE: the righteousness of her takedown, but arguably extend the issue further by blaming Jane Hamsher, FDL, liberals in general, and, let’s say, the Trilateral Commission for this one FDL diary.
Allan re-returns, amazingly this time without a long announcement of his re-return involving the solving of whatever deep community failure that caused his previous un-return and how we’re all so lucky to have him back again.
Cole jumps in, notes that arguably this is the same thing as O’Reilly tarring Markos with something stupid/offensive that some diarist at GOS wrote, then arguably goes a little too far in comparing it to blaming him for the stream of stupid that Joe Beese crapped out in the comments section here before he was mercifully euthanized.
Special Guest Star
James Francotbogg comes by with basically the same message.eemom rips Cole for defending Jane Hamsher, FDL, liberals, and the Trilateral Commission and thus for defending this particular diary since all of them were behind it.
Cole denies defending the diary, tells eemom to fuck off.
ABL contends that Hamsher is to blame for not removing the offending diary when her editorial policy is fairly proactive in such regards, also a valid point.
Cole disagrees that this is a valid point.
Allan weighs in making pretty much the same point ABL did.
Cole tells Allan to fuck off, or something in that neighborhood.
ABL, faced with a relatively minor and debatable quibble to the overall thrust of her post, with the contents of which everyone seems to be in agreement save for that one bit, announces she is going to “fuck this noise” and get out of here.
Fred drops in and says some vapid bullshit about pie. I don’t get that dude.
Tensions run high: will Allan un-re-return? And if so, what must the community do to get him to re-re-return? Will Cole tell more people to fuck off? Well, OK, that’s a given. Is ABL going to make a bunch of “neener, neener” FP posts later today with the comments closed, or will she and Cole find common ground around the fact that they’re basically disagreeing over 0.5% of the original post?
TUNE IN NEXT TIME, ON “AS THE BALLOON JUICE BLOWS”!
Allan
@Phil Perspective: I answered your question by pointing to a thoughtful response that did a really good job of drawing a line between personal responsibility of a blog owner v. the collective responsibility of a blog community. Sorry that it wasn’t satisfactory for you.
Thanks for reporting the post. I’m not a member of the FDL community, so that option is not available to me.
Culture of Truth
I am sorry I missed this thread.
ABL
@Crust: I trust you can stop being an asshole for a minute and maybe take the time to actually read what the fuck I write.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/01/20/reanimating-the-horse-and-then-beating-it-again/
boss bitch
Are you sure this isn’t a parody? I saw it yesterday and thought it was a joke.
oh my.
Scott
I’m on ABL’s side on this. Firedoglake has been flirting with awful stuff for a long time. Hamsher has made it too easy for people to question whether or not she’s a racist — if I had to face frequent questions about that on my own site, no matter how large or small, I’d make a special effort to find racist posts and delete ’em, or at the very least, denounce ’em with a nicely prominent post of my own.
Progressive Elitist
Fasteddie and aisce have both summed it up perfectly. I love balloon juice.
RedKitten
@fasteddie9318: Nicely done!!! :) I think you’ll do well on your quiz, later!
JordanRules
@fasteddie9318: My boss thanks you for that. Having been fully caught up, I can now try to do some work. Well done.
freelancer
@Culture of Truth:
Erm, you didn’t. You’re in it.
boss bitch
This is all so very very wrong. THIS so-called fetish won him the presidency. It is not a fetish by the way, nor is it a weakness and it sure as hell didn’t cause Dems to lose the House.
General Stuck
Nutpicking at FDL? Too funny. That’s like catching rays in Death Valley. Where nary a cloud is ever seen.
kc
Scuse me while I go pop some popcorn.
gwangung
Shrug.
I’m sure that not everyone at FDL is like that diarist.
But I’m also sure there’s more of that around there (and the rest of the world) than a lot of people would be comfortable with.
Call it out. Keep things clean.
piratedan
ty fasteddie, mucho appreciado
Omnes Omnibus
@fasteddie9318: Win.
Cacti
@boss bitch:
Avowed liberals have this chronic problem of imagining themselves to be more than the 1/5 of the electorate that they actually are.
John D.
@eemom: Y’know, it’s not that you’re wrong. It’s not that you’re CONTINUALLY wrong. It’s not that you’re AGGRESSIVELY, STUPIDLY wrong.
Your singular talent is to find that one, shining example that can never, ever, ever be used for what you intend for it.
John and Jane have a history. IMO, John’s largest fuckup (in the sense of digging in when he should have known better) involved her. Google on “Jane Hamsher’s of the left”.
Then come back here and repeat your inanities.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Can we please get back to discussing President Obama’s fierce expansion of former president Bush’s Police/Security State policies against the American People?
.
.
Steve
I didn’t realize Allan was a known “character” around these parts. I’ll stop trying to discuss with him.
Mr. Poppinfresh
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: RACIST!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@freelancer: THE POSTS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE THREAD! GET OUT!
Ken
I don’t know. I am a black guy and I am not really a fan of Barack Obama. I’ll vote for him over any of the Republicans, sure, and I knew what we were getting when I pulled the lever for him last time, but the fact that he’s the best thing the Democratic Party can produce is a little disheartening and speaks to how awful the situation is inside the Beltway.
And the thing is, I know a lot of black people who feel the same way, but we have bigger things to worry about than whether or not the current President is moving the Overton Window enough to the left. Look, I live in Richmond VA. Even if Barack Obama disengages from the Middle East tomorrow or raises marginal tax rates, the east end of our city still won’t have a public high school to serve its majority black population.
Punchy
RIP Randy “Macho Man” Savage….
Citizen_X
@aisce: This is a “white people’s site?” Seriously? What the fucking fuck?
opie jeanne
ABL, all I can say about FDL is What the Fuck?
I mean, they have seriously lost their shit.
Crust
@ABL: I did read your other post (OK, I’d skimmed it; now I’ve read it). I stand by my comment.
John D.
@aisce: ABL is a frontpager, so this is a “white people’s site”? Do you even bother to think about the shit you post?
opie jeanne
@CT Voter: Did you see the comment that quoted that and then said that Obama had earned his demonhood?
I couldn’t decide if it was snark, but then someone else agreed with him.
jibeaux
@fasteddie9318:
Seventhed, or whatever.
Funny, funny.
Phil Perspective
@Allan: I hope others that post here, like Tom Hilton, did report it. Because they do have accounts there, even if it was to respond to the stupidity in the diary.
different church-lady
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Seven metric tons of WIN in a three ounce travel container.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@CT Voter:
.
.
So true. Balloonbaggers have zero self-awareness, as this thread convincingly demonstrates.
.
.
Phil Perspective
@Cacti: 1/5? Do you know where most “liberal” positions poll? Did you know that Gallup just released a poll about support for same sex marriage? Guess how many were in favor?
slag
Being a firmly ensconced member of the Unity chorus, my innate tendency was to agree with John Cole here and not sweep all of FDL into this controversy. But Martin has a point, wherein this post represents a disconcerting pattern within the FDL community. And Trabb’s Boy makes an even more compelling case with this:
I agree that there is a higher responsibility for these kinds of offenses, and the proprietors of FDL should–at some point–be trying to take matters in hand.
And I also think there is a distinction between Balloon Juice and FDL. Like DKos did, FDL is actively trying to institutionalize. They want to claim political power. And a few ActBlue pages and the occasional link from Kthug notwithstanding, BJ does not aspire to those lofty heights. With power comes responsibility. And if FDL wants the power, they really should be trying to set a higher standard within their community.
That said, being a MUPpet myself, if I had written this, I would have gone to FDL proprietors asking for comment before posting. Doing so would have served at least two purposes: it would have served as a shield against those saying BJ just has an anti-FDL bias, and it may have elucidated the underlying issues that enabled this kind of post from the start.
Mostly though, I favor getting a comment before posting for the simple reason that it would actually represent a shift in strategy. Because more than anything else, I hate doing the same shit over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…and getting the exact same goddamned result. I guess I get bored easily, and even being right can be dull when I’m doing it all by myself.
goblue72
@ET: Depending on the context of the speaker, it might mean the person has been locked in a cultural box since the 70s. However, I see the phrase cropping up in writing now and again, and I take it to be a sort of self-consciously retro anachronistic usage meant to signify the “hip” intellectual credentials of the speaker. Same for the phrase “the American Negro” that occassionally pops up.
The shorter version: Hipsters suck.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Using Craigslist to troll for primary candidates? Why didn’t I think of that. Silly me, I keep associating Craigslist with blow jobs.
Phil Perspective
@slag:
And how many people posting in the rabble section do that? Not many, if at all. As I told an earlier commenter, I reported that post. I would hope others did likewise.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cacti:
Yeah, no shit. It’s not as if BFF Tavis didn’t have a cozy, profitable relationship with some Wall Street oligarchs for four years, only backing off after the attorney general in Illinois filed charges.
Ironically, Mr. Smiley was supposedly educating people in the process of ripping them off.
FlipYrWhig
The FiDLers think they’re The Base again. FiDLers are funny.
General Stuck
I sometimes read FDL comment sections when I want to punish myself for existing, and I swear by the earth beneath my feet, that they are indistinguishable from your average comment thread at HOT AIR, or NO QUARTER. the racism is mostly coded, and is almost entirely permitted by management no questions asked.
The diary featured in this post is more explicit than usual, but not some outlier of the general milieu of that blog.
Just ask Joe Lieberman, the black face one.
El Cid
Not knowing the structure of the FDL blog, it would probably be helpful to non-Firedoggerati to describe how the blog works in terms of who can publish diaries and how they are moderated / supervised, so that there can be evidence that a (I’m assuming not-well-known) diarist is really more than, say, the random DKos diarist who can say whatever shit within basic guidelines.
It’s not like all of us saw, paid attention to, evaluated closely, or remembered in the slightest some debate about this in comments sections in Balloon-Juice some time ago.
On the other hand, arguing that a view was expressed which is common to much of the FDL ‘leadership’ or whatever is a different argument entirely, and doesn’t relate to who diaries what.
lamh34
ABL, I give u mad props on continuing to lead a good fight to discussing race issues on the intertubes, you are a better person than I.
I’ve basically given up on commenting or discussing race issue online, because too often, people hiding behind the anonymity of the internet enjoy being douchey pricks and are not really interested in having a real conversation.
I don’t shy away from talking about racial issues (I’m Black, so I deal with it everyday), but I prefer face-to-face interaction, because then whatever the racist or clueless frackers have to say, then they have to say it to my face. IMHO, a more meaningful conversation can be had that way, especially as blogs within the liberal blogosphere for which there is not a lot of P.O.C (People of Color) who are commenting or FPers.
Keep up the good fight though, and I’ll def see ya on ABL.com, WeeSeeYou and twitter…
Tsulagi
Damn, arrived late to watch this dustupper. Easy one to call, though. In this fight, tbogg and Cole correct fighting from a position of strength. ABL and some others, not so much. And Allan? Either playing while dumb or just is.
No need for anyone to disagree, I’m right.
cleek
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Can we please get back to discussing President Obama’s fierce expansion of former president Bush’s fierce expansion of former president Clinton’s fierce expansion of former president Bush’s fierce expansion of former president Reagan’s fierce expansion of former president Carter’s … Police/Security State policies against the American People?
(ftfy…)
no.
rikyrah
You know,
these mofos have lost their damn minds. they are fucking crazy with this nonsense. Black folks do NOT need to be edumacated about President Barack Obama. I would dare to say that never before in the history of modern politics, has the ‘average’ Black person been more engaged when it comes to politics. They are watching everything that this President does, and especially the REACTION to what this President does.
Steve
I lament that “racist” has become such a catch-all term. Over here, you have Steve Sailer writing essays about how black folks have lower IQs, and over here, you have some ignorant dude using the term “Afro-American.” I don’t want to hang out with either of those guys, but sheesh, I sure see quite a bit of space between them. Others do not.
drkrick
@Crust:
I think egregious front page posts area fairer parallel than egregious comments somewhere in a thread. And I also think based on the record, that’s not a standard she’ll be found wanting on.
martha
@fasteddie9318: Oh you win!
ABL, you rock. Cole, you’re pretty OK too. Today, it’s Friday after a long week and supposedly the world is ending tomorrow and I can’t waste too much time worrying about pseudo-progressive holier-than-thou types who know better than me (and you) how someone, anyone, should do their job.
When the world doesn’t end and lots have people have killer hangovers on Sunday morning, they’ll still be here, irritating us with their small minds.
stuckinred
@drkrick: Ah, for the days when EG would write about her nuttiness on flights to Moscow!
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Exactly. They are like the Tea Party people, just on the left. Otherwise, same stupidity.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I know this is going to piss people off, but I think it’s worth bringing up. I believe that one of the many ways racism still lingers in the U.S. is the different benefits of the doubt that black and white Americans get.
People are willing to give Firedoglake the benefit of the doubt over this post. Jane Hamsher, who owns and runs it, is white. Now, let’s try a little thougth game here. Let’s make believe that Hamsher is black, and that she had showed as much anti-white bias over the years as the real Hamsher has shown anti-black bias, and that one of her readers wrote a piece as tasteless and thoughtless and inflamatory as the one above, but the racial specifics went the other way.
What do you think the reaction would be? As near as I can tell, the feelings here about whether or not she should have done something about this, about whether she is in some way responsible, seem to be running about even. Does anybody really believe it would be running even if things were as I described above? I don’t.
I can’t help but think about the big stink people made over Common, whom I’d never heard of before this week. Jon Stewart pointed out that Bob Dylan and Bono and Bruce Springstten all wrote songs like the one that Common wrote that has so many people upset. But is it even thinkable that people would have reacted the same way if had been one of those other guys who had gone to the White House?
Or how about that scumbag IMF guy who raped a hotel worker? I’ve seen 2 or 3 pieces in newspapers where columnists–one was even a conservative, if I’m not mistaken–said they just didn’t believe the guy could have done that. It must be a mistake. Maybe the woman was lying. I wonder, though, how many columnists would have gone on record writing something like that if it had been Kofi Annan who had done that. How many people would be speaking up for him? How many people would have stood up for Roman Polanski if he were black and had done the same things?
Now I’m not accusing anyboody here of being racist. But we all, all of us, have lived for the last 40 or 50 years steeped in a hazy racism that’s hard to see and hard to pin down. I have, too. I don’t dounbt that I, too, am more likely to cut some white person slack when they trip up than I am to cut a black person any slack. It’s something I’m trying to see and work on.
So I don’t think that it’s anything that most of us do willingly or knowingly or maliciously. It’s almost part of the air we breathe: When you’re white and you screw up, you can count on people seeing that there are mitigating circumstances. When you’re black, you don’t get any mitigating circumstances.
As I said, I don’t mean to upset anybody. I’m not calling anybody a racist. But I think it’s something we all could stand to give some thought to, and this goes for me no less than for anyone else here.
You Don't Say
@Steve: I think it’s his belief that he and others need to educate ‘Afro-Americans’ that is the main problem, not so much the use of the term.
ShadeTail
@Steve:
Are you fucking kidding me? You’re actually claiming that the FDL diarist is being called racist merely because of the term “Afro-American”? Did you pay any attention at all before you posted that tripe? He’s being called racist because he presumes that blacks only support Obama because he’s black, and that they need to be “educated” about how wrong they are. Nevermind that black folk are perfectly smart enough to make up their own minds, and that not all of them agree with Obama’s politics.
When a non-black guy treats blacks like dumb savages who need his civilizing influence, *that is racist*.
piratedan
@lamh34: ty ma’am… I truly respect that you try to take it one person at a time. The interwebs allows folks that illusion to let their ids out and then allowing them to type all too frequently and doesn’t require all of the relevant parts of the mind to kick in and consider what is being said and how appropriate it is like a face to face does.
Tim I
@Albert Mond: I don’t know anything about you, but you come off sounding like a racist asshole to me.
Oh yeah, and what’s this shit about “aggressive women” about?
DZ
@ken #156:
I’m white not black but your comment applies to a lot of people. Well said
John Cole
That comes as quite a surprise to me and I’m sure to all the “non-white” people who blog and read here.
A L
I’m not qualified to say who’s a friend of black people, but I know enough to know who’s an enemy. And Barack Obama is one.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@ShadeTail:
THIS!
different church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
Going by the post in question, they appear to think they’re some kind of SUPER-base — one with a special responsibility to place the ordinary base into re-education camps for their own good.
But it’s hard to tell because keeping track of all the crazy in that FDL post requires a large sheet of graph paper and a TI-30.
Norwonk
It strikes me that the anger we feel towards others get greater the closer that other person is to our own views. Hence, Protestants fight Catholics, and Christians and Jews fight Muslims, but Christians don’t seem equally interested in fighting Hindus.
I guess it’s because we consider those who hold very different opinions as lost causes, and so don’t care too much about them, while those who agree with us on some points pose a danger because their view is a real alternative to our own. The anger over a disagreement is thus intensified by a feeling of betrayal: “This guy almost agrees with me, so how dare he let me down on this one point?”
And so Jane Hamsher becomes a greater enemy than Bill Kristol. But that can’t be right, surely?
Jewish Steel
@fasteddie9318: Cliffhanger. This is why I wait til the season is over and get the dvd.
Tom Hilton
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Yes. Well put.
Kind of a parallel point: one of the under-appreciated aspects of white privilege is the extent to which we are not held responsible for everything every other white person does. Every African-American is expected to disavow & apologize for Farrakhan, or Jesse Jackson’s ‘Hymietown’ comment, or violent rap, or whatever. Meanwhile, here we are arguing about whether a notoriously heavy-handed white moderator is responsible for a racist diary by a white person–an argument that we wouldn’t even be having if the parties in question were African-American (because responsibility would be assumed, on account of race).
different church-lady
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
I think you’re being generous describing the employees and viewers of Fox News as “people”.
Tim I
@jprfrog: Amen, brother!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Norwonk:
If Jane is doing the dividing that allows Kristol to conquer, then yes, it can be right.
opie jeanne
@John Cole: Oh. Mea Culpa, also.
Ken
@DZ:
Well, I’d say the entire establishment is an enemy to the disenfranchised.
lamh34
@John Cole:
Don’t hate me JC, but I kinda get what the person was hinting at, though they did not voice it in a very good way.
If ya didn’t know by now, I’m Black and I frequent a number of Black run and owned blogs and I also frequent the some non-Black run blogs and the sensibilities are different.
It is never unusual that the main “post of the day” will involve discussions on racial issues, and no one bats an eye on the “black -owned” sites. We deal with racism or the repercussions both hidden and blantant everyday of our lives.
Now I AM making an assmption here, but ABL is the only P.O.C. frontpager here isn’t she. So just by virtue of being a Black woman in America, discussing race issues or bringing up the topic of race issues in a no brainer to her and I (that is NOT to say that ABL doesn’t post non-racial issues as well).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that over at the Black-owned sites, you rarely get commenters saying…”aw man…this again”.
It’s a topic we are well versed in so we can literally discuss it all day.
Norwonk
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
There we have it: The feeling of betrayal… ;-)
General Stuck
No it’s not. Much to the credit of it’s owner. There have been rough patches here with some racist speech. But BJ is likely the most non “white peoples site” run by a white person that I go to, with a near complete open comment policy.
ShadeTail
@Tom Hilton:
On the one hand, you’re right that this is a double-standard. And it’s not just race, either. Moslems have to disavow all Moslem terrorists, but Christians aren’t expected to disavow Tim McVeigh or the Army of God. Just for one example.
On the other hand, I’ve always felt that non-White/Christian/Male/whatever people should *not* be held to that standard, because that standard is inherently unfair. So neither should people who *are* White/Christian/Male/whatever be held to that standard.
Does this let Hamsher and FDL off the hook? I don’t know. It could be that ABL has a good point about their moderation policy being inconsistent and unfair. I’ve generally stayed away from FDL, so I don’t know enough to have a solid opinion here. But I’m hesitant to embrace anything that smacks of guilt-by-association.
All of that said, she’s certainly correct about the blatant and disgusting racism of the diary itself. It’s not the first example I’ve seen from a nominal leftist, but it’s among the most overt. I wish I could be surprised by it, but I’m not.
MoneyGal
More power to Mr. West! He speaks for a generation of the common man. God bless you for speaking out against the class war against the poor. We are growing large and more outspoken under the rule of Obama! Obamas takes actions on the behalf to the “haves” and coordinates against the “have nots”. Set aside his words and you see clear actions for the rich and powerful.
Tuttle
The way this dipshit at FDL put it is appallingly racist and somewhat Orwellian in it’s targeted aims, but the idea that educating the masses (whatever their skin tone) is generally a net boon to Liberalism is hard to argue with.
Weren’t we all for educating those rural people – ie, poor white folks – that “cling to guns and religion” a couple years back? I, for one, am all for educating black folks so that they are better able to recognize their own and their society’s self-interests. It is, in fact, one of the most important things there is. But I’ll leave it up to them and their educated opinion as to what, exactly, those are.
You can lead a horse to water… but dude here at FDL is advocating then waterboarding the beast.
asiangrrlMN
@John Cole: As a non-white person who visits and comments, though less and less frequently, I think it’s geared towards white people. Much of the vitriol I see aimed at ABL is because she’s a black woman. It’s why I wrote my piece over at ABL’s place and why I stay out of the race threads for the most part here. It’s not easy to talk about race, and then to have people accuse you of nitpicking or bringing up the racist word too quickly or telling you it’s not so important or that FDL is not a racist site–it just tolerates a surprising amount of racist bullshit without calling people out on it, etc. It’s tiring. As I said in my piece over at ABL’s place, the majority of white liberals are not like that. However, from what I’ve seen on various race-related posts across the leftier blogs, there is an ugly strain of race-ignorance that just won’t go away.
@lamh34: What you said. It’s why I don’t blog about race most of the time.
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): And, this. Just…this.
Erik Vanderhoff
I read that Hedges piece, and it seems to me that Obama’s chief betrayal was to be insufficiently interested in the opinions of one Cornel West.
fasteddie9318
And, somewhere, another village is searching for its lost idiot.
lamh34
@lamh34:
Btw, I agree with @General Stuck:
I think of the “non-black” blogs I visit, BJ and probably Booman Tribune are some the the best.
It’s why I continue frequenting them.
arguingwithsignposts
@lamh34:
I was somehow under the impression that Mistermix was a POC. But not sure exactly where that impression came from.
freelancer (itouch)
@A L:
Imma let you finish and all that but Kanye standing next to Mike Myers, talking about George Bush was the best ever declaration about Presidents not caring about black people.
Alan in SF
Apparently FireDogLake is the enemy. The Drug War, the highest incarceration rate in the world, the daily toll of gun violence, and the continuing disenfranchisement of African-American voters not worth mentioning, for Obama or ABL.
Karoli
@JohnCole Ultimately, isn’t FDL responsible for diary posts that are on their site, promoted or otherwise? This seems to be the argument surrounding diaries; that is, how do you deal with those which do not comport with the overall mission of the site? Take them down? Disclaim them?
FDL is in the middle of a membership drive now. I’m assuming (perhaps wrongly) that diarists are members.
Put differently, would FDL allow a diarist to post a tea party promo on their site?
At the very least, it sparks an interesting discussion about what is and what is not okay to post as a diary on a community site, IMO
asiangrrlMN
@lamh34: You said it much better than I did. mistermix is Latino, just a FYI.
It’s the eye-roll shit that happens when race is brought up that makes it daunting to wade into the race-related threads. Plus, the demand that the person of color qualify and quantify and explain over and over again.
A L
@asiangrrlMN: In defense of nobody, you could just be reading hostility directed at ABL as an expression of frustration that someone who is so magnificently stupid is tolerated by the blog’s proprietors. Unless they were actually using slurs or something, I dunno.
Brachiator
@Tom Hilton:
Really? By whom? You?
I think this thread has officially jumped the shark. Stupidity is compounding stupidity.
aisce
@John Cole:
it’s very privileged to write abl off as a “nutpicker,” as though she’s the one at fault here. very privileged indeed.
the same thing with the “we already had this conversation before” bit of business. as though it’s old news. people of color have to have this conversation every day.
it’s really easy to just write off random bigots as kooks and isolated cases. too easy.
Karoli
Obviously I have not learned how to link up the reply…. hopefully Cole will see it anyway. :)
Allan
@General Stuck: Thanks for that, General. Fortunately, however, Cole himself addressed that comment up at 191. I guess he felt it was necessary, as the blog owner, to reject and denounce that comment so that people wouldn’t think he condoned it or agreed with its assessment. Though I don’t know why he would feel the need to do that, as only a “nutpicker” would point to it as evidence of anything problematic within the community he hosts.
asiangrrlMN
FYWP. But, yes, just to add one more thing. This is one of the best non-POC owned liberal political pundit-like sites in dealing with race–which REALLY makes me depressed.
ETA: For clarity. Or some shit.
@Alan in SF: And you know she’s never written about any of those things, how?
different church-lady
@A L: Well, at least you got the last two words correct.
slag
@Phil Perspective: I agree that not many do. But we don’t always have to do the same things the same way everybody else does them, is all I’m saying. Asking directly for comment probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the big picture. But not doing so certainly wouldn’t make a difference in the big picture. Depends on the goal of the reporting.
I’ve said it before–I’m now firmly on Team Obama from a PR point-of-view. Yes, it gets old feeling like you’re constantly held to a higher standard, but if you seriously want to instigate change, sometimes you just have to hold yourself there. Personally, I look to MLK, Jr. for inspiration here too. And while I’m finally firmly embracing these role models, I still allow myself the freedom to tell someone to fuck off now and again. But my low level of responsibility allows for that freedom.
stuckinred
@asiangrrlMN: hi
ShadeTail
@A L:
Or, perhaps, asiangrrlMN is reading comments like yours, wherein you call someone who is quite intelligent “magnificently stupid”, and is reasonably concluding that you call her that merely because of her race. But then, it’s not like non-white folk have any experience with that kind of treatment, so what does she know?
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
You know, I can see that some people here are, shall we say, less than receptive to the notion that the lived reality of people who are not them may be a valid reality.
But – no! It’s really true! Some people have lives that don’t correspond to what you or your buddy who totes hangs with all the cool black kids might have seen in the course of a life!
I’m not going to try to take on the people who are piling on here — there’s no point, as you’re not interested in conversation, and it would be really unpleasant for me. And I like pleasant things.
But I’m ABL’s friend and I blog for her, and I have for too long bowed to the fact that these threads are too sickening to wade into. For too long, I’ve not had my friend’s back, and so I will say this –
Fine, forget the unique experience of African Americans for a minute. I won’t even go there.
Just read this, and then substitute in any other name, for any other group, as long as that group somehow reflects you, and try to imagine how you might respond.
Who.the.fuck.is.this.person?
I…can’t even. My brain has exploded and can’t form a rational response — likely because this is a big ol’ piece of steaming shit, and it’s hard to respond rationally to steaming shit.
To all those who have had the intestinal fortitude to stand up for honesty and humanity and not-being-a-dick on this thread and the others like it, I say a very genuine and hearty: Thank you.
Fucking hell!
lamh34
@Brachiator: Not saying that random white people come up to me and ask me… “so what do you think about Farrakhan”, but I do have people who I work with and who I would consider if not “good” friends, but people I def have laughs and good conversation with, who when we are having a discussion that may involve someone who is Black or some rapper or hip-hop artists or whatever and they almost always ask me who the person is…which is funny considering I’m an old school hip-hop fan, and I’m as likely to listen to pop radio as the urban stations, but that’s just me.
I will tell you something that stuck in my craw from 3 years ago. It was after Obama’s election. My job is notorious for having party for any ole reason, and birthdays are celebrated monthly. So our November birthday celebration (which includes mine…Scorpios rule!!!) just so happen to fall on the Wednesday or Friday after the election. One of the people, a notorious GOP hack, who does not work within our lab, but who used to so therefore seems to always be included in our lab celebrations saw the decorations and the cake, and ask my other Black co-worker…”I guess ya’ll are really happy about the election…?” As if to say, of course you all are happy!
I haven’t looked at that person the same again. I may have taken it the wrong way, but it kinda pissed me off.
susan
I miss Gilly. He could have cleared up this whole mess and then given us a really good recipe or two.
aisce
@Allan:
you know, for somebody who goes on and on about how hard he works to be an effective advocate for change, you’re shockingly unaware of what a prissy douchebag you are. and most people tend not to respect that, let alone like it.
you’re your own worst enemy.
lamh34
@asiangrrlMN: @arguingwithsignposts:
thx to you both. sorry, I did not know that.
Mnemosyne
@aisce:
This. When you have “isolated cases” pop up so frequently, one has to start to question just how isolated they really are.
asiangrrlMN
@stuckinred: Hey, stuck. How you be? I’m pretty much outie for the rest of this thread. I’ll be by later in the evening. Maybe.
Benjamin Cisco
@rikyrah:
Exactly right, which makes the FDL diarist look like even MORE of a jackass than s/he already did. The assumption that we would need to be “educated” on the subject is sickening; the fact that the diarist thought him/herself to be in any way whatsoever qualified to do so – well, that’s just fucking sad.
stuckinred
@asiangrrlMN: Not too shabby, we’re off to Savannah for almost a whole week!
A L
@ShadeTail: No, she is stupid. Or at the least she behaves like a stupid person in public for whatever reason.
She overuses years-old Internet memes. She is reactionary towards any criticism towards Obama. She refuses to debate anyone. She uses childish snark as a crutch instead of making salient points.
She is a charicature as to how an adult views the Internet generation. I guarantee you that children are less obnoxious than she is, and they have the excuse of just not knowing any better. So what’s her excuse?
Corner Stone
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Piling on like who? Piling on what? The comments that are relevant have been 90% in agreement with the overall thrust of ABL’s OP.
One person (that I saw) took a personal shot at ABL, a couple said they didn’t see the big deal and the other 4% or so attempting to make the argument that it should be viewed as nutpicking, but it was awful all on its own.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Norwonk:
You think?
Not really. I don’t feel betrayed by someone who hasn’t been on my side for as long as Jane hasn’t been. I think you can date Jane’s departure back to ’06, Lieberman in blackface.
Yesterday there was a firebagger commenting on Karoli’s post on West and Capehart, and the firebagger in one comment said he didn’t vote for Obama in ’08, yet in another comment claimed to be part of Obama’s base, which is really, well, stupid, no? And this is what I’ve always suspected of the firebaggers: That none of them ever supported Obama, and that when they wail, “Betrayal!” they’re lying about it.
Mnemosyne
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I think these edits might help get the point across:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: IT’s a broad generalization, but there’s a hard kernel of truth. Case in point: Tim Russert asking Obama to explain something Harry Belafonte said, and while I don’t remember if it ever seeped into the MSM, but there was a constant burble about Obama refusing to renounce Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement. AFAIK, Obama and Farrakhan have never met. Compare the hysteria over Reverend Wright to Huckabee–heralded yesterday in the NYT as a “moderate” and Janet Porter.
FeFiFo
As far as Cornel goes, I agree with him totally on his points about Obama’s policies and their effects. I have absolutely no place to comment on his remarks about Obama’s relationship with the African American community, and so I won’t.
I do think more of these dustups are coming unless Americans take the class discussion out of the closet and look at economic policies not through the lens of which race(s) they detrimentally affect, but which class. And the President of the United States is a member of a class so far above the rest of us, a class that runs banks and controls international monetary policy, a class that sends millions to their deaths in imperialist wars, that to interpret his actions through the lens of his racial identity is patently absurd.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Also, too, guess what:
Asian Americans also have a unique experience with racism! With the American experience! One that might not reflect what happens in the realm of white people and their experiences!
Lay off my friend AsiangrrlMN too, people. Or better yet: Just shut up and listen for once.
Fucking fucking fuck. Fuck.
ShadeTail
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
For whatever little this is worth, I’m with you and ABL. I don’t always agree with her, but I like her contributions and she definitely says things that need to be said (or writes things that need to be written, as the case may be). And the vitriol she gets here sickens me. It doesn’t surprise me, but it sickens me.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Steve: Steve Sailer is a white supremacist, pure and simple.
That ninnehammer at FDL is just another deluded over-privileged white guy who doesn’t have a clue; and that’s the source of his “racism.”
The thing to do is to separate the ninnehammers who simply swim in the white-privileged sea of American culture and don’t realize it from the utter asshats who want to make sure American culture retains its white privilege- and, they hope, re-instate true white supremacy.
Fred
@fasteddie9318: Always happy to hear from my many fans who apparently have nothing better to do.
AxelFoley
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
LOL, well said, my co-black brotha. Well said indeed, brah!
Tim (The Other One)
Best comment thread on BJ in a long time ! FDL is the only way to get to tbogg. Other than that….I hope ABL stays here. She kills me.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Precisely my point. metamars over at FDL is just another ninnehammer swimming in this see of white privilege and he just doesn’t see it.
Someone like Steve Sailer or Pat Buchannan, however, is an out and out white supremacist, dedicated to ensuring that white is right and black better get back.
Brachiator
@lamh34:
And yet the poster Tom Hilton seemed to be reinforcing or endorsing this view even as he tried to make a case for holding FDL responsible for an individual’s nonsense while simultaneously rejecting his own “white privilege.” To me, that’s some torturous bullshit, and at some level, the way that this stuff came out is almost (not quite) as condescending as the GOP hack you mentioned.
The hack is clearly an asswipe. I can even believe that he knew about the birthday tradition, but still needed to flaunt his own racial anxiety with some deliberate provocation.
But I also tire of white liberals who appear to be on the side of nonwhites, but who are always quick to pull stuff out of their asses that reek of the privilege that they claim to disdain.
To me, the proposed cure is as bad as the disease.
But that’s just me.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
I think you completely missed the point.
See the highlighted part there? That’s offensive. If not for that, it’s just another firebagger doing what firebaggers do- induce yawns. Is it as bad for calling for a lynch mob because Emmit Till talked to a white woman? No. But it’s really, really, REALLY patronizing. Racistly so.
stuckinred
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Mothefuckers over there, cept for the Southern Dragon and a few others, are the kind of people that would scream an shout about “taking it to the streets” and then disappear when the shit came down. Fucking bullshit intellectual punks.
ShadeTail
First of all, I have two children, so I know how they act. Therefore, shove your guarantee somewhere dark and smelly. Second, I notice that your entire criticism is about her style, rather than the point she made in the article. And that’s been the case for everything you’ve said throughout this comment thread. Which makes your reply a rather classic case of projection.
When you stop wasting our time with empty ad hominem fallacies, then you may start complaining about how other people discuss things.
eemom
@John D.:
kiss my ass, asshole. The rest of the world has moved on in the last five years.
Corner Stone
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Agreed, 100%. Now, who should I chastise for taking shots at her?
The Moar You Know
I love a good riot. Thanks, ABL.
Mnemosyne
@FeFiFo:
Until Americans face the fact that our social classes are based in racial categories, we will never be able to have that discussion.
We are still in transition from a time where the most broken-down white farmer could insist that a black D.D.S. make way for him on the sidewalk because that white man’s skin color marked him as someone of a higher social class than the black man, despite their differences in income and education. Until we can face that fact and deal with it honestly, we’re just going to have the same stupid argument over and over again.
It’s not race or class. It’s both, because the social class you’re automatically assigned to depends on your race.
A L
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I was talking about ABL’s BJ ouevre, not this particular post, which seems to be concerning an irrelevant FDL blogger’s dumb opinion.
Surly Duff
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Sorry, this is where you lost me. I think there would be plenty of people saying they couldn’t believe Kofi Annan would do such a thing. He was head of the UN, and I am sure he would have support. I’d be shocked. Sweet fancy moses, Kobe Bryant had plenty of people questioning the legitimacy of his arrest in CO. Isn’t that a similar comaprison you could use. I think you are trying to find too much meaning out of two or three articles. However, I don’t think anyone would argue with the basic premise that priviledges are extended to folks of a certain melanin tone.
@asiangrrlMN:
I don’t know how that can be quantified, but I think the vitriol aimed at ABL is probably from a a number of factors – because she is a black woman, because of her style, and because of the focus of her posts. She is pretty forceful and confrontational in her style and unrepentant about that fact. Some people like it, some people don’t care for it. I see a lot of the discussion in her posts taking umbrage over her style over her substance.
Also, discussing racial relations in society is not a comfortable topic. It never will be. That is a good thing, IMO. We [the royal we mind you] need to have those uncomfortable discussions in order to have greater understanding and find some common ground. However, those discussion will also bring out some dissent and frustration from individuals that do not agree or may feel accused. Regardless, confronting the status quo and holding these discussion are necessary to move forward.
eemom
and Hamsher would have called you a misogynist and instructed one of her eunuchs to ban your ass.
MattR
I have to agree with A L. Generally speaking I rarely read and ever more rarely comment substantively on any post by ABL because she has no interest in real conversation. Any questioning of her take on an issue is proof that you are a racist (although on a rare occassion she may soften it by saying that it is unintentional).
I have to add that one lesson I have learned it that if I ever need a lawyer I will make sure to ask about and peruse their internet blog posts and comments. There is absolutely zero chance I would ever consider hiring ABL or eemom based on what they write.
@Surly Duff:
Becasue I just saw this after posting, I wanted to point out that my problem is not with her style but with the fact that if anyone responds in similar fashion she starts whining about how disgusted she is and leaves BJ to run back to her blog.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@susan: Word. I miss that cat, too.
Tom Hilton
@ShadeTail: I agre, and I wouldn’t apply the guilt-by-racial-association standard to white people. I just wanted to add some much-needed perspective here. The thing about white privilege is that it’s largely invisible…to white people.
Now, I do think Hamsher is responsible because a) she is a very heavy-handed moderator when she chooses to be; b) this isn’t really an isolated case at FDL; and c) Hamsher’s own work (blackface Lieberman, e.g.) has helped to set the tone for the site as a whole.
A L
@ShadeTail: Her style is not to discuss anything, though. She just launches into tirades peppered with memes and snark that say nothing substantive.
If you think that kind of “discussion” stimulates anything other than thinking-people’s bile production, then you are quite simply out of touch. At any rate, ABL’s posting is the epitome of artificial, bottom-scraping shit in terms of both content and delivery.
This entire thread, for instance, concerns a no-name blogger who posts at a website that has dubious impact on anything. Is this what ABL does all day? Trawl around FDL for anything remotely insulting towards Obama? This is what Balloon-Juicers are interested in?
Allan
@aisce:
Nope, no projection whatsoever in that observation.
wrb
“It really is possible to larn the negros if we keep it to a 15 point list and fix up some chitlins, corn-on-the-cob and watermelon so’s they stay still long enough!!!!!”
I think the author was genuinely excited by this brainstorn. Enthusiastic puppy.
taylormattd
@Albert Mond: Honestly, if you don’t think that racist tribe is worth a rant, you are just an asshole that hates ABL.
fasteddie9318
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Who laid on her? Wait, does that mean what I wanted it to mean?
But seriously, aside from this A L person who, OK, pretty douchey, is anybody going after her? For that matter, isn’t Corner Stone about right with this?
Well, OK, Albert Mond is a douchebag too, but that was pretty early on in the thread and stopped at one assholish comment.
slag
@eemom: Probably.
But then the only line of criticism in this comments section–that FDL should not be tainted by this lone nut–would have been pretty much obviated. And that would have been nice. And maybe possibly have even moved the issue forward a smidge.
Monala
@Brachiator:
Ta-Nehisi Coates did a snarky post once where he highlighted the idiocy of Glenn Beck, and then wrote, “Come on, white folks, aren’t you ashamed and embarrassed by this guy? When are you going to denounce him?”
The howls of many of his white commenters were amazing. They were outraged that even in jest, TNC would suggest they had anything to do with Glenn Beck. And the folks of color wrote in response, “Now you know how we feel.”
That being said, Jane Hamsher is not responsible for anything Glenn Beck says, even though they share the same skin color (no one should be, based on shared race/ethnicity/religion, but I add that last phrase because POC often are expected to answer for the bad deeds or words of those from their background).
But for a diary on Hamsher’s heavily moderated site? She bears some responsibility for that. A similar situation happened recently at, I think it was Jezebel, when a guy wrote a column there about how French women were more sexually empowered than their American counterparts because they were more “accepting” of sexual harassment. When commenters protested, the Jezebel mods wrote a disclaimer that they don’t necessarily agree with his POV. And many responded that that wasn’t good enough: they gave this guy a platform, which is a tacit endorsement of what he wrote.
Tom Hilton
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Exactly.
@Monala: This too.
nancydarling
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I sometimes wonder if a blog is even a good place to have these sorts of discussions. I think how easy it was to have conversations about race with my black friends back in SoCal and how comfortable I am talking about race issues with my one black friend here in NW Arkansas (there are fewer than a dozen blacks in my whole county). IN L.A. I have a Jewish friend who has pretty radical (so they seemed to me) ideas about a Greater Israel to include all of the West Bank, while I tend to something along the lines of pre-1967 borders, and we could always talk about it without anger and accusations.
I think trust is the key. It’s hard to trust someone posting anonymously on a blog, because you really don’t know where they are coming from. I also believe that most Americans, even in urban areas, don’t have real friends of other races and ethnic groups. They have acquaintances and co-workers, but that is not the same as really being friends.
AxelFoley
@aisce:
FDL and Balloon Juice–the Israel and Palestine of the blogosphere?
Allan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was actually a topic in one of the primary debates, where Obama was forced by Clinton not only to reject the endorsement, but denounce Farrakhan.
Tom Hilton
@Erik Vanderhoff: In fairness, that’s not the entirety of Cornel West’s complaint.
There’s also the inauguration tickets.
Tom Hilton
@AxelFoley: Actually, I think it’s more like FDL = Likud + Hamas, and Balloon Juice = Labor + moderate Palestinian factions.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
I think you’re wrong about that, then. It’s not merely disagreeing with Obama that sets her off, but the way that the disagreements are presented. It’s rare when there aren’t dog whistles in the mix. There’s always been an undertone that sounded like, “But he’s blaaaaaack- he should be more progressive because he’s blaaaaaaack,” but in this latest round of griping, led by the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Party, Dr. West, it’s no longer an undertone.
But it isn’t always that racism that sets her off. Gotta give Greenwald credit for steering clear of it. He just tells half-truths when smearing this POTUS, and he should be called out for presenting those half-truths as the whole truth.
But if I wrote a post about how I feel about Obama not living up to his word that he’d put on his comfortable shoes and join workers protesting for their rights, as they were in Madison, Lansing and Columbus recently, I don’t think ABL would go off on me.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, no. Or, that is, the hard kernel of truth is that racist white fools always expect nonwhites, or anyone who is not mainstream white, to think and act alike, and to know all the rules and secret handshakes supposedly native to that group. One example that I’ve seen in an office I once worked in was Orange County GOPers always asking Jewish co-workers the meaning of anything and everything remotely Judaic.
So, we have Tom Hilton wallowing in stupidity in order to justify holding FDL responsible for anything that appears on its site. How does that make sense?
This is of course double dip racism. Obama is black and from Chicago. So he is, for white racists fools, by definition in that Chicago Jesse Jackson Farrakhan Obama Chicao Gangster Axis.
By the way, you will see a variation of this theme come up again on talk radio or on some of the Sunday pundit shows as a reaction to Obama’s speech about the Middle East and the reaction by Netanyahu. No matter what Obama says, the presumption on the part of the racist fools is that Obama and Farrakhan both hate Israel. After all, both Obama and Farrakhan are black and wear suits.
And the Reverend Wright stuff, and the stuff from Newt and Huckabee is something related, but more insidious, that every black person who does not toe some imaginary line determined by a Real American White Man(tm) secretly hates white people and America.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
FYWP! DIAF!
burnspbesq
@AxelFoley:
Bullshit. What thoughtful black co-citizen wrote is every bit as unthinking and offensive as what he/she was responding to.
“Masturbating to Yanni?” Yeah, that’ll go a long way toward creating the conditions for a thoughtful dialogue.
kc
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I’m really not seeing this “piling on.” I see a majority of posters agreeing with everything ABL said and a handful who disagree with part of it. Yes there a couple of assholes taking cheap shots, but that seems to me to be par for the course on any lightly-moderated blog with high traffic.
For the record, I consider myself an ABL fan, though I don’t agree with everything she posts.
Silver Owl
I had forgotten that firedoglake had those diaries where anyone can set one up and post their own opinions.
John D.
@eemom: No. I have no interest in your ass, kissing it, or anything else of yours. Stop being a fool, and I’ll stop pointing it out.
burnspbesq
@MattR:
I am quite curious as to why you would think that what someone posts on a blog like this would tell you anything about the competence at their job. And that’s every bit as true about plumbers or tech support people as it is about lawyers.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, that needs some clarification. White people masturbate to Kenny G. Before that it was Dan Fogelberg, preceded by Andy Gibb, preceded by David Gates & Bread, preceded by Andy Williams.
White people are not known to have masturbated before Andy Williams.
A L
@burnspbesq: If it was any kind of writing job, it would condemn her outright. Except perhaps if she worked at a PR firm where this kind of tripe is the norm.
Simply put, ABL is very bad at whatever it is she is trying to here do from a purely technical standpoint, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s enough.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
NSFW!
Andy Williams Can’t Get Used to Losing You
Start rubbing ’em out, white people d’un certain age.
MattR
@burnspbesq: Because I can tell that they are incapable of making persuasive, logical arguments which is one of the key requirements for a lawyer. Not so much for a plumber. Tech support falls a bit in between, but lawyers are generally a bit more expensive and the results usually have a bit more impact on your life.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
WTF? Technical? You don’t like the way she imports her non-WP-formatted posts to this WP blog? Please clarify.
p.s.- I’ve got a reply to one of your earlier comments awaitng moderation. Damned soshulists…
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@MattR:
Not in front of a jury it ain’t.
Sharl
@susan, @Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Me three.
A L
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I mean in the craft of writing. The ability to convey a message. Also in her choice of what to write about. Y’know, the things that distinguish Hemingway from a 5th-grade book report. A typical ABL post is closer to a 1st-grade book report.
Compare any given ABL post to, say, Matt Taibbi and you should see my point.
MattR
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I know what you are going for and I agree that juries are often swayed by emotion as opposed to logical facts. But there is also quite a bit of logical thinking requried to go through the facts, figure out what they mean and then present them in a way to a jury that will trigger the proper emotions.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: “Masturbating to Yanni” is funny though.
gwangung
@A L: Sorry. Don’t see it.
She knows her audience, she knows how to craft her message for it.
eemom
@John D.:
I can’t stop being something that I’m not.
Stop being an asshole, and I’ll stop telling you to kiss my ass.
And since you haven’t so far: kiss. my. ass.
AxelFoley
@rikyrah:
This.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
Two points:
1). Hemingway? Meh. I had to do a book report in 8th grade in which we described the book from the first-person perspective of a main character. I reported on The Old Man and the Sea. Wrote an A+ paper in ten minutes. Raise the bar, huh?
2). Taibbi has editors.
A L
@gwangung: If that’s the case then that speaks even worse for the audience, frankly.
arguingwithsignposts
@MattR: @A L: Both of you fuckers have multiple solutions to your problem: a) start your own blog; b) stop reading ABL’s posts; c) stop whinging that she gets to write as an FP poster.
Problem solved. Move on, already.
A L
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): No amount of editing can save ABL from the facts that a) she cannot come up with a coherent point and b) she writes about the most banal shit anyway.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Some people like to go out dancing, some people gotta work. Hasta…
A L
@arguingwithsignposts: How about you move on from this thread? Or are we interrupting the latest round of Irrelevant Blog Slapfight: Part CXXIV?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
Banal shit. Like educating a large group of people who are ignorant, apparently, because of the color of their skin. Banal. Keep digging.
eemom
@MattR:
There is absolutely zero chance I would take your case, even if I were, like, starving.
Hell, I wouldn’t even represent a plaintiff class of which you were a member.
arguingwithsignposts
@A L:
Considering that you’re the one who seems hellbent on derailing it with your worthless opinions about ABL’s writing style, GFY, matoko-loko jr.
A L
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): “Large group of people,” who is that supposed to describe? FDL? Do they even pay attention to this blog? Why should anyone outside of this tiny universe care about any of this?
What would’ve been cool is if ABL had addressed Cornel West’s comments. Or at least attempted to (I know she is not actually capable of that). You see, Cornel West actually has some prominence and actually possesses interesting ideas and experiences. Instead, though, she picks on random no-name FDL blogger X and ridicules him because he’s an easy target and ABL can’t handle anyone who can spell properly. She took the easy path in this entire matter.
But I guess the people here are more interested in what happens at similarly irrelevant blogs like Andrew Sullivan and FDL. More power to y’all, I guess.
Jay
Some friends of mine are rooting for Elizabeth Warren to take on Scott Brown. I’d have no problem with that at all. On the other hand, what kind of a chances does Newton, MA mayor Setti Warren have against Brown?
A L
@arguingwithsignposts: This thread never stood a chance because nobody actually gives a shit what dumb random FDL poster #153621 thinks about anything. Funny how that seems to happen in virtually every ABL thread though. (Hint: It’s because she is annoying and picks out the most picayune shit to write about and thus bores everyone into talking about something else.)
Mnemosyne
@A L:
Yep, nothing more banal than racism. It’s all a big yawn.
Perhaps you should go back to your gated community if being reminded that non-white people don’t always like the way they’re treated in this country is so very upsetting to you.
John D.
@eemom: You seem to have problems with the word “No.” Why is that?
gwangung
@A L: Fuck you, asshole.
You’re showing that you can’t deal with non-white people and their perspective.
gwangung
@A L: It’s picayune to YOU because you don’t care what bothers people.
For other people, they’re nodding their head and saying, “That’s exactly it.”
That you CANNOT comprehend this, even after people have explicitly pointed this out, shows your rather poor thought processes.
Rihilism
His style is not to discuss anything, though. He just launches into tirades peppered with ad hominem attacks and “dismissives” that say nothing substantive about the issues being discussed.
If you think that kind of “comment” stimulates anything other than thinking-people’s bile production, then you are most certainly out of touch. At any rate, A L’s comments are the epitome of artificial, self-centered, whiny, bottom-scraping shit in terms of both content and delivery.
All his comments, for instance, concerns a blogger at a website that he is not required to read. Is this what A L does all day? Troll around BJ for any opportunity to insult ABL? This, inevitably, is what Balloon-Juicers have to put up with?
Brachiator
@Monala:
That’s funny, as were the howls of protest in response.
I see your point, though I wonder whether Hamsher is too far gone to care. And what does “bear responsibility” mean? She’s going to give herself a timeout?
Sorry, I don’t accept that there was the slightest endorsement of this guy’s views implied by their letting the column be posted.
A L
@Mnemosyne: Ah yes, the blacks are suffering under the heel of Firedog Lake. When will we get rid of this vestige of Jim Crow.
@gwangung: If ABL’s perspective is solely rested on people who don’t matter, then call me uninterested, then.
It’s up to you to prove that FDL poses a bigger threat to minorities than, random example, police brutality. If you can do that, then I’ll be interested. Until then, keep your circlejerking over your fellow irrelevant bloggers to yourselves.
MattR
@eemom: And of course the difference is that you would not take my case because of personal feelings about me as a person while I would not seek your help because of my feelings about your professional opinion.
Chava
You know, it’s A L’s privilege to be an asshole. ABL has to be “pleasant” and not get so angry.
John D.
@A L:
Are you fucking 12?
“I don’t like this. Nobody else should either. It’s boring.”
Fuck you.
I went and read the post over at FDL *because* ABL posted it here. I encourage her to post more things she finds interesting, since so far, I DO TOO. Why is your taste the only thing that matters?
You are hereby encouraged to stop reading her posts.
arguingwithsignposts
@A L:
Last I checked, there were two posts above this one that discuss I/P and Open Thread (aka, whatever the fuck you want to talk about).
And yet you’re still here whinging.
A L
@John D.: The thread didn’t last 29 posts before someone pointed out that ABL was making a mountain out of a molehill (again).
I don’t think you understand that the greater world could not give a greater shit what anyone in FDL thinks about anything.
gwangung
You know. That sounds pretty goddam racist to me.
Why don’t YOU mosey on down the road, asshole?
A L
@arguingwithsignposts: Yeah, criticism sucks doesn’t it.
Lysana
@A L: Just shut the fuck up. Seriously. You’re clueless. She gets her message across just fine with those of us who are capable of allowing her tone to be part of the message instead of reacting to it (because as a white person, I don’t get to tell a black person how to tell me something about race). Try it for once.
Tom Hilton
@A L:
The most obvious difference is that there’s much less misogyny in ABL’s writing than in Matt Taibbi’s. I’m not sure that was the point you were trying to make, though.
Rihilism
Egomaniac much?
arguingwithsignposts
@A L: No, stalkers who hang out in the bottom of a thread acting like assholes suck.
A L
@gwangung: Oh I’m sorry, was the OP in question about someone with an ounce of power/clout over anything? Lemme double-check.
Oh no, it’s about Firedog Lake poster “metamars,” who appears to be a nobody. Just like ABL. Yeah no I think you’re just being a reactionary imbecile.
Allan
@A L: You have a funny way of showing how much of a shit you don’t give about ABL.
Dan Carmell
I don’t know much about Professor West, except the essays by him in the New Yorker and elsewhere. From those essays, I can tell you that he is a good writer, thoughtful and interesting.
motorik
WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT
Lysana
And that’s that for me on this thread. I have to scrounge breakfast and get the husband woken up.
Rihilism
FTFY
A L
@Lysana: She doesn’t have anything to say about race. Hate to break it to you but inane ramblings about Firedog Lake don’t count for anything.
You can scream bloody murder about ABL’s skin color all you want. She is a stupid, petty person and the fact that every single one of her threads is derailed with the same complaints should point that out to you. Sometimes a dumb person is just a dumb person and no amount of melanin is going to change that.
Danny
The first thing to know about the FDL of today: they’re not “left”, not in any meaningful way. The commenters are not interested in policy or issues. It’s an Obama hating club. That’s it. I’ve seen people write stuff that is freeper or redstate opinions, no one gives a sh-t. You couldn’t troll the FDL community if you started a thread on why Ayn Rand is god and black people should get off welfare. They just don’t care. But god save your soul if you stick up for Obama. They go batshit. I’ll say at this point point the community is probably 30% PUMAs, 30% Dixiecrats, and the rest undercover conservatives.
But one other thing FDL is about is making bucks. They got membership recuitment banners littered all over the site, and a new membership drive every third day. Three brackets 45$, 100$ and 1000$. You get a t-shirt if you go with mid-price, and to participate in the FDL dinner if you go all in..
A L
@Allan: The difference is I don’t regard ABL as a threat to humanity, unlike her (and this blog’s) obsession with equally irrelevant website Firedog Lake.
Danny
…did I mention half the front page bloggers are full out conspiracy loons? Glenn Beck not being even close?
Example:
Did the US intend to torture Bin Ladens Children [with ants]?
nancydarling
@A L: @A L: If BJ is so irrelevant, then why are you bothering with us, you prick?
Admiral_Komack
I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to read whiny-ass bullshit from the Professional Left.
Take ’em all away in a WAHHHHbulance.
different church-lady
@A L:
Justin Bieber has some prominence. Just sayin’…
A L
@nancydarling: Because BJ would be improved if ABL stopped posting.
John D.
@A L:
I disagree.
arguingwithsignposts
@A L:
I think we can all agree on that.
motorik
Hello, I’m a BJ frontpage hopeful. My plan is to quote from long posts at other blogs making complex arguments without explanation. If you’re lucky, I’ll throw in a link to a post afterwards telling you why you should care.
DO YOU THINK I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
Danny
@A L:
Irrelevant? Soon I hope. But they got some misguided and potentially quite dangerous ideas, e.g. along the lines of Nader strategy. And they’re all about getting power and getting paid, so yes they do need to be ostracised and kicked out from civilized company – until they shape up and get back in line.
100% with ABL on this one.
Allan
@A L: “Obsession” is an interesting word choice in this, your 16th comment to the thread on the theme of how stiff, throbbing and veiny is your hate hard-on for ABL.
eemom
@MattR:
To the contrary. I would not take your case because I expect it would present a poor choice of contingency representation. People as reading-comprehension-challenged as you are notoriously unsuccessful plaintiffs.
different church-lady
@A L: Dude, just start your own blog.
Seriously, you’re like the worst sports talk show caller ever.
Nanette
ABL -well, what to say? I thought I had a lot to say, but then I read the comments and realized, not so much. Anyway, I don’t see why I shouldn’t “nutpick” along with the best of them, and I think you deserve a laugh anyway.
The whole “Cornel West as the fantasy Black best friend of true white progressives” thing is not new! I came across this comment months ago and laughed so hard I had to blog about it (which is why I still know where to find it). At that time I had no idea why all of a sudden Cornel West was supposed to have some sort of power to calm the angry Black folks down. Anyway, the comment is attached to one of those “We have to save the Democratic Party by primarying Obama and destroying it” FDL front page posts:
A commenter asks, in reply to the post, essentially “but what about the Black folks? What will they think of the primary challenge?” and this is one of the replies (my emphasis throughout):
———————-
——————————-
Oh man, I am still laughing. Talk about cuckoo bananas.
Also, a couple of points.
Having one or two bloggers of color, and commenters of color does not make this not a “white site.” It’s just a white site with some people of color on it (nothing wrong with that, just saying.)
Also, it may be easy to nutpick FDL, but that is because racist stuff is acceptable there. This is entirely a result of Hamsher’s site policy and, in my opinion, her views — considering the multiple public racist implosions that site has gone through, with Hamsher’s full knowledge and support. The “Blackface Jane” schtick was only the beginning.
(I am trying to be supportive, ABL, but I am not sure I am helping, lol.)
Also, FYWP but blockquote doesn’t appear to be working.
Rihilism
@A L:
Then why are you so obsessed with making sure that everyone knows how stupid you think ABL is? You accuse ABL of being obsessed with a no name diarist at FDL and yet you seem obsessed with someone you seem to regard as having no power. Honestly, you may or may not have some point (doubtful, IMO), but you come across as a psychotic stalker ex-boyfriend. Perhaps a better course would be to back away from the keyboard and never read or comment on ABL’s posts again…
A L
@Allan: A nice, predictable response, but I think you forgot the adage that the only thing worse than a complainer is a complainer about the complainer.
@different church-lady: Cool, no criticizing the OPs allowed. That’s how we’ll take this blog to the top, by encouraging the very worst traits of the OPs!!
John D.
@A L:
So?
How does this, in any way, abrogate my distillation of your argument; to wit — “I don’t like this. Nobody else should either. It’s boring.”
You don’t like her. We get it. Nothing she posts will ever be good enough for your refined sensibilities. We get that too.
It is also interesting that you chose post 29 as your cutoff – Albert Mond comes in, drops a bunch of troll bait, and you use THAT as the basis of your argument? Are you fucking stupid, or just assuming that we all are?
eemom
@A L:
you are exceedingly tiresome. Please leave.
A L
@Rihilism: Am I not allowed to make fun of someone who is dumb? I’m sorry, I could’ve swore I was on the Internet where this kind of thing happens all the time.
Fun fact: I think all but one criticism directed at my criticism of ABL has been a shitty tu quoque. Whats the average age of the BJ poster? 55?
different church-lady
@A L: Good, we see eye to eye on this. Thanks for your cooperation.
Rihilism
@motorik: no
Tom Hilton
@different church-lady: This is a little unfair. Cornel West really does have a long and distinguished body of thoughtful, provocative work. This latest outburst shouldn’t be allowed to negate that.
Even brilliant people can and do say completely idiotic things sometimes. That should be a humbling thought for all of us.
Allan
I guess the New Progressive Alliance heard your criticism. Kudos to ABL for calling their attention to the matter.
Now the NPA can get back to the serious business of finding someone to primary Obama. No hard feelings!
MattR
@eemom: I’ll admit that’s a pretty good attempt at covering your butt after the fact, but you aren’t actually expecting anyone to buy that you would reject any case that I could present to you, no matter what the facts were, simply because you think I have trouble with reading complrehension, are you? I mean, really? You are going to turn me away when I show up with a letter from my landlord stating that he terminated my lease because he discovered I was Jewish because you think I am a bad risk and not because you think I am a dick? Right. And I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
different church-lady
@Tom Hilton: Don’t believe the snark.
A L
@John D.: Well, you are taking your time to defend someone who is clearly an idiot, so my assumption isn’t that off-base.
I mean you can cry all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that ABL’s threads inevitably get shitted up by trolls because they know that ABL’s fans deep down inside know that getting in a white-knighting flamewar is more interesting than trying to talk about whatever no-effort bomb of stupidity she drops on this blog on a regular basis.
I mean, do you REALLY wake up every morning hoping that ABL launches another salvo against FDL? That’s the impression you’re giving, because other than that your howling defenses of her don’t seem to make any sense.
eemom
@MattR:
in addition to your spelling and/or typing challenges.
A L
@motorik: I dunno kid, you’re too transparent in your lack of effort. You gotta be like ABL and pretend you’re doing something profound every time you sit down to type.
MattR
@eemom:
Oh snap. You got me. Sadly, I know that’s the best you’ve got.
different church-lady
@A L:
Well, not in the past, but now that you mention it the idea is starting to have some appeal!
Allan
@A L:
Subject to the whims of the site owner, you are allowed to make that choice.
And, this being the internet, others are also allowed to judge you on the basis of that choice and respond accordingly.
I think you have managed to unite this community around a common enemy. Good work!
singfoom
@A L:
The introspection, I expect it burns? Methinks you doth troll here anon.
I find your views interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
John D.
@A L:
In what universe is ABL an idiot? Seriously. I reject your assertion.
Trolls FUCKING TROLL. Hence the name, you moron. ABL doesn’t have to do anything to have them shit up her threads. Nor does John. Nor does Mistermix. Nor does any blogger. Nor Usenet poster. Nor listserv member. Nor forum member.
Also, what “howling defenses”? I’ve responded to only two posters on this thread, for egregious inaccuracies. Hint: When you say she “…bores everyone into talking about something else”, my pointing out that I was not bored is not a defense – it is an attack that demolishes your argument.
eemom
@MattR:
Right indeed. Anybody stupid enough to live in a building owned by somebody even stupider probably has an advanced case of lead paint poisoning.
Now run along and hire Glenn Greenwald.
MattR
@singfoom: This thread was pretty shitted up before A L joined in.
@eemom: And how exactly would that make the case any less of a slam dunk? Seems to me you are just proving that it is your personal opinion and not your professional one making the decision.
different church-lady
@singfoom: This IS his newsletter.
Rihilism
@A L:
Sure, but simply calling someone dumb isn’t the same as making fun of someone for being dumb. Maybe it’s just me saying this, but I’ve read all of your posts and I didn’t laugh once. Considering no jokes were involved, I don’t find this surprising.
Certainly. And another internet tradition is to mock those who appear to have an exaggerated opinion of themselves.
Eh, if it works…
A L
@Allan: That’s fine. I don’t particularly care one way or another. Just don’t go around entertaining any thoughts of relevance though because as long as ABL and her attitude is tolerated around here, BJ will just keep flitting along in nowheresville.
A L
@Rihilism: What’s there to joke about? ABL’s posts are so wretched that they’re not even funny.
If you’re gonna qq about me then you should try not using “Tu quoque,” which doesn’t work by definition. Things that do work: Salient points, which neither ABL nor her fans are able to make.
Joseph Nobles
The FDL post that’s the source of all this well deserved opprobrium was written by one metamars. I would simply like to know if the FDL metamars is the same guy as the 9/11 Truther metamars from the James Randi Educational Foundation. I’m sure to be shown wrong on this, but if I am right, I smell serious ratfuckery.
singfoom
@MattR: Ok, perhaps this thread was shit upon before A L wandered in. Does that make more shitting upon less execrable?
It’s ok though. Someone is wrong on Balloon Juice, and A L is going to change their mind through sheer posting volume…or something.
Corner Stone
@Allan:
Ever think about doing narratives against the old silent horror movies?
“And the vampeere enters through the open window and menacingly raises his claw like hands whilst baring his fangs!”
Dun dun duuuuhhhhh!!
It couldn’t be any more campy than your routine here.
A L
@Joseph Nobles: See now THIS is more interesting than whatever ABL had to write. See? Actual research produces something potentially nifty.
joel
I have to agree with the people who essentially said that this is nutpicking. The republicans have their 27%, we have our 9.
different church-lady
@A L: So all this animosity is merely an expression of your fear that BJ won’t earn a blog of distinction badge?
A L
@singfoom: Atually I disagree a lot with many of the OPs, but it’s only when things get horridly stupid that I deign to criticize them. Those instanes are a) sometimes whenever someone posts about Andrew Sullivan and b) ABL’s posts when she’s particularly incoherent
So no.
Rihilism
@A L:
Personally, I think you should write an email to John toot sweet…
A L
@different church-lady: Yup. I want this blog to succeed so badly that I will strike down ABL’s posting career if I have to.
MattR
@joel: Interesting poll numbers. Kinda curious if you meant 9 to be the 9% of Democrats with an unfavorable opinion of Obama or the sum of the 7% of liberals with an unfavorable opinion plus the 2% of liberals who were not sure. Either one works.
different church-lady
@A L: Have you discussed this strategy with Cole?
singfoom
@A L: Well, by all means criticize the OPs or even other commenters. However, I doubt you’ll get any mileage by crying about the fact that you don’t like an OP’s writing style.
There’s an easy solution. Don’t read said OP’s posts.
Sure, that doesn’t address your need to be heard on the internet at or my need to be heard on the internet.
When you go around harping about the OP and how they suck, especially when you’re complaining about the lack of content, it’s pretty damn ironic, since your complaints worsen the signal/noise ratio of a possible discussion.
Opine as you wish, but when your opinion is that the very discussion is stupid, well, you’re not going to make any friends, nor any real points…but, like I said earlier, someone is wrong on the internet…and we know what that means.
Someone is wrong on the internet
Rihilism
Oh, my….
Rihilism
Oh, my…
Plantsmantx
@Ken:
Ken, that is by far the best comment on this thread. Thank you.
Danny
@Joseph Nobles:
Yes! This is now my theory on FDL: 20% PUMA, 20% Nader, 20% Dixiecrat, 20% Freeper, 20% Truther
eemom
actually this thread was quite a hoot until those disembodied letters of the alphabet wandered in.
hmmm. Don’t wanna go all Corner Stoned on anybody’s ass, but I wonder if it could be Beese sockpuppeting. Can’t imagine who else could sustain that level of tedious repetition through that many comments.
Rihilism
@A L:
It depends on how you define “work”, sweetie-pie…
Allan
@A L:
Obviously.
different church-lady
@eemom: It’s like my friend said about mice: “If you’ve got one, you’ve got more than one.”
nancydarling
@A L: Rihilism beat me to it. That you “deign to criticize” BJ tells me all I need to know about you, sir. So fuck off!
You Don't Say
Ya know, A L, anyone who continues to comment on something they consider both banal and boring is either lying and thinks it’s neither banal or boring, or they are a troll.
Keith G
@A L:
Seriously? You think anyone here cares about not “flitting”?
Wow.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@A L:
A lack of empathy is the root of all evil.
eemom
@Keith G:
speak for yourself, Sir!
I for one have great ambitions for this blog.
Once I have succeeded in my diabolical plan to mount a coup d’etat against the bloated and corrupt Cole dictatorship, I shall lead my People to Victory throughout the toobz of the inner!
Pink Snapdragon
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Having read through all 227 comments before yours, I think you are unfairly mischaracterizing what commenters are taking issue with. The substance of the FDL diary at issue is seriously ugly, stupid & racist. I do not remember a single commenter up to this point suggesting that it was not. In short, it seems that we all recognize that post for what it is. The area in which we disagree is the extent to which FDL as an entity and Jane Hamsher as the owner of that entity should be held accountable for what the diarist (who is not Jane Hamsher) wrote and published on that site. It seems to me that this is an issue of fact, not emotion/feeling and should be subject to rational analysis. If I have mischaracterized what the issue is, please correct me.
Unlike ABL, I am not black. I am a Jewish white woman who married a black man in 1969 and have two wonderful sons with him. I will not speak for him or my kids, but I can say with certainty that their perspectives on racism are vastly different from those of yourself, ABL and AsiangrrlMN. For some reason, they don’t seem to find nearly as much racism in the world as ABL does, and what they do find doesn’t seem to have nearly the same effect on them as it has on ABL. ABL has lumped all black people together in one group and now purports to speak for all of them. What I have gotten out of the series of posts by ABL over the last week or so is that we are all expected to agree with her totally and completely – or else. That is what is getting tiresome and very very old to me. Racism is something that needs to be discussed, in particular the fact that electing a black president appears to have made racism respectable again in some quarters. However, flamethrowing of the sort ABL does – heavy on the emotion and short on the facts, isn’t likely to yield satisfying results for anyone. These posts about discussions not going the way she wants so she shuts comments, bans people, writes taunting posts and otherwise shows how much power she has over this one small part of her life will do nothing to help people reach any sort of positive consensus on this issue she claims to care so much about.
jrs1
Which is less surprising, someone writing something stupid at the my.firedoglake diary pages or ABL’s bad faith equation of those pages with the site at large? This is the second or third time now. Is Obama responsible for anything written at the my.barackobama pages?
Rihilism
Perhaps, as this thread reaches the 400’s, I should point out that, personally, I find exposure to diverse opinions and perspectives extremely valuable. I may not always agree with the content or style of a FPer post, but I always appreciate the opportunity for greater understanding. For me, it is pure arrogance to assume that my personal opinions of any particular FPer validate any effort to derail a discussion that others might find worthwhile. I find such a sense of entitlement shocking, to say the least.
John, you do good work and ABL keep up the fight…
Miranda
You rock ABL!
Tom Hilton
@different church-lady: Fair enough.
ABL
@Crust: i certainly wouldn’t allow this bullshit on MY blog. fortunately, i don’t pay the bills here, so i don’t have to own a fucking thing.
ABL
@Alan in SF: apparently, you’re an idiot.
ABL
@A L: you’re pretty. so very pretty.
Mr. Poppinfresh
@Pink Snapdragon: Thank you for saying it more eloquently than I was able to express.
Nanette
@Pink Snapdragon —
Could you point out to me where she’s done that? Thanks.
Allan
And now, the FDL diarist has added a disclaimer at the prodding of the New Progressive Agenda:
Good work, everyone. Glad we cleared that up.
PS The New Progressive Agenda has a staggering 12 followers on Twitter. @NewProgs
General Stuck
@Pink Snapdragon:
The thing about racist speech, of any kind, is that it is not, once identified as such, open for discussion as to anything resembling what we would call reasoned debate.
Once it is identified, as is pretty universal in this thread, then what is, or should be the approved course, is to condemn it, no further discussion warranted. And then we get to when does this diary become Hamsher’s personal problem.
So. Is she now aware of it, or her moderators? have they condemned it and taken it down? I don’t know the answers to those question, but the long running track record would suggest none of those things have happened, except that by now Jane should be aware of it.
It is all that ABL has been doing here is pointing out racist speech and actions, ON THE RIGHT AND LEFT . Without condemning those making it, unless they take the tack of making it a personal assault on her on this blog, for pointing this kind of talk. She has not banned nor shamed them for disagreeing over the question of whether something said was racist. And has absorbed more bullshit than she has returned fire on.
I don’t know if you are new here or what, and I would agree with the emo part of ABL’s style, but it has always been controlled as compared to what happens when I get attacked personally, like she has. And as unpretty as some of the dialogue on this thread is, it is a far cry from some the ugly of the earlier ones, so maybe she is getting something accomplished. Your concerns are noted though, but that is about it.
nancydarling
@Pink Snapdragon: I believe that ABL’s very righteous indignation is not so much for herself as it is for the millions out there who don’t have a platform from which to speak for themselves. Living in L.A. as I did for 42 years was one prism through which to view a small part of the world. The landscape is considerably different here in Arkansas. I’m sure you and your family moved in multi-ethnic, middle class or upper middle class circles as I did with my family when in SoCal. I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist in California or other places, but it was easier to shelter my family from it in a place like L.A. I say this as a white, nominally Christian woman.
General Stuck
@Allan:
I don’t think that is enough, the diary needs taking down, not simply owned by the person who wrote it, which we already knew. Letting it stay up on her blog, then Jane owns it, and endorses it, period, case closed. This is not a free speech question.
ABL
@ShadeTail: what amuses me is unless this A L is Anne Laurie, s/he has never attempted to engage me in any sort of debate.
Projection, pure and simple coupled with some subpar insults.
Predictable.
Layla
@Pink Snapdragon: For some reason, they don’t seem to find nearly as much racism in the world as ABL does…
For some reason…..some strange reason….what could it be though??? They are both Negro!! When you figure it out, please get back and explain it to us po’ black folk!
Rihilism
@Pink Snapdragon:
So ABL’s style does not comport with your sense of how racism should be discussed. Instead of pointing out how patronizing that is, perhaps I should simply suggest you stop reading her…
lamh34
@Pink Snapdragon:
Ah…you just did speak for them.
Nanette
Also…
@Pink Snapdragon:
Gosh. What a burden! But you know… why do you think these posts are designed to “help people reach any sort of positive consensus” on anything, and not written just because that is what was on ABL’s mind that day? Surely you are not suggesting that as the Black frontpager on the site, that everything she writes must be for the benefit of white folks and their education? Maybe she just feels like a rant that day? And if anyone chooses to take the initiative and educate themselves, so much the better, right? After all, “Black issues” are “progressive” issues and all that. But that’s not ABL’s job, you know.
And tsk, tsk on her showing how much “power she has over this one part of her life” … I assume you mean the “submit” button? Because, of course, anyone with a blog and a comment box has that power!
But really, I’m just so happy to read that you are not speaking for your biracial children and Black husband and using them to let everyone know that racism is not nearly as bad as these other whiny folks of color say it is! Cuz’, you know… that would be really tacky.
lamh34
@Pink Snapdragon:
Or maybe they do, but they like to shield their mother and wife from the daily grind that they do have to experience.
If I actually talked about all the racist shit that goes on daily in my short 34 year old lifetime, then I’d be as pissed as ABL can be sometimes
So yeah, I keep some of my experiences from my white friends cause I don’t wanna ruin their day.
ABL
@A L: @A L: keep digging. it is clear that you don’t give a crap about race and privilege having entirely missed the point. you don’t care for the subject matter of my posts. then what are you doing here? there are other threads into which you can squeeze your written turds. do you need me to create another “ABL is a shitty blogger” thread so you can go splatter your feces all over that thread?
Jesus Christ, you’re transparent.
and if you’re going to call someone else “magnificently stupid” maybe don’t use foreign words you can’t spell. just a thought.
more projection. find me one instance of this. just one. i’ll wait.
Donna
could we also get in tune with all that we hold in common? Yeah discussion on how and why we differ makes us all think (always good) and creates big opportunities for learning but throwing flaming bricks at each other isn’t getting Obama re-elected. Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize and kum bay ya, fucking kum bay ya!
ABL
@nancydarling: because he or she is a prick, and he or she thinks that repeating ad nauseum that i’m dumb, stupid, whatever whatever whatever makes him a winner.
never mind the fact that every point it has made in this thread is provably false, but hey. assholes are entitled to opinions as well.
carry on AL.
MattR
@Rihilism:
So nobody should ever criticize the way that people discuss racism? Does that go for Republicans too? Or how about the author of the piece at FDL that started this? Weren’t they just talking about what they perceive to be a different type of racism, blindly supporting Obama because he is black like you?
@lamh34: If white folks aren’t supposed to make assumptions about what the black experience is like, I don’t think you should be making assumptions about her relationship to her spouse or children since you have neither so you couldn’t really understand.
General Stuck
@Donna:
Far as I know, FDL, and Jane are not interested in reelecting Obama, as this diary suggests, seeming to plot strategy for his defeat, as do others like it in other parts of the nutroots. They are not on our side regarding getting Obama reelected. If they were, them some moderation of disagreements would be wise, as you suggest. The way it is though, fuck em just as much as the wingnuts with the same goal concerning Obama. Fuck em even more.
Allan
@Pink Snapdragon: You wouldn’t by chance be related to the Yellow Snapdragon who comments on the New Progressive Agenda’s nascent website, would you?
I ask because it’s not a common surname.
lamh34
@MattR:
Call me “Angry Black LAMH” but FUCK YOU!!!!
ABL
unselfaware troll is unselfaware. amazing. i love it.
tell me again how stupid i am? the sentence from which i extracted this little gem makes absolutely no sense.
but then again, i’m just a dumb bitch. :)
MattR
@General Stuck:
I agree about their goals, but I disagree with your conclusion. They are an impotent, insignificant speck on the Internet compared to the media machine the wingnuts have access to. The wingnuts have the real influence and are the real enemy.
Rihilism
@MattR:
Surprisingly, one can be critical without being patronizing…
Pink Snapdragon
@lamh34: The logic, it is missing. I didn’t tell you what my husband and sons think — I said their perspective was vastly different. There is a difference, you know.
ABL
@Pink Snapdragon: linfar? that you?
gwangung
Generally, people (generally white) who start out like this end up by telling me how I’m wrong about wrong about perceptions of race. It often turns out that they have no intention about “discussing” race, but are starting from the position that their notions are correct. It’s not a position of respect or having an acknowledgement that they may have something to learn.
I don’t know about you, but it appears to me that the FDL poster doesn’t have a whole lot of respect or much experience in discussing race with others who don’t share that perspective.
novum
@pinksnapdragon;
thank you for that very thoughtful post; i’m sure you will be attacked for it.
it seems that lately the main purpose of many of the front page posts recently (and the comments that follow) has been to do exactly that; fracture the democratic coalition. there seems to be a movement for ideological purity in certain threads that is very similar to the imaginings of ideological purity winning the day at certain areas of FDL, or as a dialectical mirror of the ‘purity’ of the teabaggers (the real enemy if anyone cares anymore).
Nanette
@MattR:
There you go, MattR, well done. Go ahead, let it all out! I’m pretty sure it’s like lancing a boil of its poison. You’ll feel better afterwards. Maybe. Unless you somehow lance your boil and keep it too, I guess.
Pink Snapdragon
@Layla: ABL and my sons have something in common besides the color of their skin. They all have white Jewish mothers.
General Stuck
@MattR:
For me, nothing is lower than a prominent liberal blog validating racist memes ordinarily the purview of republicans, and in some cases, such as the inadequate black man meme, pushing it on their own accord.
As to importance of what happens on the blogs, it is as important as it is, meaning that this is a blog operating in the realm of blogs, like FDL. So it seems to me to be perfectly legit to discuss that site on matters like this. That justification is tripled due to Jane Hamsher getting her mug regular on the teevee, professing to speak for the “liberal/progressive community”
Personally, I think it is much more damaging, and certainly infuriating, that folks supposedly on your side are publishing this horseshit. I enjoy mocking them even more than the wingnuts, because the wingnuts are supposed to be craven assholes.
Allan
Also too, I note that the founder of the New Progressive Agenda is named Anthony NoeL.
MattR
@gwangung: I don’t mean to defend the poster at FDL. I think the post was a piece of shit as were the ideas expressed in it. But in their mind, they were talking about racism. So if we are going to take criticism of how racism is discussed off the table (something I completely disagree with), then don’t we also have to stop criticizing the FDL piece as well?
@Rihilism:
I agree completely. But your argument seemed to be that she was being critical therefore she was being patronzing. Otherwise, could you expand on why Pink Snapdragon’s take was so patronizing?
@lamh34: Can’t say I am surprised to get this reaction. Were you not implying the relationship between black children and their white mother is the same as between you and your white friends?
@General Stuck: I’ll buy that. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I have to remember that just because I think of FDL as a laughingstock does not mean that it doesn’t have real influence. And just because we know they are not the “left” does not mean that they will not be protrayed as such to the general public.
lamh34
@MattR:
That fuck you was due to this part of your statment:
So since I’m single and childless, I shouldn’t deem to comment on things involving children and their parents? I’ll remember that next time I’m supposed to care about education, proper schooling, vouchers, teacher’s unions and the like.
Again…FUCK YOU!~
Layla
@Pink Snapdragon: “The logic, it is missing. I didn’t tell you what my husband and sons think—I said their perspective was vastly different.”
lolwut?
Please, if you don’t mind, parse the difference between perspective and thinking for me.
Then perhaps you can explain to me why you consider “flamethrowing of the sort ABL does – heavy on the emotion and short on the facts,” to be unacceptable, but then pepper your own comment, not with facts, but by describing the internal emotional effect (which you can’t even ever know) of racism of other people.
THEN, perhaps you can explain how it’s perfectly OK for you as a Jewish woman to say “In short, it seems that we all recognize that post for what it is,” (which is counter factual ) but then take ABL for task for speaking for all Black people.
Just wonderin’…
MattR
@lamh34: I am single and childless too. My point is that neither of can really understand the relationship of parent to child or between spouses with children. Just like as a white man I can never understand what it is like to be black, no matter what kind of environment I’ve lived in (though I do think that there are different levels of understanding among white people depending on their life experiences).
Pink Snapdragon
@Rihilism: Actually, I have read every one of ABL’s posts, every comment on every one of those posts, the articles at every link she made, and all the posts and comments on her blog since she started posting here. (Say what you want about not having a life…) I also thought long and hard about whether I actually wanted to insert myself into this discussion, and wondered how long it would take for someone to call me racist.
Pink Snapdragon
@ABL: No
Layla
Hey! There it is — a reason they should all think exactly alike.
Thanks! You really are a font of useless stereotypes.
lamh34
@MattR:
well dude, I am Black, and I actually do have white members in my immediate family and they have bi-racial children (actually in NOLA, mixed race families have been going on sing Louisiana was foreign-ruled) and yes they do withhold information from their parents concerning shit like this so as not to burden them….you can speak to a cousin a lot easier than you can to a parent sometimes
so yeah, I know a bit about withholding uncomfortable information from family members….
Danny
@A L:
That’s hilarious! Trawl for about 2 seconds I’d say. My favourites:
gwangung
If they are honest about discussing racism, they’ll have to withstand the flamage and show their honesty. Because they have to show they AREN’T the same POS racists that people of color have to face. And, sadly, the burden is on the honest ones, since they are coming from a position of…wait for it…privilege. Lots of white people don’t stop to think about that.
ABL
I will not speak for the POCs in my family, and now let me speak with certainty for the POCs in my family.
I am still speaking for the POCs in my family and extrapolating their experience to be representative of ABL’s (and all POCs???) experience.
I have not read any of ABL’s writings, I am simply trying to sow seeds of dissension between her and any people who might, tacitly or otherwise, agree with ABL. I have POCs in my family and that gives me the ability to speak from a position of omniscience.
What I have gotten out of the series of posts by ABL over the last week is nothing. I will ignore the points she made and attempt to discredit her by the sheer force of my hyperbole.
Thanks for playing, NewProg. You betcha.
Tell me true, are you a sock puppet? “I am a Jewish woman (just like ABL’s mom!) who married a black man (just like ABL’s dad!) in 1969 (man, miscegenation was the PITS then, this means I must be evolved!). It sounds very contrived, indeed, and all of this from a commenter with so few comments on this blog.
Hmm…
Frankly, I don’t believe a word of what you’ve said here. And even if I did, your presentation of your family members’ experience has — as you explicitly acknowledge in your first sentence — no bearing here. You should have stopped at “I will not speak for them.”
lamh34
@ABL: Amen!!!!
gwangung
@Pink Snapdragon: If we want to parse words, patronizing is not the same as racist.
However, I do find it slightly offputting to see such dismissal of other people’s experience (touching other groups as it were).
Pink Snapdragon
@Nanette: You’re right. I made the assumption that ABL wouldn’t expend the time and energy she puts into her posts if she didn’t want to change people’s minds.
MattR
@Layla: I love how you cut the “white” part out of that quote. That part of the quote was actually a piece of info I didn’t know. And seeing your reaction to it, I have to say that now I am completely confused by the point of your original comment. I thought you were trying to slyly point out that they would have different perspectives because Pink Snapdragon’s kids have a white mother while ABL did not. But now I think you were trying to say that they have a different perspective because there is no ONE perspective to have because everyone’s life is different. But that was the point that Pink Snapdragon was trying to make initially. That ABL treats everyone’s perspective as the same when in reality different people have different perspectives.
@lamh34: Fair enough. I actually thought your original point was a good one but the comment had a bit of an “I know them better than you” condescending tone that called out at me to tweak you for what I perceived to be apparent hypocrisy.
@gwangung: No argument from me.
eemom
I haz a sad.
Nobody wants to join my revolution.
: (
lamh34
@MattR:
Fair enough indeed. I withdraw the original “fuck you”, but I reserve the right to use it again, since “fuck you” happens to be my go-to words even if I don’t truly mean them.
Pink Snapdragon
@Allan: No. I never heard of that entity until I read ABL’s post today.
Danny
MattR
@lamh34: If you want to have more happy talk, I finally caught up and got through the season finale of Fringe. Didn’t love most of the actual finale because I knew it was already renewed and I knew there was no way they could go through a full season like that (intentionally kinda vague to give people a chance to yell about spoilers). But I liked the end bit (though I think the very end will end up being a bit of a throwaway that was just designed to keep us guessing) and I thought the season as a whole was solid. I like the development of both sets of Olivia’s and Walter’s and think next season could be really interesting. I also think that perhaps next season should be the last as it seems to have mostly run its course.
Nunya
@Pink Snapdragon: well, one obvious difference between your husband and sons and ABL is gender, which may color not only their reaction to but also the sort of racism they’re exposed to. Just throwing that out there.
ABL
further, i note that pink snapdragon claims to have read every single post and every single comment on every single post… so that means she has read 6 months of my posts (many of which top 400 or so comments) yet makes the above sweeping generalization.
it’s not even good sock-puppetry. try being less obvious about it next time. and remember, i can see your (and novum’s) IP addresses. ;)
ABL
@Pink Snapdragon: honey, you’ve never commented on any of my posts before today. your stilted commenting style bespeaks your motives. it’s time to power down.
MattR
@ABL: So novum and Pink Snapdragon are confirmed sockpuppets?
lamh34
@MattR: Oooh!!! Fringe talk. I did like the finale. I think they could have used it as both a season finale and a series finale. It would have been enough of resolution but still leaving you wanting more up to the point where Peter “existed” or not.
Fringe has become my new X-Files like obssession. I hope the writers and producers are ready for next season. I suspect that it will be their last.
If I could, I would so campaign to get both Anna Torv and John Noble for Emmy nominations. I think they are both that good.
ABL
@Pink Snapdragon: final word, it seems you came here hoping i would call you racist. the thing that you would know about me if you have, as you say you have, read every one of my posts, every single comment, and every single link (which i highly doubt, but i’ll play along) is that i rarely call individuals racists–i call their behavior racist.
you’ll note that your mission was a failure. i did not call you racist.
so you can report that back to your overlords. you can also go back and read all of my posts on hamsher. you will find that nowhere therein do i call her racist. next time you think long and hard before jumping into one of my threads, you might want to think long and hard about the difference between ascribing a characteristic to someone, and ascribing a characteristic to someone’s behavior.
there is a difference. i believe there is a difference and have often stated so, which, again, you would know if you’ve pored over my every written word.
cheers.
(edited for clarity)
MattR
@lamh34:
Oh, definitely. I am pretty sure they wrote it that way on purpose. But once I knew that thery were gonna be back you knew they had to resolve the twist. I kinda wish they had left the twist in place through the end of the finale and resolved it in the premiere or even a couple episodes into the season.
As it stands, I am not sure how Peter can “not have existed” since his existence is the whole impetus for the rift between universes. I guess maybe they can say that both versions died as a child despite our Walter crossing over (which created the rift). My guess is that he gets stuck in some kind of limbo and is not in the first few episodes. In those episodes there is tension between the universes instead of cooperation but eventually the Walter’s realize that they can save Peter if they work together.
ABL
@MattR: i did not say that. i only note that one has never commented before today, another has a handful of comments, but has never commented on one of my posts before today, and both have IP addresses coming from the same region.
in response to my “linfar that you” comment, one would expect a person to say “who’s that?” not “no.” it doesn’t pass the smell test.
it’s circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but this ain’t my first rodeo. i’ve pissed off the right people this week, which makes me a Happy Black Lady irrespective of whether these two are actual sock-puppets or just two creeps attempting to ingratiate themselves to those (like A L) predisposed to loathe me by mirroring my background.
lamh34
@MattR: The limbo idea is my best bet too. I think they just needed a way to get rid of the “kid” between Alt-Livia and Peter. No Peter…no kid. So they can start the new season and NOT have to worry about trying to have the kid as a part of the storyline next season.
Rihilism
@MattR:
Oh, I don’t know, perhaps it was that she felt the need to point out to a woman of color that her methodology in discussing race was emotional and unhelpful. As if ABL is not allowed to be emotional or that she is required to discuss race in a way Snapdragon views as helpful. Are all discussions of race to be devoid of emotion in order to “yield satisfactory results”. Or, more importantly, must all discussions of race lead to the satisfactory results that Snapdragon requires?
Or perhaps it was the “I’ve got a black husband and children” who don’t feel the same way ABL feels, therefore, tut tut, ABL for being such a thin-skinned flamethrower, why can’t you react to life in the same manner as my kin.
Or perhaps it was the “That is what is getting tiresome and very very old to me”. Snapdragon grows tired of ABL’s fruitless post. Quick ABL, act in manner that Snapdragon doesn’t find tiresome, else she’ll need to remind you that your efforts are emotional and factless.
Or perhaps it was the “…otherwise shows how much power she has over this one small part of her life will…”. Petty, petty woman, ABL, trying to control this small part of your life whilst the rest spins out of control.
Or perhaps it was “she claims to care so much about”. Silly ABL, it’s quite obvious to any non-emotional thinker you don’t care about race.
Shall I go on?
General Stuck
@novum:
LOL, purity? what do you know about purity. Racist speech and racism in general are not part of, or shouldn’t be part of any internal discussions on ideology within the dem camp. These things are to be pointed out and pitched out as the garbage it is.
ABL does front page duties here on issues of race relations in this country, and there is no way to painlessly point out the racist element that lives everywhere Consider it a white person reeducation camp for liberals, and whatever stray wingnut that gets lost and ends up on one of ABL’s threads. You are free to disagree, but not to whine that the questions are being asked. You can have an open mind, and let folks of color have their say and possibly learn something, or keep on following the little white men in your own head telling you all the wrong answers, that happens to be wrong when considering what real live POC are thinking.
There are other threads on this blog that don’t deal with this topic.
gwangung
Ah, now it hits me. Given that it was both ABL and AsianMNgrrl that were “tut tutted”, and that sexism can compound racism, that’s was what was bothering me.
(And, personally, what got me to where I am now was someone tut tutting me about being “angry.” Which is silly; anger, properly channeled, can be enormously useful–denying it and saying it’s never justified is counterproductive and acts to reinforce the status quo).
MattR
@lamh34: So you go with Alt-Livia, huh? I prefer B-Olivia or Faux-livia. As for the kid, just kill him in some accident :) I can’t remember who exactly is in the merged universe area (and of course they haven’t told us the “rules” of that space yet), but they have set it up pretty nicely for Alt-Livia to end up with Lincoln (and Henry) while Peter and Olivia eventually get to live happily ever after. It also seems like they have set things up for Alt-Livia to work with the members of our universe even before she finds out that it was Walternate who accelerated her pregnancy (which also provides a way to hide who Henry is from Peter and Olivia if they all conspire to try that, now that I think about it)
BTW – I don’t follow the gossip much. Any idea why they killed off Charlie in this universe a couple seasons ago only to give him a pretty decent sized role this season in the other universe? I kinda assumed there was some sort of dispute and they hastily wrote him out (I thought that whole arc was weak).
EDIT: And now I think I may have to go watch the season finale again since there is no new Fringe on in 20 minutes :(
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Looks like we’ll be hitting 500 soon, so Lord knows if anybody will read this, but I’ll say it anyway.
I like ABL’s posts. I’m a white guy, and I guess I’ve thought more about race in the last 3 years or so than I ever had before. I guess that’s hardly a big shock. But I’ve found that I’ve thought more seriously about race since ABL has begun writing here than I had any other time in the last 3 years. I’ve done more work trying to get my thoughts in order by putting them into words than I would have without these posts to spur me.
I’ve learned a lot. A lot of what I’ve learned has been about myself, about the work I have to do to overcome the almost innate racism that lingers within me, that I’ve learned almost by osmosis all my life. Maybe this doesn’t mean a whole lot to some of the people here. That’s all right. I’m not asking for their blessing. But my guess is that I’m not the only one who’s better off for ABL writing here.
So, if you don’t like ABL, then that’s all right. Nobody’s trying to make you fall in love with her. Some of you don’t like what she writes about. Some of you think it’s dumb, or it doesn’t matter. Fair enough. I think you’re wrong about that, but it’s up to you. Some of you might not like the way she pokes and prods. Again, fair enough, though I think white people like me could use a little poking and prodding about race. But you don’t have to think so.
But if you really don’t like her, hell if you downright hate her, if you think she’s dumb, if you think she’s a snooze, if you’d rather dig your own eyeballs out with a fork, then I’d ask you just not to get in the way. That’s all. I’m not asking you to change your mind, I’m not asking you to see eye to eye with ABL or with me or with anybody else. I’m only asking you to keep out of the way so I and other people who do get something out of this can think and write and debate without having to get tangled up in all these side fights.
Is that fair enough for you? Maybe I’m intensely witless, maybe I judt don’t have any taste, maybe I’m a bad person that I still have work to do when it comes to race. I’m willing to plead guilty to all of those things. Maybe I’m so dumb, so tasteless and such a bad person that I don’t deserve the chance to read ABL’s stuff and work on race. Maybe. I do know that I have no right to demand anything here. But I’m not demanding. I’m not claiming any right here. All I’m doing is asking. I’m asking you, all of you who have so eloquently and so persistently made your case that ABL is a shitty blogger, all I’m asking is that you just skip ABL’s posts. Just scroll on by and read something you want to. You’ll be happier and so will I. Please, just leave us to do our thing. That’s all.
Corner Stone
Man, the two minute hate here directed at Pink Snapdragon.
passerby
@slag:
This is the kind of comment that was the reason for my becoming hooked on Balloon Juice about 6 years ago. It’s a perspective that had not occurred to me and I immediately agree. I just learned something from you slag, thanks for the thoughtful perspective.
In the same vein, fasteddie jumps in with his magnificent, snarky summary, perfectly encapsulating the drama. Damn! I enjoyed reading that. …Trilateral Commission…HEH!
Balloon Juice: Come for the Topics, Stay for the Snark.
I raise a glass to you both on this fine Friday.
[BTW, is TZ still commenting here under a different name? I miss his righteousness.]
ETA: Yipes 470 somthin’ comments.
General Stuck
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
You are not alone, all us white folk have to unlearn a lot of crap learned by a kind of cultural osmosis, as you put it. The only requirement is prying open the mind, and considering the reason why we have two ears and only one mouth. And a few dashes of humility.
AxelFoley
@A L:
One of the dumbest posts I’ve ever seen here. And that includes posts by Beese and Uncle Clarence.
Rihilism
@Corner Stone: For my part, it’s not hate. It’s simply shock that anyone can act so patronizing…
AxelFoley
@MoneyGal:
The stupid is out in full effect today.
soonergrunt
Wow. I go out to handle some business today–new job making more money (yay, me), and I come back to this crazy shit (475 posts and counting as I type.) Somewhere in here I read that Joe Beese was banned, too.
Why, oh why, does all the good shit happen when I’m doing other stuff?
Corner Stone
@Rihilism: Which part? Where she shared her perspective?
Because I agree. That was some patronizing bullshit to tell us about her life.
Pink Snapdragon
@ABL: ABL, your comment is about as ugly, hateful and personal as it gets. As for my being familiar with what you have written, please refer to comment 442. Clearly, all that I read did not prepare me for how low you are capable of stooping. You owe me an apology.
You are right, I have not commented much in the past. I have been reading Balloon Juice since 2008 and have not in the past commented on any posts outside my professional expertise — securities law and finance. I fail to see how my frequency of commenting could possibly justify your attack on me.
Rihilism
@Corner Stone: It is one thing to share one’s perspective, it is quite another to use that to minimize someone else’s. As I said above, it’s possible to be critical without being patronizing…
MattR
@Rihilism: The thing is that what you read as minimizing, I read as contrasting and pointing out there is a diversity of opinion. OK. I guess that is minimizing it if you are telling them that thiers is not the one true perspective and in fact that there are many correct ones.
Allan
@Corner Stone: I thought it made a nice break from the 6 Month Hate aimed at ABL. YMMV.
Corner Stone
@Rihilism: I read it as a different perspective, and an opinion.
IMO, she didn’t say no trouble existed, nor clouds, but that they see life differently in her house. And she got told toot sweet that her kids were lying to her and she was bullshitting.
And then people made suggestions/justifications that her kids were lying to her about their daily life.
IDK, call me crazy but it sounds like she was being offered a big mug of STFU for disagreeing with someone else’s perspective.
Corner Stone
@Allan:
Hall Monitor, it’s good to see you enjoy other people taking incoming as long as they don’t co-blog with you.
eemom
Further evidence that we are dealing with an FDL-bot here, ladies and gentlemen.
You see, on the rare occasions when somebody posts a comment over there that is lacking the requisite measure of adoration for Goddess Jane — e.g., a post that contains the word “disagree” — at least 53 noble commenters-in-waiting will leap to their feet and draw their swords, hissing “APOLOGIZE, peasant, lest I smite thee for an infidel!” in that brief nanosecond of time before Eunuch-in-Chief RBG swoops in and fells the villain with his ban-cudgel.
Allan
@Pink Snapdragon: Heat:Kitchen::Criticism:Balloon Juice
Allan
@Corner Stone: I’m trying not to gag on the irony of you defending a BJ commenter from criticism.
AxelFoley
@burnspbesq:
U mad?
MattR
@eemom: Oh bullshit. It has nothing to do with not being able to tolerate any sort of disagreement and everything to do with ABL’s response to Pink Snapdragon’s criticism which was to call her a liar and a sock puppet. I think you are calling the wrong person thin skinned.
Corner Stone
@Allan: Believe it or not Hall Monitor, but in the past I have stepped in and called the BJ blogswarm crazy for attacking kay before she was an FP.
And kay and I don’t co-blog anywhere.
Corner Stone
@MattR: You forgot the gossamer-thin veiled threat ABL also tagged on.
That she had authority to discharge who’s pseudonym was really who by their private information only she can see.
BlizzardOfOz
@HeartlandLiberal:
Why do you call that post “racist”? Because it criticizes Obama? Because that would be pretty fucking stupid of you. Then again, being a loyal Democrat is known to rot your brain.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
OH bullshit. You was butthurt as hell when Kay got promoted to FPer.
edit – but no where near as much as now with ABL. Fills me with happy to see it.
ABL
@Corner Stone: wrong. she was offered a big mug of STFU for stating in her first comment, that she would not speak for the minorities in her family, then proceeding to do so, and then callously dismissing my and asiangrrl’s experiences by reference to the experience of those for whom she said she would not speak in the first place.
@Pink Snapdragon: i don’t owe you anything. you minimized my personal experience and the experiences of my two co-bloggers right out of the gate.
let me requote what your first attempt to engage me was:
i wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for an apology when your comment was one breathless insult.
had you not being hateful and dismissive in your initial comment (not just to me, but to my two friends), we (including asiangrrl and ee) might have had an interesting discussion. if you are who you say you are, then i think it would have been interesting to talk to you since your childrens’ personal history would mirror mine. unfortunately, it is plain that your intention was not to have a fruitful discussion but to provoke me. your belated feigned outrage merely betrays your undisclosed motive for making this post the first post of mine you ever decided to comment on. i have written approximately 185 posts here. i simply do not believe you.
playing coy is not going to work with me.
and if i am wrong about you — if you have, as you say, read six months of posts and comments here, you would surely know that your above statement was not an appropriate manner to initiate a dialogue with me.
have a good evening.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Yeah, well I find her dull and plodding. Doesn’t mean we don’t kick it when I’m in OH.
And you can fuck right off.
Dumb ass
Allan
@Corner Stone: Do you co-blog anywhere?
Has anyone on the internet ever said to you, Corner Stone, I like the cut of your jib and the way you handle words, and I would like to feature your talents on my blog? If so, where can I read your work?
LTMidnight
@AxelFoley: Seriosly, how does A L dress themselves in the morning.
ABL
@Corner Stone: oh please. just quit it. i never intimated that i would out anyone. you’re reaching and you know it. my point was to indicate to the commenters in question the basis for my questioning their veracity and to hopefully forestall any other similar bullshit so i don’t have to waste my time trying to figure out who is real and wants to have a discussion, and who is simply behaving inappropriately.
ABL
@LTMidnight: over 25 comments related solely to my “clear” stupidity, and then he complains that my threads get “shitted up by trolls” (at least, i think those were his words.)
breathtaking, really.
Corner Stone
@ABL: Now wait a second. That’s your perspective as an FP.
But my life to this point as a commenter has been completely different.
No one who has disagreed with you in the past here could take that statement any way but the way I took it.
LTMidnight
@BlizzardOfOz:
Bet you been waiting your whole life to be able to say that, kid.
Pink Snapdragon
@ABL: And one more thing ABL. Your ability to distort my words and draw inferences and conclusions from thin air is amazing. For example, where did I suggest that I wanted you to call me racist? I believe I indicated that I wondered how long it would be before someone on this thread called me racist for daring to suggest that not all black people experience the same things and/or to the same extent you describe.
On what planet does this constitute denigrating your experiences? How is this patronizing? On what planet does saying that I can’t speak for someone else, but I can describe their perspective, turn into I am describing someone else’s thoughts and innermost feelings? On what planet does the answer “no” to “linfar that you” cause a rational person to conclude that I am some kind of imposter? Presumably you learned the same things in your evidence class in law school that I did: Answer the question asked. I do not have a fucking clue who linfar is (and I don’t care who linfar is) so I responded to the question you asked because I am a polite person from the upper midwest who has been responding politely to people for more than 60 years. I am trying to get over it because I really, really want to call you some ugly names right now.
MattR
@Corner Stone: Believe me, I did not forget that. I thought it was pretty shitty for ABL to imply that she knew that they were the same IP address and were sock puppets when in fact all she knew was that they were in the same region. I was actually just trying to decide if I wanted to edit my comment to add that eemom’s “logic” as well as ABL’s list of suspicions that novum and Pink Snapdragon were sockpuppets just reinforced my belief I would never hire them as lawyers (although on the other hand, if I am ever a defendant in a criminal suit where I am guilty as hell, ABL’s ability to look at facts and explain them with an unlikely alternative narrative with a straight face would be greatly beneficial)
@ABL: First off, I am trying to figure out how it is possible to acceptably criticize you if you consider that to be insulting. I also find it interesting that the comment that you quoted and introduced as “let me requote what your first attempt to engage me was:” was not actually directly addressed to you. Given that, it seems like the only reason that it provoked you was that you are provoked by any criticism. (EDIT: And yes, I do realize the comment was about you, but it was focused on explaining to Emily why Emily’s description of what people were complaining about you was not accurate)
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
I didn’t say that one time a long time ago you might have defended Kay, Once. I said that when she became a front pager, you was all butthurt. I will just have to dig up some old threads . And it is hilarious to note that one instance when all the other times of pure nastiness towards Kay that I remember well from stepping in to spank you for being the nasty piece of work you were and are.
Pink Snapdragon
@eemom: I do believe that at least one of my previous comments was in support of you when you were being atacked for your explanation of how the legal system/Supreme Court works.
AxelFoley
@General Stuck:
This.
MattR
@Pink Snapdragon: Did you mean this and this? Although you did out yourself as reading the comments at FDL in the first one :)
@Rihilism (right below): Eh. I read it differently. Demonstrates the problem with the Internet (and the written word in general). Not much point in continuing to argue about it.
Rihilism
@MattR: @Corner Stone: Had Snapdragon stuck to simply her and her family’s perspective on race, I doubt that I’d have much to say. But she made it very personal attack directed at ABL, and in the end implied that ABL doesn’t really care about race (then, after making a personal attack was seemingly surprised that ABL would respond personally). Sorry, this was totally unnecessary if her actual goal was to further the discussion about race by sharing her own perspective. Look, I’m not trying to justify what anyone might say here (I never claimed that Snapdragon’s opinions of race or her family’s experiences were invalid), only noting that I found Snapdragon’s method of plying them to be very patronizing…
Pink Snapdragon
@MattR: That was a reference to the commenters at FDL being crazy. I have nothing to do with FDL other than that I donated money to them to hire Marcy Wheeler when she was working on the detainee issues.
MattR
@Pink Snapdragon: I know that (hence the smiley face). And you know that. But that won’t stop at least one person here from making a comment about it.
Jewish Steel
ABL is right to say that snapdragon has one too many pat and coincidentally relevant qualifications to bolster “her” authority.
“Her” opening paragraph, which is just so much expository horseshit, wouldn’t pass muster in a second rate novel. Puh-leeze.
Corner Stone
@Rihilism:
YMMV, but I find this to be spot on.
eemom
@Pink Snapdragon:
please, don’t allude to my profession on this thread. The mortal blow of learning that MattR won’t hire me to kick his landlord’s ass is still so very raw.
ShadeTail
@ABL:
I’ve had your back before, ABL, but I call utter bullshit on this. Pink Snapdragon did absolutely nothing of the kind, and your response was completely out of bounds. Calling her a liar and a sock puppet just because your dander is up? And now doubling down on that? You most certainly do owe her an apology.
Hawes
In a futile stab at comity, can I offer an African American musician using an African inspired instrument largely co-opted by
hillbilliesrednecksbluegrass aficionados singing about the travesty of America’s original sin.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUXmz0mTOGw
Pink Snapdragon
@Jewish Steel: Then it’s a good thing my life is not a novel. I presume you are referring to my initial comment, and I can’t imagine anyone thinking that the first paragraph of that comment would have a place in a novel.
MoneyGal
I love FDL. I’m not a follower or a sheeple as many on this blog seem to advocate. Obama has been no friend of the working poor. Obama’s friends are professional and have lots more money than anone on this blog.
I am assuming that Mr. Rockefella and Gates have stopped posting.
Cassidy
Are we done telling black people what they should think and feel? I stopped following this thread around 100.
AxelFoley
@MoneyGal:
The stupid, it doth burneth.
And this focusing on Obama’s rich friends and shit is funny considering your handle. Unless you’re trying to be witty and claim to be from Ireland.
fasteddie9318
zOMG the light is so blinding…I can feel myself being raised up bodily to join Our Lord and Savior Jesus H. Christ in Paradise…this is overwhelming…such bliss…complete and total bli…
Wait, wait, ABL said what? And Pink who? Seriously? A L? Not that asshole again. Who the fuck–?
No, no, sorry Lord, I can’t. These fuckers are pissing me off too much, I have to stay and explain why they’re all shitbags. I’ll see you at Judgment Day though, right? Jesus? Hello?
Huh. Must have hung up.
Jewish Steel
@Pink Snapdragon: Pfft. If you see SPaT in there in imaginary lady-land, say hi.
LTMidnight
@MoneyGal: I’ll bite, kid. Explain why……..:
1) A $20 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps.
2) A $1 billion in funding for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) that is intended to revitalize low-income communities via “Job training and placement assistance”, “Financial literacy programs”, et al, to helping families
become self-sufficient.
3) A $2 billion in new Neighborhood Stabilization Funds that will allow ailing neighborhoods be kept maintained.
4) A $1.5 billion in Homelessness Prevention Funds to keep people in their homes and prevent homelessness.
5) A $5 billion increase for the Weatherization Assistance Program to help low income families save on their residential energy expenditures by making their homes more energy efficient.
6) A $4 Billion program, The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, “authorizes funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs and increases access to healthy food for low-income children.”
7) As part of the HCR bill, subsidies will be available to the uninsured and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level($14,404 for individuals and $29,326 for a family of four).
8) Estabilished Open Doors to end the 640,000 men, women and children who are homeless in America by 2020.
9) Increased the amount of federal Pell Grant awards so that funds are available to those with less access to have opportunity.
10) Provided $510 Million for the rehabilitation of Native American housing.
11) Expanded eligibility for Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,400 per year for an individual).
12) Providing assistance to low-income workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit giving millions of working families the break they need.
13) Education being the way out of Poverty, kicked off the “Race to the Top”, a $4.3 billion program, that rewards via grants to States that meet a few key benchmarks for reform, and states that outperform the rest.
…… doesn’t count as things that help Middle Class and working poor.
Allan
@MoneyGal:
FDL doesn’t love you back. FDL loves your eyeballs, your clicks and the personal data you provide on every online petition you sign, along with your financial contributions.
You’re worse than a follower or a sheeple. You’re a mark.
fasteddie9318
MoneyGal, seriously, the villagefolk are going to be worried sick about you.
eemom
this thread keeps spinning off into new directions of crazy.
eemom
@MoneyGal:
Sorry, $$, but that and this
are qualities that no longer coexist in nature. The species became extinct in 2008 at the latest.
Rihilism
@fasteddie9318: Isn’t it May 21 on the other side of the globe? And so it begins. I, for one, look forward to my descent into hell. I imagine it will be like water park slide, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee……
El Tiburon
So, is this entire clusterfuck is about some nobody posting something stupid at a blog no one cares about?
I read FDL. Mainly for Dayden, Tbogg and a little Emptywheel. I would not even know where to find this offending post. Regardless, does ABL constantly troll FDL for something stupid?
ABL might have a bit more credibility if she ever discussed any positives FDL contribute to the Cause.
The reason her posts devolve into a bucket of shit is partly due to the fact that she insists on personal insults instead of a debate.
The Blog is a big place. Trying to police it for the stupid is a fools game.
El Tiburon
@ShadeTail:
Exactly. ABL cant see straight for her anger. This particular response is a great example.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Jewish Steel:
Oi! Just ’cause I’m imaginary doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.
LTMidnight
@El Tiburon:
The NPA disagrees with you.
http://twitter.com/#/NewProgs/status/71664530052222976
Allan
@El Tiburon:
A. Whose Cause?
B. Who’s stopping you from discussing them yourself?
El Tiburon
@Rihilism:
Why don’t you go back and count all of the personal attacks launched by ABL. ABL doesn’t so much want to discuss and debate race as club dissenters over the head until they are a bloody pulp.
Lynn Dee
@4tehlulz: Now that’s not quite fair. Whites didn’t think up “Afro-American.” It was once, for a short period, the preferred/accepted term. It’s just not anymore, and hasn’t been for quite a while.
Jewish Steel
@Sarah Proud and Tall: My dogs do an apology ceremony that involves doing a conspicuously obedient ‘sit’ and lying their ears flat against their head. Very affecting.
I’m doing that now.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Jewish Steel:
Awwww. Do you want a tummy scratch?
Lynn Dee
@Martin: Not to mention, she can never run away — and furthermore, hasn’t tried to run away, as far as I know — from teaming up with Grover Norquist during her personal quest to destroy health care reform. That was the last straw for me.
D. Mason
@ABL:
OK I kept my mouth shut on this whole thread until now, but c’mon this is grade-A trolling. You’re really dismissing someone for the way they choose to initiate a dialogue? Cute, but I’m not biting.
El Tiburon
@Allan:
You know you can be obtuse if you like, but to pretend for one second the the core principles most of us share here and over at FDL are that different is ridiculous. Hate Hamsher all you want, but they are doing a lot of good progressive work. Period. If you disagree with that then you are ver misinformed.
Please tell Cole you nominate for front page status. And I do discuss them. But my cats prefer sports. So, you know.
Jewish Steel
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Wags tail encouragingly
Jewish Steel
@eemom:
Me & the imaginary lady I am currying favor with by pretending to be a dog take exception to your remark.
General Stuck
@El Tiburon:
Do you ever get tired of being a pompous ass? The same old whining grievances, over and over and over, interspersed with vapid attempts at motive and mind reading of random folks on the internet. Such a tired routine.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@A L:
I haven’t had a chance to read the interceding comments to see if anyone has made it clear to you yet, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s FDL, Joan Walsh or anyone else in particular who think that black people just can’t see why Obama is the most horrible POTUS ever, and because according to Cornel West, authority on all things truly African American, who, himself feels snowed, black people must be taught the real progressive truth.
And that’s a horribly racist attitude for two reasons: First, it assumes that African Americans can’t see the pros and cons about Obama’s presidency; Second, that if once African Americans weigh the pros and cons and decide that Obama still deserves their support, then they are wrong, never mind that they might have a unique perspective.
Rihilism
@El Tiburon:
Don’t order me around you feculent twit. Oops, that was rather insulting wasn’t it…
Corner Stone
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Joan Walsh??
soonergrunt
Keep hacking away at each other, cause I’ve got beer and popcorn. THIS IS FUCKING GREAT!
bayville
Wow! 544 comments and counting.
They must all be “atta girls” toward Ms. “attorney” or else we all know tough-talkin’ ABL would close off coments, turn on the Twitter and cry racism!, racism!, racism! over the course of 400 Tweets and two hours.
I bet the the only reason most of the commenters post here is because they’ve been banned from Dan Riehl’s site for being too stoopid.
Carry on. Obama Rulz!
Allan
@El Tiburon:
Examples?
PS: the New Progressive Alliance has already rejected and denounced the diarist metamars for the post which triggered ABL’s response, which had to be painful for them, because he comprises 1/13th of their entire membership on FDL. Yes, that’s right, the electoral powerhouse NPA has won 13 converts to their cause amongst the FDLers. It was really savvy of them to consolidate their base like that before going global with a Craigslist ad recruiting a primary challenger for Obama.
What’s even more impressive is that they’ve picked up some new Twitter followers, bringing them to 15, and their Facebook page is swelling with 55 Likes.
The Obama campaign is running scared, I tell you.
Corner Stone
@Allan:
Wow! That is one impressive foe! I totes agree the primary post was worth all this!
Corner Stone
@bayville: bayville, what exactly are you suggesting?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Jewish Steel:
Who’s an adorable fuzzy thing? scritch scritch scritch.
Lynn Dee
@Allan:
Lol!
Lyrebird
Dear ABL,
Dunno if you will see this, and you’ve already shown superhuman stamina above anyhow, but I’ll go on record saying THANK YOU for writing at all, and THANK YOU for writing this.
I actually clicked on the link, and it’s more saccharinely patronizing than I’d thought from your excerpt. Just thought I’d check… and ew! First time I’ve sailed over to FDL in years, after feeling unwelcome and uncomfortable about what they moderated & what they didn’t.
Thanks also to Mr. Humphrey-Mumphrey from Brisbane and every other former moniker on earth, what you said was awesome! :->
Dear JC,
Redundantly restating the obvious, but why not? Maybe it will balance out some of the acidic stuff above… I’m so glad you have ABL on board along with your other excellent contributors!
Allan
@Corner Stone: You’re underestimating the power of Cindy Sheehan and the remnants of Dennis Kucinich’s last campaign, still nursing their butt-hurt under the United Progressives brand.
These are not enemies to be taken lightly. No sir.
El Tiburon
@General Stuck:
That’s rich coming from you.
But I will attempt to actually engage you instead of the same old character assassinations.
No, I dont get tired of offering my thoughts and opinions. That is the point of this, no? I guess it hits a chord with you since you like vto call me out. So I must be doing something right.
Care to let me know what one of these grievances may be?
Ok, you might be on to something here..
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Corner Stone:
It’s the same thing that Walsh has been doing in her feud with ABL: Dismissing the fact that African Americans’ unique perspective creates a difference in priorities. What Walsh (and this diarist) are saying is that African Americans are wrong for not prioritizing matters the way white progressives do.
Now Walsh hasn’t gone so far as saying that African Americans need to be educated, but the dismissive attitude in and of itself is patronizing.
Corner Stone
@Allan: IDK, it just seems odd it can be both. The org you’re describing is small, and even they disavowed the useless post.
So, a personal diary by someone a small org disavows on a website less than *maybe* 1% of Americans know exists…
It’s a little like being outraged that The Society to Outlaw Fuschia exists.
Allan
@Corner Stone: How many cells of malignant melanoma are you comfortable carrying in your body?
El Tiburon
@Allan:
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/
http://firedoglake.com/fdl-coverage-catfood-commission/
General Stuck
@El Tiburon:
Of course you are. Maybe some day the rest of us will find the frequency where we might understand what it is. But you carry on, dude, doing whatever it is you do.
Allan
@El Tiburon: They have websites? Wow, I take back everything I said.
General Stuck
Okay, I am gong to bite the bullet and sign up for twitter. Have started to several times, but they ask for my real name and say it will be part of my public profile. Can anyone tell me what this means, as I don’t want my personal info on any public profile. thanks in advance for any help.
El Tiburon
@Allan:
Well, that’s a peach. Wish I knew what it all meant. You kind of sound like a monty python routine. splitters!
Is the assumption that FDLmis some kind of racist outfit? What exactly is the accusation? zOMg! Hamsher had lunch with Grover! Off with her head! I wish I really cared enough to truly understand the FDL hatred over here.
sneezy
This sort of soaring self-regard drives me nuts. Oh, these poor, ignorant people need someone like this writer to explain to them who their enemies are? The fuck they do. “Progressives” like this can take this self-righteous bullshit and shove it, as far as I’m concerned.
D. Mason
@El Tiburon: Obots vs. Onots?
Allan
@El Tiburon: You have a funny way of showing how little you care.
El Tiburon
@Allan:
You asked for examples. I linked to three examples. Do you disagree with pot legalization? Coverage of the cat food commission? If so, care to explain why?
Try this: actually click on one of those links, read a little bit, then come back here and explain why you think they suck. Or, sit on your ass and let ABL lead around by the nose.
Again, YOU asked for examples. It’s up to you to either dismiss them out of hand or engage.
As you can see, I chose to engage. Or as Genaera Suck would say, iwas being pompous. Or something.
Allan
@General Stuck: You’ll have to give them a real email address, which is not visible, and the “real name” you give them shows above your Twitter handle. A quick perusal of my followers list shows that some of them have real names like POX, Vixen Strangely, and Puddin Tang. In other words, knock yourself out.
Sharl
@General Stuck: I’m on Twitter with a fake name and other fake info, and a working contact e-mail address that does not incorporate my name or other identifying information. I made sure to record the fake info somewhere easily accessible, in case I had problems with the account down the road which would require that stuff.
I suppose I might be in violation of their terms of service, but I’m mostly a lurker and “re-tweeter” of the original tweets of others, so probably don’t draw any of the wrong kind of attention to myself that would result in account suspension. So far, so good, knock on wood, and all that.
ETA: what Allan said.
El Tiburon
@Allan:
About the FDL hatred? Not really. I could care less. I find it amusing. I mean, Hamsher called Cole a misogynist, yet he gives her props when warranted. That’s the adult in him Ive always figured.
Some of the vitriol I see directed at her is childish.
General Stuck
@Allan: @Sharl:
Thanks, I’ll just make up a name.
Allan
@El Tiburon:
So they’re the ones who have gotten pot legalized? Bully for them!
They wrote blog posts? So that’s why Obama has been foiled in his dastardly scheme to starve little old ladies. I’m impressed!
I see the third link shows me how many suckers have forked over $45 or more to enrich Jane Hamsher. 132 and counting. Why, Obama would be a fool to disregard that kind of organizing power.
eemom
26 to 600 y’all! C’mon, we can do it!
That old 2010 Greenwald thread’s toast, I tellz ya. TOAST.
Allan
@General Stuck: Excellent, once you’re on board look up @AngryBlackLady and she’ll get you hooked up with the cool kids.
FlipYrWhig
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Do you mean “Hamsher” when you say “Walsh”?
(I can’t believe I read this whole thing. I’m like Keir Dullea gazing into the floating monolith. Oh my God, it’s full of, well, um, not stars exactly…)
General Stuck
@eemom:
Oh, 600 is good as got. After the overnight trolls crawl out of bushes to take their shots in the wee hours of the morn, when most folks are sleeping. I figure this thread will top out at 630 or so
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
Well, the problem with that is, if you outlaw fuchsia, only outlaws will have fuchsia.
Lynn Dee
@El Tiburon: Really? Some of the vitriol directed at Jane Hamsher is childish?
There is a reason she is now largely irrelevant. She got a lot of attention and it went to her head, near as I can tell. It became all about her. Someone here, perhaps you, said something about her having lunch with Grover Norquist — who, BTW, has played a huge role in driving this country to the sorry state it’s in now. Anyway, I digress: It was far more than lunch that she had with Norquist. It was a teaming up, ostensibly for some trivial, fleeting purpose having to do with Rahm Emanuel — but which served mainly as a stage for her impish acting out while striving to kill off health care reform. The whole thing was as ridiculous as it was inexcusable, because she was attempting to do real damage.
Now she is just a silly, pointless person, and I for one am grateful she is no longer getting the attention she once did, because she could stir up some trouble.
Lynn Dee
@Allan: Are you always like this? You’re a riot!
pete who used to be PS
@Allan: These are not enemies to be taken lightly. No sir.
Tonstant weader fwowed up.
pete who used to be PS
@Allan: Moderated for quoting Dorothy Parker! Pfui! I enjoyed this comment and in a very indirect manner was suggesting that they be thrown vigorously across the room.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FlipYrWhig:
No, I mean Joan Walsh. She and ABL have gone two rounds so far. Joan should have thrown in the towel after the first.
pete
Was I moderated for my name (which added to the above “who used to be PS”)? Sob. I have a distinct antipathy to certain pieces of software I shall not name.
fasteddie9318
Glenn Greenwald!
Jane Hamsher!
Angry Black Lady!
Muslims vote for more Islam!
ED Kain!
Libertarian!
Tunch is fat!
That ought to be enough red meat to push this over 600.
handy
This thread is going places.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FlipYrWhig:
The first thing I ever read here was on Intelligent Design. Seems as if there were 1000 comments. Doug J- then a right-wing hoax troll- was on fire. I was very tired at work the next day.
pete
I was complimenting Allan @555 (mmm, cigarettes. no?). Perhaps I was too subtle for certain pieces of software I shall not name.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@pete: Probably. Same thing happened to me when I added to “Andy K”.
freelancer
Jaysus Christ this thread is still alive?! What the crap?
AxelFoley
What’s the record for most posts in a thread here at Balloon Juice?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@AxelFoley:
More than this.
Allan
@pete who used to be PS: I’m glad you were finally freed from moderation. If I were in Farenheit 451 my book would be the Portable Dorothy Parker.
pete who used to be PS
@Allan: One suspected as much, hence the code.
Also, too, one strived for the 600-post milestone. A ridge rather than a summit, one hopes, but it leaves us on the Left Coast with a sense of our duty.
fasteddie9318
Shit…slowing down…um, epistemic closure! Overton window! Is it irresponsible to speculate? Granite countertops!
Say…that Andrew Sullivan fellow sure had a movingly thoughtful/backbreakingly stupid take on the important news/vapid trivia of the day, didn’t he? What a deep thinker/total batshit loon!
OK, that’s got to work.
pete who used to be PS
@fasteddie9318: It could be that the granite is interfering with the dilithium crystals.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@fasteddie9318:
The refs hate the Steelers!
Yutsano
I know no one will believe me, but I seriously just read this entire thread. And I about screamed. I hope to fuck JC never gets an openly gay front pager. The homophobia would drive me batty. I have no idea how ABL can deal with this shit.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
UR so ghey.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
like 600th comment with a bullet ghey.
Rihilism
And I’m spent…
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
And then the lights came back on all over the world.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
No, I agree. Something about a minority member indulging and celebrating their humanity, features and flaws and all, just brings out the asshats in a myopic subgroup of the majority. It’s insane, and completely baffling to me.
fasteddie9318
FIN
pete who used to be PS
I’m way too tired to express this properly, and this thread is presumably over — I may try to discuss it chez ABL manana (howzat for internationalist cliches, eh?) — but in the midst of the rubbish, and ignored in the fuss, Cornel West had some somewhat interesting things to say about Obama’s sense of self. That after all is a subject he (O) wrote an entire, good, book about, so it’s hardly a topic that needs be off the table. Personally, I relate to Obama’s “rootlessness” (to use West’s term), so I probably have a distorted reaction, though mine is not racial but national. (I’m a long-expat British class traitor who was born in Singapore and never really lived in mainland England much, aside from my world-class edumacation.) I do think that West doubled and tripled down when he saw the klieg lights, and I do think there is personal animus behind his critique … but I am interested in teasing out the interesting part. I tend to think West has a point, but it only makes me more sympathetic to Obama.
Allan
@pete who used to be PS: I’m going to cite Andrew Sullivan here, which should help liven things up to fasteddie’s satisfaction, but it’s not Sully himself but one of his readers who wrote an insightful message about Obama as a Third Culture Kid.
eemom
@fasteddie9318:
ferfucksake, you forgot Israel! THAT was like the real big news today. Except Cole got bored with it or something.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Yutsano: “I have no idea how ABL can deal with this shit.”
No shit. I read about half of it before my eyes glazed over with the stupid shit I’ve read.
Keep bringing it ABL. I know what’s offensive to me and I have no doubt that you know the same.
Fuck the haters and those who enable them.
pete who used to be PS
@Allan: Thanks. I suspect West knows more than that writer gives him credit for, but there’s stuff to think about there. Till tomorrow. Me to dream (ohnonotdadagain).
different church-lady
@Pink Snapdragon: But are you aware of all internet traditions?
fasteddie9318
@eemom: It was my nuclear option (um, so to speak) if thinks really stalled out. Thank FSM I didn’t need it.
Anne Laurie
@ABL:
You can check the I/P address and be sure that it’s NOT me. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve already done that, thank you.
Lynn Dee
@pete who used to be PS: Interesting. I’ve known a few people who qualify as what Allan in the post below yours refers to as Third Culture Kids, and it’s an instantly discernible thing. I worked with a fellow from Vietnam, an engineer, who’d lived in Paris for a while as a kid. Can’t say what it was that set him apart, particularly at a company that had a number of engineers from Vietnam, but it was immediately apparent. I thought of him as a citizen of the world. And yes, Obama has a similar quality.
ABL
Anne Laurie- It was a shitty thing to say. I apologize.
ABL
@Yutsano: mostly by ignoring it. :)
ABL
@General Stuck: May Bieber have mercy on us all…
MJ
Thanks for bringing that deranged bit of writing to our attention ABL.
I don’t know how you do it, but you draw out the most trolls per capita at this site.
But the way you respond to fools is part of the reason I keep coming back here on a regular basis.
Karoli
For all those folks saying “oh my, it’s just an FDL diarist,” know this: Google Cornel West and hit the news tab, and it comes up on the front page. So yeah, it’s sort of a BFD.
Yutsano
@ABL: Heh. I’d marry you if it weren’t for teh ghey thing. And the fact that I still haven’t given up on uniting you with a Jewish Marine who (i think) still haz a slight thang for you.
@freelancer: Just an FYI, I’m way past toaster ovens on my ghey conversion compensation. I’m going at Volvo level now.
AxelFoley
@ABL:
ABL, don’t retreat, reload!
El Tiburon
@Allan:
I get it. You are an idiot.
cerebral knievel
@aisce:
[b]it’s a “white people’s site.”[/b] it lives in the comfortable snarky center of american political discourse. it harasses people like david brooks and ann althouse and reason magazine. no crime in that. if you want weeseeyou or the people’s view, go to weeseeyou or the people’s view.
My bad. I was enjoying lurking and reading the pet posts, the gardening posts..the political posts…wasn’t aware that those things are “white people” things. I’ll just head on back over to DemocraticDarkies.com and chop up the chifferobe…listen to some hippity-hop..you know..black people stuff.
SMH at how damn ignorant that comment is…
Scott
I knew that right wing trolls were mostly privileged, old white men with tiny dicks and major mommy issues. Add a pair of crocs and a glass of organic merlot from Whole Foods and I see we have the same asshole archetype on left as well. All that privilege coupled with sexual frustration and rage and what do you get=douchey, racist comments. Lovely.
El Tiburon
@Lynn Dee:
Ues. SOME of the vitriol is childish. Is all of it? No. I’ve said dozens of times: hate Hamsher all you want, but to pretend that she or FDL don’t do positive things for progressives is horseshit.
I am quite aware of her work with Grover. I am also aware of Hillary teaming up with Newt Gingrich. Is she out of the club? Bill Clinton has palled around with Georg H.W. Bush. Al Franken was big friends with G. Gordon Liddy. John Stewart apparently has a fondness for Bill O’Reilly. Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father.
Otherwise please continue on with your hatred of this woman.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
I stand ready to be corrected, but it’s my thought that Michael D. is / was that front pager.
And to my recollection, he was battered mercilessly for the quality and content of his writing. And his inability to defend through to a logical conclusion.
I skipped a hell of a lot of his posts, just as I did for EDK and do for ABL, so there may have been some latent or upfront homophobia that I didn’t see.
Corner Stone
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): That isn’t a feud.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Then they’d be pretty damned easy to spot, eh?
Kind of like how I wear a cape everywhere.
Allan
@El Tiburon: Let me clarify what I was asking for when I asked for examples of the awesomeness of St. Joan of FDL.
Results.
List real-world results that can be directly attributable to the coordinated efforts of Jane and her flying monkeys.
All I can think of is the re-election of Joe Lieberman, but perhaps you have more.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: What the hell are you still doing here? You should be outside sweating.
Will I get warned?
fasteddie9318
@pete who used to be PS:
Good on you for trying. I can’t get past the whiny butthurt, “OH, I didn’t get invited to the inauguration!” “OH, Obama isn’t returning my calls!” crap to find the creamy center.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Speaking of hot, I just finished cleaning and loobing up my grill grids.
Gonna slap a fat porterhouse on there later tonight with a few fresh asparagii spears. Maybe do some kind of saute with pearl onions and garlic. Haven’t really decided on the final part yet.
Any suggestions?
Lynn Dee
@El Tiburon: George H.W. Bush is hardly in the same category as Grover Norquist. Even Newt Gingrich, on the right topic, can be a useful, and usefully influential, idiot.
But Grover Norquist? What did he get Jane Hamsher other than a lot of cluck-clucking, oh-my-my attention, which I believe is all that she wanted? He sure didn’t get her influence, cachet, or anything along those lines.
Does she do good stuff for progressive causes? I’m glad to hear it. I mostly see attempts to cause damage and because it pains me to see that — it just seems so much acting out by her — I try to avoid her altogether, so maybe I miss the good she does.
aisce
@cerebral knievel:
oh grow up. parks and recreation is a “white people’s show.” culturally white. like the brady bunch. or friends. or 95% of all tv ever made.
does that mean PoC can’t enjoy it? nope. does it mean that the show’s going to start doing episodes about the discrimination donna receives as a black woman in suburban indiana? nope. we live in a white supremacist culture. things that try to appeal as broadly as possible to as many people as possible (like balloon juice) are always going to reflect that overriding presence at some level. it’s a laid back, sociable, and occasionally boozy ;) site, and that’s why people like it. it’s not activist or stridently progressive. it’s comfortable.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Sorry its been an hour, was out buying avocadoes, really.
How about yellow squash sliced into length-wise planks grilled with potabellos. Go over the top and grab a few giant scallops grilled – slathered in garlic butter and chopped over the veggies as a petit plaisir.
Nanette
@El Tiburon:
Yes, but which of these people teamed up with the right to attack Democrats? It annoys me when people bring up all these collaborations that others on the left have entered into with some on the right — without, at all, mentioning the fact that Hamsher stands alone in that group as someone who attempted to collaborate with the far right to attack the left. Her little confab with Norquist was in the attempt to bring Rahm down and (in the process, but whoocoodanode or intended?) kneecap the nascent Obama administration.
No one cared when she and others signed whatever petition or letter it was, people on the right and the left, to protest whatever it was — internet privacy, net neutrality, something like that. Hamsher’s personal collaboration with Norquist, though, was nothing like that and it’s a smoke and mirrors attempt to even portray it as being in the same ballpark as any of the other stuff.
Lynn Dee
@Nanette:
Ha! That’s it exactly. You’ve cut right to the heart of the matter.
Yes. Again — right to the heart of the matter.
eemom
@Nanette:
@Lynn Dee:
Agree and agree. Y’all both have hearted the matter.
IIRC, the purpose of the Hamsher/Norquist drek was to call for some kind of Congressional investigation of Rahm and Fannie/Freddie — the latter of course being the Big Bad Guvmint boogaloo which the repub-scum were trying to scapegoat for the mortgage mess.
Thus, a doubly, tripledly, quadrupedly vile act of back-stabbery on the part of the “progressive” goddess.
I also remember how she tried to sweet talk her simpering sycophants by pointing out that Norquist is married to an Arabic woman and is sensitive to the plight of the Palestinians.
As I said about a thousand comments ago, the woman is a snake, pure and simple, and deserves every drop of vitriol she gets.
And no, for all her blather she has ACCOMPLISHED exactly Jack Q. Shit for any actual progressive cause. Hate to break it to you, El Tibsy, but posting petitions and getting your car towed at Quantico do not “great work” make.
Corner Stone
The purpose of outside groups is to agitate.
People looking for a check mark in a clearly defined “Win” column aren’t really the kind of people that fit in their demographic.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Not a big squash guy. But, I do like the shroom suggestion. I think I’ll get some baby bells and give them the treatment.
The surf n turf angle intrigues me. I’m intrigued.
Problem is I hate previously frozen seafood to cook with.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: I could never live with such a picky eater.
Edit: Grilled pineapple. Deee lish.
Nanette
Oh, eemom, that’s right. I forgot about the whole Fannie/Freddie aspect, which was even more disgusting “progressive” water-carrying for the right wing.
More and more I long for a tee-shirt that says “Rahm was right. (He just said it wrong.)” or something like that, lol.
Nanette
@Lynn Dee:
Yep, I was just thinking of saying something like that — when I realized that you’d already said it!
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Neither do ersatz “activists” who glibly claim credit for “wins” they didn’t achieve rightfully belong in that demographic.
eemom
here is another shining example of Hamsher’s “great work”:
http://exiledonline.com/jane-hamsher-unplugged-and-unhinged-dare-to-criticize-hamshers-appalling-labor-record-and-this-is-what-youll-get/
This reminds me of an incident years ago when she first began to show her true colors. She had posted some hit piece on a hospital administrator in Boston who she accused of being a union buster, and a bunch of Boston locals showed up to defend him. In particular one really kind, sincere woman who spent a bunch of time digging up links which she humbly submitted for Ms. Hamsher’s consideration. Well, what did the goddess do but post a snarling, sneering smackdown of the lady as being herself a “union buster.”
Even on a comment thread, you could almost see the poor woman recoil in shock.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Does the blocking Tight End in the NFL deserve credit for the win if he didn’t catch a TD in the game?
Everything outta your tragically disgusting piehole is colored by your bile.
And unrequited lust for Jane.
Corner Stone
@eemom:
Hmmm, overly emotional tirade against anyone with a different perspective? Disregard of anything factual that doesn’t comport.
Where have I heard that before?
eemom
@Corner Stone:
you know nothing about the matter, shitforbrains. Zero. You have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about.
Fuck off and don’t fuck with me again.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Listen, it’s ok.
You wanna fuck Jane Hamsher. We get that.
Nothing to be ashamed of that the reality is you’ll never be with her.
But you may want to consider putting that torch down one day soon.
Keith G
Sounds like love.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Meh. I would be at the Grand Ka$ino Coushatta this weekend but my ex boned me. As usual, oh well.
Lynn Dee
Jeez, Corner Stone. Maybe there’s a history that would explain your last couple posts to eemom. But as someone who seldom posts here, I gotta say you’re not exactly covering yourself in glory.
Nanette and eemom, I’m enjoying your posts! I’d forgotten too that it was the Fannie/Freddie thing that “forced” Jane into the arms of Grover Norquist. All I remembered was that Rahm was involved. I think I’d like a T-shirt too. :D
eemom
@Lynn Dee:
Thank you Lynn Dee.
Stoned is just a sad, sick little toad who hates everybody and everything. If his hypothesis about me is correct — i.e., that comments “colored by bile” indicate a desire to fuck their subject — he evidently wants to fuck just about everyone on this blog.
Corner Stone
@Lynn Dee: Which ones honey?
Because any individual who could look at 647 and then post your comment is either the dumbest motherfucker alive, or an eemom sockpuppet.
So, which are you?
cerebral knievel
@aisce:
You’re injecting an exclusionary vibe into a universal setting. If you don’t see the problem with that, I actually feel pretty bad for you…unless you intentionally come off as elitist and crappy.
Parks and Rec addresses discrimination/glass ceilings in a very light hearted fashion, has a racially diverse cast and IMO doesn’t strive to be “white comedy” like say..Cheers or a Seinfeld. It’s no more “white” than the Office.
This blog has a diverse group of front pagers and doesn’t seem…ethnocentric…from what I’ve read here(other than some of the people in the comments section). The examples you used to declare this a “white people” site ARE elitist and a bit ignorant. Black people can’t like pet posts? We don’t have gardens? Hell my lanai is covered in plants. We can’t find David Brooks, Andrew Sullivan and Megan McArdle utterly ridiculous in their own special ways? Is there a white’s only version of the Atlantic, New York Times or Daily Beast that are obscuring my understanding of their columns?
I came here for the politics, and stayed for the funny internet jokes, the pet posts..and increasingly the bleating about everything ABL posts…Sarah Proud and Tall..love that.
I’d take less issue if you said this was a site for cranky middle aged/retired people. That’s much more accurate.
Layla
@Lynn Dee: lol! Of all the peculiar mush-mouth defending of racist shit white people say, this HAS to be the best! So lazy and ineffective, such elusive logic, so many non sequiturs, such a lack of humor in relation to the delightfully witty comment it attempted to “whiteplain!” So much fail! This comment truly has it all! LOL
Lynn, you win the internet!
Squarepeg
I saw this coming. Seriously. I *knew* this was going to happen.
amk
@Tom Hilton: Yup. the whole fdl firebagging thingy is one ‘get-your-own-miracle-here’ money grabbing scam.