Lee Atwater is the real architect of the modern Republican/wingnut election strategy. His work for Strom Thurmond, Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elder created the road map of code talking that is now the foundation of every Republican candidate for virtually any office. This strategy is rooted in the idea that working class white folks should identify their primary enemy as some dangerous “other”. The name that Lee Atwater gave this invented threat to the white working class was “nigger” and he built code-talking campaigns around how to convey that message without ever using the word: “nigger”.
Here is how he explained the game plan:
The entire GOP debate last night–the ugliness of the crowd and the code-talkers on the stage–is all firmly rooted in putrid soil of Atwater’s legacy. When Gingrich says Food Stamps he means “nigger”. When Perry says states’ rights he means “nigger”. And when Romney says President Obama doesn’t “shares our values” or that the race is about “saving the soul of America” he means “nigger”.
The Republican code-talking of 2012 closely follows the road map Atwater made for the Party decades ago (with a few innovations like using “immigrant” as a synonym for “nigger”). It is disgusting and yet, it is all the wingnuts have to offer as a reason to vote for them. The big question is are there enough working class whites who are still dumb enough to believe this crap. I hope not, but that does seem to be the entire rational of the Republican Party–and it did work out for them in 2010.
Time will tell how the vote breaks for these shameless weasels and I wish them a lot of luck: all of it bad.
Cheers
gaz
A fvcking men!
cckids
Chris Matthews was talking about Atwater one day last week; how he was a “pioneer” in nasty campaigning, but never mentioned this quote. To me, it is the first thing that springs to mind when Atwater’s name is mentioned. Missed opportunity, as usual for Tweety.
different-church-lady
Jeez, it’s a good thing you’re not female, black, and angry, because if you were we’d now be obligated to call you a shitty blogger and a race baiter.
(Edited substantially to make the sarcasm more clear.)
rob!
Atwater died of brain cancer; proving once in a while even God gets one right.
SiubhanDuinne
It was the crowd last night, as much as the candidates, who made me shudder for this country. Yes, Newt and Ricky and Frothy Rih and Mittens were all tossing sides of raw beef to the audience, but the audience had the choice to go vegan.
Bread, circuses, lions, gladiators, Coliseum, Caligula.
Jason
different-church-lady: ABL wasn’t unpopular because she wrote about racist dog whistles. She was unpopular because she was a dogmatic, brittle narcissist who waved the bloody shirt every time one of her specious posts was challenged. It’s one thing to be an Obamabot, and it’s another to be one who thinks you MUST BE RACIST if you disagree with her Obamabot-like rantings.
SiubhanDuinne
@cckids:
is Robert E. Lee Atwater.
Brandon
Boogeyman is probably one of the greatest political documentaries I have ever seen. The interesting thing about Atwater is that he really was a Wallace Republican. Loved Black culture, but gladly demagogued Black people to win elections. Before he died, he owned a BBQ restuarant in Arlington called Red, Hot and Blue. It was weird because the walls were covered with pictures of him with an all star assortment of blues artists. The BBQ wasn’t bad though. Trying to get on the Board of Howard took a lot of balls though and I wish he were still alive today for the only reason that I would love for an interviewer to explore that one topic with him, juxtaposed against his racial political politics. The documentary sort of brushes over that episode quickly as just more evidence of his internal conflicts. But I am curious what more was behind it. Was he looking for redemption perhaps?
jeff
Yep. At least mostly. I’m preparing to move to the South from NYC, and I’ve noticed that at least some white southerners are petrified at that kind of talk–some of whom have told me that the racism of the other candidates is why they like Romney. Oh well! I think Romney has also blown the whistle.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I am going to FB this one. Let’s see how many of the people I am linked to actually read it.
Joseph Nobles
I never knew that Atwater’s infamous quote was in response to a question that explicitly mentioned using food stamps as rhetoric to appeal to racist voters. One more thing I’ve learned here at BJ. Thanks!
amk
@Jason: ABL trolling thread that way. <—-
General Stuck
Hate of any kind, is a powerful motivator for those who hold it. Eating is also popular and sometimes is the antidote for hating, at least in politics.
It is zero sum, the same as our two party system. No energy is lost and either one or the other wins the day by reciprocal degrees. The current GOP is like a porcupine that has rolled over on its back, to show the soft underbelly brought on by too much greed and pandering to greed. Dems and Obama need to drive a stake through the belly of that beast without remorse. So far so good. Looks like the O team gets it, and dems in general.
Tally Fucking Ho!!
Joshua Norton
it is all the wingnuts have to offer as a reason to vote for them.
For some of the white trash it’s enough. They just want a promise that there will always be someone else further down the social hierarchy than they are.
And repiggies are only too happy to tell them who “the other” is that they all need to be afraid of. And their taxes are being used to help “the other” take their place in the social order.
“The other” changes through the election cycles. Depending on the fear they’re trying to drum up.
geg6
Despite Jason’s slip showing, most Dems and center/left indies are very uncomfortable with this sort of rhetoric. I think that even many center/right indies cringe at this stuff. It isn’t 1988 any more and the dog whistles are at levels discernable by human ears. I really do not believe that a larger percentage than 27% of America really wants to end child labor laws, end food stamps during an on-going economic crisis caused in large part by Republican policies, or demonize hard working blue collar workers. Nor dovtgry seeing rabid xenophobia and blatant racism used for applause lines by their nation’s supposed leaders.
As we got hints of in McCain’s 2008 campaign crowds and as they have demonstrated even more blatantly during these endless GOP debates, even more frightening and repulsive than the candidates themselves are the Republican voters. Most people recoil from that sort of mob visciousness and it will kill Romney in the end as surely as his own horrible persona and background.
The worse they get, the more strangely optimistic I feel.
moderateindy
If it wasn’t Atwater it would have been someone else. There’s no genius in catering to people’s worst instinct. Nor, is it complicated to realize that if you want to win over enough people to win elections you have to refrain from being overtly racist. Code talk works because most people don’t want to admit to being bigots. They can justify their own pettiness by pretending that it is states rights, or government waste that they are against. It’s all part of the big delusion where they think that welfare goes mostly to black and brown folk, or more recently the economy sucks because black people were given loans for housing they didn’t deserve.
There will always be a party that caters to the racists, because it is so easy. Lee Atwater as a boogeyman is silly. Yes, he was the poster boy for it, but the template was so obvious. Once much of the public started to accept racial equality, the appeal to folk’s racist sides had to be more subtle.
The crappier the economy the easier it is to exploit the fears of people, even those that don’t see themselves as racists. People are angry and easily misplace that rage, with minorities being a very convenient target.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw/heard a couple of MSMers (Susan Page, Jonathon Alter) getting Concerned that we’re picking on Willard for the wrong reasons– Alter thinks we shouldn’t pick on him for being wooden; Page thinks it’s a mistake to pick on him for being rich. Dennis is hitting on what I hate most about Willard. He titled his book for the sole purpose of demagoguing about Obama not really being one of us. Someone played a clip of McCain’s slip of during his endorsement, and what struck me this time was the way he emphasized “We love America…” not like the Kenyan. This ugly shit is not getting enough attention.
Zach
I saw the Gingrich/Juan Williams food-stamps clip posted on NRO with a blurb along the lines of “this will be rewatched a lot.” Checked it out… pretty boilerplate maneuvering by Newt; the same stuff he’s said since he trotted out the food-stamp rhetoric. The way he addressed Juan Williams at one point, or at least the way the crowd reacted to it, was the most incredible thing about the exchange. Turns out that Roger Simon and Chris Matthews and other folks are talking about this today. I don’t know whether Newt even intended this to be a dog whistle — it’s about as condescending as any response he gives to anyone — but the way the crowd responded to “Well, first of all, Juan,” before Gingrich even said anything substantive was disgusting.
The only thing worse was that Williams stuck around instead of objecting or walking off the set when Brett Baier cut off the exchange after letting Newt give a rehearsed response that didn’t answer the question.
WyldPirate
Jason@6
This. A million times this. Plus piss-poor reasoning skills and not owning up to what she said in her own posts when called out on it from day one. Her MO in dealing with any nick in her nanometer thin-skin–and arguments—was exactly as you describe,
amk
@Zach: juan williams is an useful idjit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rob!: IIRC, he confessed his sins and apologized. Take what you will from a deathbed confession, but IIfurtherRC, Mary Matalin denies that he ever apologized, and is offended that anyone would suggest he had anything to apologize for.
Steve
While that Atwater quote is deservedly infamous, I feel like people don’t really bother analyzing what he actually said. It’s not like he admitted “oh yeah, food stamps are just our new code word.” What he says is, maybe these economic arguments subconsciously proceed from the same place as the old racist arguments, at least to some extent, but it’s still progress in that we’ve moved on to having economic arguments. I don’t think he said that the economic arguments are nothing more than a new form of code.
Anyway, while I completely agree with the whole narrative on this, and you can trace all of these arguments back to the Southern Strategy just like how Krugman discusses the South’s opposition to Medicare in his book, at the end of the day I think progressives waste too much time having the racism debate over every last thing. In some cases, like Newt Gingrich’s food stamp rhetoric, it’s simply too blatant to ignore. But for the most part, voters who aren’t already part of our tribe don’t get the dog whistles, don’t particularly buy it when we point them out, and end up just tuning us out after a while (particularly since we do tend to overdo this sort of analysis).
When Joe Wilson says “You lie!” maybe it appeals to that bit of unreconstructed Southern id that revels in a white man putting a black man in his place – but does it really help us to have that debate? In the mind of the person who doesn’t want to think deeply about racial issues (which includes most non-liberals) it just ends up reducing to “Gee, that was awfully inappropriate of him, but do you really think it was racist?” It’s just a guaranteed way to sidetrack the conversation, is what it is.
mk3872
BTW, Ron Paul is PERFECT in this GOP. Paul uses the exact same language and has the explicit racist newsletter to prove it.
Yet purist “liberals” would vote for Paul because he opposes indefinite detention.
I guess idiots exist on both sides of these debates, eh?
Satanicpanic
I took a walk down the street to the liquor store and on the way out the door I grabbed some money off the dresser- not very much, just like $374,000. On the way I ran into my buddy Pete, we made a little bet on the Super Bowl. I put $10K on the 49’ers to win it. Just another day in the life.
gloryb
Atwater was looking for redemption at the end of his life. I read an article (wish I could remeber where) about him and his search for it. He said something to the effect that he was afraid for the future of the nation, because he now understood the nature of the racial beast the Republicans had unleashed and would use to acheive victory.
Anya
I watched a Hardball segment about Gingrich’s condescending response to Juan Williams and the reaction of the debate audience with the loathsome Ron Christie and Politico’s Roger Simon. Ron Christie did his usual GOP apologist bit. I just wonder how that guy lives with himself. As usual he mentioned that the Democratic party s are the party fought against the civil rights act. Of course Tweedy didn’t point out that the great majority of the southern racist joined the Republican party.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jason: Actually I am just going to drop a simple “Fuck you” on you. Whatever your issues are with ABL, they don’t really have anything to do with this thread – unless they do.
Chris
@moderateindy:
And it was already ancient history by the time Atwater and the Southern Strategy boys adopted it.
Conservative elites in Europe did the exact same thing all through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just with Jews instead of blacks. Think the clergy and officer corps in France driving the Dreyfuss Affair, the Czar’s government in Russia manufacturing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, all the people who claimed that socialism (and later, the Russian Revolution) were controlled by the Jews. Same old story: in a period of social change, elites feel threatened, manufacture an ethnic bogeyman and tie it to their enemies.
smintheus
Same is true of Santorum’s (otherwise) crazy comment yesterday that people shouldn’t be given unemployment benefits unless they can show they have a job.
Taking traditional entitlements that workers pay into, like unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Medicare, and transforming them in the public’s mind into some kind of governmental charity for the semi-deserving (in other words, welfare) is basic to the Republican play book.
MacKenna
There’s no ugly uglier than Republican ugly.
I watched the documentary on Atwater and you know, cancer didn’t “get him in the end”, his body just grew into it. That hideous individual, that frenetic psychopath personified cancer.
Karma’s a bitch, Republicans. Keep that in mind.
Chris
@moderateindy:
And it was already ancient history by the time Atwater and the Southern Strategy boys adopted it.
Conservative elites in Europe did the exact same thing all through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just with Jews instead of blacks. Think the clergy and officer corps in France driving the Dreyfuss Affair, the Czar’s government in Russia manufacturing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, all the people who claimed that soshulism (and later, the Russian Revolution) were controlled by the Jews. Same old story: in a period of social change, elites feel threatened, manufacture an ethnic bogeyman and tie it to their enemies.
eemom
@Jason:
@WyldPirate:
Too chickenshit to spew this bile in the thread where ABL is actually the topic.
Quelle surprise.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Can’t say the word in public anymore – for now.
Dennis G.
@Jason: If you’re going to use the “wave the Bloody Shirt” shorthand, you should know that a) it never actually happened in a Congressional speech given almost a century and a half ago; and b) that it is a Confederate/wingnut myth used to shut down any discussion of race and white folks behaving badly. To use this in an attack is a self-indicting phrase.
Your claim that ABL “waved the Bloody Shirt” tells me that she was speaking some truths that made you squirm a bit. Good for her.
patrick the pedantic literalist
No open thread, so be OT. Premiere of Justified tonight, showing it now and again at 1:07..
Omnes Omnibus
@patrick the pedantic literalist: Fuck! I caught the White Collar but missed Justified. Fuck!
Jewish Steel
@Jason:
@WyldPirate:
Begone, shitheels!
Betsy
As a North Carolinian, let me say that it is very clear to me why the venom and hate has reached peak furor* during the period that the candidates are in South Carolina.
*(and more explicitly and directly using race terminology instead of thickly/thinly disguised code words and dog whistles)
Anya
@Zach: I guess we saw the same segment. I can take Tweedy on small doses only so I watch it online. I was surprised at Simon’s disgust with Gingrich and the crowd.
Culture of Truth
Lying, but in ALL CAPS.
It’s charm never ends.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betsy: Anything to do with ABL, one wonders?
Stranger Reader
Fer fuck’s sake, I am sooo not interested in the ABL bullshit anymore. I thought we were all thankfully done with this. No?
Omnes Omnibus
@Stranger Reader: Apparently not.
Schlemizel
What depresses me is that even though the dog whistles have reached a pitch where an human can hear them and even though most of the press must be aware (I bet more than a few have received email with this quote in it) of Atwaters quote and despite the obvious reaction of the morans to the whistles the press is never so impolite as to ask one of the candidates for their opinion of the quote in relationship to their own statements & the crowds reaction.
That and I sure hope Juan’s money is so good that it can buy a lifetime supply of ambian – I don’t know how the little putz can sleep at night.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Brandon:
From what I understand, it was much simpler than that: he liked R&B. He played guitar, and when he got enough clout to call up the bluesmen and jam with them (BB King in particular), they agreed. I have no idea why, it certainly wasn’t in their best interests to give him that kind of cover.
magurakurin
@Jason:
Dude, you have issues.
Get over it or go over to ABL’s blog and post your feelings there. If you are brave enough that is.
Because, frankly, I don’t think most people here give a shit what you think about ABL.
clayton
@Stranger Reader: Thankfully not.
You asshats that harassed her aren’t getting off so lightly me thinks.
These intertubes are for more than white man whanking long and hard, if you hadn’t noticed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, he was conning the audience to the last.
It’s like the obviously phony “sincerity” of the deserting coward being so concerned about all the young men and women he sent to Iraq to be killed and maimed just so he could one up his father.
But so many buy into it…it was obvious to me that while his father agonized over his war, while it hurt LBJ to hear the taunting of “how many kids did you kill today?”, in the case of the deserting coward, he issued the order to send people far braver than his worthless ass into danger, and then he slept like a baby. His own words.
The shame is that he can only suffer one death. It will probably be peaceful, in his bed. Unlike so many he casually sent off into the meat grinder to one up his old man.
FredR
@magurakurin: But some people do, especially when he hit the nail that different-church-lady lined up so squarely on the head.
MacKenna
This seems an opportune time to remind everyone of this wonderful web site.
http://fuckthesouth.com/
clayton
@Jason: Great, looks like the Gleen Greenwald/Ron Paul people are still around.
Jason, just because more racist newsletters from your guy got released today and he got booed by the neanderthals doesn’t mean you need to lash out at ABL.
Linda Featheringill
I suggest that we help the state Democratic Party in areas where it looks like protofascists are getting a foothold. That, I believe, would be the best way to fight.
If we could round up some contacts among Blue activists in the Red states we could offer encouragement. Or sympathy. Or congratulations. Or serve as a sounding board. We might be able to send them a couple of bucks now and then.
The local Democratic Party units are already in place and already have some infrastructure set up. If we could help them become stronger, we might do some real good for the country.
And yes, South Carolina would be a good place to start.
bjkeefe
Way to go, Dennis. You’ve nailed another one perfectly.
Villago Delenda Est
This:
The answer is, YES.
Unfortunately, a lot of working class whites repeatedly vote against their own economic and social self interest. At least, they think, I’m higher on the totem pole than those ni*CLANGS*.
It’s not rational, it’s lizard hind brain. Many of them simply cannot get past it…and the elites KNOW this. Divide and rule is the oldest trick in the book, because it works. There are precious few in the lower classes who can think clearly enough to understand that race is used to repress the working class, period. Sometimes a glimmer of light gets through, but more often than not, it’s forgotten.
Zach
@Anya: I didn’t/don’t watch Matthews… just heard that everyone was having the vapors that Politico called the upstanding folks in South Carolina GOP debates racist.
General Stuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
I agree. Well put!
Montysano
@MacKenna:
This lame bullshit again? “Wonderful web site”??
Yeah, I live in the South, asshole, just a few miles down the road from Selma. Those people, the ones who started one of the great social revolutions in history, they’re still down there, still committed, still working.
Pro tip: the broad brush is almost always a bad idea.
ETA: great post, Dennis.
dead existentialist
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
The “cover” is the ultimate praise for a musician. Hee hee!
Joey Maloney
@Zach:
Williams is just Fox’s house foodstamp.
Mike in NC
@Brandon:
A blast from the past! We ate there a few times in the 90s and it was really pretty good. I think they even did well enough to expand to a couple more locations in the DC area. Probably would have avoided them had we known of the ownership, though…
Karen
I’ve been watching Hardball…Matthews really has a hatred of Romney and seems to be an Obama fan now…did he suddenly get a memo about Obama? And is the only reason he hates Romney because he didn’t work to earn the money?
Kola Noscopy
@SiubhanDuinne:
What part of the country do you live in?
I grew up in Kansas, spent time in Texas before finally settling in South Florida and then Massachusetts.
Almost half of the population of this country is just like the moronic animals you heard at the Repub debate. Didn’t surprise me in the least.
What surprised me was that no one yelled the N word at Juan Williams.
Gust Avrakotos
Yawn, wake me up when the election is over. Barring some unforseen event that nobody has any control over Obama will win easily.
So carry on masturbating over the thought of an actual close race which is about all you pathetic poltical bloggers live for. You got nothing of any substance to base it on.
I predict mistermix will post shortly masturbating over the though of Failin or Chump running and how it could be bad news for Obama if you connect about 100 dots in some fucked up way.
Karen
@Mike in NC:
We used to eat at the Red Hot and Blue in Laurel, MD all the time. Great ribs and onion loaf.
Kola Noscopy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh please. At least Dennis G. can write coherently, and is not known for his thin skin.
Kola Noscopy
@rob!:
Nice, douche.
Kola Noscopy
@Brandon:
Tribal hatreds here don’t allow for that sort of nuanced discussion. Sorry. All is black and white.
Kola Noscopy
@Jason:
Ding.
Schlemizel
Interesting thing on Letterman tonight. He asked the crowd, If Romney were the Republican candidate and the election was today how many of you would vote for him? MAYBE 6 people clapped.
He also has writers who cruise the internet. They did a visual joke of a dog kennel strapped to the roof of the campaign plane. He then felt he had to explain the joke & followed up with “Newt said, so what I did that with one of my ex-wives” (he blew the joke because he said Mitt not Newt but that allowed him to repeat the joke about 20 times through out the show.
Kola Noscopy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gosh, hall monitoring again?
Such a surprise. :P
gaz
@Zach: x2 at your comment.
Of all the disgusting racism on display there, I think the worst part was where Juan just bent over and took it. I was appalled at the crowd, I was appalled at Juan, I was appalled at Newt (although I expect as much from him)
The whole thing made me ill though. I had to watch it in doses, rather than end to end.
Kola Noscopy
@eemom:
Yes, eemom, I’m certain they are very afraid of the words on their computer screens in that other thread.
Love ya more.
Kola Noscopy
@Omnes Omnibus: @patrick the pedantic literalist:
OMG…another fucking pathetic self appointed hall monitor.
hahahaha…
freelancer
@MacKenna:
Damn, I thought it was gonna be a tumblr or something.
Kola Noscopy
@magurakurin:
I DO! I DO!
And lots and lots of lurkers and other commenters do too, as evidenced by those who have in the past unlurked and braved the spittle-flecked abuse of the ACL clones to say so when ACL shows up, as she did this evening in another thread.
Odie Hugh Manatee
How come people of color who have the temerity to blog here are singled out for harassment by the same few assholes Every. Single. Time?
Eh John? Ask yourself that question, please. Do note that it’s almost always in threads relating to race, yet the assholes claim no racism on their part. I’m all for tolerance on a lot of things but obvious racism and harassment over race isn’t one of them. No matter how these assholes try to dress it up, it’s ALL about race.
Theirs.
That’s the one big thing that I really think is dragging this place down and it’s disgusting to see.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@MacKenna: Thank you! I had read that once somewhere, and had searched for it fruitlessly to bookmark, but I never quite found it. The fucker’s bookmarked now.
Kola Noscopy
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Me too! Could you specify some of those incidents of racism and race-based harassment please? I think that’s terrible, if it happened.
Yutsano
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Because liberals cannot be racist. By default. And challenging that notion makes them uncomfortable.
JordanRules
@#74 Odie HM…Yep, agreed. Its not fun troll enabling for a lot of us. Let me try to go build a thicker skin though, protocol and priviledge demands it.
gaz
@Brandon: IIRC, he was.
The man was dying, and he apologized, at least in a sense.
I find Lee Atwater’s tactics to have been vile. The tactics he talks about in that interview have collectively set race relations in this country back decades. He was a villian as far as I am concerned. A man who did so much damage to this country, that his poison is thriving, in 2012! With a black president!
That said, another poster had said, if it wasn’t Atwater, it would have been someone else. I think that this is true. I’m not saying that to dismiss his actions – but consider this for a second:
Who knows? If not for Lee Atwater, would the next operative have laid bare the entire game, as Lee did in that interview? Maybe, in the larger scheme of things, we can be at least marginally grateful for his honesty in the end. We may not have had it otherwise.
Shorter:
The fact that this front page could even happen was because that cancer ridden asshole fessed to the game in the end.
He was a Bad Man(tm) but there would have been another Bad Man(tm) to take his place. We have no shortage of powerful white assholes in this country. And he showed his hand.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Montysano: If you live down here, then you know who the fuck that site is aimed at. Paint any random patch of earth with as broad or as skinny a brush as you want and tell me you won’t stain a majority (or at least a plurality) of your fellowmen and women.
Think about it. We have the largest percentages, overall, of black citizens, and yet we go most reliably for the GOP in presidential contests.
Did you miss that part of Civics class about “packing and cracking?”
I wasted too many fucking years trying to rationalize and defend the fucked-up ignorance of my “countrymen.” No more.
Get beyond that “broad brush” bullshit and get into what part of that site, specifically, you find inaccurate.
Brachiator
@Dennis G.: Lee Atwater is the real architect of the modern Republican/wingnut election strategy
Karen
@Yutsano:
Liberals are never racist. In fact, one talked to her Afro American neighbor just yesterday to, kindly mind you, ask her to keep her music down at night. “Some of us work you know.”
They always have another reason for their actions. Well it’s ok to be friends with one but their child could not be seen with a black man or women of the opposite sex, lest one of the liberal’s friends think that (horrors!) they’re dating.
(And before you say I’m exaggerating, my mom, a Jewish NY liberal, btw, actually requested that me and my best friend at the time who happened to be black, to not eat in restaurants in town with him because she didn’t want anyone to think I was dating him. When she found out he was gay, suddenly the requests stopped.)
gaz
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy): x2
Laertes
Christ. Does every thread have to be about ABL?
gaz
@Laertes: Apparently they do in order to satisfy you. You’ll note we were well off of that topic, until you showed up.
So, ummm how about them Mets?
Splitting Image
@Karen:
It’s all about envy. Matthews makes $375,000 a year and is pretty damn pleased with himself. Then he heard Romney say that that wasn’t a very large amount of money. That made Matthews feel small.
dww44
@Linda Featheringill: Thanks. I am on board with this and Georgia’s not a bad place to support either. We have a newly focused state party, but we don’t have any new candidates for statewide offices yet. The GOP ran the table in 2010. Literally. not a single statewide Democrart won. Nary a one in office.
We do need the love and the money.
Laertes
@Splitting Image:
I keep reading that the press is going to give Romney the Gore treatment this time around. As nice as that sounds, I really wish I could believe it. The flip-flopper conventional wisdom is pretty thick, and the whole humiliating spectacle of his party desperately casting about for any possible alternative made a big impression, so I suppose there’s some reason to hope that the narrative will be “he’s a loser” and never change.
It’d be nice if, just for once, the pettiness, laziness, spitefulness, and willful pig-ignorance of the media cut in our favor for a change.
Karen
And that’s about what Romney makes in speaking fees?
Brachiator
ETA: My browser editor went nuts, and I could not revise the earlier post to correct quoting and to revise some of the language to better acknowledge some of Dennis G’s points while still challenging some of his conclusions.
dww44
@Karen: @Splitting Image:
For quite some months, Chris Matthews has been pro- Obama/ pro- Democrat, and anti-Republican. He’s returned to his roots. And, no, he’s not envious of Romney. He’s genuinely turned off by the entire Republican field, as with any luck, so will be most sane Americans. The only question will be how many insane ones will be motivated to vote next November.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@dww44: Well, how many fucking Vidalia onions rotted in the fields because of “The Honorable” [sic] Gov. Deal’s pandering to the anti-immigrant faction of his party?
Win the Ag Commissioner’s office there and the rest will follow.
JordanRules
@79 gaz… Thing is… I believe the likes of Atwater etc know someone else will do the dirty work and stack the chips (which is still their only incentive in most cases)if they don’t so they figure why not them. That’s hella sick, par for the course and symbolic of so much that is wrong.
He did not necessarily give us this thread by way of his cowardly death bed honesty, he gave us -30 damn years. He knows it, we know it and confronting that is one of the better ways we have to deal with it.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Brachiator:
You can’t be fucking serious.
Yutsano
@dww44:
Willard is guaranteed 40% out of the starting gate. No question. Because of saving teh bebehs and dirty hippies and such. It’s the mushy ten percent in the middle that matters.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Brachiator: How do you propose we have a conversation around a man’s words if we cannot quote the man’s words as a starting point for that conversation?
Quentin Tarantino uses the n-word gratuitously. Dennis G.?
Please. If we can’t have this conversation honestly and frankly, please, someone save us all and post a fucking cat picture so we can all move on.
Kola Noscopy
@Karen:
Ummm…Chris Tweety Matthews makes about $5 million a year, most certainly NOT $375,000.00 according to NYTimes and other sources.
FIVE FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS
Think about it.
Kola Noscopy
@dww44:
Given his record of media whoredom, why would you believe anything Matthews says or does or appears to believe?
Brachiator
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy): Yeah, I can be serious. And I wonder how far you have evolved.
OT. I am loving how google and Wikipedia are responding to SOPA. Recognize.
JordanRules
@#88 Laertes…its a feature not a bug. That buzzing and stinging sound we hear is the hive attacking its host not giving a damn about the long game. They really don’t understand how their own demise is sped up by their own behavior.
amk
Hey, resident troll. No need to troll every post here. Pathetic craving for attention?
Kola Noscopy
@Brachiator:
Hey Mr. Self Righteous: Dennis G. used the N word at least twelve times in the post at top of this thread. Have you told him off yet?
Kola Noscopy
@amk:
You comment on this blog at a rate at least 30-1 as compared to me, so kindly fuck yourself, dearest.
Brachiator
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy):
Don’t post pet pictures. What’s your point?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
wait til the liberals are outraged that wrong pall becomes, or is at least a serious short-lister for the veep on the raw money ticket.
then wrong paul will point out that he has been the one in the gop debates bringing up mlk, and the black community, while the other candidates, even obama!, ignore it.
shit will be lost.
it won’t matter to the “middle” or the gop persuadables that he wrote, signed, or couldn’t manage a dinky racist newsletter,what will draw them out, and draw them in, is liberals playing the race card and hurting poor wrong pall’s feelings.
the game is still the game, but it has evolved a bit from where atwater left it. and atwater was only playing it, as it was in his day.
dww44
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy): Unfortunately, that office went to the GOP last November for the first time in my long life. The Dem who had held it for the last say 30 plus years decided to retire after the tainted peanut butter episode in the southwest part of the state pretty much guaranteed he was gonna lose in 2010. So the GOP’er who had lost to him 4 years earlier wins the seat for the GOP for the FIRST time ever.
The jury’s out, frankly, on how much of a tea party type the new Governor is. He’s made a few rational moves like putting money back into pre-k education. Have lots of farmer relatives, all of them converted GOP’ers during the last 2 decades. None seems dissatisfied yet with their new Governor.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Brachiator:
Ah, yes. Pick the low-hanging fruit of insults there. I had mentioned it on another thread recently, but I’ve got to change that pseudonym. It’s too easy for folks like you to jump on. Like having a last name like “Dick” or whatever.
So, tell me. How do you accurately convey the “Atwater Way” without using the word “nigger” multiple times, as the Master does?
Asshole. I think I’ll keep my ‘nym, just for sorting out the serious people from the ones who are as shallow as fucking teaspoons.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Brachiator:
From Merriam-Webster:
And what were you trying to say again?
gaz
@JordanRules: I think I probably wasn’t very clear when I said he was the reason we had this thread, but I don’t think I meant what I think you thought I meant =)
I don’t condone him. I hate the man. Probably not as much as an African American might, but only because I can’t truly take this stuff as personally as it would be to his intended victims. I wouldn’t presume to anyway. But still, I despise his legacy.
That said, he left us a blue-print of the hate. Adding, he may have even been sincere in his deathbed recant, not that it matters – because it doesn’t excuse him for what he had done, I hope that he sincerely meant that. Yes. I hope for that.
And also, if people REFUSE to forget the man – if we REFUSE to allow him to fade from collective memory as long as this particular machination of racism is at work, we may be better off for it. The fact that he made this confession, makes the game less abstract. We can conceptually tie it to something, to someone – Lee Atwater – and it makes the mess that much easier to talk about.
Brachiator
@Kola Noscopy:
Read all my posts here and figure it out.
Dennis G made some valid points, and others that I disagree with. Aside from that, DG’s point was to stimulate discussion, which is happening. With that, I will leave you to troll along on your own.
amk
@Kola Noscopy: As piss-poor in ‘rithmetic, as in everything else. Your mom is calling. Get off the basement, child.
Cassidy
Finally had to bring in the pie filter. I’ve reached my limit. I wonder if Colonscopy likes apple or rhubarb?
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@dww44: Well, Tommy Irvin wasn’t a bad man, all told. He kept his office nonpartisan for the most part; of course, he held said office during the last years when a man could afford to be nonpartisan in Georgia.
I’ll tell you, at the local level, it’s well past the point where a candidate should even try to hold out and be the “last Democratic bastion” for any post. That won’t work outside Atlanta, at least right now.
What Georgia needs is for some folks who are Republicans to drag the state back to some vague semblance of balance. I just don’t see it happening until the whole shithouse implodes some more.
Kola Noscopy
@Cassidy:
Bye bye, enjoy the pie.
But you’re lying, of course. You don’t have any fucking filter.
Yutsano
@Cassidy:
Spring chicken.
Brachiator
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy): Damn. You really are a dope. I got not problem with your handle, and as I have noted before, mine was specifically chosen to reflect my interests in hominid evolution. I’m way ahead of your dictionary lookup. I also noted in another post that I was unable to edit the post you read, and would have modified some of my language, and noted Dennis G’s valid points.
That said, I weary of liberals who like to sling the N word around. It is rarely necessary to make any points, and I suspect those who are quick to use it of dishonesty or self hatred. I think the same of those who get a thrill using sexist or homophobic language to make their points.
Gust Avrakotos
@Kola Noscopy: The delicate flower pie people don’t see the irony of announcing they wish to ignore someone.
Kola Noscopy
@Yutsano:
Still stalking me, I see. How cute.
Kola Noscopy
@Gust Avrakotos:
Agreed. They could just…ignore someone they wanted to ignore, you know?
But I’m guessing the ANNOUNCEMENT of the intention to ignore is all part of the glory of allegedly using the alleged pie filter.
Though why you’d want to announce you are weak minded and weak willed is beyond me.
srv
Someone should just re-dub all these debates and replace all the dog whistles and code words with original intent.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
I’m sticking to the Felonious Wench rule, myself.
Cassidy
@Gust Avrakotos: Nothing delicate about it. And that isn’t irony, son. If you didn’t understand the concept before you got out of high school, then you are beyond help.
My only complaint of the pie filter is that you can’t be specific in what a person says. For instance, I imagine that ever time Kola the Mental Midget says something, he’s doing it in his best Jack Nicholson interpretation, screaming “YOU CAN”T HANDLE THE TRUTH” as he continues in his numbskullery. I’d like to bring that to life.
Yutsano
@Cassidy:
Doesn’t say much for the Canadian educational system eh?
JordanRules
@ #109 gaz…great follow-up comment and a good part of the reason I keep coming here.
Shorter: Word :)
MacKenna
@Montysano: Ahem, I think fuckthesouth is really fucktheteabaggingconfederatemorons who hail from the south (and the so-called heartland).
I’m aware good folks live in the south. Didn’t mean to offend.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Cassidy: Why am I not surprised that Derf is sucking up to Colonoscopy?
Brandon
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: That aspect of his life was well covered in Boogeyman. Reflected in the title of the documentary even. The question I am really interested in, which maybe I was not clear about in my post, was what was going on with his appointment to the Board of Howard University.
@Mike in NC: Yeah, I think they did expand to a few locations. I only ever ate at the one on Wilson though. I am surprised you didn’t look at the pictures on the walls though because Atwater’s face was all over them. I don’t think that the photos were captioned though, but for folks who survived Reagan/Bush in DC, a lot of people knew who Atwater was. Remember, they used to poster Ed Meese’s face around town with the word “PIG” underneath and the Howard appointment was so provocative that it caused large protests on campus, making Atwater a nearly household name across the city’s racial divide. I also had an ex who knew one is his daughters. She was a regular around town in the bars, particularly the Common Share. What a great bar that was.
@gaz: It was clear from his late life actions, particularly that death bed interview, that he was looking for redemption. But it is not like he had to pull back the curtain all that far. Everyone at the time knew what Willie Horton was about and that is obvious by the fact that in the documentary people went on record to pass the buck, officially laying the blame on squarely on the dead Atwater and GHW Bush, who people seem to forget was viciously hated by conservatives for raising taxes, not occupying Iraq and losing to Clinton. No one defended the ad or even tried. The only thing I give Atwater credit for is the fact that he seemed to know there was an objective truth and that he lived outside it. These current Republicans have gone so full Costanza that they would never be able to give a death bed confession because they are too far down the rabbit hole.
Gust Avrakotos
@Cassidy: You go girl!
gaz
@Brandon:
That’s more credit than I intended to give him. I think my follow up post may have been more clear as to what I was trying to convey.
scav
Molecular identification of carrion-breeding scuttle flies (Diptera: Phoridae) using COI barcodes
Odie Hugh Manatee
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
It’s just his left hand talking to his right, that’s all.
Between wanking sessions in Mommy’s basement, naturally.
Uriel
@Jason: Horseshit.
gelfling545
@geg6:
I hope you’re right; I think you’re right. I just wonder if these men go home from the debates sick in conscience over the mob of howling wolverines they’ve had to ally themselves to in order to get elected. Do they believe this themselves or is it just a playing a depraved role?
rea
And your insistent use of the N word is offensive and unnecessary
Google “use-mention distinction” and learn something.
Lojasmo
@clayton:
But, but, @Jason: BLOODY SHIRTS!
Lojasmo
@Kola Noscopy:
Unlike certain pederasts around here.
Lojasmo
@Kola Noscopy:
Paultards run in packs? Hoocoodanode?
Emma
@Joey Maloney: Williams is just Fox’s house foodstamp. OK, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. At first read it was hysterically funny. At second read, I wanted to cry for the poor bastard’s soul,
Dave
I don’t see how anyone who’s read Nixonland can credit Lee Atwater for the modern Republican election strategy. It’s much older than Lee.
Betsy
@Omnes Omnibus: What?
Pennsylvanian
Until those working class whites realize that to the Republican party, they are “niggers” too, we really won’t see much change.
Best sign I’ve seen all year: “They only call it class warfare when we fight back.”
When the 99% of all shades stop pretending that they are going to strike it rich any day now instead of facing the shackled reality of our American brand of capitalism, maybe they will stop protecting these lying assholes and start voting in their own interest.
WereBear
@Pennsylvanian: But that would mean their dreams of avarice; die.
A Humble Lurker
@Kola Noscopy:
Says the guy who made three posts in a row just in this thread. You can edit those things, you know. Maybe take a little more time before hitting the submit button.
LAC
@Jason:
Wow, project much? She was one of the best things about this site and a real loss. And if being challenged to think once in a while instead of congratulating yourself as some sort of activist for sending an angry tweet upsets you so much, I wonder why you bother.
iamcurious
Speaking of NRO – VDH,their most prominent race-baiter has a column up today on guess what? Obama’s race baiting.
gaz
@Dave: I think the reason that Lee is largely associated with this is because of his “deathbed” confession of it.
Rhoda
@Steve:
Yes, it’s very important to have that conversation. Everytime. Because the only way that shit changes is when people shine a light on the racism; and then it becomes unacceptable. And the more light that shines; the harder it is to make a racist argument. A great example is homophobia; and how those who are against gay marriage are trying to make it not about the gays because they don’t want to look homophobic. The same law applies. When shit happens; shine a light. It really is the best disinfectant in the world.
Plantsmantx
@MacKenna:
Well, yeah. I’m a black Texan, and I’m not at all confused about who “fuckthesouth” is aimed at.
Julie
@Mike in NC: They had one out in Prince William. Some of my high school friends worked there. Back then, I would have had no idea who Atwater was, though, even if I’d known he owned it. Weird!
Skippy the Wondermule
thank you for this enlightening and intelligent post. As the child of Dago and Mick immigrants, I think it’s sad and funny that we run like scared children from certain words, especially when only those words convey the real meaning.
This post COULD NOT effectively get its point across if it said “N-word, N-word.” Seriously, are we as crazy as I think we are?
agrippa
@Jason:
pot
kettle
black
priscianusjr
@Kola Noscopy:
priscianusjr
@Dave:
Jamey
@rob!: Or that God, in his wisdom, decided to attack the part of Atwater’s physical person that got the least use.
history
@Dennis G.:
‘waving the bloody shirt’ was generally used to describe
post Civil War Republicans reminding voters of Southern treason and urging them to vote for the party of Lincoln
and the Union. The fact that every Republican nominee for the presidency between Lincoln and McKinley was a Union General during the Civil War was a key aspect of the strategy.
Perhaps the phrase now has a different connotation but the only site I can find for the usage you described in b) is a very poor wikipedia entry
maus
@Brandon:
You did finish watching Boogie Man, did you?