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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The willow is too close to the house.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

We still have time to mess this up!

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Let there be snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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An almost top 10,000 blog!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / C’mon, rip him to shreds

C’mon, rip him to shreds

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I don’t read the Economist regularly and I don’t plan to start. I’ve seen enough of Clive Crook’s blog to know that, whatever the merits of the magazine’s reporting, its editorial stance must be mostly right-center, establishment pap. I know they endorsed Kerry and Obama but so did the Washington Post. Plus, I just don’t like English people as a group, not so much because they starved my great-great-grandparents to death as because of Christopher Hitchens and various English co-workers and colleagues I’ve had over the years.

So I have to give a lot of credit for this. Would that our stateside right-center establishmentarians had the balls to say it in front of y’all and don’t gotta be false or sugarcoated at all:

WHEN Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts, he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance, backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it. Now, as he prepares to fly to Tampa to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president on August 30th, he opposes all those things. A year ago he favoured keeping income taxes at their current levels; now he wants to slash them for everybody, with the rate falling from 35% to 28% for the richest Americans.

All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it.

[….] [C]ompetence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection. Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind.

Reader Interactions

193Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    WELL… DUH

    Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind.

  2. 2.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    I just don’t like English people as a group

    There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.

  3. 3.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    “I just don’t like English people as a group, not so much because they starved my great-great-grandparents to death as because of Christopher Hitchens and various English co-workers and colleagues I’ve had over the years.”

    That’s kind of silly – and more than a bit bigoted.

    There are some Canadian emigre assbag conservatives who’ve come to America and ridden the wingnut welfare gravy train as well. Do you hate Canadians, too?

    Here’s the thing. If you want to hate on a nation of people just because you feel like it, that makes you a bigot.

    Just like if you hated on the French, or the Germans.

    Fuckin’ hell. If you have a modicum of sense, you’ll be ashamed of this post later.

  6. 6.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @JPL: I probably do too, but I can’t be sure because I stopped reading after that bigoted nonsense.

    Adding, DougJ must hate the Beatles, along with almost every other crazy famous rock band around, not to mention numerous other musicians, poets, authors, and many many other contributors to the human experience that I haven’t begun to even mention.

  7. 7.

    Eric k

    I think of the economist as for the most part the house publication for old fashioned country club, main street conservatism. So in other words something that is pretty much instinct in the GOP.

    Definitely right of center but sane and reality based, so while will disagree with them about a lot of policy we can at least debate them from the same set if facts.

  8. 8.

    Ann Rynd

    Long memories on us Irish. At least Romney is not claiming Irish ancesters. A meager blessing but a blessing nonetheless.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    @Eric k: It’s not the mainstream GOP though. The mainstream is made up of Akin, Ryan and Paul. They don’t spend time reading a communist rag like the Economist. That ship sailed when the President was elected.

  12. 12.

    Djur

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): The English are still working off their moral debt for over a century of worldwide oppression and murder. I’m not going to shed any tears about anyone not liking them (or the French or Germans or Americans or Dutch, for that matter).

  15. 15.

    cathyx

    Wow, to hate people of an entire country because of what people did to your grandparents a long time ago, and because some people who you hate are British is crazy.
    Would you like it if they hated Americans because they hated George Bush?

  21. 21.

    Schlemizel

    Since it was my ancestors the English sent to kick Doug’s ancestors asses I’d like to take this time to apologize on behalf of all the kilt wearing, bagpipe squeezing, haggis eaters.

    For an Irishman you sure have it right ;) The Economist is like Brooks in my opinion; right-leaning establishment BS wrapped in “conventional wisdom”. I’m stunned to hear they came out against Grandpa Walnuts and Willard Rmoney should be their guy 110%. Maybe they are not as bad as I remember.

  22. 22.

    JPL

    Back to the column in the Economist, Doug missed a few important lines..

    In practice, it ignores virtually all the difficult or interesting questions (indeed, “The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs” is like “Fifty Shades of Grey” without the sex)

    funny

    And it is all very well promising to repeal Barack Obama’s health-care plan and the equally gargantuan Dodd-Frank act on financial regulation, but what exactly will Mr Romney replace them with—unless, of course, he thinks Wall Street was well-regulated before Lehman went bust?

    true

  25. 25.

    mai naem

    I know somebody who did a little work with Mitt during his Bain days and went to the same church. Mitt was the stake president or bishop or whatever the job is called. He didn’t care much for him then and thinks he’s become a total tool since he started running for president,getting progressively worse. This guy is a sharp guy, elite school grad, has had good jobs etc. His opinion alone would be enough for me.

  28. 28.

    Djur

    The English are the worst nationality in the British Isles, and that’s out of a group that includes the Welsh. Now that’s saying something.

  31. 31.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Schlemizel: They have their moments. One of their staffers made a delicious comment about the south carolina spectacle during the GOP presidential primary. Something to the effect of “The attendees will be disappointed to learn that there will not in fact be a lynching”. I wish I could find it – I can’t do it justice. Deadpan, and flawless in it’s delivery. British comedy at it’s finest. =)

  33. 33.

    Schlemizel

    @JPL: You are right but assclowns like Brooks still manage to excuse and explain away all the crazy – you have to give props to these guys if they are smart enough not to run down the rabbit hole with all the crazies.

  34. 34.

    Linda Featheringill

    The Economist isn’t about UK vs US. It isn’t about GOP vs Dems. It isn’t even about Labor vs Tory. It’s about class.

    Probably the only non-academics people concerned about economics are people with money. And the magazine is published of, for, and by folks with money. They also seem to have an appetite for facts and that speaks well of them.

    I don’t think they actively hate us po’ folk. They just publish their magazine for others.

  35. 35.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Linda Featheringill: On an individual basis, I’ll call out a bigot. Furthermore, if a whole group of people (whose membership is self-identified) wants to make bigotry a part of their collective ideology I’ll call out all of the members. Hating on a whole nation of people based on the actions of some of it’s individuals does not fit into either category.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    @Linda Featheringill: That’s not quite true. Many folks on fixed income and those who earn a small salary understand what inflation is so they understand some basics. They might believe Mitt but Mitt’s line is Trust me and that’s it.

    also, too edited

  38. 38.

    GregB

    This outrageous attack on Mitt Romney by The Economist is worse than the Revolutionary War.

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Fuckin’ hell. If you have a modicum of sense, you’ll be ashamed of this post later

    Eat it. The English committed genocide against Doug’s and my ancestors. We come by our hatred honestly.

  40. 40.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @chrome agnomen: “I just don’t like English Haitian people as a group”

    “I just don’t like English Mexican people as a group”

    There. Does that make it more clear? Couching bigotry in soft terms does not make it less bigoted or less hateful.

  42. 42.

    Schlemizel

    @wrb:
    Years ago, probably about the time he was getting his PHd Bill Cosby did a short film I saw one time & would love to get my hands on today.

    Cosby was sitting on an NYC stoop, smoking a cigar, looking straight into the camera. I don’t remember the exact order but the pattern went like this:
    I hate black people, they steal and do drugs. The only people I hate more than blacks are Hispanics, they are lazy and don’t want to work. The only people I hate more than Hispanics are the Japanese, they are sneaky and can’t be trusted. He went on like this for maybe 20 minutes, hitting every group and every stereotype. I’m not doing it justice here but it was truly a work of art.

    The outrage this bit would generate today would be a thing to behold!

  43. 43.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected.

    And yet strangely enough, it’s this very quality that’s gotten him as far as he gotten…

    And disgustingly enough, it just might get him elected…

    ‘Mad Men’ indeed…

  44. 44.

    f space that

    Well I started to read some of the comments over there and they are a cesspool of stupid.

  45. 45.

    Redshift

    @JPL:

    Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind.

    It’s not his fault — a self-awareness sub-module is really hard. I’m not sure the technology is advanced enough for that.

  47. 47.

    R-Jud

    Plus, I just don’t like English people as a group, not so much because they starved my great-great-grandparents to death as because of Christopher Hitchens and various English co-workers and colleagues I’ve had over the years.

    I’d say “fuck you, Doug J.”, but I think I’ll just go fuck my English husband instead.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): Bigotry is necessary for the corporate overlords in order to keep wages low. For example, you might be a poor Irish man in Boston but at least you aren’t one of those others. If the groups joined together, the corporate overlords would lose but Americans would win.
    BTW, those Mexicans are stealing your jobs. …

  49. 49.

    cathyx

    @Schlemizel: Because at least half of us don’t like George either and didn’t vote for him. To paint us all with a broad brush isn’t right.

  51. 51.

    Haydnseek

    Doug–What’s your problem with Christopher Hitchens? I’m genuinely curious, no snark. I really would like to know. Thanks.

  54. 54.

    Redshift

    I’d congratulate DougJ on successfully trolling his own post before it started, except that trolling really sucks even if it’s not done by a troll.

  57. 57.

    Schlemizel

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): As horrific as it was it pales in comparison to what the English (with an able assist from other Europeans, like the Irish) did to the native Americans. There is an old saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”. I think you could substitute ‘country’ for ‘fortune’ and it would remain true.

    “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Tommy Jeff

  60. 60.

    cathyx

    @Schlemizel: Well ok then. Once, the children’s librarian at my town library treated me horribly, so now I hate all children’s librarians.

  61. 61.

    Linda Featheringill

    @burnspbesq: #37

    The English committed genocide against Doug’s and my ancestors. We come by our hatred honestly.

    Sins of the fathers.

    Of all the people living in the UK/England/whatever today, how many of them have done terrible things to your people?

  64. 64.

    magurakurin

    @BGinCHI:

    You can’t hate the English more than they hate themselves.

    It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!

    trainspotting

  66. 66.

    Djur

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): Already mentioned the USA above. The one thing I do give Americans credit for is that they wouldn’t suffer a king. The English don’t even have the basic dignity of the Italians, who voted their king out of office, or the French, who made a hobby of slicing off filthy aristo heads.

    The English, on the other hand, make their businessmen and celebrities lords and barons and knights as if it was a great honor as opposed to an injury to human liberty.

  68. 68.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Schlemizel: I fail to see how degree or specific acts makes much distinction. Also, considering the ongoing effects that our past still presents to African Americans, you’ve got a hill to climb if you want to make that kind of comparison.

    And in terms of sheer atrocity, Belgium was pretty damned terrible to Africa. Any attempts to draw that kind of comparison would bring some seriously sick shit down on this thread. For that it’s probably best that you read “King Leopold’s Ghost” and lets leave it at that.

  75. 75.

    cathyx

    I’m not sure how anyone can respect someone who will say anything to get what he wants. He’s like a cartoon character that we would watch and laugh at, only he’s real.

  77. 77.

    cathyx

    @Schlemizel: I think I need to get in my car and drive now, and release some road rage. Now there’s a group of people I can easily hate. Other drivers.

  80. 80.

    Steve

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: The funniest thing about all this wanking over whether it’s bigotry to dislike the English is that not a single person had a problem with YOUR comment. As it happens, those are the only two things I hate as well!

  82. 82.

    gnomedad

    @magurakurin:

    missed it by “this” much.

    Another “Get Smart!”-ism would be handy for mocking goopers, but probably too few people remember the show nowadays.

    “Obama has no birth certificate, would you believe it?”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    “Would you believe no long-form birth certificate? … How about suspicious kerning? … A small coffee stain?”

  83. 83.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @cathyx:

    Would you like it if they hated Americans because they hated George Bush?

    No, but I’d certainly understand that hatred.

    Most of the world loves the idea of America, but isn’t so sure about the American government, especially after the reign of the deserting coward.

  84. 84.

    Mart

    Gave visiting brother in law, an extremely accomplished $$$ corporate lawyer, a copy of the Economist I get on dying frequent flier miles. He said he likes the articles and subscribes off and on. I said it probably drives him nuts being too liberal. He gave a knowing oh yea. I told him I can barely stomach a paragraph of their pro “Shock Doctrine”/austerity economic policies. Weird how far apart the left and right have become in this country.

  85. 85.

    Schlemizel

    @cathyx: but other drivers might be of your group (whatever the hell your group may be at some time) How can you hate them when it must follow you have to hate the whole group for the actions of some?

    Or
    “The hate is swelling in you now. . . Give in to your anger.”

    OT – as if this whole thread hasn’t gone OT – do you really think Doug did that on purpose? Was he actually trolling his thread in the set up?

  91. 91.

    Schlemizel

    @Shawn in ShowMe: OMG! I LOVE YOU!

    This is not the presentation I saw but it is the speech. The music sort of hurts the presentation & the makeup is odd but this is something to behold.
    I had googled every thing I could think of trying to find this a couple of years ago (BTW – don’t ever google hate & Bill Cosby the amount of stormfront KKK shit puked up is frightening)

  94. 94.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JPL:

    Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about coming up with a disparaging name for the Belgians. Some of the entries were The Sprouts and The Phlems. The winner was “Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards.”

  95. 95.

    Violet

    Ha ha:

    Tropical Storm Isaac has forced the cancellation of the opening day of festivities for the Republican National Convention in Tampa Monday.
    __
    In a statement Saturday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said the threat of Isaac is just too grave to go ahead with the opening night of the convention.

    Maybe there will be storm-related issues on Tuesday and Wednesday that the media has to cover as well.

    One of my very liberal friends is named Isaac. He’s howling with laughter that his named storm is disrupting the GOP convention.

  96. 96.

    scav

    I’m a little confused that this is the same blog that was willing to gleefully hate the collective noun of farmers in MO, but otherwise things would be dull. The thing about the economist is knowing which parts to strenuously avoid. The obits can be almost my favorite part.

  98. 98.

    JPL

    @Violet: It probably had more to do with the fact the networks were not going to cover it. They want to see their king’s roll-call on TV.

  99. 99.

    JPL

    @Violet: It probably had more to do with the fact the networks were not going to cover it. They want to see their king’s roll-call on TV.

  103. 103.

    Shoo Fitz-Wearit

    The Merry Minuet
    Kingston Trio
    They’re rioting in Africa,
    They’re starving in Spain.
    There’s hurricanes in Florida,
    And Texas needs rain
    The whole world is festering
    With unhappy souls.
    The French hate the Germans,
    The Germans hate the Poles;
    Italians hate Yugoslavs,
    South Africans hate the Dutch,
    And I don’t like anybody very much!
    But we can be tranquil
    And “thankfill” and proud,
    For man’s been endowed
    With a mushroom-shaped cloud.
    And we know for certain
    That some lovely day
    Someone will set the spark off,
    And we will all be blown away!
    They’re rioting in Africa,
    There’s strife in Iran.
    What nature doesn’t do to us
    Will be done by our fellow man

    Sheldon Harnick

  105. 105.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @scav: “I’m a little confused that this is the same blog that was willing to gleefully hate the collective noun of farmers in MO”

    I’m pretty sure that those comments were directed at the farmers who voted assholes into office that compounded their own suffering. That would make those fall squarely into a self-identifying camp – “reap what they sow” was a common theme, and can easily be read as the qualifier.

    I feel I’m on pretty safe ground when I say that nobody wants to see suffering inflicted on the farmers that didn’t vote for what they got.

  106. 106.

    Violet

    @JPL: Maybe. I also think this is an issue:

    Mike Huckabee, the most prominent defender of Todd Akin in the GOP, was scheduled to speak on the opening night of the RNC. So far there’s no word what will happen to speeches scheduled for Monday, but officials said on the call that a revised schedule could be distributed as soon as Sunday.

    Huckabee is ticked off about the treatment Akin’s received. Romney’s camp isn’t sure what Huckabee will say. Letting him speak is a wildcard. Asking him not to speak is a problem. Letting the tropical storm interfere is an easy out.

  108. 108.

    Schlemizel

    @JPL:
    No, I’m pretty sure they lost – thats how they all ended up on reservation. I thought I covered that earlier in the tread

  109. 109.

    Linda Featheringill

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    I feel I’m on pretty safe ground when I say that nobody wants to see suffering inflicted on the farmers that didn’t vote for what they got.

    You’re probably right but I don’t remember anyone actually saying anything like that.

  110. 110.

    JPL

    @Violet: Why not piss off Huckabee and his followers. He already pissed off everyone else. Actually Huck will be allowed to speak at the 6 o’clock coffee to be held Friday morning.

  111. 111.

    Narcissus

    This could have been a good thread, but it wasn’t.

    That Cosby thing was good though.

  114. 114.

    Schlemizel

    Hey! Any of you with religiously insane neighbors, co-workers or, pasta forefend, relatives who believe the Great Cosmic Muffin sends punishments down on people he opposes might want to point out that this is the second GOP convention in 4 years disrupted by a hurricane. If they try to say “well, its Tampa & they are overdue for one” remind them that 4 years ago the GOP convention was cut short by a hurricane while they were right smack dab in the middle of that hurricane hot spot of Saint Paul Minnesota!

    Maybe they should try a virgin sacrifice at the RNC

  115. 115.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Linda Featheringill: I remember many of the commenters (myself included) using the phrase “they reap what they sow”. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with the phrase that I naturally think of it as qualifying, and not in need of a disclaimer, or further qualification.

    “I just don’t like English people as a group”

    Maybe not so much. Just sayin’

    ETA: Thinking back, I do seem to recall that I omitted it once in replying to Yutsano. If I were called out on that I would have apologized, and reiterated a properly qualifying statement, like DougJ probably should have done. Instead he just sort of doubled down (on the Canadian province thing, though I gave him a pass on that particular one, thinking it was snark)

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ann Rynd:

    Since you still have people of Irish descent writing songs that name-check Oliver Cromwell, I think “long memories” may be an understatement.

    I can’t say that I hate English people as a group, but I’m on safe ground saying I hate English political writers who are convinced they understand America better than Americans.

  121. 121.

    WaterGirl

    @Violet:

    Huckabee is ticked off about the treatment Akin’s received. Romney’s camp isn’t sure what Huckabee will say. Letting him speak is a wildcard. Asking him not to speak is a problem. Letting the tropical storm interfere is an easy out.

    My reaction to this comment is the same as my reaction to Oliver Stone’s movie JFK: I don’t know if it’s true, but I completely believe it could be.

  122. 122.

    scav

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): There was no outpouring of instant defense just add water and cries of bigotry and remember the other innocent farm-based voters, in fact, I remember a few non-voters getting lumped in with the voting farmers. And a few generic farmer jokes too. I think I’m on safe ground when I assume DougMultinominousJ isn’t going to go after the next Enslishman with a machete and I haven’t heard him whining about them staging a generally successful Olympics (although I also fully expect him to prove me wrong on that last statement if he happens to read this comment — I suggest by saying something rude about the Spice Girls and the closing ceremony).

  123. 123.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Linda Featheringill: Probably.

    Bigotry is a sore spot with me. I encounter it pretty much every day. It’s one thing when I hear it from people I know are morons, but it’s particularly offensive when I hear it from people who should know better. It’s embarrassing and ugly. I chalk much of my sensitivity to it up to being trans. As an upper middle class white male I had lived a fairly privileged life (outwardly, my private angst notwithstanding) up until I transitioned in my early twenties. I guess for me, the dynamics of bigotry became unavoidable – at least for me it was thrown into stark relief. It was more or less culture shock like. At least that’s when I started reading about white privilege, feminism, etc. I’m no angel, certainly. But bigotry strikes a particularly harsh chord with me, and I’m guessing my lived experiences contributed to that a lot.

  124. 124.

    quannlace

    If they try to say “well, its Tampa & they are overdue for one” remind the

    Also , ask them why they should trust the country to a party who was dumb enough to hold their convention in a southern coastline city during Hurricane season.

  125. 125.

    JPL

    The Braves are my hometown team, now, but since I was raised in MA my favorite team has to be the Sox.
    Today they acquired de Jesus so I expect great things. Suck on that Yankee fans.

  126. 126.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @scav: Well, I am guilty of popping in and out of that thread. I was doing chores at the time, so admittedly I probably missed a lot. It’s a lot harder to miss a statement right at the top of page, on the other hand. And that statement was unambiguous.

  127. 127.

    Soonergrunt

    @Mnemosyne:

    I can’t say that I hate English people as a group, but I’m on safe ground saying I hate English political writers who are convinced they understand America better than Americans.

    This.

  130. 130.

    JPL

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): I can only speak for myself, but I feel anger towards those who continue to vote against their economic interest. It might not be bigotry but it certainly is a bias.
    I’m guessing that Doug is Irish and he’s probably right about his great-great grandparents. The town that I live in was the start of the Trail of Tears and I’d hate to think that all native Americans hate me because I live here though.

  133. 133.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @JPL: Yes. Me, too. Sins of the Father, indeed. And yeah, it’s bias. I don’t think it fits the qualifications of bigotry if it fails the test of being insubstantial in origin and if it is also a group that’s self-identifying, certainly.

    ETA: These are not absolutes above, but sort of serve as a concise general guideline, IMO.

    So I do not think that it’s bigotry to say that “republican farmers in MO don’t deserve my sympathy, because they deserve what they voted for”

    Heck, it’s arguably not even bigotry to say “farmers got what they deserved” (although I think that’s a separate class of stupid statement).

    So yeah, the English thing is an entirely different ball of wax, in my view.

  135. 135.

    Schlemizel

    @JPL: I don’t know how they can not hate all white people. Sure I didn’t personally kill their ancestors but I sure benefited from the results. Same with African-Americans. As tough as my life has been at times it would have been a lot tougher if my skin were not white.

    Being white does not make me a bad person, just has having Scot, German and Swedish ancestors does not make me guilty of the crimes committed by people from those places. But it would be terribly narrow minded of me to ignore the advantages I have had.

    I understand why some white people fear people of color; they may one day decide they have had enough and seek revenge. what I don’t understand is why that turns to hate instead of an effort to understand and acknowledge the sins of the past.

  137. 137.

    Ann Rynd

    @Mnemosyne: Well, I guess it ‘s OK to still hate Oliver Cromwell since he was a person and not an entire people. I have to admit I share Dougj ‘s fury when I think of Black ’47 and the plight of my great -grandparents. In that regard I feel I have a long memory, but I like the English as a whole. What’s not to like? They’re cute with their cute accents and their funny Olympic ceremonies. The Irish, however, as a people, can be tediously sentimental about who they are.

  138. 138.

    Tyro

    I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who wants to turn this into a “Very Special Episode of Ballon Juice” over a comment mocking the English and, by implication, conservatism’s love affair with Anglophilia. If you can’t make fun of the world’s largest colonial power, who can you make fun of?

  141. 141.

    Patricia Kayden

    “Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind.”

    A blank slate on which the Rightwing idealogues can write their own story and take this country to the extreme Right.

  142. 142.

    wrb

    @Schlemizel:

    I once found myself riffing, trying to explain Dostoevsky’s “anti-semitism”

    “I can’t be anti-semitic, because I hate the Catholics more, and the Poles, and don’t even let me get started on the French.”

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @JPL:
    Mittens doesn’t want to vote against his economic interests.
    Well actually he does long term but at his age that really doesn’t matter.
    How many multimillionaires are there in congress? We ask people to vote against their economic interests all the time. Not that they actually do but still.

  145. 145.

    Quarks

    @Violet: Also, Governor Scott cancelled his opening “welcome to the state” speech under the assumption that Floridians will want to follow up the hell of bad weather with lots of shots of his face assuring us that he is doing something. Er. It wasn’t phrased that way. Admittedly Scott is not popular with anyone, and the Florida delegates are reputedly getting treated badly, so I don’t think losing him from the convention is much of a loss, but that might have played into things as well.

    From a practical, weather related point of view the area right in front of and behind the convention center is likely to experience some flooding from this, and many delegates are staying at hotels separated from the center by bridges, which may have to close in tropical storm winds. So, a few practical reasons to delay matters for a day.

  146. 146.

    wrb

    My 13th great grandfather Oliver Cromwell was fuckin’ right.

    The Irish sided with the poncy papist Stuarts when they were trying to re-subjugate the English w the help of Louis XIV.

    The wanking English then invited some German ponces in, their need for kinging being so abject and pitiful, but soon everyone with balls had left for Ameriky.

    Then the fucking Irish, their collaborationist ways not having worked out so well, had to tag along and stink the place up.

  147. 147.

    dewzke

    !Well, this is one weird thread. I am a mutt… German/Irish/Norwegian. Dog knows what else! Who fucking cares?

  148. 148.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Mnemosyne: You should hear what Irish folk think about Americans born and bred in the US for four generations who call themselves Irish.

    I could probably get an Irish passport; I believe my grandmother on my father’s side of the family (it’s where my Irish name came from) was born there and that’s all that’s needed to qualify. Not one in a hundred so-called Irish-Americans would qualify but boy do they like to go on about the aud sod and how green they are and what a bastard that Cromwell was.

    Meanwhile today one bunch of Irish folks, born and bred there for ten generations was beating up on another bunch of Irish folks born and bred there for ten generations. And it’s all the fault of the English.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19370473

  150. 150.

    Regnad Kcin

    @cathyx: Uh, hello. He said “English,” not “British.”

    And I have to second that, at least historically speaking.

  151. 151.

    Ivan Ivanovich Renko

    @burnspbesq: Fucking pikers. Try being black in America for a week, and you might get some idea about the fucking genocide of your ancestors.

  152. 152.

    Lee Hartmann

    I gave up on the Econservomist a long time ago. Their RMoney editorial was basically a plea for him to say something specific, not a rejection of him. That’s all you need to know about that rag. The only good thing about it is Ryan Avent (free exchange) which you can read for free on the net. Plus the FT is better, read Martin Wolf.

  154. 154.

    Steve Crickmore

    Some of you might want to look who actually writes and edits for the Economist.. a pretty wide selection of nationalities and backgrounds. It looks like it is a Canadian and Americans who do much of the writng and editing about the US.

  157. 157.

    AA+ Bonds

    Well, you’ve accidentally put your finger on why the Economist is such a pernicious disease among pseudo-intellectuals: sometimes they happen to agree with people, and those people are so desperate for validation that they praise the Economist

    The cure begins with you, dude, so STOP FUCKING PRAISING THE ECONOMIST

  158. 158.

    AA+ Bonds

    The Economist provides one major service to one major constituency: it wages propaganda war on behalf of center-right banks against anyone and everyone who suggests redistributing wealth

    It should be burned and dogs should shit in the ashes

  159. 159.

    Heliopause

    I just don’t like English people as a group

    The problem with this statement isn’t that it’s offensive to the English, who really don’t have any room to complain given their historical advantages (ditto caucasian Americans). The problem is that your main point has now been pretty much subsumed to the ancillary piss-match you spawned. The funny thing is, the politician you Juicers worship knows and internalized this decades ago and virtually never makes this same mistake.

  160. 160.

    AA+ Bonds

    This piece should also demonstrate that the Democrats are a center-right party, Obama is a center-right President who kisses banker ass, and the only bankers who oppose Obama are America’s financiers who are absolutely dogshit crazy and really believe in a whole ton of bizarre Austrian economics dogma

    Otherwise, the Economist would be writing about how Obama “panders to radicals” and Romney “has a zeal for reform”

  162. 162.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I just don’t like English people as a group, not so much because they starved my great-great-grandparents to death

    The English who did that (of whom the total actively responsible could only fill a small theatre) are all dead; among the English today are probably more people related to your great-great-grandparents than to the ones who starved them, because not all of their offspring went west and they did tend to have larger families.

    If you’re going to get all fourth-generation plastic-paddy about it, then you’re forbidden from laughing at the South-will-rise-again brigade. Which would be a pity.

  163. 163.

    Darkrose

    @JPL: The Braves didn’t really win. The Giants felt bad for taking the first two games in the series, so Jeremy Affeldt walked in two runs and Jesus Christ what the hell was he doing out there and also fuck the fucking Dodgers* and GAH!

    Ahem. Good game. Well, no, not really. We sucked. I need a drink.

    * Disclaimer: I admit to being extremely bigoted against the LA Dodgers. And also the Phillies.

  164. 164.

    bootsy

    @mai naem: I met someone who grew up by Mitt’s sons, and would come over to visit. I didn’t get much out of him other than his dislike of Romney and his statement that Mitt was never there for anything his sons did.

    Which seems to make sense to me. There’s an idea out there about the sociopathic leader who crushes the weak but is at the same time a good family man. But I’ve always found that suspect, probably a myth. I don’t think someone who makes workers build a stage for him to announce their firing is going to turn around and be a caring father.

  165. 165.

    Ronzoni Rigatoni

    @burnspbesq: Oh, I have to agree. 800 years of torture, and the Irish are supposed to love them? And, BTW, the Welsh hate ’em, too (Been there. Seen it). I unsubscribed from the Economist when they endorsed Bush in 2000. Haven’t read ’em since. But the gawds, I suppose, love a repentant sinner…

  167. 167.

    redshirt

    I subscribed to The Economist lo some 15 years, but gave it up last year. I miss the international coverage – Asia, Africa, and Central/South America especially. Don’t miss the right wing pap and felt it entirely beneath the magazine’s tradition. I also couldn’t keep up due to too many other magazine subscriptions.

  168. 168.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Lojasmo: Hey, no fair!

    It’s an entirely different thing.

    You see, the English citizenry could have had the foresight to be born somewhere else. Failing that, they can scrounge enough money together (presumably earned from helping their wealthy clients cheat on their taxes) and just *leave*.

    Besides, we both know that genocide generations ago is only okay if it’s ordained by God. Furthermore, it’s totally worse than aiding and abetting pedophiles in the present.

    Come on now!

  169. 169.

    mainmati

    Sounds like you might be descendant of the Irish persuasion as all my grandparents were, one of whom was also an IRA member fleeing from the Easter Rebellion. So I grew up knowing where you;re coming from.

    But I lived in England (post-grad studies) for 7 years and, yes, there are a lot of pompous assholes there, but there are also a lot of Irish too and, more to the point a lot more English progressives per capita than the US has by a wide margin. The USA is its own worst enemy, frankly, with its worship of individualism and needs to figure out a viable commonwealth before we descend into a completely economically and socially dysfunctional entity (dictatorship, anarchy or dissolution) largely courtesy of the GOP.

  172. 172.

    mainmati

    @pseudonymous in nc: Yeah, I reprimanded him on that too. The English nowadays as a people are a lot like Americans in thinking that they can escape their economic circumstances while the upper classes are damn well making sure they can’t. So blaming the ordinary Brits is pointless.

    I subscribed to the Economist for 20 years before I stopped in the 2000s when they ceased being both witty, intelligent and reasonably objective and instead went stupidly conventionally Conservative. Read the Financial Times for a rigorous and very well-written political-economic and social read. And no, I don’t work for any newspaper/

  174. 174.

    Yutsano

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): AA+ Bonds has been third string for quite awhile now. Of course him fessing up to being a Republican threw his credibility to shit. That was awhile ago however and I can’t find it now.

  176. 176.

    slightly_peeved

    If there’s one group I don’t want to hear about oppression from, it’s middle class white American males.

  178. 178.

    slightly_peeved

    @Ronzoni Rigatoni:

    I think they’re not supposed to be bigots. Most English people probably descend from someone oppressed by the English at some point or another, if you go back as far as DougJ is. Does DougJ hate Sanjeev Bhaskar OBE? Dizzee Rascal?

  181. 181.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @mainmati: Yep. I mean, it’s not as if large English industrial cities like Liverpool were built upon an emigrant Irish population.

    As for the Economist, it is one of those publications where you’re impressed by the apparent erudition until you read a shockingly bad piece about a topic you know well, and then start wondering about how they must handle topics you don’t know well. The Christopher Hitchens of newsweeklies.

  182. 182.

    Arundel

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Christ, how unbearable. Danah Gaz (fka Gaz), maybe you could choose a less clumsy and weirdly complicated name? I realize you want everyone to know you’re trans, but your rude and uninformed barkings at DougJ about Ireland and Irish history seem really unnecessary. And no worries, I don’t remember Gaz, I don’t think. No biggie! Just, I find it spectalularly strange, appalling, and egotistical that you put Doug J’s fleeting mention of the Irish famine of the 1840s with you taking the side of the imperial oppressor- uh, because you’re a trans peron and should never say bad things about the Empire that starved all those peasants to take their land? That you are cool that the countryside was filled with starved corpses with grass stains on their mouths, women and children, that were purposefully starved to death?

    You ignorant fucks. Doug J was absolutely right. Britain exploited Ireland to the maximum when the famine hit, the potato blight. All the Irish peasants could afford to eat was potatoes and cabbage. They couldn’t afford to eat the massive amount of beef, fish, lamb and sheep flowing out to England because they were forbidden from owning or buying any of it. I cannot overtsate how brutalized Ireland and its people were during the Famine. Bloody hell, Native Americans sent humanitarian aid in small donations, sent what they could (and the Irish repaid them over a century later.). The starvation, driving the peasants off their land, starving them off with grass-mouthed corpses lying in rural roads and thousands sailing off to here on coffin ships.. it was quite purposeful. Not the potato blight- that was an act of nature. But when it happened, the British quite took advantage of the Irish. “Bad luck betting on the potato, old chap!” as tons and tons of food was exported from Ireland to Britain. A major human catastrophe was not only not tstopped by the Empire, its devastating effects of starvation were seen as a good thing. Getting rid of pesky inhabitants.

    My parents are from Ireland, I’m a New Yorker, and my parents were part of the fairly constant economic flight from Ireland. My dad was a cop and my mom was a nurse. Here’s my thing:

    We don’t hate British people. Or English, to be more precise. We quite like them, have a lot in common with them. But that does not mean the Troubles in Northern Ireland, or the Famine in the 19th century are ever forgotten. We love our British and English friends, we are talking about history, here, when it comes to the famine. (Bloody Sunday is quite within memory, my mom’s from Derry when the British soldiers shot those peaceful protestors dead.) But it’s still quite powerful and real, this history we have. Yeah, don’t tell me how you are “offended” because Doug J made a mere allusion to some real oppression. And you side with the opressors, because you’re trans, or something. I don’t understand. Does your uninformed opinion about 170 years of Anglo-Irish history somehow mean more about this foreign topic in some way because you’re a trans person, Danah Gaz? I’m asking as a pretty vanilla gay myself. I know it’s not the same thing. But I also know you might appreciate being questioned on your assumptions in a rigorous historical way, in regards to your problem with what Doug J briefly said about the Irish Famine. Like I’d question anyone else about their uninformed assumptions.

  183. 183.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    @Arundel: As stated above, my parents were Irish, came here in the 1950s, and I must say, get down off that fucking cross you’ve nailed yourself to.

    I swear, seeing Irish-Americans trying to compete with African-Americans and American Indians in some sort of oppression sweepstakes is pretty fucking disgusting. I can smell your white privilege from here.

  185. 185.

    IM

    Hah, I am in the clear! My ancestors were our gallant allies on the continent! Innocent as fresh snow, I tell you!

  186. 186.

    Dream On

    Well, feel as you like DougJ, but besides “Sandbaggers”, “Sherlock Holmes”, “Bless Me, Father”, “Ab Fab”, Mike Leigh films, Alfred Hitchcock, “Rising Damp”, the Clash, Billy Bragg, Roxy Music, Shakespeare, The Fall, The Beatles, the Magna Carta, Churchill, David Bowie, Monty Python, Pink Floyd – what have the English ever done for us?

    And don’t forget Yorkshire pudding, black pudding in an English breakfast, Lord Woolton pie and bangers & mash. Forget Harry’s wang, though.

    This is when I cue my anglophile speech and say “is that how you see it?” in a slightly bemused fashion that sounds polite but really means dumbest thing I’ve heard in years.

  187. 187.

    Jericho

    I find it kind of baffling to see (by my count) a second gratuitous anti-British remark in one of your postings.

    I’ll admit it: I’m British. But I’ve lived in the US for several years and I’m married to an American. I’m also the least patriotic British person I know. I find the royal family absurd and share a horror at Britain’s colonial past (including that in Ireland). I loathed Hitchens for at least the last decade.

    I have no desire to defend Britain. I just don’t understand what weird psychological problem would induce a generally logical commentator to disfigure his output with irrational prejudice likely only to alienate certain categories of readers. Clearly you understand there is no logical basis for what you say (you’re a mathematician, aren’t you?), but you say it anyway.

    No, I don’t think the British are downtrodden, just as I can’t get upset by all the “anti-Americanism” right-wing commentators here endlessly purport to find. We’re all highly privileged beneficiaries of various historical crimes (yes, even Americans who harp on stereotypically about their Irish heritage). I simply don’t understand why you discredit your generally valuable output with dumb remarks like this.

  188. 188.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Arundel: Fucking christ. i mentioned the fact that I am trans once on this thread. once. You mentioned it several times in your screed. obsess much?

    also, I’m not sure if I read you right on this bit, but assuming I did: my nick has NOTHING to do with the fact that I’m trans and everything to do with the fact that I used to post as just plain “gaz” but changed it, and felt it was more honest to link my current nomme with my last one, FFS.

    And really, I get it. You love DougJ and can’t stand to hear criticism of him. When you’re done blowing him, be sure to let us know. In the meantime, he’s a big boy and can take care of himself without you swinging from his testicles.

  190. 190.

    Arundel

    “Heh”. Yeah, that was masterful and funny. So, danah gaz fkagaz yes, you read me wrong. Your clumsy nick-name has nothing to do with gender, it’s just an eyesore. No, I’m not obsessed with your gender, you just brought it up as you put down Doug J for some reason. I’ve seen you tend to get into name-calling spats around here, so I wish you the best, I’ll steer clear of you.

    “White privilege”, “plastic Paddy”. Oh shut the fuck up, you morons. I am no Boston drunk of your imagination, I like and admire the British people, I have “Indefinite leave to remain” in Britain because of my mother, and I take advantage of this for months at a time every year. Doug J has a right to express his opinion, and most educated English people would agree that the mid-19th century Irish famine was a humanitarian catastrophe that was in part, purposefully inflicted. This is not particularly controversial in England. It was an Englishwoman, Cecil Woodham-Smith, who wrote the definitive history of the Famine, “The Great Hunger”. It changed Ireland, it changed New York, Boston, London. Acknowledging this is not being your offensive idea of being Irish in America. I’m American Irish not Irish American. But whatever, nice sterotyping, you tiresome elderly hippies here.

  191. 191.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Arundel:
    “You just brought it up as you put down Doug J for some reason”

    Actually, no I didn’t. I brought it up as an observation as to why bigotry pisses me off so.

    “I’ve seen you tend to get into name-calling spats around here, so I wish you the best, I’ll steer clear of you.”

    If you were a wee bit smarter you would have avoided me to begin with, rather than whining about it after the fact.

    And thanks for playing.

  192. 192.

    snarkyspice

    @burnspbesq:
    And you Americans are just perfect aren’t you. No war-mongering there!

    But speaking as one of the much-hated English people, let me be the first to say ‘right back at you.’ (And I spent 10 godforsaken years living in America before I escaped back home).

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