With his attack on Elizabeth Warren over her Native American heritage, Scott Brown is going for a wingnut triple play: he attacked her for claiming a minority heritage, attacked her for collecting unearned privileges because of her minority status and attacked her for being an uppity woman who just doesn’t know her place. It is pure wingnut gold.
I found the image above when I was searching the internets for something else. It is from a book called Ten Little Suffergets. Stephen Gretz wrote about it on the Booktryst blog. When I saw the post it reminded me of Scott.
Ten Little Suffergets was written roughly a hundred years ago. It was propaganda designed to oppose the effort to win women the right to vote. The goal was to put women in their place through scorn and ridicule. The choice of the Ten Little _____________ meme was telling.
It was a popular song and theme for children’s books designed to teach little white kids about the people that needed to be kept in their place. A century ago the most popular version of the meme was Ten Little Niggers (Agatha Christie even used it as the title for one of her mysteries).
The words to Ten Little Niggers were written in 1869, but the meme started a year earlier in 1868 with a minstrel song called Ten Little Indians. It was always popular and when when Ten Little Niggers fell out of favor as an acceptable title and meme, folks just used Ten Little Indians as the go-to replacement. Many still do, but even this old racist meme is starting to fade. Still, the irrational hatred of Native Americans runs deep. Over the years a politician could almost never go wrong attacking the “savage redskins” and “lazy injuns”. Fortunately, that line of attack–like the Ten Little Indians meme–is falling out of favor these days, but oddly it is a line of attack that Scott Brown seems all too happy to embrace.
The three versions of the Ten Little ___________ books come together in Brown’s line of attack:
1. Native Americans are bad (of course) and they get wild advantages in life that white men never get.
2. Thanks to Affirmative action and the blacks, folks like Elizabeth Warren can claim minority status to get endless unearned benefits–benefits stolen (with the help of the liberals ) from deserving white men.
3. And of course: uppity women threaten white men everywhere.
No doubt, Scott will have some success with this blatant appeal to the demons of white male fear (witness his witless supporters and their “war woops”).
OTOH, it may help to expose him as the complete wingnut that he actually is. That would be a good thing.
By the way, you could follow this link to make a small donation to help Elizabeth Warren beat this asshole.
Cheers
Bostondreams
I miss not living back in the greatest state in the Union just so I could vote against this piker.
Off topic, Mitt Romney declares that teacher’s unions shouldn’t be allowed to donate money to candidates because it is a conflict of interest. Really, Mitt? Really?
Violet
The Chief of the Cherokee has condemned Brown’s staff.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/26/1136643/-Cherokee-Nation-Chief-condemns-Scott-Brown-staff-for-downright-racist-nbsp-actions
Gloryb
I hear that a representative of the Cherokee Nation has called out Brown and asked (demanded) an apology, correct?
patroclus
Since I was a kid, I have always thought that Massachusetts was very pro-Native American because of, you know, the whole Thanksgiving story, with Squanto and the Pilgrims. Let’s just say that thanks to Scott Brown, I’ve grown up.
Violet
I’m sure this will be a success:
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
I don’t suppose anyone has any influence with the Oklahoma Cherokee and could convince them to adopt Elizabeth Warren? ‘Cause that would be filled to the brim with awesome.
They probably wouldn’t be willing to intervene in another state’s election that way, though.
Schlemizel
@Violet:
To which one of the wingnut news outfits (sorry I don’t remember which one) said “well if your known for making woo-woo-woo sounds people are going to make fun of you”
Stupid does not even begin to cover it with these morans
Violet
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think them adopting her would help. It would seem a bit too last minute or something. But if they came out and said they had her great-great grandmother (or whoever it is) on their rolls, that would truly be awesome.
BTW, Dennis G, that illustration is amazing. I particularly love the little girl holding the “Cake Every Day” sign.
Omnes Omnibus
@patroclus: Look up the Pequot War.
Dennis G.
@Violet: You can click through the link and read the entire book. Only a century ago and yet so many themes are current wingnut talking points…
the Conster
Every other place in Mass. has a Native American name. I drove past the annual Wampanoag pow wow in Mashpee in July, and it was mobbed with Native Americans and tourists. He’s such a dumbass if he thinks that this works in his favor here, but that’s who he is. I don’t think most people here knew it, though so keep it up pretty boy.
danimal
@Bostondreams:
Let me put you in touch with the local ACORN office, we’ll get you set up to vote in several states.
/wingnut vote fraud fantasy.
joes527
@Violet: Well, he is only 1/32 Cherokee, so of course he sides with her.
D0n Camillo
Scott Brown’s nice guy persona only lasted as long as the polls were in his favor. That’s the problem with having a full length senate campaign against a worthy opponent, it’s hard to hide what you’re really made of.
Violet
Massachusetts folks: Is this war whoop/tomahawk chop stuff by Brown’s staff/supporters getting any local airplay? Is it in local papers and radio?
Violet
@Dennis G.: The more things change… The women back then who were against women having the vote are probably the same types of women who today are forced birthers.
Baud
This reminds me, apparently the Republicans are going to start supporting Todd Akin again.
jibeaux
Brown people everyone has a sad that they’re not invited.
scav
@D0n Camillo: D0n Camillo Says:
Scott Brown’s nice guy persona only lasted as long as the polls were in his favor
Well, he’s got to be the poster boy of ‘Mercan Exceptionalism, don’t he: do as I say or I’ll unleash the Bald Angel of Extermination on you.
burnspbesq
@Bostondreams:
So … public-employee unions shouldn’t be allowed to make campaign contributions because they might gain undue influence over people that the might end up across the table from.
Oddly enough, businesses and business groups occasionally end up across the table from the SEC, FCC, IRS, DOJ, and a whole host of other Federal agencies. I guess the influence those groups hope to gain by making campaign contributions must not be “undue.” Yeah, that’s it.
Violet
@scav: “Do as I say or you get a smallpox blanket.”
Chris
@patroclus:
Every place has its wingnuts. Those guys will go out of their way to make every last place on Earth unfriendly to everyone who’s not white.
This reminds me of the CPAC white nationalists with the really bad race video, who then tried to say “naw, we said ‘knickers’ not ‘niggers!’ Honest! [snerk]”
Dennis SGMM
@Violet:
One of my dear friends refers to them as “Ladies against women.”
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
They don’t have a choice, do they? Akin wouldn’t leave the race so they’re stuck with him. Of course, he hasn’t repudiated his remarks, and he’s still behind McCaskill in the polls with less than a month and a half to go. So he might well lose.
Violet
@burnspbesq: I really hope Romney keeps up with that kind of talk. Keep showing you’re the 1%, buddy. Keep it up.
Dennis SGMM
@burnspbesq:
That is legitimate influence, as opposed to the illegitimate influence wielded by the public employee unions.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: And McCaskill’s been holding onto her cash and not spending too much of it on ads until she knew for certain Akin was staying in. Now she knows and last night she came out with a strong ad.
He’s such a nut, I think he’s going to say something stupid on the stump and turn people off all over again.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
They’re stuck with Akin as their candidate. But they can’t distance themselves from Akin and support him at the same time.
Violet
Maybe we need a “Today in GOP Racism” post every day. The Republicans keep dishing it out so fast I can’t keep up.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Amir Khalid:
__
When you go on the Akins diet (no carbs, all red meat) you just have to stick with it ’till the bitter end, until you get the results you wanted.
jibeaux
@Dennis SGMM: I’m pretty sure this was an actual group at one time, but I also think it was satirical. Too lazy to google machine it.
Linda Featheringill
@joes527: #13
Is this snark?
Elizabeth Warren is not the issue in this incident. The issue is the deeply insulting, blatantly racist insult to Native Americans.
And if you can’t see that, you’re not only stupid, you’re an asshole.
22over7
@Amir Khalid:
I expect that the higher echelons of the republican party are scared to death. They might LOSE, not only the presidency, but maybe the senate and much of the leverage they have in the house. They’ll lose their power. The lobbyists will take their money elsewhere.
And what are they left with? Bush holdovers, religious fanatics, sick old racist and sexist fucks, and people like Wayne LaPierre and Sheldon Adelson. But I repeat myself.
Seriously, how are they going to rebuild from that?
Violet
@Baud: Which is why I think you’ll see more folks like Gingrich, who aren’t running for anything, or Senators whose elections are a few years off out on the stump for him. You won’t see anyone who’s worried about their election.
The Other Chuck
@patroclus:
The original Thanksgiving feast was thrown to celebrate having successfully wiped out the local “savage Indian menace”. Genocide commits plenty of crimes against history by continually whitewashing and papering over the details, but I can’t think of as many that are as blatant a _lie_ as the Thanksgiving story that is still told to children to this very day.
burnspbesq
OT, Cole’s temper tantrum appears to have had the desired effect.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8427652/locked-nfl-referees-return-early-week-sources
Joel
@The Other Chuck: That’s actually not true. The original Thanksgiving story is relatively accurate, as far as recollections of US history goes.
However, there were later thanksgivings offered for “success in battle” as you may have it.
Anoniminous
@jibeaux:
They did exist. It was satirical. A friend was involved.
Auguste
@Bostondreams: This does raise the question: Why don’t unions incorporate (or then again, perhaps they have)?
I’m not saying it would magically improve the 1%ers’ opinion of unions, far from it. But it would be an interesting experiment: How dedicated to the primacy of corporations are we, really?
kindness
Yea Brown sucks but Karma’s a bitch and Brown is having the good people of Mass hand him his ass in the recent polls. That is only gonna grow too.
scav
@Dennis SGMM: “Ladies against women.”?
I think that was an actual group, I’m getting a vision of a 1950s wonder behind an ironing board photo. (I assumed spoof.)
Violet
@burnspbesq:
Maybe not.
Various links in the actual piece if you click through.
joes527
@Linda Featheringill: Get your snark detector into the shop. It doesn’t seem to be working.
Suffern ACE
Time will tell I guess if this is the right strategy. If the election turns on whether or not she is a native american and got into law school as an affirmative action student – I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. When this got heated this summer, Brown was ahead. Maybe it will do something.
So besides this, what other issues are facing people in Massachusetts that are worth discussing anyway. It must be a sweet state to live in if there aren’t any other issues in a campaign.
Chris
@scav:
There was a group on facebook when I got to college called “Future Hot, Submissive Housewives of America… And the Men Who LOVE Them!” Wasn’t a spoof.
Poe’s Law, etc…
? Martin
@Auguste: I think they are as 501c5 organizations. I’m pretty sure the major unions are all 501c5s. That gives them tax protection for dues collected, provided the organization doesn’t turn profits.
James E. Powell
@burnspbesq:
I can picture it perfectly, Roger Goodell doing apocryphal LBJ, “If I’ve lost Cole (with his home shrine to the Steelers), I’ve lost America, or at least the parts of it that watch the NFL.”
? Martin
@Violet: I have to note that at lunch yesterday, none of the sports channels were talking about the game. They were only talking about the refs, as if the player performance was no longer relevant.
Napoleon
@Bostondreams:
That has been a standard wingnut talking point for 30 years. Heck the poster “Political Observer” was pushing it here a day or 2 ago.
kindness
Who here likes Charles Pierce? I think we all do.
Well today Charles made fun of Michelle Malkin and it appears there must have been a Drudge Link to it as of now 18 of the 19 comments are all rightwingnuts: Help Charles out with some support in the face of morans, could you?
karen marie
@kindness: One of my various spam blockers prevents me from not only posting comments at Charlie’s site but seeing comments. Send him my regards!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Violet: Please God don’t let there be workshops in knot-tying.
Punchy
This “cant trust the polls” shtick just took a way, waaaaaay fucked up turn towards the bizarre
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Which shows she has at least some kind of sensible political instinct, if her having worked to get Akin as her opponent for the general election weren’t enough to convince you. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
Eric U.
@? Martin: player performance really isn’t relevant. The way the games I’ve seen have gone, they run a play, ref throws a flag. Refs stand around trying to decide what to do. Refs move the ball to somewhere that can’t be where it is supposed to go under the rules. Repeat until the time runs out. It’s just so arbitrary it’s impossible to even get upset.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
At this point, player performance isn’t really relevant, because a quarterback could throw the most awesome bomb in the history of the game and the receiver could take it 40 yards for a TD and it’s utterly meaningless if one of the replacement refs blows a call and makes them do it all over again.
Refereeing gives you a baseline by which you can look at player performance. If that baseline is wildly swinging back and forth, you have no way to evaluate the players.
gbear
@Violet:
.
Are they going to get The Hives to provide music?
Now you come crying to me…
But it’s too late!
The man you’re proud to be,
But it’s too late!
Get your head out of the sand,
But it’s too late…
It’s too late,
Too late,
Too late,
Too late!
Linda Featheringill
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Black and White Tour:
I saw that and wondered what was the purpose of the effort. If they’re trying to start a conversation, that’s great. If they conducted a listening tour, that would be even better. If the purpose is to tell their critics to shut up, it’ll probably be an exercise in futility.
Chris
@Linda Featheringill:
Having something they can point back to and go “look! We’re racially inclusive! We tried reaching out to These People, but the savage racists STILL won’t vote for us! We did our part, now it’s on them.”
KG
@Suffern ACE: here’s what I don’t get about the affirmative action argument… what about everything she’s done since she got out of law school and passed two bar exams?
I understand where people come from opposing affirmative action in many of its early versions. The idea that someone gets “free points” because of the color of their skin or what’s between their legs is rather offensive, especially if it means they don’t have to be as good as someone else.
But Warren (and Obama, who the charge as been leveled at), passed bar exams (I’ve taken them, they aren’t fun) and they don’t have any sort of affirmative action free passes. They’ve taught at prestigious law schools (Harvard and Chicago are pretty much always in the top three on the US News rankings). They’ve actually practiced and won some acclaim for their accomplishments. Doesn’t everything they’ve done since law school mean anything?
Violet
@Linda Featheringill: They can see the handwriting on the wall (or the skin colors at the convention) and know they are losing the demographics battle so badly that they will become irrelevant if they don’t do something. This “tour” is probably a ham-fisted attempt to show they’re not completely lily white. And, yeah, there will always be some non-white folks in the GOP. But until the GOP stops being the party of racists, until they shut that shit down when it happens and stop nudge-nudge, wink-winking when it does happen (“you can’t take a joke!”), the large majority of non-white folks are going to know what the GOP is all about.
It’s going to take actions over time to prove they’ve changed. That’s not going to happen with some “black and white tour”.
Linda Featheringill
@Chris:
You could be right.
KG
@Punchy: this is a fun new angle… I wasn’t surprised when this went mainstream because I saw it coming checking Hewitt a couple weeks back.
I’m really looking forward to the post-election day “Nobody I know voted for Obama, I don’t understand how he won so big”
? Martin
@KG:
There we go…
WereBear
No, because they think their accomplishments are because of affirmative action, full stop.
They don’t think, you know. The average wingnut uses up any brain power they might have had keeping such disparate thoughts from bumping together in their heads. I’ve come to understand their gears literally don’t mesh; because if they did, they would understand things that would then upset them.
They prefer fantasy. Always.
Chris
@WereBear:
Quoted for truth.
max
@patroclus: Since I was a kid, I have always thought that Massachusetts was very pro-Native American because of, you know, the whole Thanksgiving story, with Squanto and the Pilgrims. Let’s just say that thanks to Scott Brown, I’ve grown up.
{laughs} I have more or less the exact same problem as Warren. I have gotten fed the line on a (very) liberal blog that, ‘Lots of people from the South claim to have Cherokee ancestry’. The theory is that this is implausible so anyone that says so is obviously all wrong. As near as I can tell the R’s are just that much worse about the issue.
(The thinking seems to be that there are very few Indians, so therefore no one can be descended from them – which betrays something of a shallow understanding of genetics. And if you are, it doesn’t count, which is either racist, obnoxious, or demonstrates a poor grasp of history.)
At any rate, way back up my tree, a number of generations of white people lived right across the Red River from the actual Chickasaw Nation, so it should be no real surprise that I’ve got a Chickasaw ancestor. (And then they’re gonna want a birth certificate, and I’m all like, ‘Uh… from the 1850’s *frontier*???’) Meanwhile, a different branch lived somewhat to the East of there in the 1820’s and 1830’s – in an area that was settled by Cherokees after they were kicked out of Dixie and sent along the Trail of Tears. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I have one (and possibly two) Cherokee ancestors from over there.
Meantime, I’ve got another branch of the family was was New York Dutch, as in ‘traced back to the time when it was New Amsterdam before the goddamn English showed up’, and given the established historical fact that the New World Dutch were perfectly happy to marry the Native American ladies, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that I’ve got Mohawk stashed in the woodshed as well. (‘Uncle George got the Mohawk coloring with the black eyes and the loooonnngggg straight black hair. You could really see it in him.’ — my grandmother)
Apparently this is some kind of commonly established belief in the Northeast among the frat boys… or just a common type of Massholery. Not sure which.
Apparently the skin color is the only defining issue of race among lots of white people who apparently consider themselves ‘pure-blooded’ honk. As far as I can tell, in this view of the world, you are either whiter than white or some variant of ‘nigger’. (Would this be a good time to mention that along that Cherokee branch some people were called and called themselves ‘Black Irish’ indicating that they had passed through Tennessee and had intermarried with black people? No? Oh, dear.) Charming.
At any rate, the demonstration they made there seems to me to be more ‘ignorant asshole’ then racist per se (unless you want to discuss, say, the Atlanta Braves and the tomahawk chop).
No real surprises here, after all, it’s traditional to call the Washington NFL franchise the Redskins… kind of in the same tradition as that storied football team (randomly chosen location) the ‘Memphis Niggers’.
So, no big surprises here.
max
[‘Thanks for trying though!’]
Uncle Cosmo
FTR Scott Brown is not going for a “triple play.”
He’s (slap)shooting for an asshat-trick. And pushing for Rookie Of The Year in the National Hatemongers’ League.
Hope the good voters of MA award him the game misconduct he deserves.
quannlace
Over at places like Free Republic, the whole ‘skewed poll’ has become their mantra, their rosary beads, their security blanket. Well, if it gives them comfort, more to ’em.
BGinCHI
@Violet:
Dear Blahs,
Obama is half white. Don’t trust Whitey.
Love,
The Dicks at FreedomWorks
aimai
@Suffern ACE:
Thanks to Kerry and Kennedy most MA residents just “have their senators” like Boston ladies used to “have their hats.” The average person has zero idea what their Senators do because its considered kind of national point of pride. Its hard for the Senators to talk about what they’d do for the state because most of the heavy lifting that people can see gets done by local reps and congressmen. Brown positioned himself as “for” the Fishermen, which is one of the last blue collar jobs around here. In reality he is a wholly owned subsidiary of the banks and the financial services people, which is huge but isn’t very popular. Meanwhile Warren is the pick of the science/biotech/education people but they aren’t very generous and don’t have a whole lot of obvious clout with the voters, though they are dear to Deval Patrick’s heart and his plans.
aimai
Anoniminous
@aimai:
I hear tell the Menino endorsement was more than just lip-service. IS he putting his machine to work?
PhoenixRising
@Dennis SGMM: My wife still carries her official Ladies Against Women membership card.
It has a spot on the back for “husband’s signature”. Truly the typesetters were the heroes of previous generations of revolutionary folk, as you needed one who worked nights at an offset press to do anything at all. /offmylawnism
dmbeaster
@The Other Chuck:
This is crap. The reality, which is now well documented, is that the local Indians (Wampanoags) were largely wiped out by smallpox and god knows what else before the Pilgrims arrived. The Pilgrims occupied land vacant due to the die off, and probably would not have been able to establish a colony 50 years earlier due to hostile Indians. The Wampanoags befriended the Pilgrims because they were desperate for an alliance with anyone against their Indian rivals to the south and in the interior. The Thanksgiving celebration was an event that helped cement that alliance, which obviously was not a wise long term strategy for the Indians (how did they now how many whites would follow).
Go read 1491 as one source for this, which has been around now for a while as the correct historiography.
Brachiator
@Suffern ACE:
Ah, so at bottom this is an attempt to fan flames of class and gender resentment.
Clumsy and ugly.
Violet
@aimai: How are the war whoops and tomahawk chants playing in the MA media? Are they being covered at all?
Origuy
BBC History Magazine had an article a while back on anti-suffragette postcards. Penny postcards were the tweets of the day.
SomeMost of the images are pretty awful.JPL
@Violet: boston.com had it up on the front page earlier. I’m not sure if they still do.
Violet
In more NFL news:
Violet
Uh, stupid moderation. Forgot the forbidden words. Repost with word changed:
In more NFL news:
Can’t link because forbidden word is in the link.
Brachiator
@Origuy:
I have this issue of BBC History Magazine, but didn’t realize that a reference to the story was still available online.
The background to one postcard is chilling.
This reminded me of the recent laws forcing women to submit to ultrasound exams.
A long, sad history of ignoring women’s civil rights and the integrity of their own bodies.
Svensker
@Brachiator:
But, you see, “our bodies” are really community property. And the community (of men, natch, snatch) decides what’s to be done with them. Which seems odd to me but waddoo I know? I’m just a woman, not much of a brain.
Violet
No no thread for over three hours. Where are all the FPers here?
Brachiator
@Svensker:
.
Look on the bright side. At least Bic has a pen for you (a nod to a recent rational response to the insanity of disrespecting women)
Violet
Article about Millenials and cars:
I, too, refused to learn how to drive until my parents had that Bugatti Coupe with a big bow on top sitting in the driveway. That sure showed them!
? Martin
@Violet: John has had it with the FPer demands and has called in the replacement FPers. They’re still figuring out how to start the computer.
MattR
Just saw this quote in an article about the NFL’s battle with the refs, but it applies perfectly to the Republican party as a whole.
MikeJ
@Violet: I don’t see this as a problem. Walking is good for them.
Djur
@kindness: I don’t think Charlie Pierce deserves my support for talking smack about New Order. Harumph.
LanceThruster
@Origuy:
Wow. Just…wow.
Mnemosyne
@max:
I would love to show them a picture of my cousin-in-law’s blond, blue-eyed toddler being held by his AA/Latino/white father, but I’m afraid I might be held civilly liable for the exploding heads that would result.
JPL
While surfing the webs I found this on the NYTimes Campaign Stops blog
Does Ross Douthat drink? Let’s pretend Mitt’s not running is not going to win many votes and let’s pretend the Democratic convention was lackluster.
kindness
@MikeJ: Seriously! These kids! Where is the Get OFF MY Lawn soapbox.
The ’63 T-bird I started out with is too good for them. Mind you, the car was 10 years old and held together by the rust by the time I got it but it was a great car for a teenager. (it had a stash spot under the glove box would have been (console instead) where I could hide a full size bong, and did so regularly)
Oh yea…390 V8 that got 8 miles to the gallon. Gas was only 50 cents a gallon though so….
? Martin
@Violet: Actually, the article isn’t that bad. Mainly it’s a critique on how automakers aren’t catering to younger drivers in their designs. The article is siting the Focus and Cruze as popular among Millennials, which is appropriate – they’re cheap, useful and fun.
The take-away from the article isn’t that Millennials are spoiled brats, rather that the people that go on to write for Forbes are.
Redshift
@Violet:
That appears in Forbes, by an author who appears to be bucking to be the next McMegan.
I just love authors who “explain” things by assuming that everyone else is exactly the same as them.
Violet
@? Martin: Yeah, the rest of the article is just standard reporting on the issue. But WTF with that bit? Has the author ever spoken to people whose parents couldn’t afford any car for their kids, let alone a brand new convertible or BMW? And where are Forbes’ editors? How did that bit even stay in the article?
Violet
I’m sure this will go well for him:
Redshift
@JPL: And pretend that only the bad news on the economy exists, and that the Fed finally getting serious about its unemployment mandate is an indictment of Obama’s policies, even though the Fed chairman has been all but screaming at congressional Republicans that they should be taking action, and…
But yes, I’ll agree with Chunky that if voters never saw Mitt Romney and only paid attention to bad news about Obama, it might be a very different race, and Generic Republican might be winning.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
Yep, it has nothing at all to do with the fact that most states make it so difficult for kids to drive without adult supervision that they just don’t bother. It must be because all Millennials are as spoiled and whiny as the article’s author.
MikeJ
@kindness:
I dated a girl who had one of those, but it was in the late 80s. Did yours have the pushbutton transmission? The sideways sliding steering wheel?
MattR
@Violet: That excerpt could just as easily have been written after interviewing classmates at my high school 20 years ago. Spoiled kids have alwyas been spoiled and it is pretty piss poor that Forbes would let that pass as typical for an entire generation (or unique to the millenials).
PS. Since we are sharing, my first car was an 82 Buick Regal that had two great new innovations. First they replaced the typical radio antenna with a strip of metail on the windshield. Then they got rid of back windows that roll down and compensated by allowing you to rotate the little triangle shaped window behind it to get fresh air. They did not make sure that the little window you rotated could not fall out onto the street, nor did they insure that the metal strip on the windsheild actually picked up radio waves)
JPL
@Redshift: True.. Clint Eastwood feels the same way. I only glanced at a few comments but they were brutal.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
Apparently a lot of the next-generation (aka current) bike advocacy is being driven by Millennials, who have been using their bikes as transportation for years and don’t see any reason to stop doing it just because they’re old enough to drive.
As someone who bought an urban bicycle at 43, I welcome my new Millenial overlords (and overladies).
Redshift
@Violet:
So therefore, the fact that he wants to take it away from the rest of the country shows he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us. Thanks for making that clear, Mitt!
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne: People doing bike advocacy aren’t doing it because they don’t have a convertible BMW.
? Martin
@Violet: I’m guessing she’s from my neighborhood, where holding your breath until a new beemer shows up has a decent chance of working. My neighbor’s reward for flunking out of one of our least selective colleges was a new Mini.
My son is likely to hold off on getting a car. I got my wife a new cellphone. He quickly staked a claim on her old one – until I mentioned he’d have to pay the bill. Hmm… not so sure about that now, dad. Then I mentioned what a car would cost him a year and a half from now when he turns 16. That looked like a hell no, but we’ll see.
There are a LOT of under-30s living with parents where we are. It’s something we parents of under-20s talk about a lot, and the broad view (clearly not shared by my neighbor) is to dial their expectations WAY back, including what financial commitments they make. We view the previous generation of parents as having largely screwed that up – buying into the GOPs permanent prosperity bullshit, and loading their kids up with things that mom and dad paid for and which the kids couldn’t possibly continue to afford with housing and college loans and everything else thrown in. So, a lot of us are teaching our kids that bus passes aren’t tickets to hell – instead they’re a possible liberation from the $300 a month financial commitment that will come with a car, so at least get comfortable with the idea.
And I thought we were pretty unique in believing that car loans are only one degree less stupid than payday loans, but that seems to be getting at least a little more common. I think the housing shitstorm might have done a little good somewhere.
Violet
@Redshift: He’s empathetic. He wants to make sure you know about the emergency room.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: That’s a good point. CA is responsible for 20% of the nations auto sales, and in the last few years they’ve made it significantly harder for under 18 drivers following a number of high profile accidents where only <18 year olds were involved.
dance around in your bones
I’d just like to add my voice to WHERE THE HELL DID THE SUB-HEADERS GO THAT WERE SO FUNNY????
Like: Enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus and Dinky Hocker shoots smack! and A dingo ate my baby! (I know, that last one is politically incorrect now).
But where did they go???
WereBear
@? Martin: I’m personally fine with a good public transportation system: in Florida, in the ’70’s, that’s how I got to my downtown job.
Where I live now, it’s Emergency Only: missing the 4:00 pm bus means the next one is 11:00 pm. That’s quite of bit of time to waste.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
And here I thought I was spoiled rotten because my dad offered to buy me a brand-new Toyota Celica if I agreed to go to community college for a year instead of going straight to USC. (I took the deal, and I loved that car until the day it was stolen and stripped for parts. I still miss it.)
ETA: The rationale for the offer being that the brand-new car cost about half as much as one year’s tuition at SC, so we would both end up ahead of the game.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
That whooshing sound you heard? That was my point, apparently flying over your head.
Patricia Kayden
I heard a couple of male callers from Massachussetts on Ed Schultz’ radio show this afternoon. They hate Ms. Warren and tried to justify Brown’s attacks on her, including denying that his staffers were racists. Not sure why she stirs such hostility, but really hope she wins. She would be a great asset in the Senate.
Matt McIrvin
@Joel: They usually don’t include the rest of Squanto’s life story, though, which is as amazing as it is tragic (kidnapped by Captain John Smith’s lieutenant, sold into slavery in Spain, bought and freed by monks, somehow worked his way to England and all the way back across the Atlantic to the Patuxet lands, only to find that everyone in his hometown had died of European-borne plagues… and still found it in himself to help out the Pilgrims when they showed up, only to die of smallpox himself a couple of years later).
TheMightyTrowel
@Matt McIrvin: Brought my english partner to the Cape a few years ago and we went to the local history museum. Totally blew his mind that the Pilgrims (to misquote Eddie Izzard) left plymouth, arrived in plymouth and were immediately greeted in English.
Matt McIrvin
Weeeell, it is apparently the fact that a lot of amateur genealogists explained any kind of non-white ancestry in the family as “Cherokee” because they had a good-Indian reputation (and it was plausible, after all, since they really did intermarry a lot). So a goodly fraction of part-Cherokees out there are probably actually part-black, or part-something-else.
Now, as it happens, I’ve got the same kind of lore (completely undocumented, unlike Warren’s) about Cherokees in my own family. But my grandpa was from Oklahoma, just like Elizabeth Warren, and the guy certainly looked part-Native American, so the story has more plausibility to it than many.
That said, I never tried to bank on imagined minority status in any way, since it’d be pretty ridiculous for me to do so; but especially as the business with Warren seems to have been not Warren banking on it but more Harvard University banking on it, I do feel as if there but for the random grace of the Racefail Fairy go I. I wasn’t terribly sensitive to the fact that Native Americans often found white people’s “one-32nd Cherokee” stories problematic until quite recently.
There’s probably some subtle and sensitive critique to be made in our national conversation of exploitative and exoticist elements in tales of Native American ancestry in white American families.
Is Scott Brown making that critique? Well, no, he’s just being an asshole race-baiter, as it turns out. It’s identical to the “Halfrican-American” cracks about Barack Obama: straight-up racism thinly disguised as a concern for authenticity, via paranoia about “race hustlers” and affirmative action.
opie jeanne
@Chris: @scav: There was one in the 1970s that used to infest the mall in Riverside, CA. Fascinating Womanhood. The little dears are not supposed to take away their husbands’ “jobs” by washing the car or mowing the lawn, and they’re certainly not supposed to argue with him using logic. No, they are told that the best way is to stamp their feet and shake their curls.
Oh, and to sometimes greet him at the door wearing nothing but Saran wrap.
kindness
@MikeJ: No, 4 speed automatic, electric windows that hardly worked, and when you put it in park you could slide the steering wheel over so it was over the console between the two front bucket seats. One winter a girl I was dating was having fun and hit the buttons to put the windows down. I drove around for about a week in 20 degree weather before I pulled the console apart and learned how to short over the window switch with a screwdriver to make the window go back up.
‘The Kids’ original car was a ’64 Ford Station Wagon. It was a hand me down from the folks when Mom got a new car. They did not want their children driving their cars (which is smart if you can afford it). My older brother promptly wrecked it the first year it was ours so my Dad went out and spent $150 on the T-Bird. We had to spend another $150 on parts to get it working. After that, it was the kids car. My brother drove it, I drove it and my sister drove it after that. I think they finally junked it when we all gone for college in 76.
opie jeanne
@Matt McIrvin: That’s what the hillbilly part of my family thinks, that they have Cherokee ancestry. One of them proudly told me his proof was that his great grandfather’s name appeared on the list of escorts on the Trail of Tears. I explained to him that that was probably proof that he was not Cherokee.
Matt McIrvin
@opie jeanne: The whole tendency really is kind of sketchy, and it’s why I don’t regard Warren as 100.0% blameless in this. I do regard it as a mistake I could easily have made myself.
But Brown’s position is just loathsome. He’s clearly not concerned about Warren disrespecting or co-opting minority status; it’s just the old line of Warren somehow injuring white people with some kind of affirmative-action hustle. The “Halfrican American” attack on Obama was similar.