“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.
“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
How the right will respond:
"This has never been about Cliven Bundy" – People who spent weeks turning Cliven Bundy into a folk hero
— Jeremy Holden (@JerAHolden) April 24, 2014
Cliven Bundy Is Actually A Liberal #upcomingbreitbartheadlines
— Elias Isquith (@eliasisquith) April 24, 2014
Cliven Bundy has successfully stolen a million dollars from the federal government. How much have you stolen, smart guy?
Update. The Freepers are outdoing themselves (via The Red Pen):
To: GIdget2004
I dunno’ they sound pretty honest and on target to me.
A lot better than anything that Royal Meeker guy said about the breed.
4 posted on April 24, 2014 10:07:58 AM EDT by EBH (And the head wound was healed, and Gog became man.)
*****************************************
To: GIdget2004
Not the most delicate way of putting it but I do understand what he’s saying and its not so much that he’s beating up on blacks as expressing pity for them.
5 posted on April 24, 2014 10:08:22 AM EDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
*******************************************
To: GIdget2004
He’s 100% correct.
More people need to say it!!
32 posted on April 24, 2014 10:21:27 AM EDT by dalereed
The Red Pen
Comedy gold.
Villago Delenda Est
Nailed it in one, Doug.
My hatred of these vile people knows no bounds. We are surrounded by Leninist shit who should be placed in boxcars and “resettled” to Cape Canaveral, where they will be shot into the Sun.
Belafon
You need to credit different-church-lady
though I’m pretty sure she was also referring to some other person in the news.
Edited for clarity.
Anoniminous
Say, what?!?
Did he get that %^!@#$%! ignorant by natural ability or did he work at it?
Villago Delenda Est
@The Red Pen: Shit. Just one comment:
Shoot these vile people into the Sun. YESTERDAY.
Thunderbird
@The Red Pen: *hovers over link* Oh no…not doing it. I’m already *this* close to a nervous breakdown, don’t need that last little push.
Mike in NC
And all of this PR will make him a very rich man, if he isn’t one already. Expect a book deal to be announced within a couple of weeks.
different-church-lady
@Belafon:
I do my best to keep the knife sharp on both edges.
Davis X. Machina
But all came from the “Only going to get pissed away on n*gg*rs and shit” line item, though, so that’s ok.
If it came from the ‘Blowing up brown people who pray to the wrong God’ kitty, it’d be very, very different.
gratuitous
Now, wait a second, all you libruls! Just because Mr. Bundy is saying vile, racist things it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’s a vile racist. I don’t quite understand the locutional alchemy involved, but Jonathan Chait has assured me that just because someone says and does racist things, it’s totes unfair to jump to the conclusion that they’re racist, based on such flimsy evidence as their own words and actions.
Tommy
I like to note I have a penis and not a uterus. I don’t often tell a women what to do with her body. But if I got a women pregnant I can’t tell you how much I’d argue against an abortion. Not a fan of the idea. See this is why I like being a liberal, I don’t have to like an idea to let others entertain it. Something I’d never suggest myself, well I don’t mind if others do. Not my business.
C.V. Danes
Well, at least he said “negro” instead of “nigra”, so he’s not a racist. Or something like that.
And:
Apparently his understanding of slavery is somewhat divergent from the chattel slavery that was actually practiced on those cotton plantations back in the day…
kc
Yeah, but some black guy bought crab legs with his food stamps!
Samuel Knight
This story is actually pretty tightly connected to Justice Sotomayor’s calling out of Justice Robert’s racism. For hundreds of years the Southern elite has used racism to maintain control by giving them someone to blame and distract their own poor people. And that tactic migrated over to the GOP as they absorbed Sourthern conservatives.
Conservatives hate to get called on it for the simple reason that it is true. They have blatantly played the race card for years in ways that have horribly damaged this country.
The mask of politeness hasn’t helped anyone.
Was it good that Democrats were polite when…
– the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election?
– impeached Clinton?
– Administration lied about Iraq?
– Tea Party railed against Obama in 2010?
– etc.
Money is corrupting and racism is bad are points that most people agree about. Their good values that parties can use.
Was it goo
SatanicPanic
@Anoniminous: This kind of thing drives me nuts and I know what they say about arguing with idiots but I can’t help it. People who don’t know basic facts should shut their word holes.
chopper
they what now? i didn’t know abortions have been expanded from fetuses to kindergarteners.
Mandalay
Somewhat OT, but it’s not just the Right who are squirming under the pressure. Salon reveals its jackboot colors:
The police are completely free to use tasers as long as Salon doesn’t agree with the person getting tasered.
schrodinger's cat
Meanwhile Roberts Court says that racism does not exist.
C.V. Danes
@Mike in NC:
Or a cameo on Duck Dynasty.
dmsilev
NRO writer weighs in:
Keep on fucking that chicken boys.
Belafon
@gratuitous: Chait also said that modern conservatism is “rooted in white supremacy” as Bundy proves.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC:
Followed in 2.1 weeks by BLM getting a court order garnishing any income derived by such a deal.
Villago Delenda Est
@C.V. Danes:
Everything he knows about slavery in the South he learned from Gone With The Wind.
He probably should watch Mandingo to get a sensationalized, yet more accurate view.
He’ll reject 12 Years a Slave and Django Unchained out of hand as “negro lies”, of course.
Like all too many white Americans.
GregB
Cliven needs to get on top of this story by getting in touch with Donald Trump. Trump has good relations with The Blacks.
schrodinger's cat
Why is he not being arrested? Why not put a stop to this freak show right now?
Belafon
@Mandalay: Have they argued before that kicking a dog and resisting arrest doesn’t warrant using a taser?
Anton Sirius
For those who didn’t get the title, it’s from Randy Newman’s most savagely brilliant song ever.
chopper
@dmsilev:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then then you say stupid shit about black people, then you lose.”
aimai
@dmsilev: Ah, a thing of beauty. Its the right wing equivalent of what they used to say about Lieberman “He’s with us on everything except the war.”
The Other Bob
So federally funded housing and feed (land) for livestock = good.
Federally susidized housing for humans = bad.
The guy respects cows more than people. Hope the whole thing goes Ruby Ridge.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There’s video, if your stomach is strong.
different-church-lady
@The Other Bob:
Keep in mind the guy owns cows.
Clearly he’d own people too if he still could.
Hunter Gathers
Seems that the White Tribe has found it’s new leader. Bundy is the perfect statesman for it. He embodies it in a way that no other can possibly match – He’s a tax cheating, subsidy receiving bigot. There’s nothing Whiter than that.
Poopyman
@Mike in NC:
Yeah, a coloring book, where all the pictures are white.
SatanicPanic
@Belafon: Taser are hand-held drones
schrodinger's cat
@Samuel Knight: Is John Roberts the worst Supreme Court Chief justice since Roger Taney?
Tommy
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes stop it. I pay my taxes. I wonder if I didn’t pay $1M how that would work out. If I lost court case after court case. They might not arrest me, but pretty sure they’d put a lean on everything I own. My issue with the dude is guns. If the IRS came to my house and I met them with guns ….
Iowa Old Lady
The headline I predict is “Bundy False Flag Obummer Operation.”
Then FOX shows Bundy with a D after his name.
LAC
@Mandalay: oh shut up
Mandalay
@Belafon:
FFS, are you arguing that it does? Jesus Christ.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus Fucking Christ. Let’s pretend Bundy marched with Martin Luther King and a truckload of fresh produce to a Las Vegas food bank. How willfully fucking ignorant of history do you have to be to compare (ludicrously low) federal grazing fees to the British Empire?
Rob in CT
@Mandalay:
I’m certainly against gratuitous overuse of tasers. That said, violently resisting arrest (if that’s what Bundy’s son did) isn’t just “contempt of cop.”
Roxy
So says a so called patriot with 14 children who has lived off the government for free. Waiting for the rethugs or press to call him out for that. Anytime now 4,3,2,1….
Poopyman
Ya know, Andy Kaufman would be in his mid-60’s now.
Just sayin’.
the Conster
So, I’m going out on a limb here and guess that the tea party movement wasn’t about the deficit?
Rob in CT
@Mandalay:
What does it warrant?
Gene108
What’s worse than saying blacks had it good as slaves (the thought has been around, since 1865 and largely discredited as seen by the reaction to Bundy’s comments) is the conventional wisdom on the Right, that has been espoused as long as I can remember (39 soon to be 40) is that LBJ’s Great Society programs, ie “welfare” for short, has done more to destroy the black family than any other set of laws in U.S. history.
If George Will, David Brooks, et al said “the incidence of a nuclear family – mother and father married, with kids – in the black community has been reduced since LBJ, we cannot discount the impact liberal attempts at social engineering and wealth redistribution has had on this trend,” no one would bat an eye.
Underlying the above comment is the same mindset that Bundy blurted out about how blacks are always happier the more socially disadvantaged they are and attempts to end poverty, which disproportionately helps blacks as they have higher rates of poverty, really just makes things worse in the end.
The unfortunate problem with the Great Society programs is they were launched at the same time crime spiked and the economy stagnated, so they could be blamed for things beyond their control.
Yet underlying a lot of that blame is the same racism Bundy displayed.
SatanicPanic
@Iowa Old Lady: You know what gets me? I applied for that false-flag job and Obama Department of False Flag Initiatives said I wasn’t white enough and not old enough. THANKS OBAMA
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: Of course not. It was about taxes.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Nah. They should be resettled to that libertarian paradise of Somalia. They won’t be oppressed by jackbooted government thugs and will have plenty of opportunity to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. They’ll even have their wish of having plenty of dark skinned targets to shoot at.
JustRuss
I must say that’s some grade A hypocrisy. Bitching about blah people getting subsidies after 20 years grazing your cattle for free on land you don’t own while racking up a bill for a million bucks. Bravo.
Betty Cracker
@SatanicPanic: Tee hee.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: I thought it would be difficult to out-bottom William Rehnquist as Chief Justice, just as it would be tough to be worse than Ronald Reagan as President, but John Roberts and the deserting coward proved me wrong for the respective positions.
srv
Why can’t you liberals look beyond the person and see the greater truthism? Because you people just don’t believe in revealed truth.
If Jesus were around today, you’d be nitpicking him on his period clothing.
mai naem
Who would have thunk an old fart mormon with 14 kids would say racist stuff? I almost want to say Harry Reid knew this was going to happen at some point.
BTW, this A-hole is bitching about paying $1.67/mo per head of cattle. I don’t know crap about cattle ranching but,seriously, we only charge these people $20 a year to feed each of their cows? We should be charging them $100. My dog’s non-premium dog food costs $50/bag and it doesn’t last a month.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: The problem they’d have in Somalia is that the targets would shoot back.
Ruh-roh!
azlib
Keep in mind Bundy is clearly an extremist. The remarkable thing about this story is how the conservative intelligensia (perhaps an oxymoron) jumped on the bandwagon before understanding who Bundy really is.
different-church-lady
@azlib:
But that’s what they do every time.
schrodinger's cat
Has any Republican Congress Critter or Punditubbie come out against Bundy before this incident?
Villago Delenda Est
@the Conster: Well, given that it wasn’t formed until November 2008 (exact time: 8PM PST on 4 November), well after the deficit had exploded like Little Boy over Hiroshima due to tax cuts for the parasite overclass and not one but two glorious military adventures in Asia charged to our great-grandchildren’s VISA cards, yeah, you might be on to something there.
Omnes Omnibus
@azlib:
Perhaps?!
WereBear
The remarkable thing is that they seemingly don’t understand they are all like that.
Paula Deen, Duck Dynasty, and now this clown. ALL of them have entire bodies made of clay. ALL of them are ranting raving racists with Jurassic social views and closets full of skeletons.
That is what they ALL are. Don’t they get it? They have no heroes.
Roger Moore
@C.V. Danes:
Exactly. They think of slavery as having involved paternalistic planters looking after childlike slaves who couldn’t take care of themselves. Maybe a few of those slave owners went too far with the rape and torture, but it was basically a benevolent institution that introduced incompetent savages to civilization. If you understand that completely twisted view of history, a lot of what they say both about slavery and about minorities’ attachment to Democratic “plantation politics” makes a lot more sense.
ranchandsyrup
Context matters, if it helps someone that I agree with.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Get half a bottle of merlot in them and half the Establishment Conservatives of the Sunday Green Rooms would say Bundy is unsophisticated in his expression but essentially correct. George Will would say it after sniffing his first sherry.
What gets me is the militia-types being treated as “protestors”. Let’s all put our noggins together and see if we can think of the most famous product of the American “militia” movement. But calling them domestic terrorists is so shrill!
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, being that willfully fucking ignorant of history is a job requirement for a writing position at the National Socialist Review.
Marc
@azlib: They understand exactly who he is. They just didn’t know he would be so honest about it, and so quickly.
But by all means, Cliven, share more of your extensive insights into the Negro gleaned from that one time you drove by a housing project.
Please proceed, asshole.
The Red Pen
@Mandalay:
Anyone kicks a dog in my presence they’ll wish I had a taser.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Glenn Beck, of all people, did try to warn his fellow wingnuts about jumping on the Bundy bandwagon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Poopyman: Andy has been pulling a fast one on us for some time now.
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
What the hell. Expressing pity? Is that the rightwing version of this hurts me more than it hurts you?
Origuy
@Villago Delenda Est: I wish people would stop referring to Somalia as a libertarian paradise. They’ve got a government that controls most of the country and had elections in 2012. The northern part is the breakaway Somaliland, which is trying to establish a separate state. Neither of them need our wingnuts.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodinger’s cat:
At least Taney got a ship named after him…
Villago Delenda Est
The situation with Cliven Bundy does not call for the use of tasers.
It calls for the use of howitzers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Origuy: True. They have plenty of wingnuts of their own.
Roger Moore
@azlib:
FTFY. The conservative “intelligentsia” is incapable of ignoring shiny objects.
The Red Pen
Yeah, Glenn Beck.
BGinCHI
Bundy thinks Blazing Saddles was a documentary.
Frankensteinbeck
@bemused:
Yes. That is exactly what it is . Domestic abusers, alcoholics, racists, and conservatives all think about the same way.
Villago Delenda Est
@C.V. Danes:
He’s media-saavy enough not to use ni*CLANG*. So we have to give him credit for that, I suppose.
Textbook damning with faint praise on my part….
bemused
@The Red Pen:
Glenn Beck really said that then. Something’s off. Since when has he ever gotten faint hearted about stuff like this. It would be hilarious if his faithful listeners turned on him now.
bemused
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, I didn’t make that connection, but that’s it exactly.
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est: Drones would be better. Black ones, by preference.
Petorado
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The militia movement is nothing more than mentally ill people who are just aching for the opportunity to put a bullet in their fellow Americans and get away with it. The fact that they refer to themselves as patriots because of this just shows how perverse their thinking is.
JWR
I don’t believe the conservative “intelligentsia” has ever once, (certainly never, in Bundy’s case), thought much at all about the sheer enormity of the horror that went by the name “slavery.” Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good run down for beginners. [Warning: Graphic descriptions of everyday “negro” life:]
Mandalay
@bemused:
Beck owns land and charges others to use his land for cattle grazing. He’s not going to shit on his own doorstep.
Elizabelle
@mai naem:
Yeah, I will LOVE the irony if this standoff reminds the feds what a sweet deal the Nevada ranchers are getting, and they decide to up the grazing fees.
Makes me wonder what the market will bear, and whether there is enough water to support the livestock that are grazing now.
As someone said in the NYTimes reader comments, he can’t feed his beagle for $1.67/month.
SatanicPanic
@The Red Pen: The pot calling the kettle black or the D student looking down on the dropout?
Hunter Gathers
And now, it gets even better
Ksmiami
Ps I think bundy is actually a terrorist as currently defined
danimal
@azlib: I’m not sure Bundy IS an extremist, at least in today’s environment. I think there are a million Bundys and most of us have one or two in the family. See the Fox Effect series in TPM for details.
The problem with Bundy isn’t that he’s extreme, the problem is he’s very typical and not media-savvy enough to shut up when the cameras are on. My gf’s father lives in the area, and I guarantee you Bundy is not alone in his views.
bemused
@Mandalay:
Ah, that explains why he made a u-turn.
Another Holocene Human
Justice won’t be done when the goobermint bankrupts him getting our money back. Justice will be done when he’s clamped in irons and shipped to Angola state penitentiary. Which is impossible, but exactly where I want to see him right now WITH HIS COTTON-PICKIN’ COMMENTS.
Do you know among my Kansan farmer forebears (the descendents of serfs and itinerant farmhands) that “cotton-pickin'” was the foulest, angriest invective in their vocabulary?
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
Actually I think NRO is right. All you need to know is WHY those assholes were fighting at the Alamo. This is an important bit of American history whitewashed out of existence.
Mexico had made slavery illegal. Those fine southern gentlemen were about to lose their human chattel and have to make a living by their own efforts instead of that of their slaves. That was simply not tolerable and so, with substantial support from slave owners in the US who desperately wanted new slave states to maintain their strangle hold on democracy, they revolted. That those guys are allowed to be held up as example of freedom loving Americans is sickening.
RareSanity
I know that everyone is having a little fun, laughing and pointing at what we already know about this particular faction of people…and I don’t want to interrupt that, everyone can use a laugh in these times.
However…for anyone that may read this blog and have the slightest thought that racism doesn’t have a profound effect on African-Americans in this country, ponder this…
As an African American, especially a male (which I am), can you imagine how much more stressful your life is, when from the moment you leave your home in the morning, until the moment you return that evening…you never really know who, out of the scores of non-African American people you interact with, think this type of shit about you…just because of the color of your skin?
It permeates your every thought, action, and word that comes out of your mouth…constantly, for the entire day. You are on constant alert as to whom is around you, how people are interacting, or reacting, to you…it’s fucking exhausting.
It’s no wonder our community is at so much a higher risk for heart disease, and hypertension than other races in this country. Sure, some of it may be related to diet, but when you live just about every waking moment of your life at a heightened level of awareness, and just a slightly higher level of stress than your white counterparts, it’s bound to take a physical toll on your body.
Anyway, I don’t want to be a party pooper, and I don’t want to make anyone fell guilty for having a laugh…it’s okay, this guy deserves to be laughed at.
This was just something that was on my heart to share with you guys, and a perspective I don’t think gets shared enough around the friendly confines of Balloon Juice.
Punchy
Doing things like DisneyWorld and Chuck E. Cheese? Isn’t that what real slaves back then did? Where do I sign up?
raven
@RareSanity: It’s not possible to say more than thanks for the reminder.
C.V. Danes
@Roger Moore: Word.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: You know, Tommy, and maybe you misspoke, the decent thing to do with another human being is have that conversation about reproduction with your partner before you engage in heterosexual intercourse so there isn’t some big shocking reveal several months later and you’re having arguments that stress you out and make you look like a hypocrite.
Because you don’t have the right to use someone else’s body as a baby incubator. We queer people get over this issue early in life; you can too. If you rilly rilly want to sprog there are alternatives out there that don’t involve getting into a hastily considered LTR or attempting to guilt-trip/bully some poor soul into something they’re not financially or emotionally ready for. Besides, what do you think THAT would do to your potential kid? C’mon, if you’re going to breed, do it right. JM2C.
RareSanity
@raven:
It’s a bit of catharsis for me to be able to actually “say” it.
It’s something you generally learn to live with, but that doesn’t make it suck much less.
scav
We’re getting a pretty clear idea of their ‘Mercan Promised Land! Corporations as unfettered Moral People and certain people as chattel Property. “Don’t fence Me in but shove probes up her private parts and git out there to the cotton and grin boys! Yeee-HAW! Small guvmint y’all!”
Another Holocene Human
If my gay uncle was able to have the babby conversation back in the 1950s, then so can Tommy.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev:
Now there’s a happy thought!
A bit of silver lining to help with the rage I feel when I read those comments from Bundy. The best thing is that he will be oh so surprised when it happens.
Schlemizel
@Gene108:
Exactly! Dana Parino (whatever her name, Boy Blunders press sec) made that exact point yesterday in defending this goodball. Her argument was this poor guy was not used to public attention therefore he had not learned the right way to say things. I am sure all the sheep baaaa’ed knowingly without understanding that she was exposing the whole con. You know you are in the catbird seat as a conman when you can tell the mark exactly what the con is and they still give you money.
El Caganer
@RareSanity: I don’t think you’re being a party pooper at all. Just because this guy is a clown doesn’t mean that what he represents is funny.
XeckyGilchrist
@RareSanity: Thank you for this. Not having to live with this stress myself, I always welcome the reminder.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:
Would you be putting yourself at risk during the pregnancy? Would you be lugging around 10-20 pounds of extra weight – having pressing on your bladder, making standing up and sitting down awkward, etc? No. Neither would I. I don’t get a vote. If I was asked my opinion, I could say that I would really like to have the kid (if I felt that way), but that’s about as far as it goes.
JWR
@RareSanity: Say it! Out loud! Some of us “white” people have actually thought of, and been horrified by, the treatment of African Americans in this country. So yes. Say it! Again!
[Edit to add that it’s been a lingering problem in this country for far, far too long. And creeps like Bundy and his ilk have had a nice ride for way too long, too.]
Another Holocene Human
@kc:
Two things I don’t understand (and maybe it’s because I grew up in a place where people eat RAW CLAMS or as they pronounce it RAWR CLAMS):
The incredible allure of crab legs in garlic oil. I mean, yes, they are tasty. But I’m talking the thinking about it all week, it’s payday, I’m buying crabs. And spending 2 hours eating them and about 4 hours washing that crap out of my clothes and smelling like crab funk.
ETA: now that I think about it, I do have this thing about clam bellies but I haven’t been able to get them in the longest… pungent might be one way to describe it
The incredible derangement syndrome by the status obsessed towards people in blue collars or their broke-ass relations eating crab legs on payday. Are they terribly expensive? No, no they are not expensive, especially not if they are a once-every-other-week payday treat. I mean, the joint fucking gets them in on Thursday and sells out by Saturday night, wtf, everybody is eating at church on Sunday (this is why everyone goes to church) and at home on Monday-Weds. So why does everyone have some stupid boiled crabs associated with dining at the Ritz or some shit like that? Jesus christ, they’re just crabs, not filet mignon or something. They’re boiled in motherfucking vegetable oil for fuck’s sake. A couple of plates will feed 4-5 or more people even if they are piggy eaters. And there probably are some places that take EBT that will sell you a couple of frozen crab legs to prepare yourself (horrors) because the way SNAP works depends on your state and it’s not super restrictive because SNAP recipients have all kinds of different situations, like some have a house with a kitchen and some live in their car. And some are elderly and some have jobs. And sometimes horror of horrors frozen crab legs are on sale.
I do not get this crab thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@JWR: And we can do with a reminder every so often. If you don’t live it, it is too easy for it to become academic .
ranchandsyrup
The difference between being a slave and living in subsidized housing is that no one owns you. It’s not that tough of a concept.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Because the taser is intended to be used as non-lethal force? They could have clubbed him, I guess–would that meet your approval? Maybe a Vulcan neck pinch?
WaterGirl
@Schlemizel:
Until this moment, I had no idea that there was a right way to say that black people are less than human, no good, lazy, criminal and deserve to be slaves, where they would surely be happier than living the no-good, worthless lives they currently live.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Bubblegum Tate
@Gene108:
Co-motherfucking-sign. Well said.
Schlemizel
@RareSanity:
Rare, No most of us don’t. Despite being raise to be tolerant and open minded it has really only been in the lat 20years that I have really grasped the extent of white privilege. For a blogger today to try to write about it brings out the really ugly from the mouth-breathing morans and nasty unpleasantness for people I would otherwise think of as reasonable fair minded people. I doubt a fish thinks much about the water it lives in and white people do not have to think about the society we live in. Reminding us sets off a lot of unhappy emotions that usually lead immediately to defensiveness.
My sense is that the groundwork has been laid that will eventually fracture this white dynamic in a generation or two (sorry we can’t make it faster as far as I can tell) but the death rattle is very unpleasant.
PaulW
Exactly right. This is exactly it. Want to know what group of anti-government types have been out there since Day One? Crooks. The people who can’t abide government because government enforces the law and protects everyone else from those who would do crooked things.
Whenever I see or hear someone railing about making government “smaller” or deregulating something, I immediately think what kind of ripoff scam they’re trying to pull off.
SiubhanDuinne
@RareSanity:
Thank you. It was important that you wrote that, and important that we — especially those of us who are not black — are reminded regularly of that sad truth.
Another Holocene Human
@dmsilev:
The federal government doesn’t look to be very absentee these days, now does it?
Half my family are absentee landlords anyway, so go fuck yourself Williamson. (For an absentee, my elderly grandfather is on that farm mighty often, though. But for some reason he hired his neighbor to actually till his fields. The horror. The horror.)
Big R
@Villago Delenda Est: Googling Mandingo gave me a set of results I don’t think you intended.
My fault. Luckily, my office is laid out in such a way that people can’t look over my shoulder.
dmsilev
@Hunter Gathers:
Because, of course, the Southern slavery system was famous for its respect for family structure.
JWR
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly.
Another Holocene Human
@The Other Bob: He doesn’t respect his cows. Remember that dangerous bull he had roaming around that the feds had to put down? The cattle are just money to him. Chink-a-chink-chink-chink. That beautiful, beautiful sound.
Hawes
Do NOT go into the Yahoo comments on this story. That’s all I can say about that.
Schlemizel
@Another Holocene Human:
damn you for replying! I had missed that comment when I first read the thread and I hate having seen it because I wondered what your response was to. Your reply was nicer than mine which would have been FOADIAF!
The only thing I can think Tommy’s comment would be good for would be to encase in plastic and keep for future generations when they ask for an example of male privilege.
Another Holocene Human
@Hunter Gathers:
Oh, FSM, you are telling no lie with that tax cheating comment.
The shit picket-fences white people BRAG about–!
Belafon
@Schlemizel: But it would be real easy to see it revert back to late 1800-early 1900 America, where blacks suddenly lost all of the rights they had gained since the end of slavery. I’m a major optimist, but that is my one fear.
gvg
If he thinks slavery is so great for family life etc, why doesn’t he volunteer to BE a slave and his family too? If he actually tried to imagine it, well he’d learn to shut up about stupid idea’s like that. I’d like to publically ask him about it because these stupid evil racists with the same color of skin as me never NEVER think of THEM being the slave. What would they think of a law that made WHITEs the slaves?
Actually I know these silly nonthinkers have somehow managed to convince themselves that treating blacks as equals somehow equals them becoming like slaves, but I just can’t even fit my head into that idea. Calling people morons doesn’t make them listen to you etc…..but really, that’s what they are.
This particular ……..idea…….just blows my fuse.
Owning people corrupts the owner. I’ve rarely heard it explicitly mentioned because I guess that does make light of the awful plight of the enslaved, but the institution ends up ruining the character of the slave owners too. If I believed in Hell, every one of them would have gone there. All serious power imbalances cause character problems in the unchecked power holder. Monopolies, kings, and men over women in historical society etc. Slavery is so evil. This guy is willing to be an owner which says he is a bad man.
Which is why I point out he isn’t planning on being the owned but it’s rather what he deserves. Also as bad a manager as he is….I can argue it would be in his best interests. See how that works jerk?
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: No worries, the IRS would ask the US Marshals to assist them. No tax-collectors would be in danger of harm.
boatboy_srq
@Another Holocene Human: Crab legs are the forbidden delicacy for those who think caviar, foie gras, rack of lamb, pheasant and other (usually older) delicacies are either too Yurpean™ or too exotic even for them. They’re the poor man’s rich food: just accessible ENOUGH, so almost everyone has some idea what they’re like, but just EXOTIC enough that they’re not consumed everyday.
WaterGirl
@RareSanity:
I have been trying to figure out what to say in response. SiubhanDuinne expressed perfectly what I was feeling, except that I would have added the word sobering in there somewhere.
Jewish Steel
Things like wondering whatever became of your family.
Schlemizel
@WaterGirl: Of course there is a right way! See the examples I was replying to. The FAUX news crowd do it every day.
My one regret from losing my religion is that I know there is no hell waiting for these clowns who so richly deserve it.
Another Holocene Human
@Gene108: You’re thinking of the Moynihan Report. The science behind that, if you can call it that, has been mostly overturned. They know now that economic circumstances dictate whether working class couples will marry, and not the other way around. The conservative elites’ response to that was a collective “meh”. They’re too busy pushing the lie that incomes will go up if the minimum wage goes down to come up with some sort of credible crapola in defense of mawwiage that avoids the income elephant.
SatanicPanic
@RareSanity: I don’t want to pry, but how do you handle that? I’d be hanging around white people and they’d start talking about Mexicans and I’m clenching my fists thinking- my MOM is Mexican, I’m going to kill you! (I don’t know why I didn’t get angry on my own behalf in those situations… I’ll have to think about why that is). I guess it became part of the background after a while and it was a small town so I’d know who to avoid. Country life!
Another Holocene Human
@srv: Shouldn’t we? Is there something special about Jesus? Is he immune to criticism? This is democracy, Stan.
Hawes
@Schlemizel: Well said Schlemizel. Ten points for Gryffindor.
Sad_Dem
Is Cliven Bundy a Democrat (the real racists), or is he an American? Let’s keep asking that question.
JWR
@WaterGirl: Yeah. There have been times when I’ve had to go out at night and passed a cop and realized just how good us white people have it. Even twenty five, thirty years ago, long, hippie hair flowing, I knew this to be true. And to hear Bundy’s response today, it just makes me weep.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
Firstly, Salon Magazine stated that “Bundy’s teenage son attempted to assault officers and kicked a police dog and resisted arrest” as though it were established fact. Well Bundy’s son is obviously a man in his thirties or forties, not a teenager, so the author clearly did not use any video or photographic evidence to make that assertion. Secondly, Ammon Bundy stated “I never once, never once did anything to threaten them. I didn’t close my fist. I didn’t do anything to threaten…” so there are clearly two sides to the story. And if (repeat if) someone set a dog on you, is it not possible that you would kick that dog?
And finally, why was it even necessary to taser Bundy four times when he was surrounded by cops and police dogs? He was tasered on his neck, arm, and twice just above the heart. For those insisting that “they should have” used this force, which Salon did explicitly, what if he had died? Would it still have been an acceptable use of the taser?
It’s interesting how tasering magically becomes acceptable to Salon and some BJ readers, when the person receiving the taser doesn’t meet their standards.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
They believe that the packaging is everything and the content of the message has no impact on how it is received. This is the same fundamental reason their response to losing elections is to focus on messaging and branding rather than policy. It’s not what you’re saying, it’s how you say it.
drkrick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Robert E. Lee?
Ksmiami
@RareSanity: understood. I know horror stories from the lapd circa 1980-1990s. I can’t imagine the day to day struggle, or emotion, but I can do what I can to listen and elect representatives that can make things just a bit better
dmsilev
@Jewish Steel: They’re on an all-expenses-paid cruise down the river.
BAtFFP
@RareSanity:
I like to think that I understand this in an intellectual, “yes, I am aware of the phenomenon” sense, but as a white woman I also know that in large part I will never actually get it.
So thank you for saying this and please — keep saying it! I have learned so much about privilege in the past few years (thanks, Internet!) but I will always have some pretty impressive blinders.
Roger Moore
@gvg:
He doesn’t believe his family life leaves anything to be desired, so he doesn’t need to. Those People, OTOH, need some help to deal with the illegitimacy and the absent fathers and so forth. There’s no way that there could possibly be a reason for black family problems other than social pathology. The huge number of African American men in prison for petty drug crime that whites would get probation for couldn’t have anything to do with it, for instance.
raven
Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess
So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched ’em throwin’ rocks and stuff
And chokin’ in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin’ ’round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin’ down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn
And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
‘N all that phony stuff on sports
‘N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin’ out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so
And further they assert
That any show they’ll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin’ hard and doin’ swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can’t be beat
And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They’ll send some joker with a brownie
And you’ll see it all complete
So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
Hey, you know something people?
I’m not black
But there’s a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I’m not white
Well, I seen the fires burnin’
And the local people turnin’
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite ’em
And they say it served ’em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it’s the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin’ “You can’t understand me!”
‘N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don’t appeal to him
(No matter if it’s black or white)
Because he’s out for blood tonight
You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won’t be many live
To see it really end
‘Cause the fire in the street
Ain’t like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don’t you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now’s the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain’t no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn’t free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won’t amount to nothin’ more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor
Blow your harmonica, son!
ranchandsyrup
Governor Sandoval cares about his political future. He called the statement “beyond the boundaries of decency, and is disgusting and offensive..in no way does it reflect the values of Nevadans”.
Nevada came into existence during the Civil War (“Battle Born”) and debated during the drafting of the state constitution whether to abolish slavery (13th was pending at the time). They voted to abolish, unanimously. h/t Matt Ford
WaterGirl
@JWR:
When I read what Bundy said, my eyes got big (liiterally) and I experienced a moment of disbelief, which quickly turned into anger.
It was what RareSanity wrote that made me weep.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Because the way they were talking about it made it obvious that you were One Of Us, not One Of Those People. Your mom, not being there, didn’t get included in that exception.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
The word “sobering” is a fine addition. Thanks for that (and for your kind comment).
Another Holocene Human
@RareSanity: I just want to know how you stay so calm and reasonable and don’t get paranoid and deranged. Cause we white folk seem to flip our shit at the smallest stuff.
And you’re absolutely right, it is totally nauseating and what is even worse are the white people in positions of power who think they aren’t racist but who have subconscious bias and refuse to see this or check themselves and then actually get self-righteous over their over-reaction … well, let me stop here before I call out any names. But dude is still pissed about the time I called him out for being WAY ANGRY over some little thing and asked if we couldn’t discuss the issue calmly like reasonable people. Over a Black coworker who had a complaint against him. Like way more upset/angry/out there than the situation warranted.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Seems like the dog whistles have gotten stronger and stronger to the point where some of the stupid racists don’t even realize there is a line to cross – and they come out and say it in plain english.
rea
@Mandalay: It doesn’t bother me that they use tasers to take down someone when the alternative is shooting him. They use them way too much, and in situations where they are trying to enforce compliance or adminster field punishment, but there is a core of instances in which they are appropriate.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: Yeah, that’s probably it. But I never wanted to join their stupid club. Shit, now I am angry. Glad I got out of that place.
Roger Moore
@JWR:
Every time there’s a discussion of this, I am reminded of an incident that happened to me when I was in college. A friend and I had just finished finals and went out for our customary 2AM trip to an all-night diner to celebrate. As we were walking back, a cop pulled up and started questioning us because a couple of white guys had been seen breaking into cars in the neighborhood and we were close enough to the description to count as suspicious. We explained ourselves, another cop who was listening on the scanner was able to vouch for us, having seen us leave the diner where we said we had been eating, and we were sent on our way. There’s no way we would have gotten the same benefit of the doubt had we and the suspects been black; the cops would have decided to arrest first and ask questions down at the station. That’s white privilege in action.
Another Holocene Human
@WaterGirl:
But Rand Paul and Paul Ryan are here to give it the old college try.
I, Floridian
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s a meme that can’t get out there too fast.
The Thin Black Duke
Does anybody else think it’s a coincidence that Bundy is doing this bullshit when there just happens to be a black man in the White House?
different-church-lady
@Big R:
Yah, turn safe search on before trying that at work.
JWR
@WaterGirl: You just said it way better than I ever could. And yes, RareSanity deserves a round of applause.
g
Bless their hearts.
Mandalay
Kevin Williamson has just tripled down on his defense of Bundy but he’s now moved onto really thin ice…
So now the defense of Bundy is that he is not as bad as the Obama Administration or the IRS? How underwhelming.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: Considering how all this is going, what are the odds Junior Bundy is telling the truth about how all that went down?
Trollhattan
Probably bears repeating that this crap has been simmering on the back burner since the Reagan-approved “Sagebrush Rebellion” during which these asshats came out of the woodwork to take “their land” back from the federal gummint. Didn’t last but never went away, either. There were some stirrings during the C-Plus Augustus era but the Dem congressional successes of ’06 helped quash them.
In light of these new fresh Bundy quotes (he’s trying to become better known than cousin Ted, I guess) the Gray Lady’s article today seems ill-timed and poorly framed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0
Also, too, appreciate the Randy Newman ref. Hard to believe today that it was popular on the radio.
Mandalay
@rea:
Sure. But how often is it the case that those really are the only two options when a taser is used?
different-church-lady
@rea: The tazer ought to be viewed as an alternative to deadly force, and only used in instances where deadly force would be the only other option.
Instead too many LEO’s are viewing it as just another toy in the chest.
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemizel:
I think that in the last few years and perhaps thanks to the internet these issues are getting talked about in a different way that really changed my perspective. I grew up being exposed to that kind of 60s-80s radical urban politics, the kind of ‘negotiation is over, fuck reasoning with y’all, we’re loud and proud’ separatist rhetoric which while intellectually very appealing never really hit on these kinds of emotional and psychological issues–perhaps because they were too painful and the conversation seemed impossible. I think some writers were talking about these things but I totally did not appreciate fiction back then and pretty much only touched the bare minimum required for school and while a lot of my peers did get African American writers assigned the way the cookie crumbled was that I spent 3 months on Invisible Man senior year (and of course there was To Kill A Mockingbird in 9th grade in Massachusetts which only confirmed our tribalistic white Eastern Mass conviction of our own superiority vis-a-vis Southern, dumbass, country-music-listening redneck white trash racist scum). Invisible Man was good once I got over my disappointment that we weren’t reading The Invisible Man, dammit. :)
Bubblegum Tate
PS: MSN headline for this is “Rancher’s slave talk shocks GOP”. Yeah, I don’t think “shocks” is the word you’re looking for there.
Belafon
@Mandalay: But we’re not talking about every situation. We’re talking about this one.
JWR
@Roger Moore: Yeah, well, you know… “they” all look the same. But yes, even when we’re right there, as possible suspects even!, white privilege wins the day. (Not always, of course, but usually.)
scav
Oh shit, he’s now praising “The Spanish People”
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
What do you think?…my post was about the shitty quality of Salon’s journalism.
Bobby Thomson
@Mandalay:
And it’s clear which one you’ve swallowed whole. Quelle surprise.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: A ha, so you’re just trolling now. Got it.
Gotta wonder at your gullibility/need to believe because this statement (“I never once, never once did anything to threaten them. I didn’t close my fist. I didn’t do anything to threaten”) sounds so ex-culpatory. Just like the paranoid woman who told me that putting her hands on both chair arms and looming into a client’s face was being “nice” and “discreet” and not aggressive at all. Uh huh.
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: The did a secret camera thing with some young white guy in skater clothes trying to steal bicycles on a busy street and passersby actually came up and helped him do it.
Unconscious bias is more powerful than any drug.
Citizen_X
@scav: Not finding anything in the Constitution about Messkin border crossers. But hey, “they’re people.” Unlike The Blacks, I suppose.
Mandalay
@Bobby Thomson:
Yet you believe the story that Bundy’s teenage son was tasered? That is cognitive dissonance in action: when presented with a fact that doesn’t fit you just ignore it.
I’m not defending Ammon Bundy. I’m attacking the shitty level of Salon’s writing. If you care to defend Salon then let’s hear it.
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human: Racist fuckers.
I do not wish for anything bad to happen to them, but if they could be taken away by aliens for an adventure on another planet, nothing would make me happier.
Scott S.
@Mandalay: Clearly, it woulda been better if they’d shot him or clubbed him to death. Anything but the taser!
Also, never believe anything a teabagger tells you. They all lie.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@RareSanity:
It’s all worth mockery, but I’m not laughing. Not just because of the problems you’ve already explain (and thank you for sharing it as profoundly as you did). It’s the fact that it’s not even uncommon anymore. It’s the fact that this shit is getting flat out re-mainstreamed again. It’s the fact that this shit is having tangible direct effects on our law, our governance, our peace of mind.
It’s the fact that these assholes can wave the racist flag all they want with only the minimal amount of obfuscation now, and not only not get shit on for it, but actually claim legal victory after legal victory over and over again. IT’s the fact that we’re backsliding precipitously as a country now and I don’t know how to fucking stop it, because these assholes keep winning despite themselves, because somehow, this shit has only gotten MORE seductive to the American Public.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: hahahahaha
There can be no respect for the office when there is a black man in it.
Another Holocene Human
@scav: So… he’s making his pickers pay the employer half? He 1099’s them at the end of season?
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Trollin’, trollin’, got to keep on trollin’
Rawhide! *snap*
g
@Punchy: So weird, what is his problem with old people – i.e., retired persons – and children – i.e., too young for employment – sitting around on the porch enjoying one another’s company? What a truly weird, weird notion.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: No you’re not
you’re talking about the use of tasters and making a whole lot of silly and self-righteous assumptions, and now you’re trying to change the subject.
LAC
@RareSanity: don’t feel guilty about it I work my fucking ass off at a job, pay my taxes, raise my kids( in a nuclear family, mind you)and do right by folks and I got this racist shithead in my radar along with the assortment of assholes who in their own special way have to remind me that I, #blackwomantakesourstuff, is really the problem. As Marvin Gaye sings sometimes it makes you wanna holla ,throw up your hands.
Trollhattan
@Bobby Thomson:
Suspect the actual “other side” is that he’s worse than being portrayed. The Fox handlers are grooming him as fast as they can and this is the best they can do.
A piece of trivia that nevertheless blows my mind: he and Hillary are basically the same age.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
I don’t necessarily believe that statement, any more than I believe statements from the police or Salon.
But you are proving my point….for some here, and also for Salon, if the victim of the taser does not meet your approval then the tasering must be deserved , and the victim must be lying.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: I agree that tasers are overused. I’m just kinda head-scratchy as to why you’ve chosen this moment to focus on this one detail.
WaterGirl
@Bubblegum Tate: In all fairness, it may have been shocking to them that he said it so clearly in a public forum.
Women are sluts and must be forced to have babies. Babies from rape are a blessing. Black people were better off as slaves than they are now as lazy good for nothings. Don’t these people know you can’t say that out loud just anywhere? They don’t even know anymore that you have to make sure you’re in the right crowd when you say it, at least?
More and more, I think the GOP is the party of stupid.
Another Holocene Human
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
It is profoundly horrifying but science tells us this is very, very tightly correlated with inequality. Income/wealth/security, etc. The low taxes, ramp up the inequality mantra CREATES the xenophobic hate squad that keeps the plutocrats’ tools in office. Probably because the insecurity of income inequality causes fear and fear enlarges the xenophobia.
We CAN stop the hate. With progressive taxation and estate taxes. And social security, universal healthcare, higher minimum wage, union organizing reform, labor law reforms, and other correctives, equalizers, and redistribution.
Make the hate slink away back into its quiet rooms and picket fence fastnesses where it fears to come into the light.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Don’t run up on a cop and his K9, don’t get tased. Sounds legit to me. And congrats for throwing up more goal posts than Calvinball.
g
@Another Holocene Human: I do not get this crab thing.
It’s like the cell-phone thing. It’s become a symbol for luxury, whether it truly is or not.
I once had a conversation with a “small government” young woman who maintained that people shouldn’t be allowed to buy cake or soft drinks with their EBT cards. I asked her how she thought the government and retailers should implement that, determining what the exact definition of “cake” or “soft drink” was. And what she thought our corporate industrial food complex would think about that, the fact that Triscuits would be OK for poor people, but, say, Oreos would not be. Or whether she thought Coca-Cola, Inc. would be behind such a notion.
These freedom lovers who decry the Nanny State sure do believe that that poor people on assistance are too infantile to make their own menu choices.
JWR
@Another Holocene Human: Hear, Hear! (And very well said, if I say so myslef!)
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
They may not, especially if they never leave the nice protective bubble of people who feel the same way. Or they may simply not be able to help themselves, especially when they’re on camera. Being the focus of attention has a profound effect on some people.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Another Holocene Human:
This would be perfect…if it were ever possible. But the more I watch things, the more it feels like the racists, the crazies, and the cynical conservative exploiters outright own this fucking country top to bottom at this rate and are working express to drag the pendulum as far back to the right as it’s ever been after maybe a modicum of letting it swing vaguely left of center. We’ve seen how they’ve managed to stonewall nigh fucking everything along the lines you’ve laid out on the federal level and actively raze most of them instead on the state level. They’re actively fucking winning and they’re winning in a fucking landslide. And I don’t know how we stop it before it’s fucking too late and it’s all scorched earth.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human:
No, that doesn’t stop hate. Hate it irrational, and does whatever it’s going to do.
What those things do is start to repair the damage of systemic racism. It begins to clean up the polluted waters we all have to swim in, whether we want to or not.
Do all those things and haters will have even more hatred, but it will be easier to force that hated to the margins where it can’t do systemic damage.
LAC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“you’re talking about the use of tasters and making a whole lot of silly and self-righteous assumptions, and now you’re trying to change the subject.”
so, I see you have already met Mandalay. Can I get you something to drink? :-)
SatanicPanic
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: “They’re actively fucking winning and they’re winning in a fucking landslide”
Let’s not give in to despair- there have been a lot of improvements in the last few years.
nancydarling
@WaterGirl: My evil twin wishes the feds would drop some serious ordnance on their sorry asses.
My rational self wishes no such thing.
It is amusing to watch city dudes in the media discuss this. Some guy on Morning Schmo called Bundy a “farmer”. Someone else talked about the massive amount of “square footage” the government controlled in the west.
different-church-lady
@SatanicPanic: Indeed — let’s not forget the tide of marriage equity started to turn with a single state.
Fred
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No doubt the comparison has to do with Gandhi claiming the right of people to extract salt from the sea. But then those people didn’t live in a democracy and they were not rich land owners. They weren’t brandishing guns either, even though they had a lot more justification to do so than Bundy and his cohorts.
So Bundy claims he “improved the land”. Exactly how did he do that? Maybe fertilized with cow manure?
different-church-lady
@Fred:
Dude could fertilize every inch of Nevada with what comes out of his mouth alone.
Another Holocene Human
@g: Clearly those little babies should be in the kitchen grinding flour so their older sisters can make bread by hand, to prepare for their “spirit marriage” to an old creep like Cliven Bundy.
Seriously, you don’t want to know about the bread thing.
Another Holocene Human
@nancydarling: actually farmer is a fair cop–he has a melon farm
moar subsidiezez!!!
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady: Do all those things and haters will have even more hatred, but it will be easier to force that hated to the margins where it can’t do systemic damage.
That’s, like, what I said in, like, the second paragraph? I don’t think we, like, disagree on this point, ma’am.
nancydarling
@Fred: No way running cattle on that desert landscape improves it. And pictures of the Virgin River that runs through his grazing allotment show it to be about two inches deep. The riparian ecology of such a river is an extremely fragile thing. Cattle are really bad for it.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Because the supposedly progressive Salon magazine stated:
Salon had such a command of the facts that they determined the police action was entirely appropriate, yet they also claimed that victim, who is obviously a man in his thirties of forties, was a “teenager”. How much faith can you have in the Salon article?
Here’s the video of the incident. The police dog went for Bundy (around 1:11) and he was defending himself, and I didn’t see where Bundy “attempted to assault officers”.
Again, I am not defending Ammon Bundy, but fuck Salon for dressing up their agenda with made up facts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fred: So Bundy claims he “improved the land”. Exactly how did he do that? Maybe fertilized with cow manure?
There was a clip of Hannity on TDS last night saying something along the lines of “You’re sort of cutting the government’s grass for them, aren’t’ you?”
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: “he has a melon farm”
He’s just telling the government “leave me ‘lon!”
Another Holocene Human
@g: I’m still trying to figure out why rich people are concern trolling poor peoples’ eating habits while THEY get the government to PAY FOR their frigging “speshul, gluten free meals” when you can go down to the bodega and buy GEN-YOU-WHINE gluten free sweet potatoes, rice, and tomatoes and have all the gluten free you want for less than your old gluten diet cost you, but oh noes, you need those Certified Gluten Free cookies and bread mix and breading and frozen meals because MEDICAL REASONS so even though the IRS won’t pay for meals anywhere else in the tax code, if you’re a rich Caucasian with the right doctor you can get special princess-and-the-pea prepared meals and WRITE IT ALL OFF.
Fucking slays me.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human: Yes, you did, and I apologize if I’m being didactic, but I’m trying to put a finer point on what you’re saying.
We can fix the effects of the hatred, but we can’t make the hatred actually go away. Specifically the policies you’re taking about would start to repair the damage of hundreds of years systemic racism, but it won’t make the Cliven Bundys of the world any less racist.
We can’t stop hate, but we can stop many of the effects of hate. It might seem like a minor semantic distinction at first, but I think it’s actually quite fundamental to understanding how to pick this particular lock.
Roger Moore
@Fred:
He probably means it in the homesteading sense of having built improvements on it. My understanding is that one of the things BLM did while they were rounding up the cattle was to tear out some of the pipes he had put in to provide water for his cattle where there aren’t any natural springs. That’s the kind of improvement he’s probably talking about.
Hungry Joe
I’ve tried imagining what it’s like just to go through one ordinary day as an African-American, and it weirds me out every time because I know I’m not even coming close. RareSanity’s comment will stay with me a long time … but probably not long enough. Hey, RareSanity — re-post your ice-water-in-the-face splash of capital-r Reality every now and then. Like, once a month.
JWR
Though I read here every day, I don’t often add anything, but I just wanted to say that this has been a very interesting, enjoyable, even entertaining thread, in spite of Cliven Bundy, even. ;-)
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
Of course it all sounds legit to you. No surprises there at all.
Fred
I’ve often wondered if peoples’ personality isn’t greatly influenced by their name. Imagine what it must be like to go through life with a name like “Cliven Bundy”. So many of the most inane wingnuts have those kinds of inprobable names. Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Reince Priebus, …and I could go on.
An’ if I have a son I think I’ll name him….Bill or George, anything but Newt!
Paul in KY
@Poopyman: Wnder how old Sam Kinison would be? Miss both of them, and Freddy Prinze also.
Mandalay
@Fred:
You may have a point. Gingrich’s middle name is Leroy. Leroy Gingrich might have grown up to become a completely different person to Newt Gingrich.
Paul in KY
@RareSanity: Anyone who thinks Blacks have it easier in this nation are completely nuts.
I’m sorry you are forced to interact with POSes like Bundy (many of whom hide behind fake smiles).
Paul in KY
@Mandalay: I wish they’d tased him again.
boatboy_srq
@Another Holocene Human: I think you’ve actually hit on one of the driving forces opposing the ACA. Teh Browns/Poors are suddenly able to [gasp] afford routine physician visits and can start screaming MEDICAL REASONS just like they do – and suddenly all that special that comes from gluten-free everything won’t be so special anymore. There are times I think that junk food exists not as a profitable market segment but as a means of keeping those Poors/Browns from actually being healthy and, y’know, successful or something.
different-church-lady
It really is amazing how a thread can start off being a very clear and unanimous condemnation of a racist saying racist stuff and then somehow someone can make that into “BJ’ers support police brutality”
Paul in KY
@g: She thinks they should have gruel & maybe soylent green only to eat.
Paul in KY
@Fred: I’ve sometimes wondered if Michael Jordan would have had the same level of celebrity, etc. if his name had been Chauncey Dingleberry.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Heh. What part of “I wish they’d tased him again” don’t you understand?
Paul in KY
@Mandalay: I am assuming he probably deserved another round. Being that he was whitey-white & alot of the officers probably sympathise with these clowns, I would assume they took it easy on him.
glory b
@Schlemizel: Yeah, so what was HER excuse?
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
Probably. Athletes are frequently known by nicknames, especially when their given names are boring. If Jordan’s name had been Chauncey Dingleberry, we just would have called him “Air” or “His Airness” or any one of 15 other nicknames sportswriters would have come up with to avoid needing to put “Dingleberry” in their headlines.
Mandalay
@Paul in KY:
Well that’s good enough for me, and fuck evidence to the contrary!
Let’s just hang hang him from a tree and let the vultures pluck his eyes out. I am assuming he probably deserves it.
WaterGirl
@nancydarling: Yeah, these guys obviously weren’t raised with “do unto others” …
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: Man, you sure do let yourself get trolled easily.
WaterGirl
@Hungry Joe: Agree on all points!
I had a college roommate who was a hot blond babe – seriously, males were drawn to her like a moth to a flame. We ran errands together one afternoon. Holy shit, running errands as a hot blond babe is a completely different experience compared to running them as a normal person. It was shocking. A real eye-opener.
I suspect it would be more shocking to reproduce that experience as a black man or woman, by a whole lot.
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY:
Yeah, my head almost exploded when Geraldine Ferraro (was it 2008?) said that it was an advantage for Barack Obama to be black when he was running for president. I’m white, but I wondered what world she could possibly be living in where that would be an advantage.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: You should hang from the same gallows as Bundy.
Fuck you.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Roger Moore:
It’s my understanding that the BLM had that land rated to support 150 head of cattle, and Bundy was at times grazing anywhere from 500-900 head.
I’ll take this opportunity to point out that southeastern Nevada is well outside the range of the old bison herds. The land is far too sparse to have supported them. It’s too sparse, without proactive human intervention, to support a large herd of cattle.
SatanicPanic
@WaterGirl: White people can get a taste of this by visiting parts of East Asia. Japan was a mix of being treated extra special and/or like a total dumbass and/or like a villainous invader. But it’s relative- only once or twice did I feel in danger of getting beat up, and police go out of their way to be nice. I got spat on once though.
Ksmiami
@Schlemizel: but as an atheist you can believe in karma
WaterGirl
@SatanicPanic: Perspective is highly underrated.
James Parente
@Anoniminous: I have traveled extensively in that part of the country and yes, he and his religous ilk are that hateful and bigoted.
Big R
@nancydarling: Measured in square feet, I agree: the amount of federal land is truly stupendous.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
You can even get a tiny taste of it by going into a minority neighborhood here in the USA. Life feels different when you’re the only white in a neighborhood full of blacks.
Patricia Kayden
@Schlemizel: thanks for that. The true story behind The Alamo isn’t pretty. More people need to know this.
Andrey
@Mandalay: I watched the video. He’s not defending himself. The dog is not attacking him when he kicks it.
Tasers are an alternative to one of four things:
1) Doing nothing.
2) Other “less lethal” suppression methods like pepper spray, beanbag rounds, etc.
3) Physical grappling or bludgeoning.
4) Gunfire.
Tasers are, in my opinion, preferable to any of options 2, 3, or 4. Gunfire should obviously be a last resort. Physical grappling and bludgeoning is almost guaranteed to result in injuries ranging from bruises to broken bones and the possibility of death. Pepper spray is more cruel than a taser, because the pain lasts for up to an hour, and may include nasty side-effects like blindness. The possibility of allergic reactions, asthmatic reactions, etc. makes the lethality level comparable. All other widely used “less lethal” methods involve similar or worse pain and lethality.
The other alternative is “doing nothing”. I present to you this circumstance: you are a police officer in a tense standoff with very hostile individuals who are known to not recognize your authority and to have an affinity for firearms. You are outnumbered. One of the primary antagonists has just kicked your canine companion. Is “do nothing” the obviously best response? I don’t think it is.
Police brutality is a horrible problem. This particular incident, however, is not particularly good evidence of that.
columbusqueen
@RareSanity: I wish there was something comforting to say, but I know there isn’t. Just glad you could vent for once–people need to hear this.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: I think Ms. Ferraro might have been having mental problems by then. Think she died not too long after that.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: Now, VDE, I’m not ready to hang mandalay, as irritating as he/she can be.
Bundy, maybe. But not mandalay.