Thursday, December 05, 2013

RACE TO THE BOTTOM.

Quin Hillyer, whose buffoonery at the American Spectator helps fill my Voice columns, declares himself a victim because Jonathan Chait almost sorta-kinda called him a racist. (Chait suggests Hillyer's weird obsession with Obama's alleged "haughtiness" comports with  classic "uppity" characterizations of blacks who are thought to get above themselves.)

Hillyer thinks Chait has provided him such a large opening that he can muscle his fellow conservatives through it into racial absolution. Here are his talking points, removed from the weak broth of his prose:

Hillyer is no racist
Hillyer resisted the campaigns of racist David Duke. (Chait acknowledged this; Hillyer pretends not to notice.) He also turned on Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond when everyone else did, and has said some nice things about black people.
Hillyer does not believe blacks are "inherently racist or ill-motivated," but merely "unprepared" for the advantages of white life "when race-based government edicts stack the deck in education or access to employment."
Hillyer's father applauded Brown v. Board of Education and loved Louis Armstrong.

Liberals are the real racists
"It is leftists, not conservatives, who are obsessed with race."
Liberals pick on definitely not-racist conservatives like Jeff Sessions just because some things he said and did may look racist to the untrained eye.
Liberals think it's racist when conservatives make "Obamaphones" their new T-bone/Cadillac/welfare queen shtick (notwithstanding that the program dates back to the Bush era*), so obviously they don't know what racism is.
Liberals are in fact racist against whites because they are racist for blacks and  "see and hear no evil from their favored groups or policies even when the evils are blindingly obvious." As to what those blindingly obvious evils are, see below:

Blacks are also the real racists
Blacks vote for black people. They are arrested for most of the "hate crimes" in the United States. "At least some polls" show blacks think they're racist too, so who's the racist now?

In other words, Hillyer advances ancient arguments that will be accepted by everyone who already believes such horseshit, like Matt K. Lewis at The Daily Caller. Lewis too has some killer talking points -- like, how can conservatives be racist when they also smear white people? ("Conservatives were happy to accuse Bill Clinton off all sorts of things — of dodging the draft and [for some, at least] of having Vince Foster murdered. Was race the cause of all of that?") Oh, and Lewis is also a victim of racist liberal smears -- a black guy accused him of "deploy[ing] the very principles of white privilege" once! Him, Matt K. Lewis, who has "spoken out" against racism! It's like when hyperleftist Dave Weigel suggested resistance to gay marriage had something to do with bigotry against gays. Where do these liberals get that stuff?

Bottom line, it's 2013 and white people are still the ones who suffer the most, or at least the most publicly, from racism.

*UPDATE. Some commenters remind me that these phones come out of the Lifeline program established in the Reagan era. I'd forgotten this point has frequently been brought up to counter the racist gibberings of Obamaphone obsessives -- and missed this awesome bad-faithfest in response by W.A. Beatty at American Thinker:
The only defense offered by Lifeline Program supporters is that it was begun during Ronald Reagan's term, and expanded to include cell phones during George W. Bush's term. But so what? Circumstances change -- even Democrats are not immune. The Jeffersonian Republicans-Democrats represented those who visualized an agrarian future. Then, as the 20th century began, progressives with socialist-Marxist doctrine began to infest the Democrat Party. The result is what we have today.
Which is an elevated way of saying that when a Democrat gives you a phone it's intrinsically bad because Democrat. The whole thing is so poorly reasoned, I feel a duty to preserve it so those who come after will understand why were so easier conquered and enslaved by sentient pigs.

120 comments:

  1. gocart mozart11:33 AM

    I can't use the N-Word but the Nabisco company can say cracker this and cracker that with no repercussions and don't get me started on the media referring to white gangsters as "Whitey" all the time!

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  2. Of course. Only the REAL RACISTS™ put together statistics like this.

    http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race

    http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/whusa12/pc/downloads/img/iwVres.gif
    ~

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  3. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume11:49 AM

    "Conservatives were happy to accuse Bill Clinton off all sorts of things..."


    See? We make shit up about everybody!

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  4. BigHank5312:03 PM

    "Conservatives were happy to accuse Bill Clinton off all sorts of things.... Was race the cause of all of that?"


    Trust a conservative to be so simple-minded they believe a man can only have a single reason for being an asshole.

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  5. twelve tweets a knave.

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  6. Gotta love the little "I'm not racist, but" two-step he pulls:

    The Left [The One Left, apparently - ed] is so eager to see racism in every conservative heart and utterance that it ignores overwhelming evidence that more blacks these days feel racial animus toward whites, and more act in race-antagonistic ways, than do whites toward blacks....[trim a bunch of stuff about how black people committing hate crimes]...The point is not that blacks are inherently racist or ill-motivated...

    I'm just asking questions, dammit!



    Oh, and about those stats he rattles off? The FBI page he links to reveals that black people comprise at least a third of all bias crime victims, and there are four times more black victims than white victims, so his implication that black people are bashing whiteys seems a little dubious. On the other hand, given his link to "anecdotal evidence" of a reporting bias (read: random "Why doesn't the media talk about violent blacks?" blog post), he seems to believe that the Feds get their stats by watching the evening news.

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  7. dstatton12:20 PM

    Resisting Klan guy Duke, and disapproving of Lott's comment that things would have been better if the segregationists of the 50s had prevailed. Bravo! "Not as racist as Duke or Thurmond" is a mighty low bar.

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  8. tigrismus12:31 PM

    Matt Lewis can make rules about referring to movies all he wants, but a rule that has always worked for me is anyone white talking non-jokingly about black people playing "the race card" is almost always playing the race card.

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  9. "Conservatives were happy to accuse Bill Clinton off all sorts of things.... Was race the cause of all of that?"



    I seem to recall people calling Clinton the "first black president."

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  10. Jay B.12:36 PM

    "It is leftists, not conservatives, who are obsessed with race."


    Absolutely. Which is why liberals have always just assumed that the President was born in Kenya, because where ELSE would a black person be from?

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  11. Liberals pick on definitely not-racist conservatives like Jeff Sessions


    That would be "Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III." Which, despite the fact that he didn't choose it, pretty well sums him up. (Though I suppose it would be a more complete summary with "Stupid asshole" in there somewhere. Ah, for the days of Roman cognomina.)

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  12. Liberals are in fact racist against whites because they are racist for blacks and "see and hear no evil from their favored groups or policies even when the evils are blindingly obvious."


    Yeah, remember when liberals gave Clarence Thomas a free pass on all that sexual harassment just because he's black?

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  13. zencomix12:50 PM

    The large photo of the fungus infected toenail was the best part of Hillyer's column.

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  14. Mark_Bzzzz1:25 PM

    But back in the 90s, we all referred to Bill Clinton as 'the first Black president', so we took for granted that a lot of the attacks that were pure nonsense had to be predicated on racism. There was simply no other rational explanation.

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  15. Mark_Bzzzz1:29 PM

    I mean, the racist hatred of Clinton was very understandable, to the white supremacists, the one thing worse than a N****r is a N****r lover, and they felt that Bill was one since he wasn't down with the racist white people agenda.

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  16. Code Name Cain1:30 PM

    Guys it's simple, you can't be racist unless you support slavery. That's why liberals are the real racists, they support taxation which is like slavery for rich people.

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  17. Mark_Bzzzz1:30 PM

    You're the REAL yellow menace!

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  18. Mark_Bzzzz1:34 PM

    I think the bar for 'not being a racist' among the right wing is never having participated in a lynching.

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  19. The bar pretty much dropped into the cellar after Rosa Parks ended racism.

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  20. scottclevenger1:51 PM

    It's a continually narrowing definition. Presently, a charge of racism requires that the subject personally tied all thirteen loops in the noose, which clears Hillyer and the rest of the Conservative Cognoscenti, since any rational division of labor would assign that chore to a working class type whose pre-calloused hands would not be irreparably harmed by wrangling tough Manilla cordage (typing requires a lot of dexterity, not to mention the delicate touch needed to hold a cocktail glass lightly by the stem, so as not to warm your perfectly chilled Appletini).

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  21. redoubt2:05 PM

    Yeah, just because Nathan Bedford Forrest Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and his fellow Alabama Republicans have essentially made voting a felony for certain people doesn't mean he's racist.

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  22. harumph2:10 PM

    That reminds me of Dave Chappelle's commentary on Michael Richards' onstage racist tirade. Everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Sean Hannity was scrambling to claim that Richards wasn't really a racist, to which Chappelle responded, "He screamed n***** at black people in a crowded theater! What, does somebody have to lynch Medgar Evars before we can call them a racist?"

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  23. Marcia Kazmierczak2:13 PM

    Yes, we certainly have given blacks plenty of reasons to hate us over the past 500 years. It's actually been very gracious of them not murder us in our beds more often.

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  24. mortimer20002:15 PM

    Louis Armstrong love? Reminds me of this from "Just How Do You Relax Colored People at Parties?":
    White: You know, that Joe Louis was a hell of a fighter.
    Negro: Yeah, you can say that again. Joe Louis was a hell of a fighter.
    White: What a man, boy.
    Negro: Yeah, got right in there, right out.
    White: He's a credit to your race. Don't you ever forget that, you sonofagun.
    Negro: Well, thank you very much.
    White: Thass awright, perfectly awright.
    ...

    White: Aaaah, I'm bad on names, what the hell is that, aaaaah ... You know Aunt Jemimah?
    Negro: No, I don't know Aunt Jemimah. I'm sorry, I don't know her.
    White: That guy on the - on the Cream of Wheat box?
    Negro: No, I don't know him either.

    And here we are, almost 50 fucking years later.

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  25. Marcia Kazmierczak2:30 PM

    That was actually kind of mean of me to say, but I can't figure out how to take it down. I'm cranky today, probably because I'm unemployed and broke and my seasonal affective disorder is kicking in,. I'm just damned sick of these people. Blacks are the real racists, the poor deserve their misery, women really want to be submissive and mindless, the solution to every international problem is bombs away, scientists just make things up to get that sweet, sweet grant money - the whole sick litany goes on year after year. And it's all in the service of funneling all the money upwards to the top. These people are greedy and immoral, and the sooner a few bankers and their lackeys go jail, the better.

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  26. BG, finally feck free2:33 PM

    Bottom line, it's 2013 and white people are still the ones who suffer the most, or at least the most publicly, from racism.



    Especially white men.

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  27. mortimer20002:44 PM

    And you gotta love this little bit:

    Hillyer: the phone-subsidy program now commonly (if somewhat inaccurately) called “Obamaphones.”

    So, the Lifeline program* begun by Ronald Reagan in 1984 (which has its genesis under the Communications Act of 1934, and the idea of universal service even goes back to the Postal Act of 1792) is only somewhat inaccurately called "Obamaphones". Wonder what it would take for Hillyer to think it was totally inaccurate.

    Of course, for the brethren the real problem is it's not called the Whiteline program.

    *Most people on the program make less than $15,000 per year, are over 55, or are disabled. Y'know. Moochers.

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  28. merl12:52 PM

    I'm pretty sure that Obamaphones legislation was the traitor Ronnie Reagan.

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  29. edroso2:55 PM

    "That guy on the - on the Cream of Wheat box" is one of my all-time favorite lines.

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  30. And here we are, almost 50 fucking years later.


    I went ahead and voted your comment up, even though this part made me start laughing and crying hysterically again.

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  31. This guy's basically making the same arguments those neo-Nazi guys on the Voice page did back Monday. They're jus living for the idea that all African-Americans - especially young, male ones - are seething with unexplainable hatred for the Honky, and it's just busting 'em up that that black people aren't constantly kissing their ass, telling them how cool they are, and quite possibly trembling in fear and awe at our whiteness. They don't seem to get it that most black folks could give two shits what white folks think of black folks and don't expect us to do them any good. I'm beginning to think these guys don't only have no black friends, but have never spent any appreciable time interacting with the African-American community a'tall.


    Also, Roy, thanks for that Voice piece. That was the most fun I've had in weeks. I do wish racists would get some new material, though; that's the same shit I've been hearing for almost three decades.

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  32. Gromet4:40 PM

    More blacks in jail than whites? That doesn't mean the deck is stacked -- that just means blacks are "unprepared" for white life!

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  33. Gromet4:42 PM

    I remember when all the liberals listened to Farrakhan's two-hour speech about numerology at the Million Man March and said "He just makes sense!"

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  34. Gromet4:46 PM

    Look, all you've got to do to vote, is do all the things that come easily to middle-class suburban white people!

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  35. smut clyde4:50 PM

    "Here are all these anecdotal reasons why I'm scared of black people, as proof that I am not a racist."

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  36. MikeJ5:02 PM

    You call Reagan a traitor but he never did anything as unAmerican as sending nuclear inspectors into Iran. He just sold them weapons.

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  37. agorabum5:13 PM

    I think Lewis is arguing that they aren't racist, just completely insane.
    Because look at all the crazy and insane things they said and did regarding Clinton. So, while not truly believing him, I'll take him at his word: Republicans are generally insane, especially regarding a Democratic president, and you shouldn't believe anything that comes out of there mouth.
    I'm not sure that's any more comforting, though. You know most insane people...they're racist.

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  38. JennOfArk5:23 PM

    Mr. Leonard Pierce penned the ultimate cross-racial dialogue way back in the mists of ancient history, at least history in regards to the bug some white people have had up their asses since they first noticed Barack Obama. Relive the classic here.

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  39. JennOfArk5:26 PM

    Also too why liberals are the ones who emailed around photoshops of a watermelon patch on the front lawn of the White House and of the president in witch doctor gear with a bone through his nose.

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  40. "Playing the race card" is one of those helpful phrases that let you know that whatever else the speaker says following really isn't worth listening to for any extended period of time. Sort of like "what'll save this country is a flat tax/Ron Paul" and pretty much anything concerning the Second Amendment.

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  41. Jay B.5:27 PM

    I know! We are so fucking racist! Obviously, Trayvon deserved it because, duh.

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  42. sharculese5:36 PM

    Just wanna say that while Chait can be a super cock at times, the piece on 12 Years a Slave that got Hillyer all het up is him at his absolute best, and if you haven't read it you really should.

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  43. TGuerrant5:45 PM

    I love chinks!

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  44. TGuerrant5:49 PM

    Another miracle worked by the movie that made Richard Cohen care!

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  45. Jay B.6:10 PM

    I think an interesting study will be to watch how they eulogize Mandela. I wonder if any of the brethren will take it on.

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  46. Jay B.6:11 PM

    And RIP Mandela. The most amazing human of my lifetime.

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  47. XeckyGilchrist6:15 PM

    Yes, and I count "Democrat Party" in there too.

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  48. Gromet6:17 PM

    Good list of infuriating things, but I don't think they're doing it to funnel money. I think their motives are more atavistic -- they genuinely need to believe that God loves them, and they've constructed this elaborate 77-tier hope cake to God that affirms nothing bad can happen to them and nothing good can happen to bad people. There's really no difference between Hillyer et al and a witch doctor throwing virgins into a volcano. They'll throw every virgin in sight to her death, because they respect the volcano. I mean Jesus. I mean America. But you see what I mean.

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  49. XeckyGilchrist6:21 PM

    I'm dreading it, personally. But I know Roy and the comment crowd here will be great to read once the brethren do say their odious piece.

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  50. glennisw6:35 PM

    Urgh. Actually there's already a sampling of some pretty vile stuff here: http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/
    (You can safely go there, it's not a RW site.)

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  51. "Conservatives were happy to accuse Bill Clinton off all sorts of things


    yeah, like when they called him the "first black president." that was one of the not-racists "insults" they hurled at him.

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  52. crap. at least 5 hours late with this one.

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  53. j_bird6:46 PM

    I looked up that bit and wow, it's still pretty relevant.

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  54. And in my mind, one of those almost always moments was when Clarence Thomas called it a, "high-tech lynching," during his appointment hearings.

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  55. smut clyde7:15 PM

    He was a conservative, wasn't he? I heard he voted Republican.

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  56. M. Krebs7:28 PM

    Jesus. And this whole "internet" thing once seemed like such a good idea.

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  57. Hey, there's still time to throw in a Molly Picon reference.

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  58. J Neo Marvin7:39 PM

    I look forward to Dick Cheney's column on Mandela.

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  59. montag27:45 PM

    Yup, and the Southern Strategy was just an urban myth spread by Stokely Carmichael.

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  60. IncongruousAmoeba8:05 PM

    Exactly, just as the fact that blacks are charged with hate crimes more than whites (assuming it's true) means that black people are racist, not that hate crime laws are used disproportionately against black defendents by a racist justice system.

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  61. philadelphialawyer8:13 PM

    Plus, the liberal Democrat party supported slavery. And the Klan, and Jim Crow. So, there you go, liberal=Democrat=racist. See also, Senator Byrd and Justice Black. Moreover, some of those Jim Crow Southern politicians, like Faubus, Wallace and Long, were in favor of graduated income taxes, welfare and the like. Which, once again, proves that racist = liberal.
    You can scoff if you want, but I have actually seen this argument presented, in all seriousness, and apparently even in good faith.

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  62. XeckyGilchrist8:17 PM

    Didn't you get the memo? That *was* done by liberals to make conservatives look bad. Just like all the shittily-spelled racist signs at Tea Party gatherings.

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  63. XeckyGilchrist8:25 PM

    I expect that'll be claimed in a Doughy Pantload column pretty soon now.

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  64. AGoodQuestion11:14 PM

    If you tout the (questionable) fact that blacks are charged with hate crimes more than whites, don't you also have to admit that hate crime laws have more of a purpose than just to annoy white males? I mean, if not being completely full of shit is one of your goals, anyway.

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  65. AGoodQuestion11:17 PM

    If Hillyer were a defense attorney 90% of his clients would end up on death row.

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  66. The internet is still a good idea, it's just the people that use it that are shits.

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  67. AGoodQuestion11:21 PM

    they support taxation which is like slavery for rich people.
    The crazy thing is that this sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but so many of them actually believe it.

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  68. AGoodQuestion11:32 PM

    Is Chait a cock? He writes for the same magazine that pays Frank Rich to fart into some poor intern's ear, so it's hard to tell.

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  69. Even when they're only charged with traffic violations.

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  70. calling all toasters1:26 AM

    Three simple rules, any one of which that will let people know you are a racist:
    1) You believe that black people have it easier than white people in this country.
    2) You use the term "special rights."
    3) YOU WRITE FOR A CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE.

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  71. Example: a middle-aged white woman once approached my black coworker and, apropos of nothing, said, "Go Obama!" with a big beaming smile.

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  72. guest4:41 AM

    wasn't down ENOUGH. But he certainly tried to be, what with that shitty welfare reform he stewarded

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  73. Marcia Kazmierczak5:50 AM

    Good point, but I think that applies more to the base than to people like Hillyer who are shills for the 1%. He and like pundits earn their wingnut welfare spouting this stuff that the working-class white male eats up with a spoon, as you say. Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Stir up race-based resentment, and the base blames the "undeserving" blacks, not plutocrats, for our economic problems.

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  74. Leeds man7:12 AM

    It is the poor, not the rich, who are obsessed with money.

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  75. Oh wow Jenn.... thanks for the memories,

    danke schön.

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  76. M. Krebs8:42 AM

    It is the sober, not the drunk, who are obsessed with liquor.

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  77. M. Krebs8:45 AM

    4) You go to great lengths explaining that you're not a racist -- or, for that matter, you have felt the need to say the words "I am not a racist."

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  78. Derelict9:19 AM

    It is especially telling that so many past Republican presidents such as Reagan and Nixon would now be considered ultra-extreme leftists by the current GOP.

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  79. Why, even the South Carolina State House is not immune from liberal false-Confederate flag operations!

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  80. Oh, sure the brethren will take it on... and they'll be sure to mention that Mandela could have accomplished nothing, I tells ya, without the good will and forebearance of F.W. De Klerk, whose generosity of spirit was what REALLY kept South Africa from exploding, dontcha know...

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  81. "The man has no shame, no
    self-doubt, not a shred of humility, no sense that anybody else has
    legitimate reason to question him or hold any other point of view."


    In other words, our man Quin can't wait till President Ted Cruz moves into the White House.

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  82. Earl of Trent10:25 AM

    Duke of Thurmond lives on C Street with Bill Frist and Denny Hastert.

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  83. Lynching has come a long way since 1930's Indiana. Why, I hear it hardly even hurts now.

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  84. brandonrg10:34 AM

    Was there also a terrorist fist-bump involved?

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  85. I feel a duty to preserve it so those who come after will understand why were so easier conquered and enslaved by sentient pigs.


    [LOOKS AT CURRENT HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES]


    Those who come after?


    [LOOKS AGAIN AT CURRENT HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES]


    Ohhhhh, sentient pigs. Gotcha.

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  86. Roy: I feel a duty to preserve it so those who come after will understand why were so easier conquered and enslaved by sentient pigs.

    I think I speak for many of us when I say that if it's a choice between the current wingnut regime and talking pigs, I, for one, welcome our pig overlords.

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  87. BigHank5311:30 AM

    I knew fixing the House of Representatives was going to be a mind-bogglingly huge job, but I didn't know we were going to have to invent new forms of life.

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  88. Maya Angelou was a racist? Because IIRC she was the one that said it first. Of course that doesn't preclude the troglodytes from making a racist insult out of it, but I don't think it started that way.

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  89. bulletsarepeopletoo12:14 PM

    These are usually the same people who feel the need to tell anybody and everybody, at every opportunity, "I am a Christian."

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  90. Toni Morrison said it in reaction to the way Clinton was treated. Basically she said that Clinton was being treated as if he were black.


    What she didn't expect was for Clinton to wear it as a badge of honor, or his enemies to take it to heart.

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  91. Gromet1:12 PM

    Oof, that W.A. Beatty thing. "The only defense offered by Lifeline Program supporters is that it was begun during Ronald Reagan's term," really? I'm pretty sure I've heard it defended on grounds that it decreases the isolation of the elderly, gives everyone an emergency line, and that cell phones make more sense than landlines for a population that often can't keep a fixed address. (I state this defense for the super-intelligent bees who liberate us from the pigs.) I guess Beatty didn't have time for research, as he describes being so busy enjoying James O'Keefe YouTubes of government employees getting hassled by bad actors.


    Oh, and Roy nails it: this Beatty's shameless moronocity NEEDS to be preserved. Here's his response to a critic who points out that none of O'Keefe's actors were actually approved for a phone: "That's a rather weak attempt to change the subject." Hahah IT IS???

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  92. DocAmazing1:13 PM

    It is the chaste, not the libertine, who are obsessed with sex.

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  93. Bethany Spencer1:22 PM

    Yup, and “I’m not politically correct."

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  94. Bethany Spencer1:24 PM

    That’s kind a weasel-word phrasing there. Let’s say for the sake of argument that we are “obsessed” with race. Well, that’s not--in and of itself--a bad thing.


    I absolutely do think most liberals are more attuned to racism and social injustice in general. This is a good thing. If someone wants to say I’m obsessed with race, that’s fine with me.

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  95. Gromet2:06 PM

    Ohhhhh shoot, I just went and read some Hilllyer -- something I've never done before. I take back my atavism/volcano remarks. Dude is a straight-up old-school lynch mob leader in 21st century clothes.

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  96. Roy, I just clicked over and read it and you're weren't kidding about the singular unselfawareness of this piece.

    It's nothing short of stunning the way in which Beatty stipulates the rebuttals of his critics all the way through his piece without ever managing to overcome, thereby completely eviscerating his own tepid claims. In sum, concedes that:

    Yes, it's true the program was started under the conservative Reagan,
    Yes, it expanded to cell phones under the even more conservative George Bush, so it's not an Obama give away too moochers.
    Yes, it's true that this program isn't actually paid for by taxpayers and therefore is not a government boondoggle.
    Yes, the liberal Media Matters is correct that the O'Keefe undercover video is deceptively edited.
    Yes, it's true that, in fact, O'Keefe's actors weren't able to actually game the system and purchase phones, thereby undermining their own sting operation and the case that the program is rife with fraud.

    So in sum we have a program that was started and continued by conservatives, doesn't cost taxpayers a dime, and isn't rife with fraud. What's the problem, then? Well, did you know that the CEO of TracFone, one of the Lifeline providers, is a "crony" of "Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama"? In case you blinked and missed it that's the meat of the piece, it's raison d'etre. Not even the crony allegation, the other part; an opportunity for a petulant, mocking raspberry at Obama by calling him names. This guy CLEARLY had no case whatsoever but wrote this entire goddam piece just he could stick out his tongue and pen "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" in lieu of a substantive argument. It's secondary purpose is apparently to insinuate that TracFone was awarded a contract for the Lifeline program in some seedy way because their CEO and Obama are pals...

    ...when, here on plant Earth, Tracfone, one of the late providers to a program already in progress, was actually awarded a contract by the Bush administration.

    My fucking god, what an epically failed attempt at trolling by a spectacularly limpdicked weasel. This really is one for the archives.

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  97. Edit button, she no work. Note to self: read over carefully before posting next time.

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  98. Well, it still pretty embarrassing.

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  99. As the Church Lady would often say - SAAATAN

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  100. They always had it both ways on the Trayvon murder. For purposes of "scary black teenager" Zimmerman was a brave defender of white people. For purposes of "holy shit that guy is fucked in the head" Zimmerman has been returned to a misnamed hispanic dude no one knows. Double points were given to people who argued that Zimmerman, although behaving naturally and doing what any good American should do, was already Hispanic and therefore supporting Zimmerman was ipso facto no givsies backsies a sign of the goodness and multiculturalism of the speaker. In other words: "I'm no racist! I supported the brown guy who shot the black guy! Try *that* black people!"

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  101. Well for the most part you only have zombies in there so anything will be an improvement so long as it is actually alive.

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  102. It is the stupid, not the smart, who are obsessed with the truthiness of their thoughts.

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  103. I was reading a very insteresting series of posts, probably linked through slactivist, about Dave Ramsey and his frequently cited christian anti debt campaign/wise finance business. I can't tell you how many red state women and how many churches support and promote Ramsey's program to get yourself out of debt and stay out of debt. This series of blog posts point out that Ramsey is very much in the American corporate finance tradition of encouraging debtors to hate themselves and consider themselves failures rather than to consider the systemic nature of debt in our society for certain clsases of people. One thing the author poitns out is that Ramsey and the Republicans have been appealing for scriptural authority on debt (and the Republicans on taxes) with the line "The debtor is the slave of the creditor" but they neglect the first part of the line which is "The poor are everywhere oppressed by the rich." In a biblical context debt is something people fall into and it does create a slave/owner relationship between the wealthy (who are the only people who can lend) and the borrower (who must sometimes sell family members to pay off the debt.) In other words: its literal slavery. But its tied to a biblical injunction to hate and fear the wealthy.


    The Republicans and Ramsey turn this on its head by leaving out the central role of the wealthy in creating and fostering debt peonage as a central part of becoming and staying wealthy. Instead they see debt as something the individual willingly assumes because they aspire to the unnecssary status trappings of the wealthy. And its something the worker/poor person must reject without rejecting the system itself.

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  104. Well, I have to say that I have an Obama "forward" lanyard on my keys and you have no idea how it affects people--white and black. Its like the reverse of the Eddie Murphy skit on SNL about what the world is really like for white people when they don't think black people are around. I had such interesting conversations with people the day after the first election--with white people looking sick and enraged and black people striking up conversations with me.

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  105. Nixon wouldn't. I read a long, long, attack on the current line of argument that because nixon did a few things that staved off a liberal threat inside the country that he could ever have been considered left or even centrist liberal, even by today's standards. If you read Nixonland you will see that Nixon was squarely in a far right tradition. And if we are playing with thought experiments and trying to blow shit up Zombie Nixon, were he alive today, would have moved so far to the fucking right he'd have left the building if thats what took him to power. Nixon, and Reagan, will always be among the worst human beings ever to have lived, let alone inhabited the Presidency.

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  106. Remember children: Every time a white man sees 12 years a slave, an angel gets his wings.

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  107. You consistently claim you have black friends

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  108. I remember it slightly differently. I thought she was referring as well to Clinton's southern, working class, comfort with the black experience in this country. He did seem to be the first president to identify, really identify, with people from a working class and impoverished background and to be unembarrassed to talk to black people or to interact with black people as equals.

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  109. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/6/bill-oreilly-reminds-nelson-mandela-was-communist/ need we say more ? It's because he tried to help the poor don't you know

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  110. MikeJ3:40 PM

    She said, "People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race."

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  111. MikeJ3:43 PM

    If you're talking about it, it's not really a failed attempt at trolling.

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  112. Derelict4:17 PM

    All very true. However, Nixon did establish the hated EPA--a posterchild of the ultra-extreme left according to present-day conservatives. Nixon also imposed wage and price controls, which is straight out of the communist playbook. And Nixon signed off on the creation of OSHA--another posterchild of ultra-extreme leftism according to modern conservatives.


    So, yeah: Nixon would have been to the right of Ted Cruze were he running for office today. But the actual Nixon enacted policies that would be considered to the left of Pol Pot, Stalin and Lenin combined if they were proposed today.

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  113. M. Krebs4:29 PM

    Arnold Ziffel for President!

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  114. MikeJ4:58 PM

    Arnold Zifflel sold us out. He's worse than Napoleon.

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  115. Derelict10:13 AM

    So, was Nixon playing 11-dimensional chess when he created the EPA by executive order? Was he preventing an incursion from the left when he fully staffed OSHA?


    I can't buy the analysis that Nixon was "saving" the GOP from a leftward lurch. If you look at Nixon's presidency as a whole, about the only thing you'd find today's conservatives backing is the '72 campaign on law-n-order. The rest of his agenda and legacy--everything from the previously discussed EPA and OSHA to ending the war to opening dialog with China, pursuing detente with Russia, working to beef-up the FDA--are all things today's conservatives would consider so far to the left as to demand impeachment.


    And, in the end, that's the crux of my argument. Nixon as he actually was as president would today be far to the left of his own party. The evidence does not support the argument that he only acted liberal to stave off liberal conservatives. And even if it did, that STILL means Nixon was far to liberal for his own party as it is presently constituted.

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  116. Famously Nixon's rapprochement with China came about because he pursued contacts with China, for his own purposes, while funding the slaughter of the Bangladeshis. This just came out. They turned a blind eye to mass murder in the streets of Bangladesh to keep a contact line open to the Chinese. This is not "to the left" this was the nature of real politik.

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  117. Derelict2:22 PM

    I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying--I'm just making the point that many of the things Nixon did while in office would, today, make him part of the extreme left.


    Believe me: I've followed your writing on many forums, and I have the utmost respect for you as a writer and a thinker. But I think we're talking past each other here.

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  118. Yeah, I'm not arguing with you personally over this. But I think its a misconception about what extreme left ever meant in this country or what it meant at the time. I know people say this about Nixon--that he was to the left of Obama because of OSHA or whatever. But I think thats a club that some Obama hating liberals like to beat Obama with, not a real statement. I also don't think its meaningful to argue that he was the kind of politician who would have been drummed out of the current Republican party. I mean, maybe its true since both Jesus and Reagan certainly would be. But Reagan wasn't "on the left" just because he raised taxes. Its truer to say that the modern right wing because its out of power can afford to be more intolerant and ideological than a party which was used to holding power needed to be. Nixon's impulses and his goals were far, far, to the right of any left that has ever existed: he was more racist, more sexist, more intolerant, more bigoted religiously, more bloodthirsty and more traitorous than anyone to the direct right of Stalin could ever have been at the time. I just don't think these kinds of comparisons accurately reflect the array of choices that were faced by hard right politicians in the US at the time Nixon was in power. Whatever he did he did with the cause of advancing a conservative, reactionary, agenda and if that included a little trimming in one area he more than took it back in another area.

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  119. JoyfulA10:05 PM

    Did this Ramsey mention Jubilee?

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  120. I haven't read Ramsey's books and I'm sure he must mention it somewhere because he markets himself to Christians and gives seminars and trainings within the context of Christian churches. But no one ever went broke underestimating the ignorance and credulity of these bible thumpers. If he does mention Jubilee I'm pretty sure he doesn't think it is a sign god wants ATT or the Banks to forgive your debts.

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