Jurassic Farce
What Reuters called a “division and tension between black and white Americans” is shown by Steve Sailer’s analysis of the President’s approval ratings to primarily be a falling away of white and hispanic support. Sailer notes:
Black support for the black President remains almost rock solid, standing at 89 percent through the week ending July 11, 2010—slightly higher than in his first week in office.
But Obama’s approval rating among whites is now only 38 percent—51 points below the black level. The white approval rating has fallen 25 points since January 2009.
The three-pole coalition is collapsing on two sides. While black support remains steady the other ethnic components of his base are falling away. What is astounding is the rate at which it has collapsed. White support was “as high as 60 percent as late as the week of May 10, 2009″. Two months later it it was below 40% and still falling. More interesting still are hispanic opinion trends which have followed the same downward trend as whites, albeit from a higher base. Interestingly, neither the President’s appointment of the “wise Latina” nor his war with Arizona helped him on a sustained basis.
For example, Hispanic warmth toward Obama hit its peak (85 percent) a few weeks before he nominated Sonia Sotomayor on May 26, 2009. By August, he was down in the 60s with Hispanics.
Similarly, in the weeks before Obama went to war against the citizens of Arizona in late April 2010 over SB1070, his Hispanic approval rating had been in the 60s. Now, it’s at 55.
Although incidents like the NAACP vs Tea Party dust up and the “Beer Summit” have been cited for the racialization of politics the economy may be as much to blame as anything else. People turned to Obama on the strength of his promise to fix the economy. His inability to do that could not be compensated for by symbolism or the promise of government entitlements. People are hurting and are expecting to hurt some more. In a telling story, Max Klein found Americans are posing as Filipinos on Rent-A-Coder to find jobs from his own experience. After posting a bid for a two week job for a total of $200 he “selected my programmer, a guy from the phillipines, and we started working …” only to find his “Filipino” really wan’t.
So it struck me as very odd that my freelancer was working by 4am in the morning his time. After a while, I asked him about it. He told me that he was actually based in London.
Over the next couple of days, I put up two or three other projects. On my next project, I picked another worker, this time from India, and we started work. After a while, he remarked that he was based in Oregon.
When Klein pressed them for an explanation, they replied that no one would hire them if they told the truth. While Klein’s story may only refer to a phenomenon at the edges, the idea that illegal immigrants are just people doing “work Americans won’t do” is being replaced by the reality of Americans doing any job they can get. One of Max Klein’s commenters noted you could have predicted this. “What is often forgotten is that it is the market and competition within the market that sets the price”.
The market forgotten? But forgotten by whom? It is probably least remembered by those in Washington, a boom city in what is turning out to be a depression. And it may be only dimly recollected by the culture of progressivism and redistribution which brought the administration to power. Walter Russel Mead, writing in Foreign Affairs argues that the President’s formula for ending racial divisions in America was essentially forged in Honolulu, Harvard and Hyde Park. The world view he acquired stressed redistribution as the key to healing wounds. The market, if was remembered at all, was the sure source of peas. All a clever politician had to do was keep the pea moving around. What happens in a world running out of peas is that there’s nothing under the shell.
As a New England reformer building a larger, more intrusive state, and as the most prominent beneficiary of New England’s determination to broaden access to its most elite institutions, Obama represents forces that many populists instinctively oppose. At the same time, nothing in Honolulu or Cambridge or Chicago taught Obama what Clinton learned in Arkansas: how to reach out to these people and to know what, and what not, to say to them. The economic crisis of 2008 and the country’s unhappiness with the Bush administration gave Obama an opportunity to be heard by populist voters; since his inauguration, they have shown signs of retreating to their former loyalties and ideas. … Learning to integrate his New England value system into a public persona that could reach Chicago’s black voters gave Obama a potent and even mythic political appeal, but it also left him with a weak suit: the folks out in the hills clinging to their God and their guns.
And he might have added, clinging to their jobs. The fundamental weakness with President Obama’s theory of racial healing and social progress is that has assumed that America would always have the means to pay for its grand ambitions. With the arrow of redistribution flowing along racial lines from the relatively well-off whites to the latinos and blacks, ‘progressive politics’ in a depression may just be another word for “division and tension between black and white Americans”. When it became clear that Obama would not — could not — fix the economy; and when it became clear who was going to pay the bill for his social engineering, his supported melted away. President Obama doesn’t have a racial problem. He has an economic and ideological problem with racial dimensions.
The problem is that his governing mental model may be founded in a lost world — in the Marxist critiques of the 1960s and 70s. It may have been forged at a time when Americans seemed obscenely prosperous in comparison to the denizens of the Third World. They were harmless eccentricities at the time. Today, in a globalized world where China, not America is on track to become the greatest consumer in the world; in a world where Americans and Britons pose as Filipinos to get jobs, it is nothing short of disastrous. His old categories of race and privilege and noblesse oblige are survivals from a bygone age. President Obama has made much of being the harbinger of the future. On the contrary, he may turn out to be a relic from the past.
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At its base, redistribution presumes that there are individuals or groups who possess the intelligence, wisdom, maturity, and moral authority to take by force resources from one individual and give them to another in a way which guarantees improvement to the society at large. Not for constitutionally defined reasons, but for the simple reason of creating equal outcomes.
That is why freedom is incompatible with this sort of state redistributionism. The free, intelligent grownup knows that nobody has the brains or wisdom or moral authority to do so.
Relic from the past? Humm…. better still “The Relic” from the 1997 film. A man transformed into a monster by drinking a yage like potion made from leaves and “without the leaves to eat, the Kothoga’s closest substitute for the hormones contained in them is to extract and eat human hypothalami.”
Obama probably does not even spend ten minutes a week worrying about the bulging deficit. The president is such a narcissist that he is convinced the problem can always be solved. Obama merely needs more power—and the Republicans should get out of the way. Utopia is presumably right around the corner. Our country is in deep trouble. Most Americans are still unaware of the real risk. Unemployment may remain at about ten percent for the next decade. Obama must be marginalized. Time is not on our side. The November elections are crucial.
Reminds me of David Horowitz’ remarked that scholars on the left write volumes and volumes about equitable redistribution of wealth, but not one word about creation of wealth. Thus they find it incomprehensible when their systemic pursuit of social justice goes broke, and its putative beneficiaries rebel.
The fundamental weakness with President Obama’s theory of racial healing and social progress is that has assumed that America would always have the means to pay for its grand ambitions.
White boy (Clinton) grows up in a trailer park and instinctively knows how to play the electorate. Black boy grows up coddled by affirmative action and endless “inclusiveness” grants, and doesn’t have a clue. America, Irony’s playground.
I would also add that the immovability of black support for Obama should be no surprise.
Obama could set fire to a building full of four-year-old children (even black children) and burn them to death, on film, and his support amongst blacks would not waver even one iota. That’s not a racist or bigoted statement, it’s just how things are. Victim group identity politics as practiced by the Democrats have trapped and pigeonholed vast swathes of our nation who happen to have dark skin. I hope they can break free some day, but right now they won’t.
This farce will be played out amongst non-blacks, the voting pattern of blacks is a play that is already over.
I still expect Obama not to complete his term in office. He will not be able to handle the dejection of the American people. Obama’s skin is too thin. He is a man who has not had to work especially hard in life. The president has apparently had an easy time since his late teens. Will he even make to the November elections?
The fascination that the Left has with redistribution is more a sick love of the power to redistribute rather than any real love of equality. They use the levers of race and “fairness” to gain the power, but, in the end, it is the power that they so deeply lust for. The power to say to one, “Yes, you may” and to the other to say “No, you are unworthy”, this sets their dark hearts racing.
Witness the motivations behind the J-List participants, they spotted a rising figure that met their requirements and did everything in their power to press him forward, when the time came for them to follow their rules of fairness and objectivity they failed. The lust for power; the power to take a formless, unqualified non-achiever and set him into a position of power (and presumably the dupe would be beholdened to those that placed him there, a marionette rather than an individual actor) is what titillated them. The values displayed in their messages to one another peels away the pretense and exposes their vapid souls for what they are.
The Left has done all in its power to kill God and now wants to usurp his power to pass judgment on men’s souls.
7. David Thomson,
So true.
I have forced my self to watch him as often as possible over the last six months or so. Granted the office of POTUS ages the occupant at an advanced rate but he seems to have suffered more than most. He acts peevish and grumpy when he is not held in the loving, glowing light that was his during the campaign. It seems (and it comes as no surprise given his near total lack of any work or real achievement) that this whole POTUS gig is turning out to be a whole lot more work than he figured it would be. He looks and moves like an old man that is tired and bored, like a spoiled child that suddenly finds himself having to behave and is one heartbeat away from a tantrum.
If there were a way to get out with his ego intact I think he would quit.
It has always struck me that the biggest difference between liberals and true conservatives (not the social ones who still want a big government with altered social goals) is the issue of economics.
If money was infinite, of COURSE we would want free housing for everyone! Guaranteed income for everyone! Ponies for everyone!!! Why would anyone object to this, IF money was infinite??? Our entire problem with this is that we know Math, and we know some History, and we know that every government that has dived off the cliff and tried to achieve this has ended up in total economic collapse, which leads to social collapse. Given the same inputs, that result is inevitable.
Liberalism appears to be little but wishful thinking on a grand scale, a type of magical thought where the goals and plans substitute for a fading Tinkerbell, the image that lives on in most boomer’s childhood memories: Just BELIEVE! Just BELIEVE, Children, and it will all come true! All you have to do is want it bad enough, and then nothing else matters!!!
Magical thinking is the same in any generation – it is the belief that all one has to do is to manipulate thoughts, emotions, and representational images and the world will instantly be transformed into a facsimile of the True Believers fondest hopes and dreams – none of that messy figuring out how the world actually works, none of that bothersome trimming of expectations because they aren’t “realistic” – why CAN’T everyone have a pony if we want it bad enough???
Liberalism, in it’s simplest form, is nothing but Hubris writ large.
“I still expect Obama not to complete his term in office.”
I disagree. I expect him to stay in office while he becomes ever more irritable and angry at how the people have “betrayed” him. They only likely path to early exit would be a clear connection to an impeachable offense.
Zhombre #4:
Or as I put it, Socialists worry about consumption and Capitalists worry about production. All else follows from that.
The fundamental forces that have led us to the threshold of “Peak Government” have been in play for decades. Industry-destroying excessive growing regulation. Human capital-destroying inadequate declining education. The liberals have been sawing through the branch of economic growth on which they were sitting — and are now doomed to tumble to earth.
But how long would it take to reverse the damage, even if (in some miracle) Obumble or others wanted to recreate the engine of economic growth — the only engine that can support their redistributionism?
There are those who argue that the proper response to financial bubbles is to take the pain. Let bloated financial assets be marked down rapidly, sending businesses and people into bankruptcy. Painful, but faster and ultimately better than (for example) the lost decade that Japan has endured.
Maybe the best response to Peak Government is to encourage rapid collapse — and be ready to pick up the marked-down pieces afterwards.
“Black support for the black President remains almost rock solid, standing at 89 percent through the week ending July 11, 2010—slightly higher than in his first week in office.”
So….. which is the racist group? The white/hispanic group which changes its approval based on experience and policy differences or the black group which says “My race, right or wrong!!”
President Obama doesn’t have a racial problem. He has an economic and ideological problem with racial dimensions.
His problem is that he’s an ivory tower academic, disconnected and disdainful of reality.
This goes well with being a leftist in general, ’tis true.
It’s important to recall here the role of the mainstream media, in general, and the J-listers in particular, in manufacturing such high initial levels of white support for Obama. When the Wright tapes broke in the late winter of 2008 I told a close family member that Obama’s campaign goose was cooked. “Put a fork in it because it’s done”, I said. I didn’t see how he could recover from that. In retrospect I was naive about the extent to which the establishment media would cover for him here. With the release of the j-list archives, what’s even more remarkable is the self-righteousness, viciousness, and enthusiasm with which they went about their work.
But of course there are limits to what you can do to help a man. And Obama’s response to the Gates arrest revealed much about his inner self and motivations to those who had glossed over this issue earlier. It revealed that he deeply resents his white fellow citizens. The rest of the white population is starting to figure this out and this is why his popularity among them is cratering.
Another thing that should be patently obvious by now is that those in the media that did and do run interference for Obama deeply despise conservatives. In America there’s a big enough overlap between the two groups–conservatives and whites– that they and Democrats more generally find common cause in the defeat of their mutual enemy.
But still, I wonder, how do they really think all this will play out? How long do they think they can point the accusatory finger of “racist” with this much impunity? Lots of people can see the three fingers pointing back at them. Lots more than in 2008 and lots more than in 2009. The same people are figuring out that Obama was lying about much in the Wright matter and that the same finger pointers in the media enabled his lies. Trust so brazenly violated won’t be rebuilt easily, if ever.
It’s interesting that Obama’s white support dropped precipitously last summer roughly during the period when his surrogates engaged in the first heavy wave of calling his critics racists. Thus ended the “post-racial” presidency that never was.
The fall-off in Hispanic support probably comes from nothing more complicated than their vulnerability to bad economic conditions. The Democrats cannot possibly shovel enough free cheese their way to make up for the loss of economic vitality that rewards participation. Obama is redistributing poverty, not wealth.
His black support remains because he is the ultimate investment of black pride. That’s a shame.
Obama has made bad conditions worse and he and his gang are now flailing their arms with the message that it would be so much worse without them. But he never shuts up. He’s out there every single day it seems, droning on in that awful way of his.
The first time I ever really got worried about America was when the economy was wriggling like a wharf rat on the end of a longshoreman’s pitchfork with the hypeinflation back in ’79-’80. That looked like we were turning into something other than America.
This looks much worse. Much, much worse, because the goose that lays the golden eggs is in the oven and the chef that put her there is in the White House.
God save America.
For historical reasons blacks are far more obsessed with race than whites. And they cling to their black President as much from that as from any thing else. Sure, it’s racist, but it’s understandable as a tribal type of connection more than an expression of hate toward non blacks. The NAACP type of racism has the meanness of Bull Connor and his crowd, their audiences openly approve expressions of hatred toward non blacks. Black racism has been excused and ignored for too long. The cowards in the Obama crowd don’t want to talk about it. The race industry is completely panicked. And it’s all the fault of Fox News, who didn’t say a word about Sherrod before she was fired but somehow snookered the leader of the NAACP into bad mouthing her. One might wonder how black people can be so stupid–if not for all the excellent black conservative candidates and the well spoken black leaders in the Tea Party. Back the in the fifties an old farmer told me black people just weren’t very intelligent, even though a lot of them were very good farmers. I knew better because we had studied Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver in school. That would be the black liberals, Mr. Parker, and they don’t farm worth a damn.
In their flurry to elect ‘anyone-but-Bush’, the academics and liberal media clung to dream. At the time of the election, I could tell that Obama was an empty suit with no real world experience. I knew that would be dangerous to the well being of America, but the majority jumped off the cliff like Walt Disney lemmings.
All dreams come to an end when confronted by cold merciless reality. Perhaps this is a ‘teachable moment’. A chance for real change based on conservative and basic ideals – we need to start over as the current system is broken beyond repair. We are drowning in taxes, regulations, political correctness and a sense of entitlement that cannot be squared with the real world. The party has come to an end and someone will have to cleanup the mess.
If history is any guide, we will break and disassemble like Rome and countless other ‘empires’ have. Here’s hoping that some remnant of American character still resides to pull us through these dark days.
My opinion of the changing support for Obama is that support for Obama by black people is race based. The fact that a great number of white people voted for Obama shows that these people did not vote based on race. So when whites no longer support Obama their change in opinion is based on performance not race. So who are the Racists?
W wrote;
“Interestingly, neither the President’s appointment of the “wise Latina” nor his war with Arizona helped him on a sustained basis.”
I would venture a guess that the decline of support among Latinos is because they, like most new immigrant groups, are heavily represented in the small-business and lower/middle income workers. These are the groups worst hit by the current economic situation, and have the worst prospects under the current economic poilcies. They don’t want Judges or gestures, they want jobs (like the rest of us they are trying to earn a living). Nobody wants a thinner slice of a smaller pie, and until the economy exhibits significant growth that pie isn’t getting any bigger.
Pandering to the illegals does not gain much ground with those Latinos that are citizens by birth or naturalisation (they, of course, feel for their fellows, but they did it the hard way and followed the rules and rightly expect others to do the same) and they are not helped by further competition in the job market.
Obama just looks like a spineless opportunist dancing from one polling point to another, Clinton did much of the same but was far smoother and benefitted from a more robust economy.
Obama must have missed out on geometry, it is difficult to triangulate when there is but one point forming the triangle.
@ 18. Gary: “Black racism has been excused and ignored for too long. The cowards in the Obama crowd don’t want to talk about it.”
On the contrary, Obama is from the extreme movement of black racism (“black liberation theology” — in quotes because it is neither about black liberation nor a theology), and his racial reconciliationist schtick was a horrible lie from the very beginning. The plan was always to use both the sentiments of black racism in tandem with accusations of racism against whites who opposed Obama as a method of political intimidation. The politics are Marxist. The tactics are Alinsky’s. The racial concepts are Jeremiah Wright’s. Obama is not a step away from Wright. He’s a step beyond, more radical. But more stealthy. The difference is that he got hold of the power. What we are watching is all that playing out.
“What would Whiskey say?”
Wretchard writes: “When it became clear that Obama would not — could not — fix the economy . . . . President Obama doesn’t have a racial problem. He has an economic and ideological problem with racial dimensions.”
Would not, could not. Could not, would not. Both orderings are probably true.
Starling writes: “But still, I wonder, how do they really think all this will play out? How long do they think they can point the accusatory finger of “racist” with this much impunity?”
The Ace of Race card seems to have been one that has provided trump power in the past but is on a losing streak. Other cards have already been played and lost in the “Progressive” hand, including the Jack of Fascism, Queen of Misogynism, and King of Bushitlers. What’s left? Ah, the Ace of Hearts, is still a wild card. Compassion can still trump, a la extension of unemployment benefits. Money for nothing will continue to turn the trick, for a while anyway.
22. Martin McPhillips
This has to be a fixed ideology with Obama, as playing for a larger percentage of the black vote while losing the balance of the populous is very poor math. Even winning 100% percent of the black vote will not offset losing 10-15% of the Independent “others”.
In a Parlimentary system it might matter but, in ours, that last 11% doesn’t amount to much.
@ 25 anton:
It’s basic to the Democratic Party, though, to keep hold of the black vote, hence the eternal flares shot off about “white racism,” especially now that there is a black president.
Fit some more components in there with the black vote — most of the Hispanic vote, the hard liberal base — and you are at 40% no matter how badly you perform.
Then it’s just a matter of having incompetent opponents, a sick mainstream media (whose members know that slipping off message is a career killer), and a little help from your friends in thugdom when it comes to getting out and counting the vote.
We’re in a cold civil war in the United States and there is a considerable army on the Marxist side of those men who have stopped thinking. I have a friend from my first days at college who I’m pretty sure hasn’t examined his basic political concepts since he perfected them at age 18. He probably tests out at about a 130 IQ. Watches Keith Olbermann and the Daily Show. He’s 60. Thinks anyone to the right of, say, John Kerry is a lunatic.
Yep, it feels as if we are living in the Jurassic with all the saurs running around nipping at and devouring each other. When the big rock finally drops the only ones that will be able to weather the storm are those with the wings to rise above or the shells in which to hide.
Now that my tax $ are being used to fund abortions in Kenya along with Mexico,I sit here typing and wondering why we can not all just get along. Way too many baby race-asurasuses that might grow up to become consumers of resources, I guess.
5. Salt Lick:
White boy (Clinton) grows up in a trailer park and instinctively knows how to play the electorate. Black boy grows up coddled by affirmative action and endless “inclusiveness” grants, and doesn’t have a clue. America, Irony’s playground.
I have always maintained that in spite of his moral failings and political leanings, WJ Clinton was, in all other respects, very likable. I think I would have enjoyed getting drunk with him (when I drank). Obama, not so much.
I again think that Obama is doing for Black African Americans in politics what OJ Simpson did for Black African Americans in jurisprudence. Namely, non-black America has lost faith in the efficacy of the pursuit of racial harmony and a post-racial society.
As I wrote in an earlier post, those who voted for Obama in the hope that electing a Black African American as President would somehow finally mark “paid in full” on the debt of slavery and past discrimination now see that this has not happened and probably will not happen in our lifetime.
Yes, whenever there is economic failure there is loss of confidence in whomever is in office. But the problem runs far deeper. Black African Americans are already no longer the largest minority group and within a decade will no longer be the largest minority voting block.
We shall see, as I often say (and have said perhaps too many times on Belmont Club) whether Latino and Hispanic America decides to adopt the identity and pathway and models of Italian or Black. I pray they see themselves as more like the Italians.
To paraphrase and modify the motto of The United Negro College Fund, “Good will is a terrible thing to waste.”
Obama IS a relic from the past…a recent American Thinker article accurately penned him as an African Colonial.
What is amazing is that when you discourse with western Africans, eastern Caribbeans, et.al, either here or in-country, you realize that they mostly are normal responsible folk and the typical american black who identifies as “African-American” is the oddity complete with funny speech, droopy drawers, skinny tires, late mortgage payments, a widescreen TV and a hand out for anything free.
Apologies for my failed attempt at a blockquote above. The first para belongs to Salt Lick. – CnH
In the late 1970′s I was in the cafeteria at The University of California at Irvine sitting at a table where a graduate student was holding court. Another student told me the guy was brilliant. I listened to some of what he had to say and it was the usual Marxist claptrap, though somewhat up-dated from the last batch of drivel to tinkle down from the Ivory Towers. It’s kind of like Shirley Sherrod in that recent U-tube clip — whose epiphany was “It ain’t the race war, stupid, it’s the class war.” But the principle that we might be better off without certain groups of people intruding on our reality remains.
Now, I was a little older than the other students at the table and had already been treated to three or four re-renderings of Marx since my childhood. I looked on Marxism as a theory of gravity that predicts the ball will fall up — and when the ball doesn’t fall up it only adds to the fun. Of course massive public subsidies do help keep the balls in the air — at universities and in public policy — but the intellectuals prefer to credit their own brilliance for any success and the stupidity of others for failures.
At first I thought the intellectual incoherence I detected was the fault of the young Marxists I ran across — that they were like Bible salesman who didn’t know the bible. But actually they knew their bible better than I, since their bible was about the acquisition of power, not the promotion of social good.
In any case, I had just read Democracy in America and The Wealth of Nations and began debating the Marxist missionary. But what I found interesting was the reaction of the other students, who didn’t seem to think it was possible to debate the other guy. Apparently, there had been some sort of intellectual disarmament treaty at our universities where only one side disarmed and I was acting in violation of the agreement.
If he was sitting at a table with Midwestern, middle-aged Mill workers of that day, they would have ridiculed him into silence. It would have started with someone saying (congenially and with touch of jocularity), “You know, you got a lot of sh!t.” Of course the newly minted Marxist would not have talked that way around proletarians — since they had been brainwashed by the money press before the money press got right with the new LORD and had its “Come to Karl” moment.
President Obama managed to live in a world where, until January 20, 2009, all his balls were allowed to fall up (there was always some countervailing levitating force that you don’t see, you see). Now they have displayed a marked tendency to fall down. This is the fault of the “wreckers,” who fail to provide a sufficient countervailing, levitating force — which is, of course, their role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_%28Soviet_crime%29
Batman, your question about whether Hispanics will follow the Black model or the Italian is something I have been wondering myself for quite some time now. And I am actually quite hopeful for the future, simply because of my own personal observations. (I’ll pick real world observations over intellectual theory every time) Now this view may not be popular with some of the more hardline anti-hispanic commentators, but be assured – I am no more in favor of illegal immigration than anyone else here, and I believe the border must be secured. But I’ve been watching this play out for about 20 years now, and – well, allow me to relate what I’ve seen.
I live in a Texas town that about 20 years ago had a population of about 75,000 – 45,000 white, 28,000 black, about 2,000 hispanics. In the 2010 census, we will show a total population of about 101,000 – 50,000 white, 26,000 black, and 25,000 hispanic. The racial makeup, looked on as a percentage basis, has changed radically, with black influence dropping the most of all. This pattern, btw, has been repeated in most smaller Texas towns that I know of. An aside – one thing that makes the Texas experience so different than California is that there are no lavish state programs to support those who can’t make it on their own, so those hispanics (okay, mexicans) that came here have had to either work, starve, or leave. Not surprisingly this system has self selected for those who are willing to work, which has greatly affected the neighborhoods they’ve moved into.
And again, this is not meant to be racial commentary, but is simply my direct observation over the last 20 years – the mexicans have generally *not* taken what were thought of as “white” jobs, this was already a pretty professional town – they have replaced those on the bottom end of the economic ladder, with the result that that the great majority of the black population here is now permanently unemployed and on some kind of federal assistance. (since they never look for work anymore, they do not count in the official unemployment numbers – neat trick) Most all of the professional work is done by whites, and all the actual labor is now done by hispanics. Some post-racial society, I know.
Still, the biggest difference is in the neighborhoods where they’ve moved. 20 years ago, the east-northeast side was a vast black ghetto. No businesses, all the houses were rundown (it had been a middle class area in the 30′s, mostly bungalows) Everywhere were thugs hanging around in dark corners, and even the police only went there in threes. This is where the hispanics moved, since it was viewed to be worthless and no one else wanted it. (They would generally move into a house when it got too rundown for the do-nothings to live in it anymore, and then the mexicans would move in and fix it up themselves.) Over time, they came to take over that entire quarter of town. I was just up there again a couple days ago, thinking about the contrast between what it was and what it is – and it is astounding. Almost every little house is still poor – but the roofs have been patched, the windows have been fixed, and there are little gardens in the yards. Where there were nothing but boarded up old stores, a whole new row of restaurants and shops that cater to the neighborhood have opened. New locally owned mexican grocery stores are now opened up – yes, english only purists will be annoyed, but this is growth and vitality in a place that was given up for dead! I stopped and watched a bit of a soccer game that most of the neighborhoods kids and their mothers were attending, everywhere, people were out and about and secure…
and it struck me – adjust for culture and language, and this is working class America of 70, 80 years ago I was walking through. This is exactly the kind of neighborhood my parents grew up in – this is a neighborhood that depends on itself and grows itself.
This is the Italian model I’ve been watching, played out in real time. The sad part is that I see only decay and dissolution for the black segment of society, and I would hazard to guess that in another 40 to 50 years they will become a small and mostly unimportant bit of our past.
“They only likely path to early exit would be a clear connection to an impeachable offense.”
An impeachable offense is what ever Congress says it is. Look at the first impeachment.
Johnson got impeached because he pissed off Congress. A congress that had the votes to impeach him, so they did.
Nixon would have gotten impeached if he hadn’t resigned. Not sure if he would have been coonvicted. His ‘crime’ really wasn’t much of a crime, for a politician. He didn’t do anything a dozen other Presidents did before him or even after him. Do you really think ALL the political candidates aren’t bugging each other at ever opportunity? Nixon just allowed incompetents to do his dirty work. Duct tape over a door latch? How bush league is that?
Clinton’s crime of perjury was much more serious then a black bag job. Like Johnson, he wasn’t convicted by the Senate.
Congress could have impeached President Bush for anynumber of things, they didn’t have the votes. By the time they got them, President Bush was bacj home on his ranch and there was no political capital to be gained by Going after him and he hadn’t broken any laws, so there was no criminal charges to use. Unlike Clinton and Carter, who are both dirty as ‘ell.
“The only likely path to early exit would be a clear connection to an impeachable offense.”
The Democrats currently control both houses of Congress. A year from now the Republicans will probably control the House of Representatives. There is a slight possibility the Republicans will take the Senate with a tiny majority. The 2/3 majority in the Senate necessary to convict Obama of an impeachable offense is politically impossible. The best we can hope for is that Obama’s political agenda hits a brick wall in 2011 after the Democrats lose control of the Congress. Maybe Obama will then have a hissy-fit and resign. More likely he’ll continue to blame Bush and linger on until expelled from office in 2012.
WWS/33–you’re right; I’ve seen the same thing and it also matches the family of my Italian-American wife, whose father came here when he was 14–no money, no English, just desire and ambition. Both his kids went to college, BTW, with no affirmative action.
In the previous post I mentioned the self-selection of immigrants; when you leave your homeland, you’ve sort of burned you ships and you damn well need to make it work.
Starling@16
When the Wright tapes broke in the late winter of 2008 I told a close family member that Obama’s campaign goose was cooked. “Put a fork in it because it’s done”, I said.
I talked to a friend who was a lifetime Democrat voter who had an absolute look of disgust on her face when she talked about the left Reverend Wright. She had seen it on CNN. So I said, “Don’t worry, by October they will have you convinced that every Pastor ‘God Damns’ America.” And sure enough, in November she voted for Obama.
But that resulted from all the people who vouched for him in the media. A Peggy Noonan endorsement went a long way toward making the candidate seem mainstream. I speculated at the time about the toll these sorts of endorsement might take on the establishment press if he became an obvious failure.
30/wws: Thank you for that wonderful description. It is some of the best news I could imagine.
In the Pre-World War One days one would see storefronts with Italian, Yiddish, and other signs. Old country language newspapers were plentiful. In New York there was a thriving Yiddish Theater. Ethnic establishments, especially grocery stores and restaurants were everywhere. Different ethnicities seemed to corner different crafts. There was the Chinese Laundry, the Italian Shoemaker, etc. So the idea of your town’s Hispanic/Latino neighborhood with Spanish language signs on the stores doesn’t phase me one bit. Neither do the Chinese equivalents in towns like Monterey Park California.
The next generation of these immigrants went on to college, many becoming teachers or accountants or opening small businesses of their own. And their children — that would be many of us today — became professionals: doctors, lawyers, etc.
What made this possible was the strong American identity that prevailed in those days. Immigrants could keep their culture and still enter the mainstream because there was a robust sense of America. Today that is much less the case. That is why I worry about the course Hispanic/Latino society will take.
Left to the individuals themselves, I agree that most will choose what I am calling the Italian way. But their leadership is trying to lead them down the other path.
As to the fate of Black African America, I share your pessimism. Interestingly enough, as I read about Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois, both regarded as radical, and Booker T. Washington, regarded as “conservative,” all three highly valued self-reliance and education. Too bad that getting good grades and being diligent in school is now considered “too white” for so many young Black African Americans.
I was intrigued by Walter Russell Mead’s characterization of Obama (in your linked article from Foreign Affairs) as “The President from New England” — embodying “the Bostonian vision of the United States. . .whose government is the moral agent of a society of good people determined to suppress vice and establish virtue,” a product of the broader “tradition of New England reform, with its moral earnestness and its willingness to call on the full powers of s strong state.”
I think the regional prejudice against this particular kind of president, is sometimes underestimated. Obama, as Gideon Rachmann has elsewhere pointed out , is the first real Blue State president we have had since that division became well established.
Possibly the New England Yankee Puritan element of the President’s make up is a good chunk of what so many of us in the South and West instinctively find off-putting about Obama: the determination to do whatever’s necessary to “do good;” allied with utter certainty that the Good Obama et al seek to Do is morally correct and far superior to the self-interested goals of the money-grubbing philistines from Flyover Land west of the Hudson. Consequently, we domestic beer-drinking rubes who watch too much NASCAR and football, who are bitter and “cling to guns or religion” are going to have “reform” force-fed to us for our own good; if necessary by using the “full powers of the strong state.”
To rub salt into the wound, the good that Obama and his fellow progressives seek to do in the world will, not incidentally, be of disproportionate benefit to the lawyers, professors, bureaucrats, journalists and other wine-drinking denizens of the New Class who did so much to foist Obama on us, and who are Harvard’s main export. Obama and his ilk will do well by doing good, thus conforming to the most unfair stereotype inhabitants of other regions (mostly Southerners) have about meddling Yankees – that they always wind up doing very well by “doing good.”.
add. to #36: I will add that Mexicans I know, and especially those who often don’t speak English, have a generally low opinion of American blacks. I’ve heard this over and over from yard men, cooks, laborers, etc: “They could be doing this work; why don’t they?” They can’t quite understand how they can find work and Americans can’t.
Interesting observations about the hispanic community in the US. That raises the obvious question – why?
This is my own guess – the hispanics, like the Italians, were never slaves (or at least, identified as such) in the US. A great deal of the current issues and psychoses of the African-American community in the US could be traced back to slavery, which I’ve heard described as the original sin of the US when it was formed. Even after the civil war and the civil rights movement in the 60s, the victimhood mentality never really went away. They were conditioned to expect that the world owes them something.
In contrast, the Italians who went over to the US in the 19th and 20th centuries, and by implication the Hispanics (Mexicans), went into the US expecting to make something of themselves and earn their way, even if some of their means were illegal. But they didn’t have the mentality of getting an easy ride, of being owed by the world.
So the victimhood mentality must be suppressed. As mentioned before, this could be quite difficult because of the leftoid-contolled education system.
I will add that Mexicans I know, and especially those who often don’t speak English, have a generally low opinion of American blacks. I’ve heard this over and over from yard men, cooks, laborers, etc: “They could be doing this work; why don’t they?” They can’t quite understand how they can find work and Americans can’t.
Indeed. Yet 50 years ago blacks would have filled all those jobs readily. The black community has largely been destroyed by government. Plain and simple. They have been taught to be dependent. There is a certain degree of the Mexican immigrant class that is learning the same thing. Maybe not in Texas, but certainly in New York, California, and so on. The first thing they learn is how to game the system.
In any case, Mexicans are by and large extremely racist, as are pretty much any non-Western, non-white group. Only Western whites have hypnotized themselves out of the perfectly natural tribal associations that Whiskey used to talk about. That lousy old song from “South Pacific”, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” had it exactly backwards. You don’t have to be taught to be racist. Humans are naturally racist (aka tribal). You have to be taught NOT to be racist. The black community, to their great despair, have been taught TO be racist, on top of their natural proclivities.
The results are evident for anyone to see, though nobody admits the obvious in polite company. The I.V. drip of government dependency needs to be removed from their arms. There are almost 3 million unemployed blacks in the country, and over 10 million considered “not in the labor force.” You could displace a whole lot of illegal labor with those people.
Ignominious @ 23
“What would Whiskey say?”
… or to make it an aliteration:
What Would Whiskey Write?
WWWW
Wobbly Guy @ 14: “This is my own guess – the hispanics, like the Italians, were never slaves (or at least, identified as such) in the US.”
I wonder about that conventional wisdom.
Many Scottish-heritage inhabitants of the US are the offspring of very reluctant immigrants. At the same time as Africans were enslaving members of other tribes and selling them to Arab traders for transport across the Atlantic, Highland Scots were being driven out their homes by agents of their English overlords. Those Scots were the innocent victims of a despicable action, the Highland Clearances, expelled from their native land to make way for sheep — the roofs burned off their homes to make them go. As poor people who could not afford the trans-Atlantic passage, many ended up in the US as indentured servants, functionally slaves.
Yet the US has not ended up with a restive Scottish minority demanding retribution today for injustices visited on their distant ancestors. Perhaps most interestingly, modern Scotland has more than its fair share of welfare cheats and single mothers, living for multiple generations on government handouts.
Perhaps the message here is yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Cultures can withstand awful abuse; they cannot withstand well-intended subsidies for irresponsible behavior. And skin color makes no difference.
I think the best and simplest answer has been provided by Roger Simon: Obama is a serial liar, and his lies are crashing down around him. People are realizing that they voted for a carefully constructed false image. They’re pissed off… which in the eyes of the race-based community makes them racist.
hdgreene @ 37 said:
“A Peggy Noonan endorsement went a long way toward making the candidate [Obama] seem mainstream. I speculated at the time about the toll these sorts of endorsement might take on the establishment press if he became an obvious failure.”
I believe there is compelling evidence that Obama’s election was partially due to misconduct by the MSM. Next year, the Republicans will control the House of Representatives. There needs to be public hearings in the House of Representatives about this misconduct by the MSM. The people behind Obama’s election need to be subpoenaed by a Congressional investigative committee and questioned on prime time television about their role in subverting the democratic process (force the bad guys to plead the 5th Amendment). The whole mechanism of liberal MSM propaganda needs to be knocked out of commission prior to the 2012 election. It is vital that Obama NOT be re-elected as President.
17. Martin McPhillips : His black support remains because he is the ultimate investment of black pride. That’s a shame.
I believe a lot of white people feel this way, more so than blacks because they still can’t see the strings. Very well stated Martin.
#42. Peterike
Don’t think Texas is immune by any means to what you describe. If you look at the red-blue voting patterns of the last Presidential election in regards to Texas you will see a big blue line across the areas along the Texas-Mexico border. And this area is also a black hole for governmental dollars, both State and Federal.
As they say, the illegal immigrants do work that Americans won’t do, or at least at the wages that illegal immigrants are paid. Now, make the illegal immigrants into Americans. At that point they won’t do that kind of work either for those kind of wages. They can make more money from welfare and other social programs.
And then what happens? There is the demand for workers who will do the work that “Americans won’t do,” you know, those Americans who used to be illegal aliens but were granted amnesty and citizenship. And then the new illegals will come. And shortly thereafter there will be the cry that the new wave of illegal immigrants should be given amnesty… and if not stopped the cycle will endlessly repeat until enough of the Third World is here in the U.S. bringing the standard of living down to the level of the Third World.
As Milton Friedman once said, the very notion of a welfare state that has no limits on immigration is doomed to fail. It is not sustainable.
#34, #35
Impeachment, by design, is a political check. As long as Congress is willing to face the voters afterwards, they can Impeach and convict for any reason. Obama’s numbers now are so low that a plurality is against his reelection, and his last fundraiser had to sell seats at a discount.
In 2011, enough of the surviving Democratic Senators may be willing to shove Obama, Holder, et al under the bus to try and save themselves. The effects of hidden gotchas in Obamacare and Dodd-Frank will start to show up, and employment will likely grow worse in 2011, after all.
LarryD @ 50:
“In 2011, enough of the surviving Democratic Senators may be willing to shove Obama, Holder, et al under the bus to try and save themselves. The effects of hidden gotchas in Obamacare and Dodd-Frank will start to show up, and employment will likely grow worse in 2011, after all.”
I agree about the hidden gotchas and would love to see Obama disappear. No doubt many surviving Democrats will see Obama as a sinking ship and cover their behinds. However achieving the 2/3 majority in the Senate is a very tall order. For example, the hatred against Andrew Johnson was white hot and the Republicans controlled the Senate but the votes were still not there for conviction of impeachment. IMHO, believing that Obama could be removed from office through impeachment is pure fantasy.
Map of the Day: Obama Approval Rating Drops in 49 States
Map of the Day: Obama Approval Rating Drops in 49 States
Dick Cheney and Barack Obama couldn’t be further apart, and so it’s no surprise that their home states of Wyoming and Hawaii gave the president the lowest and highest approval ratings, respectively, in the first half of 2010 as measured by Gallup.
Obama’s approval rating dropped in both states from this point in 2009 — albeit in Hawaii it fell to a still-strong 68 percent. The only state where his numbers rose in 2010 was Joe Biden’s Delaware, from 61 percent in 2009 to 62 percent today.
—
We can only hope to have Obama to run against in ’12, and not Hillary.
Giving the Dems a chance for two “Historic Firsts” in a row.
…he may turn out to be a relic from the past. – Richard Fernandez
A likely spot, the digger said
Some pottery, some tools
Museum stuff, now long time dead
New lessons from the fools
Who thought that it would never end
That good times rolled along
That they would have all they could spend
And never play the song
That ends with sorrow and with tears
And anger and no jobs
And life gets bitter with the years
Replacing Marx with Hobbes
These relics show how much they thought
Of those who paid the bills
They counted only votes they’ve bought
And now we have these hills
Of relics from the golden age
Mold filled and piled up high
Obama’s prints on every page
Passed always sine die
The diggers sweep away the dust
From bills no one could lift
And monuments turned red with rust
When end came it was swift
49. Tcobb
#42. Peterike
And then what happens? There is the demand for workers who will do the work that “Americans won’t do,” you know, those Americans who used to be illegal aliens but were granted amnesty and citizenship. And then the new illegals will come. And shortly thereafter there will be the cry that the new wave of illegal immigrants should be given amnesty… and if not stopped the cycle will endlessly repeat
………
This is the bottom line. There is no end to it.
However, imho within five years the cost of water desalination will be collapsed to $100@ acre foot. As well portable nuclear power plants will make it economic to basically cheaply pipe interstate diameter desalinated water from any ocean 1000 miles inland. This will make it economic to turn the deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet.
Specifically, this will make it possible to triple the habitable size of Mexico. Under such circumstances Mexico becomes the land of opportunity. A land that will need to be filled with people. We got plenty of Mexicans. Maybe they will want to go home. They would be our greatest gift to Mexico.
A more accurate headline might be “Obama’s support in free-fall among all groups except Blacks, who continue to cling bitterly to their racialism.” Before the election, I said I thought Obama would advance race-relations significantly, but not in the way he expected. His candidacy would uncover the depth of racism and racialism in Black community, and the naked rotten opportunism of the modern day Civil Rights movement. The rest of us would finally say “we’re done with all this crap. You’re on your own, just like everybody else.” The race industry would come to an end because in a time where limited resources required big cuts, the ugliness and selfishness of the modern Race Industry would burn whatever remaining goodwill there was left for it.
I still think I’m right about this one.
A few comments to go along with the excellent comments on this thread. If you please.
‘Today, in a globalized world where China, not America is on track to become the greatest consumer in the world; in a world where Americans and Britons pose as Filipinos to get jobs, “
I have acquaintances who have lied to beat the dickens on resumes and applications to get a job. I’m not sure how many got caught. But most have the ability to handle almost any job they apply for.
‘It has always struck me that the biggest difference between liberals and true conservatives (not the social ones who still want a big government with altered social goals) is the issue of economics. “
Yes, economics because they are family orientated and value personal responsibility.
““Maybe the best response to Peak Government is to encourage rapid collapse — and be ready to pick up the marked-down pieces afterwards.”
Another way to say that is that people around here are not depending on the government for anything, but depending on themselves. Barter and tax evasion are becoming staples of the day.
“So….. which is the racist group? The white/hispanic group which changes its approval based on experience and policy differences or the black group which says “My race, right or wrong!!””
Tribes stick together, be it in America or Afghanistan. Calling one racist and the other more racist is a losing proposition and won’t fix a damn thing.
“But still, I wonder, how do they really think all this will play out? How long do they think they can point the accusatory finger of “racist” with this much impunity? Lots of people can see the three fingers pointing back at them. Lots more than in 2008 and lots more than in 2009.”
“They” will keep it up forever. It is part and parcel of their weapons stores. It’s like asking when grunts will stop using ammo. When that ammo stops working they will grab hold of something else that they think will.
“The fall-off in Hispanic support probably comes from nothing more complicated than their vulnerability to bad economic conditions. The Democrats cannot possibly shovel enough free cheese their way to make up for the loss of economic vitality that rewards participation. Obama is redistributing poverty, not wealth.
From the comments around here where I live and the area I used to live in – in Texas, Mexicans usually ask only for food assistance if they have kids, that is. But would rather have better paying jobs or more hours. Most employers have went to only hiring “part time” employees and they only usually work hours or less a week.
“His black support remains because he is the ultimate investment of black pride. That’s a shame.”
Yea, that is the feeling I get from local blacks. That and their failing hope that he will actually do more for them. Some already see that he will never accomplish that.
“For historical reasons blacks are far more obsessed with race than whites. And they cling to their black President as much from that as from any thing else. Sure, it’s racist, but it’s understandable as a tribal type of connection more than an expression of hate toward non blacks.”
I agree and have no argument for what you said, except that they are being mislead and deceived and until they understand that, nothing for them will improve.
“All dreams come to an end when confronted by cold merciless reality. Perhaps this is a ‘teachable moment’. A chance for real change based on conservative and basic ideals”
Actually not. I know Leftist, progressives who will not except the reality of now and the almost sure reality of the next year or more. They REFUSE to even consider let along believe that their dreams are corrupt and will not come true. To hear their rants and excuses is to make you pity them.
“The fact that a great number of white people voted for Obama shows that these people did not vote based on race”
Wrong, they voted for Obama because of race and their mistaken impression of him as being a healer and someone who would fulfill their hopes and make changes to make America better because he “knew” because of his race how America needed to change. Little did they know that he is predominately Arab with a sprinkle of black and white for political advantage.
“They don’t want Judges or gestures, they want jobs (like the rest of us they are trying to earn a living). Nobody wants a thinner slice of a smaller pie, and until the economy exhibits significant growth that pie isn’t getting any bigger.
Pandering to the illegals does not gain much ground with those Latinos that are citizens by birth or naturalization (they, of course, feel for their fellows, but they did it the hard way and followed the rules and rightly expect others to do the same) and they are not helped by further competition in the job market. “
All true statements. I have not found one American of Mexican decent that has any qualms about making illegals go back to Mexico and try to come back legally.
“Then it’s just a matter of having incompetent opponents, a sick mainstream media (whose members know that slipping off message is a career killer), and a little help from your friends in thugdom when it comes to getting out and counting the vote.”
Yea and the GOP is the king of incompetents and with the Lame Stream Media not only covering for the democrats but activately aiding and abetting them, the fight is way lop sided. Not even counting the dozens of Unions.
“I again think that Obama is doing for Black African Americans in politics what OJ Simpson did for Black African Americans in jurisprudence. Namely, non-black America has lost faith in the efficacy of the pursuit of racial harmony and a post-racial society.
As I wrote in an earlier post, those who voted for Obama in the hope that electing a Black African American as President would somehow finally mark “paid in full” on the debt of slavery and past discrimination now see that this has not happened and probably will not happen in our lifetime.”
Maybe in the cities the non-blacks are still on the fence and have not lost hope but I think in small town America, Obama is being seen for what he really is, and whites are coming to the realization that Obama and most urban blacks will never think the wrongs done to them is “paid in full”. In the cities the blacks will never stop supporting or voting for Obama or any other democrat.
“What is amazing is that when you discourse with western Africans, eastern Caribbeans, et.al, either here or in-country, you realize that they mostly are normal responsible folk and the typical american black who identifies as “African-American” is the oddity complete with funny speech, droopy drawers, skinny tires, late mortgage payments, a wide screen TV and a hand out for anything free.”
Well, I don’t know any of those you mention, except of course the American blacks. And I will say that from my exposure to them in smaller towns and medium sized cities, most I met would rather work than get a government hand out. But they will take it if it means food for their kids. Some of course only sell the food benifits for pennies on the dollar. But there are whites that do the same. Crack for Black…Meth for the Rest.
“But what I found interesting was the reaction of the other students, who didn’t seem to think it was possible to debate the other guy. Apparently, there had been some sort of intellectual disarmament treaty at our universities where only one side disarmed and I was acting in violation of the agreement.”
wws “and it struck me – adjust for culture and language, and this is working class America of 70, 80 years ago I was walking through. This is exactly the kind of neighborhood my parents grew up in – this is a neighborhood that depends on itself and grows itself.
This is the Italian model I’ve been watching, played out in real time. The sad part is that I see only decay and dissolution for the black segment of society, and I would hazard to guess that in another 40 to 50 years they will become a small and mostly unimportant bit of our past.”
WWS’s comment needs to be read again in it’s entirety, because I have seen the same in several areas of Texas. Maybe it’s just Texas, I have no idea since I have not even visited anyplace other than New Mexico in the last ten or so years. But I have lived right in the middle of legal and illegal Mexicans for most of my adult life. Those that I knew and know take no welfare except if they are not making a good living, they will take food stamps for their kids. Is that right? maybe or not, but I can understand that if money is needed for food for your kids you will get it one way or the other. I would rather see that than the women and young girls becoming prostitutes so as to care for their kids.
I have up front and personal experience with girls and women that have sold their bodies for money for their kids and their drug habits. It ain’t pretty but life is life and they do what they think they have to.
I can’t comment on the numerous other comments, but I can be sure that they are excellent. In fact I can’t even read them as I have to leave again to go get out the vote. I only came in today for a few hours because I had to tend to a mountain of dirty clothes and needed to print out some more of the propaganda that I am passing out.
But that is all done and I’m ready to stand up and get back on the line. The firing is heavy but I have much practice in concealment and movement under fire.
I sure wish you would do the same. Sometimes it seems really lonely out here.
Papa Ray
And the best way to get them off that path is to make sure they recognize what happened to the Black community as a result of following it.
“Your grandkids will be just like them, if you make the same choice the grandparents of those black kids made 50 years ago. Buy into the lie and you sell out your future. Buy into the what the Democrats are selling and you too can have your great-grandson raised by a crack whore, not sure which of five different guys serving hard time is the father. Buy into now and in 50 years some guy, I don’t know, maybe a Brazillian kid, maybe someone from Khazakstan, will be standing here wondering why those lazy Mexicans won’t work. Care about your family while you still can.”
Walter Russell Mead wrote, “The U.S. educational system is largely deracinating: it aims to do more than take the boy out of Iowa; it wants to take the Iowa out of the boy.” I do not see this as intrinsically different from the vision of Richard Henry Pratt to “kill the Indian to save the man”.
In any case, the Ivy League has largely given up on that project; a recent study documents how these institutions systematically discriminate against rural applicants. This is also documented in Creating a Class, by Mitchell L. Stevens. It appears that the plan of America’s ruling class isn’t to co-opt rural leadership, but rather to shame residents of interior America into conforming to their vision – and if shame does not work, they will use coercion. And if coercion does not work, they will use force.
From my point of view, elitist academe should be welcome to discriminate against rural Americans as their prerogative, but I strongly object to federal funds going to any institution with a documented anti-rural bias. I don’t see any good reason why taxpayers ought to subsidize anti-rural bigotry.
We also need to look at the hiring process for the State Department. Is the testing fair? Does the State Department also show an anti-rural bias in its interviews? Does the State Department harbor an institutionalized antipathy toward the American interior?
Given how Barack Hussein Obama is a product of college admissions policies aimed squarely at discriminating against rural and working class Americans, it should be no surprise that he should express his contempt toward rural American through his comments about “clinging” to guns and religion. Textbooks from the 1920’s talked of Indians “clinging to their old ways” too!
Watch out whenever you see how Uncle Sam treats Indians because that is how he will eventually treat you. It may be about “taking the boy out of Iowa” and “taking Iowa out of the boy”, but it started with taking the Iowah out of Iowa and taking Iowah culture out of the Iowah. The wheel is turning, and now it is rural and working class Americans who are treated with unveiled contempt.
Sadly, I am not surprised.
Doug @ 52 said:
“We can only hope to have Obama to run against in ‘12, and not Hillary.”
I think the Obamatrons have drunk so much of their own Kool-Aid that not runing with Obama in 2012 would be unthinkable. Certainly the MSM will do everything it can to re-enforce this attitude. However my concern is the Republicans will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and nominate someone unelectable. For example, I think Sarah Palin was a good choice as McCain’s VP and also enjoy how she makes the moonbats livid with rage. However she would be a poor choice as a Presidential candidate and Obama might be able to beat her in 2012. Conservatives should be very focused on getting Obama out of office as soon as possible. The candidate best able to achieve that should be their first choice.
kevIN #19
“We are drowning in taxes, regulations, political correctness and a sense of entitlement that cannot be squared with the real world.”
If this isn’t the single sentence that describes the summer of 2010, I don’t know what that sentence could be.
Excellent wordsmithing, sir.
resident Obama has made much of being the harbinger of the future. On the contrary, he may turn out to be a relic from the past.
he is a relic of the past. ….there, fixed it for ya
Historically it has been in the objective political interests of some leaders to keep their constituency ignorant. For example the Spanish friar-ocracy in the Philippines purposely kept the indios illiterate or taught them only a basic literacy in Tagalog. Jose Rizal believed this was a conscious policy to keep the natives from learning new ideas. He wanted the language of instruction changed to Spanish because he saw equality in access to information as the key to equality in all things. This was an extremely subversive demand — like asking for Internet access in North Korea.
The idea that learning is “white” is the ideology of oppression presented as an act of resistance. It is the ideology of staying on the plantation turned into a fake virtue. But making ignorance ‘cool’ explains a lot. It explains why Al Sharpton is a ‘leader’ for surely there are hundreds of thousands of black men and women who are an order of magnitude smarter than he is. But if ignorance is the requirement, then Al’s your man.
This actually describes the operation of Third World kleptocracies. Competence is suppressed lest it de-legitimize an order in which wealth is achieved by cronyism. A lot of immigrants from Third World societies will tell you that the real reason they came to America is because they believed it to be a place where they could be valued for themselves. And while that is indeed the vision of America the irony is that the haven itself is increasingly falling under the power of valuation of competence by politics. A man coming to the West to flee from radical Islam or a Communist Purge may find the very ideologies that escaped from taught as positive good in the academy by professors who have never lived under them. The haven is being corrupted from within under the guise of enlightenment.
It would be interesting to find out how many blacks have “fled” the black community almost in the same sense of immigrants leaving their countries; maybe they are likewise doomed to the choice of either assimilating in their new country or “returning to their roots”. The difference between him and foreign immigrant to America is that foreigners aren’t defined by their racial identities in the same way. But for the man upon whom a racial identity is the major criterion of his definition the choice may be much harder. If the price of succeeding for black man is becoming “white on the inside” and therefore to reject his heritage then what? That’s the con; that’s the funnel which makes you eventually bow down before Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
I should add that Jose Rizal was done in by the same problem; he was fatally trapped by his desire to live as an “untyped” man. The revolutionaries wanted him to join the fight against Spain and he declined. In fact he was arrested on his way to Cuba where he had volunteered to act as a medic for the Spanish Army. Who knows but that Teddy Roosevelt might have met him had he gone. He was a man of the West and would have nothing to do with an uncritical embrace of unscientific values. But on the other hand the Spaniards thought the spectacle of an indio living a life fully the equivalent of a white man was too dangerous to be permitted. To simultaneously be a man of the West and brown in 1898 was threat in itself. Maybe it still is — to liberals at least.
They gave him the hardest choice a man could face. He could either live as an indio or fight as an approved type of ethnic revolutionary man, but not on his own terms. In modern parlance he could either be a slave or a Black Panther, but never as just ‘Jose Rizal’. In the end he refused to adopt either course and was executed on December 30, 1898. On the field of execution his request to die facing the rifles was denied. But since the firing order was marked by a drum roll, witnesses say he twisted his body at the last moment to take the volley in the chest. In the end he owned himself; a slave to no man, not even to expectation. A small thing perhaps, but his life was all he had. And it was his to the last.
David Brooks in his recent column in NYT empahsizes the progressive aspect of a so-called progressive-era expansion coming from the Obama movement rather than the liberal aspect of wealth re-distribution which is being discussed here. There should be more clarity on how the two aspects are actually working together and are likely to continue doing so until the damage done is so much and of a kind that it forces a reversal–which is likely to take some time, around 8 to 12 years is my guess. What comes after that? Maybe enligthenment harmony and good will are finally in the cards for the American people.
re: ” the New England Yankee Puritan element of the President’s make up is a good chunk of what so many of us in the South and West instinctively find off-putting about Obama:”
———————
what? i was born and grew up in Hawaii – I went to Punahoe high school there – which my ancestors started – some 5-6 generations ago – and i have nephews who went to school with him – and know what he was – and what he is –
o’ – is not a New Englander – nor a Hawaiian –
I live in Vermont now – which has sadly succumbed to the flatlander leftish-ness – politically – they moved in – they are not Vermonters – but they outnumber us now in votes – same in Hawaii – such is life —
but leftish-ness is not all that Vermont is – nor is the present leftish Hawaii government all that it is — despite present appearances –
many of us disagree with what is happening – and we have, and we will, defend this Nation when it is time to do so – don’t doubt that
They – the left – are trying to divide us – don’t fall for it – we are Americans
and Together – we shall stand.
difficult times are coming, as you all know – we must stand together – and not let them divide us.
” In the end he owned himself; a slave to no man, not even to expectation. A small thing perhaps, but his life was all he had. And it was his to the last. ”
there you go – excellent Wretch – that is all we have, and it is all we need
thank you for what you have done – and are doing – we appreciate it.
#46 Wretchard:
Indeed, one of the elements of the Reformation was the argument over publishing the Bible in anything other than church Latin.
There is a slow self selection amongst Blacks. While not converting to Republicans they are moving away from the big city black population with its Crab Bucket culture.
The habit of accusing Blacks who become conservatives “Uncle Toms” will eventually loose its bite with the internet generation in my opinion.
When Obama or the left loses the religious Blacks it will be all over.
anton (#9): “If there were a way to get out with his ego intact I think he would quit.”
Assassinate Ban Ki-moon, and then start an astroturf campaign pleading with Obama to step up.
Kinuachdrach (#13): “Maybe the best response to Peak Government is to encourage rapid collapse — and be ready to pick up the marked-down pieces afterwards.”
Who says we’ll be the ones picking up the pieces? I’d rather Generalissimo Francisco Franco remain dead.
starling (#16): “I wonder, how do they really think all this will play out? How long do they think they can point the accusatory finger of ‘racist’ with this much impunity?”
Consequences (especially unintended ones)? Consequences are so … conservative!
aardvark (#24): “the Ace of Hearts, is still a wild card. Compassion can still trump”
But now many people feel that they have no economic choice but to reluctantly cut down on redistribution. And instead of being given any credit for their past generosity, they are being attacked and accused of vile motives. In other words, they acted with compassion and, in their difficult hours, are being rewarded with just the opposite. Things that make you go hmmm.
Kinuachdrach (#45): “Perhaps the message here is yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Cultures can withstand awful abuse; they cannot withstand well-intended subsidies for irresponsible behavior.”
Precisely. We need not accuse the “Left” of evil or machiavellianism, nor expound racist theories. You put it perfectly.
For a Canadian example, see Mark Steyn’s article (2-3 screens down).
JMH (#57):
I want to be there when you deliver that speech.
If Hillary gets the nomination, she can’t win – Obama has poisoned the well for any future nominee besides himself.
Democrats can’t win without the black vote – but anyone who is seen as pushing Obama himself is going to have to face the walkout of the black electorate en masse. That’s why Hillary can’t win – and that’s the danger of race baiting politics, for those who engage in it.
Wretchard – “It would be interesting to find out how many blacks have “fled” the black community almost in the same sense of immigrants leaving their countries; It would be interesting to find out how many blacks have “fled” the black community almost in the same sense of immigrants leaving their countries;”
Most of my black friends in San Diego are ex-military. In that they fled where ever they came from to assimilate into the military community, to college, and into the workforce they are smart intellectually but committed, for the most part, to their community to the point that Rodney King and O.J Simpson are supported so Obama is a slam dunk. Maybe if conservatives could just convince them that it is Obama’s white half that has gone wrong with this Marxist thing, that would be helpful.
My kingdom for an edit button.
#69 Annoy Mouse:
Funny you should mention an attack on Obama’s White Half.
Sherrod herself has has said something to the effect that Obama has not experienced the “real” Black experience with discrimination.
toadold – “Obama has not experienced the “real” Black experience ”
That’s right, he does not qualify as “authentic”.
The fight to liberate the blacks from the liberal plantation has to be led by a black man. That may not make sense in the abstract, but it is a practical requirement. The problem with rooting this effort in the Republican party is that the Liberals have consistently and relentlessly branded it the Party of the White Man and have suppressed and sanitized the history of the Democratic Party to make it out to be the Party of the Black Man.
But for the first time in many decades the labels “Republican” and “Democrat” are no longer determinative. Newer descriptors are emerging and that presents an opportunity for blacks which the liberals are sure to fear. It should have escaped no one that the liberals are trying to tar the Tea Parties with the same brush they’ve used on the Republicans, branding it the Party of the Racist White Man. What is less obvious is how this is less aimed at whites than blacks. It serves the purpose of denying to black dissidents the use of the Tea Parties to fight free of the plantation. By making the anti-statist movement a no-go area for any self-respecting black man they are essentially shutting the door to escapees.
The key to defeating that liberal counterstrategy is the l’offensive à outrance — advance to the limit — because momentum is the insurgent’s best friend. In this case it means you cannot punch to 2010. You must punch through 2010. Although the tax revolt idea must find a resting shelf in the elections of 2010; although it must find expression in politics and due to circumstances, Republican politics, the idea of the revolt against the elites cannot be confined to electoral politics. It’s got to go viral.
One way to tell whether virality has been achieved is if democrats and blacks starting creating their own versions of the revolt. They will look strange and even perverted. But once the memetic infection has crossed the boundary then the status quo can be said to be in real trouble. In the months that follow the non-partisan components of the fight against the plantation may take on an increasing importance. Where it will end, who can say? But the situation is good in this way: the liberal task is to get things back under control. The conservative goal is ask questions and open up all the dark rooms of the public policy opera house.
In the end he owned himself; a slave to no man, not even to expectation. A small thing perhaps, but his life was all he had. And it was his to the last.
Yes–when you sweep away away the sophistry of ideology, Right, Left, or whatever, what it all comes down to in the end is whether you own yourself or someone owns you. In the final analysis we are all minority groups consisting of just one person. Do we deserve any lesser standing just because our minority group isn’t big enough?
“It would be interesting to find out how many blacks have “fled” the black community almost in the same sense of immigrants leaving their countries;…”
Back in the late 80’s I would guess it was 60 Minutes carried a report on a new program in Chicago. They would take black families out of the ghetto circumstances they were in and put them in a nice normal white neighborhood. I suppose you might call it learning culture by total immersion. Of course the taxpayers paid for it, but under the welfare rules of the time they taxpayers were going to pay anyway
All of the blacks chosen for the experiment had their eyes opened. And as it turned out most of them finally chose to go back to black neighborhoods, but all of them saw there was a different way to live and that it was associated with behavior rather than skin color. I don’t know what the ultimate outcome was but at the time it looked good for them.
Of course, for the TV program they had to find a naysayer who decried the fact that the blacks had to move out of black neighborhoods to learn how to live successfully. And of course, he did not have to explain how they could do so without getting exposed to Whiteness.
W, I think the process of liberating blacks from the liberal plantation is happening in stages. I know many blacks who have passed through the first stages: leaving the ghetto, openly embracing white friends, striving to accomplish something in life, rather than playing the victim, opposing black racism, etc. It seems one of the very last stages is embracing Republicans, who have been painted as so evil to the black man. It’s almost like the journey of a muslim who leaves Islam; it’s kinda dangerous for those who do. There will be threats, scorn and in some cases physical violence if a black turns his back on the Democrats. To me, there needs to be more of a critical mass of blacks rejecting the other aspects of the Black Welfare plantation before it will be psychologically safe at least, for blacks join the Constitutional resistance.
75@RWE: The Feds are still doing this with Section 8 housing vouchers. Section 8 tenants were desirable to a certain type of landlord because the rent always got paid, so there was some defacto segregation, which we all know is BAD.
The idea now is to give these guys enough money so they can rent an apartment in Reston or Columbia. This is the same kind of wishful thinking that drove school busing. If we only put poor, but honest, culturally deprived minorities in better (white) schools or communities, then by osmosis they would be lifted up.
This is like adding an ounce of cat pee to a bottle of white wine and hoping that the wine will make the cat pee taste better. Reston and Columbia now have gang and crime problems that they did not have before.
2) The stories of Mexican immigrants to Texas are certainly true, because Texas is a can do state with low welfare benefits, so all the loafers go to California. But these guys are Blue voters through and through.
Once the Left flips Texas in the Electoral College, as they did California in the 90s, they will own the presidency forever. And that is their plan. The Republicans are too stupid to see it, and to chicken to do anything about it even if they did see it.
Acting white
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_white
As long as people define ‘Acting white’ as inimical to their heritage, they cannot be successful.
The idea that learning is “white” is the ideology of oppression presented as an act of resistance. It is the ideology of staying on the plantation turned into a fake virtue. But making ignorance ‘cool’ explains a lot.
Sharia law.
The very idea of knowledge is a western concept, don’t assume that anyone lacking it is not perfect in their own minds.
“History repeats itself, a tragedy is repeated as a farce.” I may not have that old Karl Marx phrase exactly right. One old ex-commie once wrote that in his later years Marx wrote that instead of the state withering away that society would fall into the Chinese Bureaucracy model. From what I’m seeing now the old boil butted crank may have been right about those things???
JWarrior, you don’t understand the differences between Texas and California that make a true leftist takeover impossible. The most fundamental difference is that Texas has *Never* allowed a State Income Tax, and never will. (look up the picture associated with the phrase “Vote from the Rooftops!” if that ever happens – no joke) Without an income tax, there will *never* be enough money for a truly liberal agenda to ever be enacted, no matter who is in office. And without the ability to buy off voting groups, a liberal bloc can never entrench itself.
That’s the original sin California made – they gave their government unlimited access to money, in the belief it would do good. They, the citizens of that state, fell in love with their own sense of invulnerability. Now bankruptcy is the only way out. SEIU? Texas has no powerful SEIU. And given California’s example, it never will.
And the hispanics I know are far more conservative, in a social sense, than any group of black voters ever can be. It has to do with family, and this is what makes me pessimistic that there is any future for the black segment of society. Hispanic society is still focused on the family, and family is the basic foundation of all societies. Sadly the black family has collapsed completely. 70% of black children are born to single mothers now – 70% of black children will never know what it is to have a normal family, or to have a father they can count on and look up to. The problems this causes have been documented for so long that I doubt I need to enumerate them here.
I submit that this is a terminal state of affairs for that segment of the culture, and that it is already far too late to turn things around. There’s not enough of a critical mass left to save the whole. The opportunity came and went, and it will not return.
I watched the history of the earth this evening. The program discussed the Sahara desert. According to the program– up until 3 million years ago the Sahara was underwater. For the last 3 million years the Sahara has gone from wet savanna with many lakes bigger than the great lakes — to desert — and back again. This has occurred every 20,000 years. Why? the Earth wobbles on its axis every 20,000 years and shifts its position enough to make the the african monsoons shift north. Scientists found that the shift of the earth axes coincided with shifts in sedimentary cores in the atlantic. That is, every 20000 years the Atlantic cores would show sand intrusions from the Sahara that would stop abruptly at 20000 year intervals at the time when the earth wobbles on its axis.
The Atlantic cores show that the Sahara was a verdant savanna with many huge lakes–more lakes and bigger than the great lakes– up until 5500 years ago or 3500 BC. Then abruptly–in less than 200 years–the Sahara dried up. This coincided with the last wobble of the earth on its axis.
As well, this coincides with the emergence of the old Kingdom in Egypt and (very roughly) the earliest parts of Stonehenge.(I’ve thought for about a decade that about 5000 years ago for the first time people all over the world looked up. I thought the triggering event might have been a destructive comet but a big change in the night sky caused by earth’s wobble would make better sense.)
The show concluded that the sandstone rocks of the Sahara contain immense aquifers of water that could pumped up to turn the deserts there green. Scientists were uneasy about draining the desert of its archaic water because a wholesale program that did turn North Africa green would deplete its archaic water supplies in 100-200 years. And there’s another 15,000 years before the rains return.
imho considering that well water is cheaper than desalinated water–so cheap that it could be used for agriculture now — the best bet to turn north africa green is well water. In time desalinated water will be cheap enough to replenish the ancient aquifers.
wretchard:
How Spanish friars acted is a paradox of empire. On the one hand, they kept the natives ignorant. On the other hand, their very raison d’etre of being in the Philippines was to teach the natives.
There is a key difference between a desire to teach and a desire for the position of teacher. A good teacher will feel gratified that his students may know more than he does about his topic. Other teachers will feel upset that once their teaching is done, their students will have no more use for them. A teacher ought to be willing to accept equality with the natives once he has taught what he knows to them.
The haven is being corrupted from within under the guise of enlightenment.
Of course corruption comes under the guise of enlightenment. Do you really expect corruption to portray itself as anything else? The corruption we see has a very long tradition in America.
James Axtell wrote about Eleazar Wheelock (the founder of Dartmouth), “Like those of his Puritan predecessors, Wheelock’s missionary goals were essentially two: to save the Indians from themselves and save the English from the Indians. The best way to accomplish both was, as he stated so facilely, to turn Indians into Englishmen.” (The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, 1981, p. 51.)
Supposing Walter Russell Mead’s hypothesis is true, a modernized version of such a missionary vision would be, “Like those of his Communist predecessors, Obama’s missionary goals were essentially two: to save the Americans from themselves and save the world from the Americans. The best way to accomplish both was, as he stated so facilely, to turn Americans into world citizens.”
One of the most effective means to keep people ignorant is to equate education with cultural perversion. Learning new technology or new ideas is one thing – it is entirely another to use education as a means to erase the minds of captive children. Or set them against their parents.
I don’t think the fear of “acting white” is quite as simple as racism; it is both a reaction against and an internalization of the ideals of “upliftment of the Negro race”. Upliftment to what? Elevated to what? This “liberal” rhetoric is very damaging.
We need to distinguish between elevation and education. Education must not be regarded as a means to elevate ourselves to become someone other than who we are. Instead, education is the process of putting weapons into the arsenal of the student – the martial arts of the mind. In other words, education must not be equated with making a Faustian bargain.
Learning is learning; education is education; civilization is civilization. The temptation for conservatives will be to look at the more visible professorate and then equate education with oppression, science with unmanliness, and academic excellence with cultural perversion.
Eggplant, #59: I think Sarah Palin was a good choice as McCain’s VP and also enjoy how she makes the moonbats livid with rage. However she would be a poor choice as a Presidential candidate and Obama might be able to beat her in 2012. Conservatives should be very focused on getting Obama out of office as soon as possible. The candidate best able to achieve that should be their first choice.
And what if that candidate turns out to be… Sarah Palin? (In other words, what if all the other viable candidates turn out to be a bunch of RINOs?)
If Palin is the nominee in 2012 I’m inclined to vote for her. But if it’s someone like, say, Mike Huckabee, forget it. In fact if it’s Huckabee or some other RINO I may actually vote for Obama. That’s right, you didn’t misread me. If we’re left to choose between Obama and some RINO two years from now, that means the country’s fate is pretty much sealed either way, so better that the Left’s golden boy be the one to take the rap for it, rather than a putative “conservative”.
Stealing the fire. Everybody does it. The “white man’s religion” comes from the Middle East. Ex oriente lux. But in more recent times two models typify the reaction to a burgeoning Europe. One was Japan’s reaction to Perry and the other was the ANC’s.
The question is: is it bad to “act white” if that means learning the universal methods of inquiry, freedom and industry — or do you simply appropriate its accidents? Is it uncool learn how to build steel ships? Or is it better to deck yourself out in morning coat and top hat?
In Third World countries the path to Westernization is commonly supposed to lie through consumption. And we measure white guy-ization by the numbers of people wearing the right threads, eating the trendy grub, grooving to the London music. But I think this is wrong. Which of the two paths, one of Meiji and the other of Mugabe which was the bigger sellout?
You don’t “uplift” a person. All you can ever do is get that someone to think for themselves. To paddle their own canoe. Once they do that they become interested in paddles and canoes. They don’t imagine these things come from a store. They begin to value knowledge. They begin to discover themselves and value themselves above the bling and the limo and the jewel encrusted watch. The real genius of the new plantation managers was to label ‘thinking for yourself’ as ‘acting white’. In truth, it’s just acting human.
Joshua @ 84 said:
“If Palin is the nominee in 2012 I’m inclined to vote for her. But if it’s someone like, say, Mike Huckabee, forget it. In fact if it’s Huckabee or some other RINO I may actually vote for Obama.”
I understand your thinking but I believe the United States is at a branch point in history, i.e. one branch leads to national ruin and breakup while the other results in the nation reinventing itself again. It’s extremely unfortunate that at this critical moment in history we have someone as utterly incompetent as Obama as President. A very desirable outcome would be the appearance of some sort of conservative savior, i.e. someone with the intelligence of Abraham Lincoln, common sense of Harry S. Truman and charisma of Ronald Reagan. As far as I can tell that person does not exist. General Petraeus might(?) be that savior but he might also be a Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
If we do get the right man as President and he had his party running Congress, it’s possible that the nation could literally reinvent itself. The whole liberal/socialist thing has pretty much run its course. I can see the concept clicking in the nation’s collective mind set that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Conceivably the whole rotten socialist/New Deal infrastructure could be flushed away along with the current economic structure and a new system put in its place. Of course this would be extremely painful but we’re heading for a world of hurt no matter what we do. This upcoming pain could actually be put to good use if we had a wise leader.
Off topic but interesting:
http://www.businessinsider.com/t-boone-pickens-gives-up-on-wind-power-2010-7
I suspected that wind power was a scam, i.e. use government subsidy to make wind power look better than it really was and then fleece the initial investors/suckers before the subsidy dried up. This development with T. Boone Pickens indicates that the government subsidy didn’t happen as expected (the states are broke) so Pickens is cutting his losses.
I like the Meiji analogy. I also agree that stealing the fire is something one does for one’s self.
You don’t “uplift” a person.
I agree. That was the biggest mistake of W.E.B. Du Bois. It was also an internalization of monumental arrogance of neo-Puritan missionaries who thought they had a moral duty to destroy cultures other than themselves.
Here I am, someone who watches British comedies; listens to Andean music; watches German silent films; eats French jam, Mexican cajeta, Greek gyros, Arab baklava, and Italian cheese; and is influenced by Zera Yaqob (an Ethiopian philosopher). None of this makes me any less American.
I am strongly in favor of increasing the curriculum of foreign languages in American schools. This includes Arabic. This stance puts me at odds with quite a few people who think that any language other than English is necessarily subversive or dangerous.
That said, we should remember how Janissaries were created through a process called Devshirme. During the Ottoman Empire, Christian boys were taken away from their families, forcibly converted to Islam, and turned into a band of fanatical shock troops for the Sultan. (Interestingly, deracinated Indian converts to Christianity in New Mexico were also called “genizaries”.)
There is an inherent difference between learning English to acquire a source of power and getting force fed English as a means of getting broken in as a slave. There is an inherent difference between learning Arabic for our own purposes and getting taught Arabic as a means to push us to become Muslim. Parents have a legitimate right to be concerned whenever teachers indoctrinate their children into an ideology or theology they don’t like.
One thing to remember about Japan is that it watched what European powers did, not merely what they said. Hence, just as England protected its industries in previous centuries, Japan protected its industries when they were in a weak state. Colonial minds tend to listen to the latest fads, while statesmen watch what great powers really do.
Anti-Americanism in the Middle East is curious. Iran talks of “westoxification”. Yet, should peoples outside of the Middle East reject all religion originating from the Middle East merely because it comes from the Middle East? The Heideggerian worship of “authenticity” would essentially require most of humanity to accept paganism and reject monotheism for the simple reason that monotheism would be perceived to be an oriental import. Hence, there is a dark humor to Nazi influences on modern Islam – the demand for an “authentic Islam” is essentially a demand for a polytheistic Islam. And calling a Muslim a polytheist is “fighting words”.
At this time, I would have to rate Mitt Romney as being the most probable Republican
nominee in 2012. Reason is that he is doing all the leg work organizing and fund raising for Republican candidates who need assistance. The Sharron Angle campaign
here in Nevada was headed for a 20 point defeat until Romney came in and straightened things out. Sharron is still down 7 points but she is at last stabilizing and countering Reid’s propoganda. We got a fighting chance now.
I rather imagine the successful GOP candidates in South Carolina owe Mitt a few favors. So do others and the list is growing. In any political party that is both viable and ethical, this is the sort of work that counts. (Guided by Pat Caddell, this is how Jimmy Carter secured the 1976 D nomination in the wake of the McGovern debacle of 1972.)
So kwityerbitching and don’t give me any of that RINO crap. Mitt ain’t perfect,
but he has a trunk, not a horn. If his IOUs are sufficient, the nomination will be his and that is how it should be. If said markers are a bit insufficient, the nomination will be up for grabs. HOWEVER, whoever manages to secure said nomination
under the conditions Mitt is helping to engineer will be acceptable not only to the Republican base but to the general electorate as well. That will be no mean accomplishment.
The political system goes by another name where I have gone and done. It is called
fire and movement. Behave accordingly.
Just how long is the Republican Party going to carry on putting forward wannabe theocrats as candidates? The last time it did that, America got Obama. If the Republicans do it again it may well lead to an Obama second term – or possibly even worse, Hilary Clinton (probably with Bill the Crooked Lothario in a cabinet position). Why?
Because the majority of Americans don’t want a fundamentalist loony as President – or as Vice President either. The majority, that is, taking into account the metropolitan areas as well as the rural ones. And I venture to suggest that after the experience of the two Shrubs, the American public don’t want someone bought and paid for by big business either.
@ Wretchard (73) who said “The fight to liberate the blacks from the liberal plantation has to be led by a black man.”
Agreed. But it’s worth noting that blackness, while necessary, will not be sufficient. Not just any black man–and it will need to be a man–will do. He can’t and won’t be a Republican or conservative–at least not at the outset. He’ll have to start from deep within the liberal/Democratic camp–the truest blue you’ve ever seen. He’ll need to be charismatic and competent at what is his chosen avocation: it need not be politics, per se. And then he’ll need to experience an awakening, an epiphany. Some event (or series of them) leaves him first disillusioned, then determined to find answers, and then he sees the Light. Something, some way, some how, lifts the veils from his eyes and then he will lead his people–if not to the Promised Land then at least off the plantation. His wife will also need to be black. If she turns out to be like Lot’s wife and is intent on looking ever backward, then her replacement will need to be black too. No black man with a white wife is going be leading any black’s anywhere. Even Obama knew that.
Fletcher (#90):
So John McCain is a wannabe theocrat / fundamentalist loony. Uh-huh.
“The 2/3 majority in the Senate necessary to convict Obama of an impeachable offense is politically impossible.”
What Larry said….
AT THIS MOMENT. Like most of life, it’s a matter of timing. The House needs to Impeach about October of next year. Send over a U.S. Marshall with a summons for the Governor of Hawaii to appear before a Congressional hearing on Obama’s status as a Natural Born Citizen.
That is a Constitutional issue AND it doesn’t bump into the 5th Amendment. Obama has to prove he is eligible, nobody has the burden of proving he isn’t.
Stretch out the Impeachment trial thru the spring. By March of 2012, Senators standing for re-election will be fund raising. They always get a little flak along with the check.
Remember, this is politics, not beanbag. Those Democratic Senators standing for re-election are going to be more worried about the mud being tossed around sticking to them then anything else.
As has been pointed out many times, every two years America turns a tin ear toward it’s citizens. For that one day, Politicians tremble in fear, or at least half of them do.
As Brother Lollipop says; “You have to seize the moment’
P.S., it’s not impossible that the Senate flips. What with the special elections and open seats, right now ALL the Democratic incumbents are within the margin of error. That is unheard of. A slaughter of Democratic Senators this election means those Democratic Senators that want to keep their jobs in 2012 will vote to Convict.
“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”*
*
_Otto Von Bismarck
Bob; You have to understand that Fletcher is representative of what is left of England. All he knows how to do is wear a red coat and march in a straight line.
The fact that Nehemiah Scudder is named Jeremiah Wright and Bleys Ahrens is really Barack Obama seems to be beyond his cognitive capabilities. Nor can he grasp the phony faith-healing display of Christopher Reeves and James Brady at the 1996 Democrat Convention. (Re-elect Bill Clinton and Superman will fly again. Look!
Look! He signed the Brady Bill and James Brady can walk again!) And his National Health Service appropriates no money at all to cure CRIS. (Cranial Rectal Inversion Syndrome) That is what keeps them in business you know.
Starling: I am going to have to chew on what you said before I can venture to comment. I sort of grasp the epiphany bit. However, do you mean to say that
emotions against interracial marriage are so intense that members or such marriages
are unable to function as role models and/or mavericks?
Politically, I always thought that J. C. Watts had accomplished a lot. You know, a black guy that gets elected as a Republican in a district full of white redneck Democrats and converts said district to GOP majority.
Looks like to me what you are describing qualifies as pathology. But like I said,
Ihad better shut up until I think it over some more. Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
starling: Nelson Mandela, in other words, even right down to the troublesome wife who has to be repudiated. Is there such a person? Is there time left to grow one? Mandela’s transformation took years, and I think matters are moving too quickly for such an American version to catch up in time. And did even Mandela effect the sort of transformation you are looking forward to? South Africa is not Zimbabwe, but its trajectory seems more in that direction than that of a Chile.
FC #90
You really don’t get the U.S., do you?
Or perhaps a post like that serves to bolster your internal idea that you are so vastly superior?
Whither the bigotry (no other word will do)?
In response, I’ll repost something from another blog that might help to clear things up for you:
“The current fashionable attitude amongst the atheist cultural elite which essentially lumps all devoutly religious people together is the problem, not the answer.
The psychiatric terms “projection” and “transference” leap to mind whenever I hear some atheist or agnostic, or even a member of one of the more exsanguinated and emasculated forms of Christianity, attempt to draw parallels between fundamentalist Christians and radical Islam. It is the easy thing to do, and tempting, to conflate the Islamists and the religiously zealous of other faiths, but it will always be inaccurate, since there are major and irreconcilable differences for those who observe these faiths rationally and without bigotry towards religion in general and Christianity in particular.
First, at least in Europe and the U.S., the objections to Christian fundamentalists are almost always based on social, economic, and educational institution snobbery, rather than logically thought-out philosophical arguments or dispassionate, accurate assessments of facts on the ground. I am as likely as anyone to prefer attractive, witty, sophisticates (and there are plenty of devoutly Christian people who fit into that category) to fat, ignorant, doctrinaire people who live in shacks or trailers (and it should be obvious that no few atheists that fit that description). Nevertheless, devout Christians (like devout Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.) are not, despite a few silly forays into educational policy that are basically defensive in nature, and despite a few extremely isolated, statistically insignificant crackpots, a threat to the beliefs or values of anyone outside of their communities, nor to anyone’s life or limb. Even their most proselytizing groups are not prone to using widespread force to spread or maintain their doctrines, and have not been so to any meaningful extent for centuries (since the end of the Thirty Years War).
Second, the essential nature of Islam as a faith is different than that of other religions. The extreme austerity and abstraction of Islam, combined with the arbitrary justifications for otherwise immoral conduct brought about by what to an observer is an attempt to duplicate precisely the personality and life of Mohammed, create a contradiction that is unique among religions, and makes for a much more dangerous set of conditions than those produced in any other faith groups. Among religions, only Islam has such a high percentage of members who are aggressively, outwardly directed in their willingness to expand by the use of violence and oppression – not as last means, but as a core tactic – and dominated by the need to seek out and, as matter not just of practice but of organizing principle, destroy all evidence of nonconformity.
In truth, the nature of Islam, with its arbitrary, merciless, and impersonal god, resembles a kind of formalized atheism more than anything else. Like atheism it is intolerant, condescending, devoid of humility, and often militant (see atheism in the USSR or Red China) – a preening, self-styled ‘ethical culture’ combined with a set of what are, in practice, unethical moral precepts. Much as there has never been or can be a truly free, democratic, and benevolent atheist nation, so too has there never been a truly benevolent Islamist one, and I suspect there never will be.
A dispassionate look at the facts reveals that Islam, especially (but not only) radical Islam, is more like atheism than it is, despite its pretensions, like any other religion. Most Muslims refuse to deal with this truth. Additionally, with almost no exceptions atheists demonize Christianity in an attempt to deal with their own inability to honestly resolve any cognitive dissonance created by their own similarities to the societies that exist in Islam. This is the reason for projection and transference by atheists in their attempts to draw an unfounded confluence between Muslim extremists and Christianity – instead of seeing the log in their own eye.”
I would only add that any group, as it (and especially its leadership) becomes aggressively secular and atheist and develops contempt for the spiritual, becomes less free and less tolerant, whether it be countries (like the USSR or the EU) or whether it be other types of organizations (exhibit one being the education industry in the West, which, as it has abandoned Christianity and developed contempt and bigotry towards religion in general with an especial hate for Christianity, has become PC, rammed through speech codes, etc.).
No statistically significant countervaling examples exist.
62. wretchard…
Reminds me that Hawaii in missionary times was rather unusual wrt bestowing a first class education on the natives. In the 50′s, public and private schools alike still turned out well-educated graduates.
Perhaps bits @ 64 could fill in some details.
Following Statehood, secularization, and union schools, Hawaii joins California, Illinois, and etc in a race the bottom.
Oldest post-secondary school west of the Rocky Mountains
Beautiful, historic campus with Print Shop, site of Hawaii’s first printing press.
Lahainaluna High School
Lahainaluna High School is a grade 9-12 school located in Lahaina (on the island of Maui), Hawaii. It is the oldest post-secondary school west of the Rocky Mountains. It was founded in 1831 as a Protestant missionary school, originally named Lahainaluna Seminary.
The early missionaries who arrived in Lahaina in 1823 explained to the Hawaiian Royalty the importance of an educational institution. A number of the pioneers are buried in a small grave yard. It was the first school founded in Hawaii and has remained in operation since.
Hale Pa’i, or the house of printing, is a small coral and timber building on the Lahainaluna campus that, starting in 1834, served as the home of Hawaii’s first printing press.
English and Hawaiian language books and newspapers were printed here, including the first newspaper printed West of the Rocky Mountains. The first paper currency of Hawaii was printed here in 1843, and a student was expelled in 1844 for counterfeiting, causing all the paper money to be re-issued with secret marks.[5]
#92 Bob – While not wanting to disparage a combat veteran, it is a fact that due to his health problems associated with that (and advanced age) vote McCain and you are quite likely to get Palin – and she is a theocrat.
#97 no mo uro – Every single one of the KKK, AFAIK, calls himself a Christian. So do the abortion clinic bombers and the militia nutters.
No, I don’t get America. No other Western country takes young-Earth creationist fundies seriously; no other Western country allows the teaching of creationism in schools; no other Western country has either heavily-armed militia gangs or people who murder doctors because of their “Christian” beliefs. And in no other Western country is the Scudder scenario even a remote possibility.
Incidentally, I do not include South America in the term “Western” for this purpose.
And finally: Yes, I do think that the extremist, violent fringe of fundamentalist “Christianity” is just as bad as the jihadists – and just as hostile to freedom.
Poor old Fletcher Christian. The sun set on the British Empire. The former workshop of the world closed down. The only contribution that England has made to the world in recent decades is the word “bling”. And the English national soccer team is so bad that even its abysmal failures can’t get English soccer hooligans to riot anymore.
With that record, no wonder an Englishman sees the greatest threat to Western civilization is the US abortion clinic bomber. You can’t walk down a street in the US without risking injury in the daily conflagration of abortion clinics. Yup! It is the perpetual headline in the 24/7 BBC news broadcast running in his head.
How have the once mighty English fallen!
99. Fletcher Christian
By your posts I am assuming that you live in one of the nations of “Old Europe”.
For starters I have five kids, all went through public school, none were taught creationism.
The reality is that the KKK is a tiny, reviled band of wackos, they have withered away to creating internet hate sites and doing little else. They may call themsleves Christians but they are damned by every respectable Christian faith, quite unlike the violent Islamic organizations that routinely receive support from the “moderate” members of Islamic society. There are probably more violent Islamic militants in George Galloway’s borough than there are actual members of the KKK.
I would have to add that France has heavily armed gangs of Islamic militia that have created “no-go” zones in many cities, where they riot, murder and rape with relative impunity. Britan is sliding that way as well with large areas of London being essentially off-limits to non-Islamics. Europe might have missed out on abortion-clinic bombers but you have honor-killings instead. Holland has a rising Nationalist movement (as does Britian) due to the excesses of Islamic immigration/failure to assimilate/obey the common law.
As a law enforcement officer that has handled the “militia nutters” for my department for sixteen years I can tell you that most of the ones I have encountered are atheists, they are more concerned with devolving power to the local sheriff than establishing some sort of religious theocracy. BTW the Oklahoma Bombing was an anti-government act, not a religious one, despite the efforts of our lamentable media to present it otherwise.
re: Palin as a theocrat; please list examples of her acting as such while in office. We have a theocrat now, Obama follows the Cult of Marx (sadly Karl not Groucho).
re: “violent fringe of fundamentalist “Christianity” is just as bad as the jihadists – and just as hostile to freedom” Please provide examples of mass-murder projects by said “Christians”, there are simply too many Islamic ones to bother listing in reply. I don’t recall any cities in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) where whole tracts are given over to Christian “youths” to engage in violence, perhaps I have missed it on the news? I can’t recall Christians advocating the stoning of rape victims or the mutilation of petty criminals.
Over the last century and a half Marxists and Islamicists have killed people at an easy thousand to one ratio over Christian Fundamentalists. They are the extremists that worry me.
Worrying about Christian Fundies is rather like worrying about a splinter in your finger while standing in front of an on-rushing locomotive.
Kinuachdrach @ 45
“Highland Scots were being driven out their homes by agents of their English overlords”
The evicting overlords were themselves Highland Scots, though sometimes they employed Lowland or English factors to carry out the more onerous minutiae of eviction work. The lords were, for the most part, the aristocratic families of ancient clan leaders who had been ‘de-clanned’ following the Jacobite risings (attempts to put the Stuart monarchs back on the British throne). One could argue that it was the actions of the British government that led to, or at least legalised, the clearances, but by this stage of history it was just that: British, not specifically English.
Some of the Scottish aristocrats also moved to England in the early 1800s to develop their business interests, including the Sutherland family, particularly active here in the North Staffordshire mining area, and not particularly well liked.
“the US has not ended up with a restive Scottish minority “
Indeed, far from being a restive minority many of the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders that had settled in the then Thirteen Colonies remained Loyal during the WoI, including the redoubtable Flora MacDonald:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_MacDonald_%28Scottish_Jacobite%29
I’m going to borrow a post by Trent Trelenko, from another blog today, because it fits this conversation perfectly! And Trent, if and when you see this, I am NOT trying to plagiarize your posting – I just think your words fit even better here than they did in the original setting. Plus this gives me a chance to give a shout-out to AJ’s fine blog, The Strata-Sphere, he’s had a series of exceptionally fine posts recently.
from http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/13776/comment-page-1#comment-514535
trent trelenko wrote:
A friend in LA sent me the following:
>> LOUISIANA POLLSTER BERNIE PINSONAT: “Democrats in Louisiana are headed
>> for a long period of being inconsequential. Landrieu voting for
>> President Obama’s health care legislation and against the stated wishes
>> of the vast majority of her constituents here in Louisiana was a
>> disaster for Democrats. Now the Obama oil moratorium is pushing
>> Louisiana to being the most anti-Democrat of the fifty states. Louisiana
>> is now fire engine red.”
My take on the 2010 Federal elections in Louisiana is that Pres. Obama has so racially polarized the electorate there — with the BP oil spill fiasco — that we are going to see what an American state looks like when whites vote nearly as Republican (85% +/- 5%) as blacks vote Democrat (93 % +/- 5%).
I don’t see a state wide office, or majority white Federal House seat, going Democrat in LA for 20 years, starting in 2010.
The implications for elected Black political power of that is harsh, and made worse by the blatantly Racial/Partisan nature of DoJ Voting Rights enforcement black lash from Whites, who no longer see the Fed’s as legitimate agents of justice.
Popular, mass, non-compliance by Whites, combined with highly restricted Republican majority Congressional budgets for DoJ Voting Rights enforcement litigation spells lower long term Black voter turn out, however you cut it.
91. starling
Even Obama knew that.
……..
Actually Obama will do a synthetic of what you describe next year. He’s already said as much Up in Canada a couple weeks back when he tried to sell more spending to the Europeans and they told him the name of the game was to reduce deficits. After the conference he said next year his agenda would be to cut spending. He said people don’t believe him now, but they didn’t believe him when he said he wanted to do health care. With the republicans in the house, bush tax cuts about to expire and an improving economy it will be easy for him to end 2011 with the deficit under 1 trillion. Shesh. deficit under 1 trillion.
Now what would Whiskey say.
WWS 103,
BERNIE PINSONAT also said this as well:
>>Over 50 voters are now dominating our elections and they are going to be
>>the force that decide most outcomes. Their dissatisfaction with
>>President Obama and his policies are motivating these voters.
Obama’s health care and open border policies are a life and death issue for White Baby boomers.
Boomers are the most competent and wealthy generation of retirees in American history. They are going to be around and energetic for another 20 years in huge numbers.
They are used to competent government catering to their needs, not those of young non-whites.
The “Ruling Class” as we know it now in America does not value competence because it is a threat to their power structure. They cannot deliver competent government services because they value loyalty to class over competence, and get neither.
There was not a dime’s worth of difference between the treatment of the Intelligence Agencies by Pres. Bush after 9/11/2001 and Pres. Obama of the Coast Guard, EPA and Dept of HHS after the BP spill.
Both Ruling class Presidents hit on small agencies (FEMA after Katrina and the MMS after BP) with no vested interest power blocks for failures, but they didn’t apply the vertical stroke to the large bureaucracies for substandard performance because “their kind of people” were running them.
The end result here is that White 50(+) Boomers are going to get into politics in a very big way at the grass roots level to protect their interests against incompetent big government that does not cater to their interests.
Obama’s ruling class has turned the Boomers into a “small government except for boomer health care” interest group that will make the NRA look like a Chihuahua puppy dog in comparison.
And please note, while Boomers are leaving their most productive years in terms of earning, they are entering their most productive years in terms of _VOTING IN LOW TURN OUT OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS_.
That has huge implications in terms of the rival political party’s leadership development farm teams for local and state government offices.
Note a related point as well, that the hyper-competence of the American military is also the reason why the Ruling class cannot count on the it to oppress the American people.
Ruling Class types cannot make it to the senior ranks of the American Military, not the least because they don’t let the Military recruit from ruling class education institutions over trivial excuse issues like “Gays in the military.”
Please see Obama’s reaction to General Petraeus (Code Pink’s “General Betray us”) winning the Iraq war.
American victory through military competence is against the religious faith of the Leftist American Ruling class.
Meanwhile, maintaining “Hyper-competence” is a survival issue for the American military. (Most Vietnam era US Army Special forces soldiers could not pass the entrance requirements for an 2010 US Army New Recruit.)
The American Military has been (and are now in) combat far too often since the Post-Vietnam internal reforms were put into effect to compromise on that…which makes them an alternate power block and threat, not an ally, of the Ruling Class.
wws @81: And the hispanics I know are far more conservative, in a social sense, than any group of black voters ever can be. It has to do with family, and this is what makes me pessimistic that there is any future for the black segment of society. Hispanic society is still focused on the family, and family is the basic foundation of all societies. Sadly the black family has collapsed completely. 70% of black children are born to single mothers now.
This notion of the “socially conservative” Hispanic is mostly mythology. The rate of unwed births in close to the rate among blacks. And Hispanics have more kids.
Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country—over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for every 1,000 unmarried white women, 22 for every 1,000 unmarried Asian women, and 66 for every 1,000 unmarried black women. Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent of white births and 15 percent of Asian births. Only the percentage of black out-of-wedlock births—68 percent—exceeds the Hispanic rate. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.
You can read the entire, sad story here:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_hispanic_family_values.html
There is no upside to Mexican immigration.
Anton @101: Worrying about Christian Fundies is rather like worrying about a splinter in your finger while standing in front of an on-rushing locomotive.
Agreed. But to cut Fletcher some slack, the Euro press has for decades loved painting American fundamentalists as crazy maniacs. Europeans really have little sense of what a typical, Church going person from, say, Kansas or Wyoming or Texas is like. They know only twisted charicatures and distorted stories about Creationists and such. Hell, for decades the US media has tried to paint white, Christian militia people as Public Enemy Number 1, all while ignoring the staggering crimes rates among non-whites. Your typical New Yorker thinks much the way Fletcher does, and is just as ignorant.
So a lot is due to the fradulent reporting of their media. By contrast, when Muslims riot in France (as they have just done, yet again), they are described only as “youths” and nobody utters a word about their religion. Can you imagine the difference in coverage if a group of Christians rioted in France? To ask the question is to answer it.
Its very sad what “affirmative action” has done to the country. In the long run I think it will hurt minorities far more than anything. Giving people positions of authority that they do not merit by any objective standard has the effect of reinforcing stereotypes rather than dispelling them as well as undermining the accomplishments of minorities who did indeed get their positions by their individual talents and competence. A backlash is building and when it breaks it won’t be pretty.
Affirmative action was used most extensively in government hiring. And what is the current trend in America? Resentment of the government and a desire to cut it down to size. If we start laying off Federal workers it will have a disproportionate impact on minorities, and this will help to fuel racial polarization.
You can say what you want about whether the various minority groups have reasons to reflexively
think that whites are racists until disproved as such beyond a reasonable doubt, but the current state of affairs is giving the white majority some reasons to apply that same standard to the minorities. The PC myth that only white people can be racists is evaporating quickly. It, like the notion that the earth is flat, may be coming to a final end sometime soon.
And what will be the upshot of that?
Salt Lick:
Obama did not grow up a “black boy.” He was raised by his white grandparents. He grew up white. In a sense Obama is the perfect face for the still racist Democratic Party. He is the white boy in genetic blackface that allows the Democratic kleptocracy to control their “slaves” through a set of Uncle Toms in the Congressional Black Caucus, local politics and race husslers.
Tcobb #108
Indeed. To my discomfit, when I have to engage a “person of color” in any official capacity, the first question that springs to mind is ,are they here because they are competent, or because of a quota? The dreadful unexpected consequence of affirmative action results in doubting the qualifications of ALL minorities in a position of power.
Anton @101: Worrying about Christian Fundies is rather like worrying about a splinter in your finger while standing in front of an on-rushing locomotive.
Agreed. But to cut Fletcher some slack, the Euro press has for decades loved painting American fundamentalists as crazy maniacs. Europeans really have little sense of what a typical, Church going person from, say, Kansas or Wyoming or Texas is like.
I too want to cut Fletcher Christian some slack. Underneath it all he is a “fellow traveler” to us BC regulars. He wants the same fundamental things we do by way of genuine individual freedom. It’s unfortunate that Europeans can be as ignorant of America as they claim we are of them. As a matter of fact, I’ve observed that with all the world-wide talk and notion of some sort of “American provincialism” the great wide world is remarkably clueless about America.
Phil Jackson @ 102: “The evicting overlords were themselves Highland Scots …”
That is certainly true — in the sense that the ‘Scottish’ overlords were descended from clan chiefs. But the ones who cleared their former clansmen out of the Highlands to make way for higher profit-margin sheep where as ‘Scottish’ as the current president of the United States is Kenyan — and perhaps they were just as internally-conflicted. The descendants of Scottish clan chiefs lived in England, aped the manners of English nobility, were educated in England, and intermarried into the English upper class whenever they could. Scots in name only.
Scottish or English, what those overlords did was as bad as what African chiefs did, selling neighboring tribes of Africans into slavery. People of any skin color can do evil things — or have evil things done to them.
Of more immediate interest is the resilience of Scottish society through centuries of wars of occupation, internal religious strife, external political manipulation, Highland Clearances, industrial revolution, and World Wars. Scottish society survived all of that — yet has crumbled after only half a century of the well-intentioned Welfare State.
It reminds me of that post WWII saying — there are two ways to destroy a city’s housing stock: carpet bombing, and rent control; and rent control is more effective.
I suspect Obama will get Peter Principled.
Unfortunately, I think He’s a likely candidate for Caliph. The opening of the Cordova Mosque (at ground zero on Sept 11 no less) will mark his ascendancy.
Trent – that hits home to me because while I’m in Texas, I’ve got several in-laws and even more friends in Louisiana that are part of that group Bernie Pinsonat is talking about. And I can confirm that they are all breaking *exactly* the way he’s reporting that they will break – and most of them were (well, before Katrina) Blanco supporters!
That’s all gone now – they see what this administration is doing as a conspiracy to destroy their economy since they can’t be trusted to vote the “right” way anymore. It doesn’t matter whether or not that’s true – what matters is that statewide, that has now become a political “truth” for white voters, and that anger is going to be reflected this fall.
Jindal, btw, has ridden this wave perfectly and contrasted himself to the Feds at every point. So his reputation is still intact, and he’s probably even more popular now than he was before.
It’s unfortunate that Europeans can be as ignorant of America as they claim we are of them. As a matter of fact, I’ve observed that with all the world-wide talk and notion of some sort of “American provincialism” the great wide world is remarkably clueless about America.
Yes. That’s true everywhere. The idea that you can soak up a culture by reading about it or vacationing there for a week is ludicrous. To understand any culture you must live there for an extended period of time which does not consist of living in a bubble. For those of you who are not US citizens, the idea that you can understand America by interacting with residents of New York City or Los Angeles is ridiculous. I won’t say its stupid, but it is ignorant. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity is terminal and there are no known cures.
Fletcher Christian is not stupid by any means, and I do enjoy his comments. Sometimes he displays ignorance of the US much like commentors from the US display about Europe and elsewhere.
There is no sin in being ignorant. The great sin is being unwilling to try to cure it in ourselves. And that applies to each and every one of us.
“Yes, I do think that the extremist, violent fringe of fundamentalist “Christianity” is just as bad as the jihadists – and just as hostile to freedom.”
And such a small percentage of Christians, relative to the percentage of Islamists to Islam in total, that no serious math-science person would even attempt to mention them together.
What part of “statistically significant” did you not understand? To the other posters who pointed this out, thanks.
FC, you’re obviously a book-smart person. I appreciate your yearning for freedom. However, your you desire and need to find anyone who is a remotely devout Christian to be evil (in order to buttress your sad little narrative) is tedious, immature, bigoted, uninformed, and insulting. Shut off your telly and save some pounds, take a trip here, and see what it’s really like. There are no facts to support your cherished conclusion. Why do you need a bogeyman that exists only in the mind?
And you still haven’t addressed the fact that most atheists and Islamists at their base have a great deal more in common than Islamists and folks who go to pretty much any Christian church every Sunday.
I in no way intended to demean F.C.’s intelligence, and I apologize if I came off that way, he just seems badly informed WRT America. Others have made good points about the media and visits to coastal Blueland. I would go further and suggest that our own media is just a slanted as the BBC of AFP and it has become an echo chamber for liberal fantasies. Get away from the edges and come to middle America, it is much nicer here.
If I had the space I would offer to have F.C. visit me here in Michigan, to get a feel for how it is in the middle of “militia country”. Maybe after my second daughter gets married I can start hosting like-minded visitors from other lands.
This is the sort of thing we need to see all over the country. Especially in the blue states.
Residents warn of recall if council members remain
BELL, Calif. – City Council members who make nearly $100,000 a year for governing this small, poverty-plagued suburb of Los Angeles must resign immediately or face a recall campaign, a community group warned Friday.
American Thinker
July 23, 2010
Dem Senator turns on the diversity shakedown
Clarice Feldman
In the Wall Street Journal Democrat Senator James Webb attacks both the basis for “diversity” racial preferences and its negative impact, indicating it’s time to end these programs.
He’s proven himself a political opportunist. Talking a conservative game to his constituents but voting lockstep with his party’s far left agenda. So, it is clear that he sees himself in some political trouble and recognizes this issue resonates with many voters in his state.
But his statement is important as it is rare. Like Nixon going to China, without a Dem leading this charge–for the obvious reason–there will be no change unless Dems are in on it. Maybe unwittingly this administration will prove to be useful, forcing Americans to realize that the racial spoils system is corrupt, dishonest and dangerous, It has already been giving us numerous “teachable moments” about big government.
Huge salaries force Calif. Officials to resign
Three administrators whose huge salaries sparked outrage in this small blue-collar suburb of Los Angeles have agreed to resign, the City Council said Friday. (July 23)
“President Obama doesn’t have a racial problem. He has an economic and ideological problem with racial dimensions. His problem is that he’s an ivory tower academic, disconnected and disdainful of reality.
This goes well with being a leftist in general, ’tis true.”
Yes, he does have a racial problem – his own. The spectacle of a President who is half-black/half white, but pretending to be wholly black, is not “post-racial”. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is actually the most racially-obsessed Administration I’ve ever seen.
109. tdiinva
re: Barack Obama as a “white boy in genetic blackface”
Perhaps he’ll be remembered as America’s Al Jolson president. Now if we can just figure out who “Mammy” is…
75% Say Free Markets Better Than Government Management of Economy, Political Class Disagrees
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure. These figures have changed little since December.
Polling released earlier this week showed that Americans overwhelmingly believe that more competition and less regulation is better for the economy than more regulation and less competition.
Not surprisingly, America’s Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. However, among Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market.
Outside of the Political Class, free markets are preferred across all demographic and partisan lines. This gap may be one reason that 68% of voters believe the Political Class doesn’t care what most Americans think. Fifty-nine percent (59%) are embarrassed by the behavior of the Political Class.
Democrat conundrum, now that the
catacombssewer of race-baiting politics is open to the public. Option 1: continue racial pandering and lose so much of the White vote that you can’t win a national election. Option 2: stop pandering and lose the 90%+ lock on the Black vote so that you can’t win a national election.Wow. Sucks to be them, eh?
I do think there will be some among the more scaley and slimey of the Dems who will try to swap racial horses, jumping from Black to Hispanic, but that’s more like a rebuilding strategy once you’re out of power, ’cause it’ll be hard for incumbents seeking re-election to pull that off, and doubly so while Obama is in office.
But there’s a baseball metaphore – teams that lose 100 games go into rebuilding mode next season, but smart teams figure out early on in the season that they stink and start rebuilding early, basically throwing the rest of the season in an effort to focus on “next year”. Dems like Webb could be trying to start that strategy.
Va senator calls for ending diversity programs
anton, thanks for the thought but I consider it extremely unlikely that I will ever again visit the USA. The reason is health-related; I have a massively increased risk of DVT if I get on a plane and am extremely unlikely to get health insurance for the trip. Also, ultimately because of the borderline-criminal greed and irresponsibility of American bankers, I am unlikely ever to be able to afford the trip.
I spent an admittedly short time in the USA about 13 years ago, staying with a relative of my mother’s in one of the dormitory towns for NYC. One thing that impressed me immensely was the enterprise of some Americans; as it happens, every one of the people involved that I saw was black. While walking around NYC on the only rainy day during our stay, at one time a rain shower started. Within about 30 seconds, there was a man about every 50 yards or so (who might as well have appeared out of the sidewalk – there was no evidence of them before that) selling umbrellas. (I had to stop myself from writing “pavement” there.
)
Other observations; American TV is of substandard quality (technically) to that in the UK, and has far too many adverts – in my opinion, natch. The ads are also remarkably crude and unsubtle in general. And American food – at least that sold in most supermarkets – is godawful. As an example, of the 60-70 varieties of breakfast cereal in the appropriate aisle of a local supermarket, not one didn’t have sugar as the first ingredient on the list. And as for standard American beers…
Just a few random observations during a couple of weeks.
123. Doug
75% Say Free Markets Better Than Government Management of Economy, Political Class Disagrees
When pollsters finally identified something they call the “political class” and were able to start polling them, they did the world a huge favor. It was the equivalent of isolating a deadly virus in the lab as the necessary prelude to an antidote.
And American food – at least that sold in most supermarkets – is godawful.
Now that’s a fascinating observation, since the old stereotype of Brit food is that it is awful. Things must have changed.
Sorry to hear you can’t cross the pond anymore, because you will have noticed that American beer is getting better. That is, a large variety of more robust beers have been introduced by American beer makers in recent years.
Now if we can just figure out who “Mammy” is…
“Mammy” is a composite of Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama.
Ahh Fletcher, you really have old misconceptions! But it’s all good. For your edification:
the borderline-criminal greed and irresponsibility of American bankers
I would only disagree with the word “American” in that statement. Plenty of Eurp bankers with their fingers in the pies.
American TV is of substandard quality (technically) to that in the UK, and has far too many adverts – in my opinion, natch.
True once, not anymore. We have large screen hi-def everywhere (even in the ghetto). And many cable shows have no commericals, and you can watch almost anything else “on demand” with no commercials. I might add, that while back in the 70s/80s I would have said the BBC produces far better dramas than the US, that is no longer true either. Witness “The Sopranos” as Exhibit A, and many other cable shows. Though I will grant that the single greatest moment in television history was the BBC’s rendition of “Brideshead Revisited.”
The ads are also remarkably crude and unsubtle in general.
Partly true, but there are also a lot of very good ads. I’m sure that’s the same everywhere. Though Europeans do have a knack for hilarious adverts.
And American food – at least that sold in most supermarkets – is godawful. As an example, of the 60-70 varieties of breakfast cereal in the appropriate aisle of a local supermarket, not one didn’t have sugar as the first ingredient on the list. And as for standard American beers…
Again, old news. Very true once, but in general American food in stores and restaurants has undergone a renaissance. I grant you, you can still go to the frozen food aisle and get some truly awful stuff, and many Americans still subsist on such junk. But if you want to look for it, you can get world-class food in supermarkets such as Whole Foods (and you’ll pay for it too). And every half-decent sized city now has farmer’s markets where you can get fresh local produce.
As for beers, Budweiser is the same awful junk it’s always been, but there are now literally hundreds of small American brewers putting out delicious products.
Hey, how about coming over on a boat!
FLetcher, if you people could ever figure out basic dental care, you wouldn’t be so god-awful hard on the eyes!
p.s. that statment reflects the real world in exactly the same way that just about all of your “observations” do.
Here you go Fletch. Problem solved!
Charles posted about this but here is Webb’s words.
“Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege”
Why he wrote this is important I’m sure, but we should not forget that he is a democrat and a loyal one. Maybe he sees that America is in real trouble when it comes to race and that it is hurting the democrats.
Maybe, just maybe he sees that Obama and others are using race to divide America, and he doesn’t think that is right. Maybe just to help himself with his voters.
I am not sure myself but what is most important is that he did write this article.
OH, BTW, Obama is NOT half black. His father – if it is indeed the drunk from Kenya was mostly Arab, which last I checked is not black. What doesn’t show up in a blood test is that his mother was a far left Marxist and most likely an opportunistic white whore.
Today I made a point of going to the “black” side of town. I used a mild shtick to save me time.
My opening was that I was not a government employee, that I didn’t work for the Census and that I lived just a few miles away. My first question after niceties and asking if they had a a couple of minutes to talk. I told them I could save them and me time if they would just answer this one question. It Was – “If they still supported and believed in Obama”. Notice I didn’t ask if they voted for him, but if they STILL supported him and Believed in him.
By my tally sheet 4 still supported Obama but the surprising thing – for me at least – is that 6 did not still support him. Of those 6 I dropped off my propaganda and talked with them awhile trying to convince them that whoever they voted for come November – that a vote for conserative people would be the best way back to prosperity for not only our nation but for them. I didn’t waste my time or theirs of those that still supported Obama. I have in the past.
Note I didn’t mention democrat or republican. If they indicated that they would vote for a conservative or a republican – I offered assistance if they needed to be registered or needed a ride.
I’m planting seeds. I’m going out on long shakey limbs, sometimes deep in enemy territory – but at least I’m in the fight.
Cooking an early supper, kids want to go to the drive in tonight to see “Despicable Me”.
Give me strength.
Papa Ray
Redistribution might have been tolerated in a world of plenty where incomes were rising over the generations. All it meant was that the designated “haves” had their rate of increase in income slowed. That could be lived with.
In a world where middle class people are losing their jobs and their homes, where they look at their 401Ks and realize that their retirements will involve working part-time in WalMart in order to pay their bills, and having to tell their kids that they will need to go to second and third-rate colleges, because that’s the best that can be afforded, redistribution will breed VERY ugly feelings towards the beneficiaries of the schemes. Very ugly feelings.
Actually if 2011-2012 includes the elimination of diversity programs as sponsored by webb. the large cut back of bloated government salaries — as sponsored by the people with pitchforks and the pruning of Obamacare as sponsored by the tea party and the passing of the pickens plan as sponsored by pickens
some great things would have been accomplished.
It would be nice if the supremes could do their bit. Right now it looks like the judge in arizona is going to split the difference on the suit against arizona by upholding the details of the law but undermining its premises–ie the premise that illegals are illegal.
Tt would be extremely helpful if Arizona ran that up to supreme court and got the whole enchilada upheld.
Wretchard #62
The idea that learning is “white” is the ideology of oppression presented as an act of resistance. It is the ideology of staying on the plantation turned into a fake virtue. But making ignorance ‘cool’ explains a lot. It explains why Al Sharpton is a ‘leader’ for surely there are hundreds of thousands of black men and women who are an order of magnitude smarter than he is. But if ignorance is the requirement, then Al’s your man.
The fundamental black-white problem lies in differences in native intelligence as measured by standard tests. Charles Murray (and Richard Herrnstein) in his book “The Bell Curve” shows that the difference in average IQ is about 15 points, one standard deviation. Black average IQ ~85 White average IQ ~ 100. These statistics have not varied since 1940 US Army tests were started. Incidentally Japan average IQ around 107.
Until this intractable fact is laid bare for all to see we are doomed to failure in attempting to find a resolution e.g. our schools, affirmative action, etc. This is a place no one wants to venture. We are doomed as John derbyshire said in his book
what planet is fc posting from?
y’know, there can’t possibly be a “division and tension between black and white Americans” because we are not allowed to conceive such a thing. therefore it is really a division or tension between – what? between those who will not view objectively, and those who will, perhaps.
as for average IQs, those old numbers cannot possibly hold today, as the 100 was only normative in any case. I would bet fc a case of cold Guiness that by whatever objective measure one could find, average IQs for white or black (oops!) groups have gone up several percent in the last fifty years, probably with more progress for the blacks. the biggest problem even attempting historical comparisons is the relatively poor coverage fifty years ago, compared to today, the same kind of skewing of results we get by including 10,000,000 illegal alien Hispanics in any overall rating of educational systems.
Boomers are the most competent and wealthy generation of retirees in American history.
Trent, I realize you were just quoting someone else, but … isn’t this kind of a low bar? How many “generations of retirees,” in an apples-to-apples kind of comparison, have we had in American history? Maybe, what, three, if you stretch it?
Furthermore, the boomers will be the last generation for a long time to enjoy, as a generation, the kind of retirement you are describing, since they will bust out Medicare and SS. Gen X and everyone else who follows will, as a generation, pretty much have to work till they drop. In other words, a return to the historic norm.
Boomers won the generational sweepstakes by being born & growing up at the very height of American prosperity, then by benefitting from a huge expansion in education and enrollment when they reached their college years and a huge technology boom when they were just starting to hit their prime earning years, and about 20 years of economic expansion kicked off by Reagan’s economic policies.
The “competence” and “wealth” you extoll was Fate smiling upon this generation. As a generation they are not innately the most noble, most gifted, most hard-working, or most inventive generation of Americans ever. There are generations that could equal or better them in every one of those categories. As the “golden children” of American history, the boomers excelled about as much as you would expect of a generation as blessed as they have been.
Where they are truly exceptional, I think, is probably that no generation in American history has produced such extremes of general character as the boomers. They are the most divided generation our country has ever seen. They are the generation of individuals who burned American flags & spat on soldiers returning from war, and of individuals who served in that war. They are the first American generation that aborted their children by the millions. They are the generation whose tranzi statists may well succeed in strangling liberty in this country.
Thus may the “most blessed” generation in American history end up being the “most cursed.”
Let’s hope not.
Hey, I’ve been to Merry Olde, and the food there didn’t impress me all that much. The cheese selection was great, but the rest, especially the fruits, vegetables and meats, not so much. All-in-all, I’d prefer the selection at the typical Safeway. I’ve also watched my share of British TV and, while some of it is excellent, most of it is unwatchable. Exactly like American TV, as far as I can tell.
Beer? Yeah, it’s better now, but was pretty bleak when Fletcher was last here. Took some time to recover from Progressive scolds and that whole Prohibition disaster.
But the bit about “not one [breakfast cerel variety] didn’t have sugar as the first ingredient on the list…” is utter, made-up, BS and tells me something. Although our cerels do tend to have too much sugar in them, Fletcher is exaggerating over-much. The vast bulk of American breakfast cerels have wheat or rice as the first ingredient. Like with the creatonism and KKK drivel, Fletcher is just making up (or parrotting back) exactly the sort of fabricated anti-American shibboleths that, well, um, that he was accused of.
Bottom line, Fletcher, just like anton said, you are “badly informed WRT America” and if the rest of us are going to do what pererike and Don Rodrigo suggested and cut you some slack, you might want to start by stopping the uninformed slurs. Certainly doesn’t do much for your credibility on this side of the pond.
what planet is fc posting from?
Evidently a planet without Cheerios. On the planet I live on, this cereal has been around since 1941, is immensely popular, pretty darn good for you, and makes a boffo bowl partner for that over-ripe last banana sitting on your counter.
Wretchard, Thank you for giving me another hour and one half of learning and reflection. I had at one time fifteen different google pages open! Jose Rizal was an amazing man. I have to disagree with your assumption that it will take a black man and an authentic one at that to bring enlightenment to the African-American community. What will cause the shift is a function of mathematical progression. The seeds were planted back in the eighties when black baby boomers children started graduating high schools and going off to college. It created a population of middle and upper middle class black families that experienced what it is like to be free of the plantation. Their parents may still vote D but they are mostly what I would consider small c libertarians. And there is a huge amount of pressure to become business owners. And nothing makes you a conservative like having to make a payroll every week. So I think that in the next two or three generations black Americans will wake up one day and just be Americans. I work and play with many just such people. They want the same things for their children and grandchildren that I do for mine. And see what is occurring in our country as woefully dangerous to their vision of that future.
Fletcher, That last post of yours has to be one of the most bigoted things I have ever read. By the by, which of our political parties would correspond to the BNP?
137@Josh said, “as for average IQs, those old numbers cannot possibly hold today, as the 100 was only normative in any case.”
Not true. All the billions of dollars thrown at the problem has not changed the fact that intelligence among groups looks like this:
Blacks < Whites < Asians < Ashkenazi Jews.
John Derbyshire has more as does Steve Sailer.
I wish Nurture played a bigger role, but Nature seems to be the decisive factor.
In the late 1980s, I talked a couple from Birmingham England into visiting the Philippines with my wife and me. They considered it an interesting and educational
experience.
Sooooo—–in the arly 1990s I talked them into flying to Houston and sojourning
in and around the Port Arthur area. We also did a side trip to Baton Rouge so they could meet some of my cousins and of course there was the obligatory visit to New Orleans.
The French Quarter was the ONLY part of the trip that did not result in massive cultural shock. Every day we were in PA they both insisted on visiting Howards Supermarket. He to drool over the hitherto unexperienced selection of sausages and meats, her to do the same over ice cream and the rest of the dairy case. And their astonishment that there were several other places as well-stocked nearby.
Took them out to Sabine Pass and they sort of recoiled at the side of some parked offshore rigs and could not believe that people would actually picnic nearby. Then they had the experience of listening to a dyed-in-the-world Cajun accent telling them how the oil bidness was good for fishing.
During the trip to the shooting range, we went through 350 rounds of 30-06. He managed to do three of them, I took care of the rest through Ye Olde 03 Springfield.
What really astounded them was the sight of a youg, casually dressed and somewhat morose-looking black man suddenly sticking his hand in the air so the white cop who was looking for a place to sit down and eat would known whom to join.
They also wondered why we could have unattended coin-operated machines that went unvandalized. In a little advertiser paper they saw “Icebox Runs Good $35″ Took me and two others almost a half hour to explain to them that the ad meant a refrigerator with a working motor.
The Associate Pastor of the First Baptist Church turned out to be Vietnamese. However, the Primitive Baptist Church was making the fastest inroads among the nguoi Vietnam. Catholics and Buddhists remained the largest denominations with a sprinkling of Jehovah’s Witnesses thrown in for flavor. They had a hard time grasping that NONE of these received appropriated funds and that each would pick their own “Vicar” without a by-your-leave to anybody.
And so it went. I had wanted to drive them out to The Permian Basin, but considering what moderate old East Texas was doing to them, I doubted their
survival amongst my native flora and fauna.
And oh yes. They never could grasp how we could have such an abundance of mediacal facilities without a NHS to tell everybody what they could and could not do.
Face it folks. England has declined to 2.875 world status and is headed even lower. Perhaps they should seek some Divine Guidance as their This Wordly efforts
point towards the Nether Regions. According to T. R. Fehrenbach such help is on the way. Black Anglican Missionaries from Africa are likely to be England’s salvation in more ways than one.
Can’t you just see it now? The black Padre in the cooking pot while the white cannibals dance around? Yep, He works in mysterious ways alright.
The libs have assumed the hispanics will behave just like blacks. That’s because their thinking is mostly class based, due to their Marxist heritage. The leftist will subsume both black and hispanic into the same category of “the poor and oppressed”, and knight himself as their champion. Given this assumption, the cults of identity politics the leftists prey upon seem like a win-win no-brainer. Yet it might be a mistake to assume the blacks and hispanics are made of the same gruel and will go along with the grand plan. They are situated to be economic competitors, and therefore to look at each other with a wary eye. A point does come where it does not help Obama’s hispanic outreach that he is black. And also that it doesn’t help among the blacks that he’s falling all over himself to throw goodies towards the hispanics and not towards them. And that is a problem for the White House. Having made things tribal, how to manage the tribes? A conundrum for the racialists!
Wretchard said that it’ll take a black man to lead America’s blacks off the Democrat’s plantation. I think I’ve written that here, too.
But it may just turn out to be a black woman instead!
Another interesting article
http://www.examiner.com/x-43084-DC-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m7d20-Interview-Race-realist-Jared-Taylor-declares-the-civil-rights-struggle-was-won-long-ago
jWarrior @ 142: I wish Nurture played a bigger role, but Nature seems to be the decisive factor.
oh, I entirely agree. I just think it’s been a very tough couple of generations on those who, say, could not read at a high school level. tough enough that the *nature* side will already have changed the distribution a point or two for the better. if anything, the “nurture” side has not been at all as helpful!
Sidney,
I clicked on your examiner link.
Some thoughts RE race realism…I think Jared Taylor’s thinking here is outmoded. It fails to factor in that interbreeding between races is making “race” itself an anachronism. And Taylor, like our expunged ‘Whiskey,’ is denying every person’s God-given endowment of character, intellect and good looks in favor of blanket racial categorizations. Tired and Old! Blah!
After watching Morgan Freeman’s slap down of Micheal Wallace in this video, I am regretting my own focus on Ms. Montcrief’s race in my comment above.
Let’s stop calling each other by our colors. Whaddya say?
I sometimes wonder if there ought to be a cultural primer about “flyover country” for a European audience (and residents of big cities and college towns…). It would only be an overview, but it would at least introduce the reader to “real” America.
Sadly, many people from the outside really do think that America is just like the shows they see on television. I don’t think the problem is really ignorance; it is that foreigners get systematically fed false information about America.
For what it is worth (not much) I think the days of race and class hustling are coming to an end. Yes, both are much more pronounced now than they have been in the past, but I think that is exactly what will end them. It is one thing to pretend that the naked Emperor has clothes when you only have to view him once every five years, and quite another when his smelly behind is in your face every day of your life.
Civilization, to a great extent, relies upon widespread pretense, be it that the Pharaoh is actually a god or whatever. But once the veil of a particular illusion is broken it is very hard to repair.
How many times must we tell the tale?
How many times must we fall?
Living in lost memory you just recalled
Working on the sound of the band
Trying to get the music right
Two go out working
Three stay home at night
That’s when she said she was pretending
like she knew the plan
That’s when I knew she was pretending
Pretending to understand
Pretending, pretending
Satisfied but lost in love
Situations change
You’re never who you used to think you are–
How strange –Eric Clapton
It all falls apart when we quit pretending. I think those days are at hand.
I sometimes wonder if there ought to be a cultural primer about “flyover country” for a European audience (and residents of big cities and college towns…). It would only be an overview, but it would at least introduce the reader to “real” America.
Sadly, many people from the outside really do think that America is just like the shows they see on television. I don’t think the problem is really ignorance; it is that foreigners get systematically fed false information about whom we really are.
Anton: Obama follows the Cult of Marx (sadly Karl not Groucho).
Well… The Theosophical Society in America is just a few blocks from my house… Their bookstore has the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc… filed under the category of RELIGIONS. Enough said.
http://www.theosophical.org/
Fletcher Christian: Ref US television. By one day last January 2009 (or was it February? Can’t remember now) every television broadcasting station in the country still running had to shut off their old radio transmitters and turn their new radio transmitters, using entirely new radio frequencies. Any television set you saw on your visit will no longer receive any TV station today.
Ghosting and snow are afflictions of the past.
Kinuachdrach @ 112
“The descendants of Scottish clan chiefs lived in England, aped the manners of English nobility, were educated in England, and intermarried into the English upper class whenever they could. ”
In the 1770s – when the clearances were already in full flood – the old Highland clan chiefs were not even remotely English. They were still busy in the Glens raising regiments to fight for the cause of hierarchy (those old Jacobite habits died hard).
Of the thirteen British Regiments brought into service between 1775 and 1778, seven were from the Highlands (Fraser, Macleod, Argyll, MacDonell, Athol, Seaforth, and Aberdeen Highlanders), while another four were raised in the colonies: Royal Highland Emigrants, the North Carolina Highlanders, the Caledonian Volunteers and the Royal North Carolina Regiment. These people were sure as hell not officered by Old Etonians.
Even later, few of the old clan families intermarried much with the English (the Sutherlands – I’ve already mentioned – being an exception) being then centred mainly in the Lowlands.
Your essential point, that welfare dependency saps the gumption of a once free and confident people, is clear enough to this Thatcherite conservative.
for 36 Gordon
re: burning your ships, I’d suggest that the geographic proximity of Mexico undercuts that.
It is so easy to go back and forth that coming from Mexico doesn’t have nearly as much of that built=in commitment to becoming an American like people in Europe (or CHina for that matter) in the late 1800s buying that one way ticket to the US.
143 Dave: Enjoyed the story about the Brits visiting the colonies.
133. Papa Ray :
Your informal survey indicating that about half of the blacks you talked with no longer supported Obama lends support to the Gallup Poll several months ago that was titled Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics.
Tea Party Supporters
Non-Hispanic White 79 %
Non-Hispanic Black 6%
Other 15%
All Americans
Non-Hispanic White 75%
Non-Hispanic Black 11%
Other 15%
Blacks consist 6% of Tea Party support, yet they made up only 1% of the vote for McCain. (4% of Blacks voted for McCain, Blacks were 13% of the vote, 46% voted for McCain. do the math). This is why the NAACP demonized the Tea Party : to make sure they don’t stray from the Democratic Party flock.
wrt FC and flyover country:
What is the reason for the putative false information? Presuming false information is why FC speaks as he does.
Why not correct information?
IMO, it’s that the false information is designed to reinforce feelings of superiority in people otherwise ineligible for the honor.
They aren’t likely to give it up even in the face of reality getting in their face(s).
Phil Jackson @ 154 referred to “The Cousins’ Wars – Kevin Phillips”
Phil — Scotland’s history has been fought over as bitterly as Scotland’s territory, and for about as long! Mr. Phillips was constructing his own overarching theory about what we would now call the Anglosphere; maybe not the most balanced source.
According to some historical sources, the Highland Clearances were ignored by polite society until the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th Century, when the Powers That Be suddenly realized they had lost a large part of the manpower for Scottish regiments. Since then, there has been a continuing literary battle about whether the Highlanders were driven off their land or left voluntarily. (An interesting example of the latter is James Hunter’s “A Dance Called America”, 1994). The history is complicated enough that cherry-pickers can make either case.
The pertinent issue for the current discussion is that almost every group’s history is full of nasty events — whether it was the Highland Clearances, the Irish Potato Famine, the subjugation of the Saxons by the Normans, or the enslavement of African tribes by other Africans. The idea that any group has been uniquely damaged by its history does not make much sense.
There are accounts that, following the US Civil War, freed slaves made amazing journeys to find & reunite with wives & families from whom they had been separated. If the modern African-heritage family in the US has broken down, don’t seek the explanation in slavery. Seek it in the corrosive effects of the modern well-intentioned welfare state — the same thing that has caused family breakdown an ocean away in Scotland. But I think we are in agreement on that, Phil.
Great stuff here. I finally got a chance to read the comments on this thread. I would like to stay longer but time to get going because my oldest has a dental appointment and then it’s school uniform shopping for most of the day.
Plus I have to go by “Animal outreach” and get a trap to catch as many cats as I can, as they are making my place – a cat vacation spot…or something. They are all wild [what is the word? Feral?] In the ol’ days I just would have shot all of them, except for the kitten’s of course, which I would take to that same animal outreach folks. But with the girls here, I can’t hardly go out and kill cats. They have been brainwashed already by Dora [the explorer] and others plus my oldest by her liberal elementary school.
Anyway, wanted to tell you that movie we saw last night [Despicable Me] was pretty good. Even my youngest got a few laughs. But then again, she laughs during the “new” Alice in Wonderland and likes to watch the liberal [modeled after the plight and near destruction of the American Indians] movie – Avatar. I have made great effort to get her to understand the difference between good soldiers and bad soldiers and that the movie is just – pretend -made up- not real. I have had to do this with a lot of movies or even TV stuff for all my grand children. That is why I limit them to an hour or so a day of TV and make the library and it’s books available weekly.
Plus of course, Papa’s “Back in the day” stories.
I would like to leave this one link:
It’s a short video that I think you should watch and understand the implications and “what for” of it.
We have a tough and rough road ahead of us. Please work in your communities to awaken those that are still asleep or those who are afraid of getting out of their false security bubble.
The three boxes are still available. But who can tell if they will be available for much longer?
In any case, prepare your family and always…
Buy More Ammo.
Papa Ray
P.S. OK, one more link while they brush their teeth.
“Please Separate your Recyclable Rockets”
#159 Papa Ray
It sounds as if the Animal Outreach people are asking you to trap the feral cats so that they can be spayed (females) or neutered (males). In many places this is called TNR for trap-neuter-return. It’s actually a conservative way of dealing with feral cats rather than a liberal idea. If you just kill unwanted cats, more will move into the area. If the ferals are neutered and returned to their colony, however, the population will gradually dwindle as the cats die from natural causes. There won’t be any more kittens and there won’t be new ferals moving into the area. I’ve worked with a friend a few blocks away from me to help manage a feral colony. TNR works, at least in our area– her colony shrank from two dozen cats six years ago to three this year. Once in awhile a new cat moves through her back yard but she just traps it and has it “fixed.” Good luck with your trapping and I hope the Animal Outreach people will have some good advice.
It’s also possible you have some neighbors with cats that they haven’t had fixed, or that they have cats they don’t want and are dumping them on or near your property. Animal rescue groups can often help with this type of “neighbor” problem too. The shelter I work with has a low-cost neutering program for people on limited budgets so that their cats aren’t producing lots of unwanted kittens. And we do teach people about taking proper responsibility for their pets– good conservative stuff.
Now if only there were a TNR program for lefties . . .
“Black average IQ ~85 White average IQ ~ 100. These statistics have not varied since 1940 US Army tests were started. Incidentally Japan average IQ around 107.”
A meaningless statistic. IQ tests are a measurement of one’s ability to learn. Nothing more, nothing less.
They were standardized in the early 40′s solely and strictly for the purpose of taking American farm boys and determining which ones to train as Pilots, which ones as mechanics, etc.
To use them as a measurement of racial abilities demonstrates a certain lack of cognition on the part of those misusing IQ tests. Sort of like using a colander as a beer mug. It makes a mess on your shirt and leaves you thirsty.
Social notes from all over– from the society page of the Chicago Sun-Times:
“$$$$$: Happy Birthday, buddy!
Sneed [the columnist] hears real estate mogul Neil Bluhm is tossing a private birthday party here for President Obama, who turns 49 on Aug. 4.
• The shocker: The dinner invite to the Barack bash at Bluhm’s home requires a $30,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee!
• The stunner: Obama is also scheduled to be in town Aug. 5 for a fund-raiser at the Palmer House for U.S. Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias, who is hoping to capture Uncle Rocky’s old seat.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/2526490,CST-NWS-SNEED23.article
At $30,000 per slice, that birthday cake had better be special.
159, 160:
I got my cat Reggie as a kitten three years ago from a woman who does TNR. She neuters and releases the adult cats, and put the kittens up for adoption. Reggie was about eight weeks old when I adopted him. He’s an indoor cat now, but I wonder if he still has memories of his kittenhood in the wilds of Cape May, NJ.
A couple weeks ago he got very sick. He started peeing in the bed, and soon became lethargic and wouldn’t eat. I took him to the vet. She did an x-ray and a blood test and told me that he had acute kidney failure. He spent four days in the hospital on an IV. His last two blood tests were completely normal, and he’s back home now. The vet bill was over $1000, but it was worth it. He’s still pretty subdued and doesn’t have much appetite, but he’s gradually becoming his old self again.
161. Skip_this_post
Actually, IQ tests began at the time of WWI. I haven’t researched their history, but I can’t help wondering whether they were yet another Progressive project.
Still, The Bell Curve is a very interesting book.
#163 rickl
(Been following the cat fight over at Neo’s– heh. The dog people on that thread will have to pry my cats from my cold dead hands, if the cats don’t get ‘em first.)
Small world– my family used to go to Ocean City (NJ) every summer, so I know the Cape May area.
Glad to hear Reggie is doing better. My oldest cat (Princess) died suddenly at the end of February– the vet thinks her spleen ruptured, and there’s nothing anyone can do for that type of internal bleed because it happens so quickly. At least I was there when it happened, so I got to say good-bye to her (rather than just finding her dead the next morning) and I didn’t have to make the decision to put her to sleep– she spared me that.
Yes, TNR is a good policy– and I’m glad a TNR kitten found a good home with you. Thankfully there are many of these success stories these days.
stp @ 161: IQ tests are a measurement of one’s ability to learn
Well, but perhaps that’s (closely) related to one’s ability to use what one has available. Even so, it’s not the end-all of an individual’s worth, nor even necessary for a full and admirable life.
Indeed, it may be possible to learn to learn, in fact it may be *necessary* to learn to learn, which is more or less what much of the educational system is all about. But an individual’s ability to profit from such instruction still probably has a very large hereditary component.
165. PA Cat
I’m sorry to hear about Princess. That sounds terrible. My condolences.
Reggie’s predecessor, Leo, also died suddenly in 2007. It happened when I took him to the vet for a routine checkup. He seemed to be in perfect health, and was only seven years old. The vet thought that it might have been a congenital heart condition that had never been diagnosed. (This was a new vet I took him to. The one I had been seeing had retired since Leo’s last visit.)
whoops, turns out Webbs WSJ piece on abolishing quotas was just a bit of cya as both the health care bill and the finance bill had big provisions to create whole new agencies to ensure gender and racial equity with everyone who does biz with the feds.
Obama was against reparations. what he said instead was that there were other ways to do this. This appears to be what he had in mind.
Typically what these agencies do is promote non white in government agencies that they do business with and continually push for more black and hispanic representation plus everyone but white men. so that some agencies of the US government have 30%- 60% blacks
now the idea appears to be push this system out into the private sector.
You all want to stop that IQ talk especially if its supposed to show that whites are somehow smarter than blacks.
that ain’t what’s happening
The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it
Charles 169: The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it
Yes this is true, but I disagree with the numbers given in this way, I see that the rich are getting richer, but I believe for the most part the poor are getting richer, too, which is why we have not (yet) had riots in the street. At least that was the case through 2007. Since then, I’m not so sure.
The thing is, the total pot of money really has gotten much bigger over the past fifty years. So the poor can have a smaller piece of it and yet still be getting richer. It’s only the US middle class that has been totally crushed by factor after factor. The middle class is as foreign to Obama as any little green aliens might be. He should *talk* to the proprietors of the burger joints he apparently likes to frequent. He should spend some time behind the grill, and paying the bills, and doing the EEOC paperwork, paying the taxes and insurance. Better for all of us if he did that instead of pretending to be POTUS. Too bad he didn’t do it as a kid, but better late than never.
Charles @ 169 — good satire, that link!
“So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.”
The incentive to stay is the ability to make money. But the Political Class has piled regulation on top of expensive regulation, interspersed with foolish mandates, making it impossible for many businesses to continue making money in the US.
The result of the Political Class’s self-dealing is the end of the Middle Class — goods are made overseas, nearly one American in 5 is un/under-employed, and the US is running an unsustainable balance of trade deficit. Meanwhile, the Clintons are not the only good government Democrats to have become rich selling US technology to the Chinese.
The stupidity & ignorance of that link would be really funny — if it were not so sad.
#167 rickl
Thank you for the kind words. Princess was almost 15 when she died; I had her for almost 10 years (adopted her from a no-kill shelter where she had been placed when her first owner developed Alzheimer’s)– and she saw me through 9/11, my mother’s death, and the deaths of two aunts and one uncle. I still miss her, and so do my other two cats– after nearly half a year, they still go around sniffing her favorite napping places and then they look at me as if to ask where she is. I have no trouble understanding why Benedict XVI loves cats so much (among other things, he told the Swiss Guards to stop chasing the Roman street cats out of the Vatican garden, and he sees to it that any injured ones are treated).
No mo uro #1:
Redistribution occurs in many ways. What else are things such as minimum wages and rent controls but redistribution?
Minimum wages reduce employment; that much is certain (Leo III, please insert here an erudite and authoritative explanation; I even promise to put on some pants). That in turn produces the need for unemployment compensation, which reduces employment still further. And the reduced employment produces the need for additional forms of welfare, which in turn reinforces the idea of permanent welfare.
Rent controls reduce the availability of housing, which produces the need for public housing projects, which in turn inevitably fail. Rent controls also reduce both the ability and desire of landlords to maintain their property. This produces government programs to fix up the property. I recall reading of such a poor dwelling fix-up program in NYC; it had 4 to 5 part time workers who actually did the work and 17 full time supervisors. And I guess everyone has heard of the Stimulus-funded weatherization program in Texas, which managed to add insulation to 45 homes at a cost of only $3 million.
All of these programs and ideas, whether they are direct or indirect distribution, assume that the money is “out there” and will come from “somewhere.” Advocates of the minimum wage say that you will pay an extra 50 cents anyway for that hamburger at a fast food place, so what difference does it make? Build it – or mandate it – and they may or may not come – but they will pay, or someone will.
Wretchard,
This is late in arriving, and off-topic. But I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your friend Christopher Hitchen’s cancer. I hope all goes well for him. Even though he might well object, I am praying for him. It is hard seeing a friend go through that. I know. Another very dear old friend of mine was just diagnosed too. It happens far too often now, doesn’t it?
LL3 – Belated congratulations on your construction firm’s impressive award. As the photos show, they certainly deserved it. Job well done!
Charles @ 169:
To add to what Josh and Kinuachdrach have said:
The statistics in the article are a grab bag with no context. The article serves as a large general info dump designed to whip the average reader into a “hate the rich, hate the banks” frenzy if the reader is not prepared to view the statistics skeptically or does not bring a sophisticated or specialized understanding of economics to the article.
Here’s a howler I spotted right away:
Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.
So what does this statistic have to do with what rich people or banks are foisting on everyone else? NADA. Child poverty in America is almost entirely due to lack of a stable family structure. IOW poor personal choices and irresponsible behavior by so-called grown-ups. A child born to a mother and a father who get married and stay married has a far, far greater chance of avoiding poverty than a child in a single-parent or transitory-pseudo-two-parent (mom lives with one boyfriend after another) situation.
Now why would the author of the article shove a statistic in there that has nothing whatsoever to do with banks, the finance industry, the rich, or fiscal policy, but is instead an outcome almost entirely within the control of people who become parents?
Because the article is class warfare demagoguery, that’s why. Make no mistake, the American middle class *is* being destroyed. But it’s not evil greedy unfettered capitalists who are doing it, as the article implies with its bull-in-chinashop rhetorical thrashing. The middle class is being destroyed by the statists in Big Government working in collusion with Big Business (which is fine with 2000-page bills pouring out of Congress and insane levels of regulatory excess, so long as *their* lobbyists can buy them exemptions and loopholes over their competitors, with sufficient junkets to Jamaica and Friends of Angelo sweetheart deals), a collusion which first destroyed America’s abilility to have a competitive manufacturing base and is now aimed at destroying small business owners.
Economic illiteracy is killing us from both ends — the statists in control of government, who have no idea how to create wealth, only how to redistribute it; and many in the poor and working classes, who if they don’t know how businesses are started and grown in a legitimate free market are all too vulnerable to class warfare rhetoric that “anyone who has more than you do must ipso facto have stolen it.”
I’m neither an economist nor a business owner, but I know enough about economics to know that competition is at the heart of the free market. Whatever limits competition — the ability of producers to compete against each other for customers, the ability of legal laborers to compete against each other for jobs, the ability of consumers to compete against each other for goods and services — is a restraint on the freedom of the market, and on the freedom of the people themselves. So long as government is upholding its primary duties with regard to preserving order (and, in the case of the feds that would be enforcing the law with regard to our borders) it should keep its nose out of the free market.
“The middle class is being destroyed by the statists in Big Government working in collusion with Big Business (which is fine with 2000-page bills pouring out of Congress and insane levels of regulatory excess, so long as *their* lobbyists can buy them exemptions and loopholes over their competitors, with sufficient junkets to Jamaica and Friends of Angelo sweetheart deals), a collusion which first destroyed America’s abilility to have a competitive manufacturing base and is now aimed at destroying small business owners.”
—
Bogie:
Let’s not leave out an equally important partner in this crime:
The Jourolist 400, and all the rest of the coniving, conspiratorial creeps posing as “Journalists!”
Story of the year, IMHO.
—
Come on you Geeks!
Andrew will give you 100 Thousand Dollars for the Journolist Archives!
—
“Andrew Breitbart is offering $100000 for Journolist’s full archive, which he wants to make public. A furious Andrew Sullivan decries Breitbart’s efforts as attempted character assassination.”
(The Irony re: The professional assasins boggles the mind.)
…always angry, always whining.
—
“Yes, the mainstream media that came together to play up the false allegations that the “N-Word” was hurled 15 times by Tea Party participants at the Congressional Black Caucus outside the Capitol the day before the “Obamacare” vote, is the same MSM that colluded to make sure the American public accepted the smear, and refused to show the exculpatory videos that disproved the incendiary charges of Tea Party racism.
Ezra Klein’s “JournoList 400” is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism. Now that collusion has been exposed when one of the weakest links in that cabal, Dave Weigel, was outed. Weigel was, in all likelihood, exposed because – to whoever the rat was who leaked his emails — he wasn’t liberal enough.“
Doug -
This raises an intriguing question. Where is Tucker Carlson getting his info? Why would a leaker give to Carlson for free what they could get paid very handsomely for, if given to Breitbart?
Agreed, it is a HUGE story. And, just like ClimateGate, it is being suppressed by the Massa Media (ht Alan Keyes).
The middle class is being destroyed by the statists in Big Government working in collusion with Big Business …
Well, I dunno about that. I mean, sure, but what is it that enables them to do so now, and how could it possibly be in their own best interest or anybody else’s to do so? What has changed in the last x years that it happens today?
To make a long story short I guess it comes down to, “… because they can.” The opium of the masses is no longer religion, but whatever it is now seems to be working just great.
BW…
It’s the re-distributionists that define what poverty is.
Today the poor sit at an air-conditioned section 8 crib with a flat-panel pacifier — with a digital feed.
The GDP per-capita of Georgia is that of Sweden — as adjusted.
(No adjustment for brutal winters.)
Crime statistics go up in linear relation to COPS. Imagine terminating your beat like Barney Fife!
Out in California budget cuts have hit even the Revenuers. Entire collection forces are being laid off. — I mean police departments.
( They weren’t ripping off the public enough to cover their pensions.)
——
Back in the day I ran an omiyage company. ( Omiyage are tourist gifts/ purchases rendered by vacationing/traveling Japanese towards their peers and superiors upon their return. Hawaiian Host chocolate covered macadamia nut candies would be a typical omiyage. [ Local nuts wave covered in Nestle's Perfection chocolate.])
My troops held astonishing notions of how profitable the firm was.
As is so typical: the idea of RENT, utilities, AND THEIR OWN PAYCHECKS, never entered their minds. They assumed that my margins were in the 40 percent range!
Gross margins in the food business are almost never that high ( exception: perishable foods ). As for the candies, Hawaiian Host permitted but a trivial percentage of gross margin — and watched as you, the vendor waited 90 days to collect from the tourist agency — they got their cash in no more that seven days for a volume buyer. Try no return on equity or labor at all!
And so it goes.
This is OT but other commenters were discussing cats, so it gives me an excuse to post about it:
Wretchard once posed a question about how many therapy cats were out there. Here’s a story in our local paper this weekend about a paralyzed cat (name of Scooter, due to the wheels he uses to get himself around) who has been serving for a couple years as a therapy cat in a local rehab hospital.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10205/1074966-62.stm
If you go to the Post Gazette’s home page there is video of Scooter and the people in this story.
“how could it possibly be in their own best interest or anybody else’s to do so? What has changed in the last x years that it happens today?”
—
Josh:
The fanatical pursuit of money, power, and control is in no one’s best interest in the long run.
…but, fanatics have no time for thinking about the long run.
An employee of one of the Rockefeller Trusts called it,
“a lust for the jugular “
Blert -
I’m not going to beat up on cops in general. I have two sisters in law enforcement; my encounters with police (once, unfortunately, as a result of being a muggee) have all been positive ones, and I know we have some LEOs on this board.
What I will say is that most of the current LEO pension plans (along with most of other public employees’ pension plans) are unsustainable. Period. Mathematically speaking. They are houses of cards and are going to fall.
When you take into account the way in which the defined benefit plans were “negotiated” it did not amount to a free and fair negotiation. Nobody was adequately representing the taxpayer. Elected officials were *supposed* to be doing this but did not. As a result the pols gave away the store to the public employee unions in order to secure union endorsements in reelection campaigns. Both Peter AND Paul conspired to take from Barnabus (Q. Taxpayer) … a sweet arrangement so long as you are not Barnabus.
Here in Pittsburgh the cops’ & firefighters’ pension plan is underwater. There are more retirees drawing from the system than there are cops & firefighters paying in. Instead of doing the responsible thing and restructuring what is inherently unsustainable because of its flawed structure, what is the mayor planning to do? Cover the shortfall by selling off the city’s downtown parking garages and parking spaces. Last year his bright idea (thwarted, due to major backlash) was to tax college students who were enrolled in colleges within the city limits a “usage tax” for, presumably, breathing city air and riding buses on city pavement. He trotted out this tax hike idea THREE DAYS after he got reelected. (Guess the political party!)
Governor Christie is one of the rare public officials who is actually standing up against the public employee unions because he evidently sees himself — wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles — as having been elected by the taxpayers, to represent their interests and be their advocate in budgeting and spending decisions.
That this attitude towards governance comes across as an earthquake shows just how far we have fallen in our desire, vigilance, and ability to hold elected officials to this duty of their offices.
Well, I dunno about that. I mean, sure, but what is it that enables them to do so now, and how could it possibly be in their own best interest or anybody else’s to do so? What has changed in the last x years that it happens today?
What has happened is the exponential growth of the power and reach of government, esp. the federal government. Microsoft and ADM and Exxon may be the 800-pound gorillas in the room, but Big Government is the 1200-pound gorilla that has lumbered into the very same room. If you are one of the 800-pound gorillas, what is the most rational decision on your part at that point? To keep fighting the 500-pound gorillas all on your own strength, and hope that you can beat ‘em on your own …. or to make nice with the 1200-lb guy and have him grind a few of your 500-lb competitors into the carpet?
Look, businessmen are rational creatures who respond to incentives just like everyone else. If government has become powerful enough to be lobbied & levied, a business owner is going to HAVE to do so against his competitors if he is able, because if he doesn’t, he can be sure that his competitors will lobby & levy that same power of government against HIM.
It is not the nature of businessmen that has changed since the days of JP Morgan or Henry Clay Frick. It is the tools at their command. And it is not the nature of politicians that has changed since the days of Tammany Hall. It is the erosion of Constitutional boundaries and individual freedoms.
The two situations in combination are now feeding on one another and exponentially distressing the problems of both political corruption and corporate greed & abuse.
Mutual capture.
blert:
Could you please re-tell the Obama in the elevator story for me, newcomers, and those who may have missed it?
Some accept at face value Barry’s assertion that he loved his grandmother dearly.
I don’t think he would be as mentally disturbed as he is if it were as simple as that.
Bogie #182:
Did you hear about the protests out in Calif? One town, one of the poorer ones in LA county, with a population of only 38,000, pays its city manager over $800K a year. The police chief gets over $500K a year. And together the pension funds of just those two “public servants” require $20M in capitalization.
With such public officials at the top, I can well see why the employees’ unions made out like bandits. Endorsement or not, they no doubt considered what the lower ranks were getting as being mere chicken feed.
no mo uro (#97): “I would only add that any group, as it (and especially its leadership) becomes aggressively secular and atheist and develops contempt for the spiritual, becomes less free and less tolerant,”
As examples, what country has banned some Islamic clothing, laique France or the religious US of A? Is it a coincidence that in North America, the jurisdiction that has moved closest to such policies is secular Quebec?
JMH (#139): “Hey, I’ve been to Merry Olde, and the food there didn’t impress me all that much. The cheese selection was great”
As long as you don’t mind that bloody bouzouki.
Skip_this_post (#161): “A meaningless statistic. IQ tests are a measurement of one’s ability to learn. Nothing more, nothing less.”
A person’s worth is certainly not tied exclusively to his IQ, far from it. But if you were to be informed that your child’s ability to learn is significantly below average, you would hardly be likely to find that meaningless.
Regarding the claim that the GOP needs to get rid of its religious elements in order to win, I am reminded of the poll that Insta linked to: “According to the poll, 26% of Democrats believe that the Second Coming ‘will definitely’ happen within the next four decades. In comparison 19% of Republicans believe this.”
Swiftly, perhaps the GOP need to bang the religion drum much more strongly, in order to accentuate the contradictions and pry apart the Democratic coalition.
bogie wheel #180
Thank you for the link to the story about Scooter; I believe there are more therapy cats out there than some rehab people think. I have already mentioned the marmalade hospice cat who made my mother’s last days happier and more comfortable. My grandmother also spent the last year of her life in a nursing home that had a family of cats that the residents could play with or cuddle. My grandmother had had a tuxedo cat for many years after my grandfather died, and she was so glad to have some cats around again (as it happened, three of the nursing home cats were tuxies, so they probably reminded her of her old companion).
The middle class as we know it was built in the aftermath of WWII. Europe was in tatters and the far east was in tatters as well or not quite yet having a modern economy. The USA and perhaps Oz were about the only nations unscathed (for the most part) by direct war damage. There was huge amounts of pent up demand for consumer goods in the US (even basic goods) and lots of cash in the bank. Then you add in the fact that a lot of women finally entered the workforce and tons of returning GIs and you have the stage set for what had in the ’50s and ’60s. The ’70s and ’80s witnessed the return of Europe to the markets and the arrival of the far eastern nations and a number that were former colonies.
Despite that, our economy was humming along at (or near) full employment through the mid-90s to the about two years ago. Things may have been slow in ’92 but it was only journalistic collusion with the Democrats that made it “bad” a buddy was whining about how slow his windows business was back in ’92 but he his warehouse was full of windows awaiting shipment to the jobsite and now he is 100% out of business.
I just went back to work for a “whale” in early June after nearly 15 months of going without any “whales”, mostly unemployment, savings, and and odd-job here and there, and that comes with a 1.5 hour commute (though, I tested the telecommute setup this evening and it works well enough).
The black community nearly votes Democrat in the same proportion as their support for Obama, but it is quite easy to neglect that when you have a story you want to tell. Its the economy stupid.
#133 Pappa Ray, also remember, Webb was a member of the Reagen administration, it was mostly foreign policy concerns (ie. the Iraq war) that drove him to the Democrats.
#177 Bogie Wheel,
Yeah I had to wonder where Carlson is getting the list from. Obviously someone on the list archived the e-mails they were getting. Thing is, the list was by invite so a trusted individual has turned.
Thanks for getting my attenton, PA Cat @ 188!
“At home, he doesn’t use his wheels. He scoots around by using his front legs to pull his rear end, which is padded by a baby diaper. He has learned how to go up and down steps. He has even caught five mice, which is something Dr. Kennon’s other cats have never attempted.
Just two months after Scooter entered her life, Dr. Kennon decided she had to share this special cat. She called the Harmarville facility.
“I was rolling my eyes,” recreation therapist Karen Hinkes said.
She loves dogs and cats, and greatly appreciates the two therapy dogs that make regular visits. Although Ms. Hinkes didn’t think a cat could cut it, “Dr. Kennon would not take ‘no’ for an answer,” and Scooter came in for a tryout.
When Dr. Kennon put her cat in the arms of a stroke victim, the patient spoke for the first time since being admitted.
“Kitty,” said the patient.
The staff was in tears, and Scooter was in.“