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New York, 6:01 AM
Tue Nov 24
46 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/29/08
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12/29/08
After securing the dinosaurs lived with people voters, Chip will have successfully won a majority of the GOP.
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12/29/08
Also: Obama was born to and raised by a single white mother.
12/29/08
12/29/08
The GOP, btw, does not need my counsel. There are many well spoken, logical, and aware persons in their own party who are making this case. Did you watch the RNC convention? How could anyone NOT take note of the lack of diversity?
But, finally, here's the thing: reducing Obama, his campaign and his impending presidency to his being Black minimizes his life's work as it does the work of the entire Civil Rights struggle. It is a historical moment because the first Black man has been elected president. But, he was not elected because he's Black. He was elected because he was the best candidate for the job. It's only about the imitation insofar as that's the cherry on top. The insult is the suggestion that his Blackness got him elected, reducing him down to his race (and doubly by use of the "negro" term).
There are some racial politics both in some aspects of the Black community supposedly suggesting he's not Black enough (I've yet to see evidence), and in some aspects of the White community saying "what's the big deal, he's not really Black!" This should only serve as evidence that we're not there yet.
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+ Watch video
12/29/08
Really? Or maybe it's just satire. Poorly executed, sure, but satire. This is silly. Is this what we've come to? Watch out, guys. Today this is "racist" next year it'll be caricatures of b-dot with big ears or whatever. "Slippery slope." The danger is two-fold; more and more political speech will take on a "racist" tinge because the man in the White House is black, while the overuse of the racism claim will desensitize people to, you know, actual racism, which is more pervasive in our society than most whites realize (or admit).
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And I think racism is okay. Because as a free nation, we're entitled to be awful racists if we so choose. It's just really unfortunate that this person wants to represent intelligent people.
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Focus on race;
Allusions to unrelated black people whose shared trait is that they're somewhat ridiculous or extreme or otherwise scary to whites;
Rush Limbaugh likes it.
It's racist.
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12/29/08
I haven't heard the song. I'd need to do so before deciding if it is or isn't racist, and life is far too short for me to make the effort. But since the post doesn't actually accuse Saltsman of racism, that doesn't matter so much. What it accuses him of is race-baiting, that is, belaboring the issue of race in such a way as to gratify racists. And using a parody song that focuses on Obama's race as his calling card to be Chairman of the RNC is pretty much the epitome of that. It's also so massively stupid that even the current Chairman denounced it. I kind of doubt he's a touchy liberal.
12/30/08
Anyway, if this is racist, what's calling Obama clean, articulate and "a storybook"? Oh yeah, thet gets you picked as VP.
12/30/08
12/31/08
What I did say was that Saltsman's using it as a calling card can be seen as race-baiting. Do you honestly think that African Americans will feel in any way welcomed by a Republican party that considers "Barack the Magic Negro" a theme song? Or that those who do have racist sensibilities won't feel cheered? I think a prominent Republican strategist put it very well: "James Richardson, the RNC's online communication manager for the 2008 election cycle, [said]…'Granted, he didn't pull a George Allen and personally call Obama a "magic Negro," but sending a CD with those lyrics shortly after electing the first African-American president -- one supported by nearly 97 percent of the African-American community -- shows a serious lack of judgment, tact and the necessary level of racial sensitivity expected of public officials… Hell, why don't we go ahead and give 'em the other 3 percent, too, Chip?'"
It was a deeply, deeply stupid thing to do. So, hooray! Politically inept Republicans fill me with glee.
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With that having been said, it absolutely amazes me that anyone could be so god damn stupid as to think this song was a good idea.
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12/29/08
At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war-not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade-but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war-and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama-and Obama alone-offers the possibility of a truce.
"Fantasy figure" is putting it mildly. I voted for him too. I hope he'll be a decent president, and I like how he puts words together in the proper order and hasn't shot anyone in the face. But it's like everyone the country swallowed a fistful of random pills from a party jar.
12/29/08
The questions was "he is something of a fantasy figure for whites, many of whom did vote for him out of guilt. He's liberal catharsis personified." And I don't see any evidence that a vast liberal cathartic voting bloc overwhelmingly put him over the top.
12/29/08
12/29/08
Or it just might be that people looked at the fucked up state of this country and the rigorous screwing over they've gotten at the hands of the criminally inept Republican Party and decided, finally, to vote for whoever was least like the nine old rich white dumbfucks on stage at the Republican debates.
12/29/08
If Hillary got the presidency, doesn't mean sexism will automatically end, nor will it mean that because she's a woman that equal pay and concrete reproductive rights (right to choose, getting birth control regardless of the pharmacists' religous beliefs), remember Sarah Palin folks.
Sure, Hillary was an inspirational (I prefer that to "fantasy") figure to many women, but who over 10 thought that sexism would "automatically" end?
As far as reproductive rights, most people wanted to ensure that a pro-"life" Justice wouldn't be appointed. Anything more would have been gravy.
And I don't know, but I would like to think that Hillary wouldn't have invited Rick Warren to give the benediction.
Nobody's perfect, I guess.
12/29/08
"Nobody's perfect, I guess."
(j/k -- Warren should be disinvited.)
12/12/08
Meanwhile, David Brooks is frantically searching for the GOP's soul (working under the amusing premise that it actually has one) and is hoping to aid its rise, pheonix-like, from the ashes of its own self-immolation.
12/12/08
No, what needs to happen is for those two branches of the body politic to be amusing third and fourth parties and for a real liberal party to finally emerge in the U.S. because, frankly, the Democrats have never really gotten the job done for the people and--Blago, Blago, Blago--are just as corrupt as the other guys.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of living in a country that dresses right and righter and pretends its two woeful special interest blocs are actually different.
And if change is going to happen, quite frankly, this is the moment. There's actually someone apparently responsive and not yet calcified by age and indebtedness to the horrible dependence all on fundraising to which U.S. politicians are captive.
12/12/08
12/12/08
The question is, why did you ever listen to him in the first place? OK, i know why--crass opportunism. It gave the GOP a chance to move beyond the country-club and white-shoe law firm set to the guns, taxidermy, and Wal-Mart set, thus latching onto power with a vice-like grip for another generation.
But this is what Rush et al are. Despite being elephantine in ego, he hasn't gone rogue. Rush got his start in the radio market in which i live, and he's always been this way. And until this election, the GOP has been just fine with it, has had no problem with appealing to the baser instincts.