ELIZABETH WARREN:
... calling out the Democrats who voted to deregulate Wall Street.
... has the momentum, seemingly winning debate after debate.
... is absolutely right on justice reform.
... is going after the 0.1% hoards of wealth.
... "I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for."
BERNIE SANDERS:
... brushing up on his foreign policy chops.
... made the mistake of going on s Fox News town hall... and still emerged triumphant.
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
... has a tin ear when it comes to the demands of Black Lives Matter.
... has gone from being young and friendly to being white and angry.
ANDREW YANG:
... vote for him because Trump's fat...? I guess?
BETO O'ROURKE:
... got an endorsement from a Congresswoman who thought Nancy "Big Donors Call the Shots" Pelosi was too far to the left. And also a few other blue dog Dems. Which is interesting, because as his recent call for banning and confiscating assault rifles shows, he's not nearly as much of a centrist as he makes out.
... is still not liberal enough for a lot of Texans who worked for him in 2018.
JOE BIDEN:
... falls well short on climate change policy.
... preaches the merits of compromise and bipartisanship, despite the blatantly obvious.
... seriously, the completely fucking obvious.
... so obvious there are people who think Biden is only playing dumb.
... has ex-Republicans like David Brooks rooting for him.
... keeps finding new ways to shoot himself in the foot.
... cries crocodile tears for how he treated Anita Hill when presiding over Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court hearings.
... is still the leading choice of black Democratic primary voters, despite having built his entire career on anti-black policies.
... has a pair of Billy Carters, his brother and his son, who have traded on Joe's political career (incompetently) their whole lives, and whose wheeling and dealing are just waiting to embarrass him in the general election.
And, finally:
BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON:
... need to just go away.
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Link Bundle #3
Clearing out yet more old tabs on the browser.
Cop catches his supervisor on video demanding to know why he hasn't arrested enough black people.
Different cops beat the hell out of a black man, then claim self-defense, not knowing surveillance cameras would prove their lie.
North Carolina Republicans were working to systematically make it difficult if not impossible for Democratic-leaning people to vote.
North Carolina isn't alone in working to disenfranchise voters. Republicans are using wild claims of illegal voters to justify voter purges- despite the fact that the people making the claims are known liars and con men.
A concise description of what the alt-right is. Short: cowardly fascists.
Another reminder: the alt-right is not about free speech. It's not about tolerance. It's not about anything else except racism, bigotry, and evil. To say "alt-right" is the same thing as to say "KKK", "White Citizens Committee," and "Nazi." It's all the same thing, just wearing a fancy suit and waving a Kekistan flag.
And Trump, let it be always remembered, is their man. He's proven it by his words, his deeds, and the company he keeps. (Note: Ben Rodriguez, a former creative collaborator of mine, has become an ardent follower of Castalia House publisher and Rabid Puppies fascist troll Vox Day, the man quoted in the first linked article for saying, "There is no more Republican vs. Democrat. It is now whites vs. non-whites and white quislings.")
Speaking of Kekistan: How alt-right trolls took an obscure, poorly drawn cartoon and made it the face of hate, racism, and sadism on the Internet.
A common tactic of abusers is to tell their victim, "What's the matter with you? I'm just playing with you!" It's a common lie, and the alt-right uses the "I'm joking" defense for the exact same reasons. The idea is to get the victims to let them continue, to let them grow stronger, to get a tighter grip on them, until escape becomes impossible.
Written a year ago, before Trump's election, this article is a lot more sympathetic than most would be today. What I take from it: the well-off despise those with less than they have, and the poor whites generally despise non-whites who appear to get government help they themselves are too proud to accept. Oh, and both sides are fervent believers in conspiracies.
Short version: when wealth concentrates, it ceases to circulate, choking the economy. The more concentrated the wealth, the more it tends to concentrate even more, squeezing everyone else.
Short version: self-control is a total myth. Any system that relies on it to function WILL fail.
I must remember to seek out and buy some Penzey's spices.
A thorough coverage of the history of Presidential disability in office, and how government coped- or failed to cope.
A reminder that the world has seen rich businessmen elected to executive office before. The trend is, the richer the businessman, the MORE corrupt his administration.
We are in a new cold war with Vladmir Putin's Russia, even if few in Washington want to admit it. Putin is deliberately spreading misinformation to influence elections around the world. His end goal: to discredit democracy, weaken Russia's enemies, and bring about a world order of totalitarian, white-supremacist regimes. And Putin's support of Trump's campaign, about which more facts come out every day, was part and parcel of that.
And I think I'll stop there for now.
Cop catches his supervisor on video demanding to know why he hasn't arrested enough black people.
Different cops beat the hell out of a black man, then claim self-defense, not knowing surveillance cameras would prove their lie.
North Carolina Republicans were working to systematically make it difficult if not impossible for Democratic-leaning people to vote.
North Carolina isn't alone in working to disenfranchise voters. Republicans are using wild claims of illegal voters to justify voter purges- despite the fact that the people making the claims are known liars and con men.
A concise description of what the alt-right is. Short: cowardly fascists.
Another reminder: the alt-right is not about free speech. It's not about tolerance. It's not about anything else except racism, bigotry, and evil. To say "alt-right" is the same thing as to say "KKK", "White Citizens Committee," and "Nazi." It's all the same thing, just wearing a fancy suit and waving a Kekistan flag.
And Trump, let it be always remembered, is their man. He's proven it by his words, his deeds, and the company he keeps. (Note: Ben Rodriguez, a former creative collaborator of mine, has become an ardent follower of Castalia House publisher and Rabid Puppies fascist troll Vox Day, the man quoted in the first linked article for saying, "There is no more Republican vs. Democrat. It is now whites vs. non-whites and white quislings.")
Speaking of Kekistan: How alt-right trolls took an obscure, poorly drawn cartoon and made it the face of hate, racism, and sadism on the Internet.
A common tactic of abusers is to tell their victim, "What's the matter with you? I'm just playing with you!" It's a common lie, and the alt-right uses the "I'm joking" defense for the exact same reasons. The idea is to get the victims to let them continue, to let them grow stronger, to get a tighter grip on them, until escape becomes impossible.
Written a year ago, before Trump's election, this article is a lot more sympathetic than most would be today. What I take from it: the well-off despise those with less than they have, and the poor whites generally despise non-whites who appear to get government help they themselves are too proud to accept. Oh, and both sides are fervent believers in conspiracies.
Short version: when wealth concentrates, it ceases to circulate, choking the economy. The more concentrated the wealth, the more it tends to concentrate even more, squeezing everyone else.
Short version: self-control is a total myth. Any system that relies on it to function WILL fail.
I must remember to seek out and buy some Penzey's spices.
A thorough coverage of the history of Presidential disability in office, and how government coped- or failed to cope.
A reminder that the world has seen rich businessmen elected to executive office before. The trend is, the richer the businessman, the MORE corrupt his administration.
We are in a new cold war with Vladmir Putin's Russia, even if few in Washington want to admit it. Putin is deliberately spreading misinformation to influence elections around the world. His end goal: to discredit democracy, weaken Russia's enemies, and bring about a world order of totalitarian, white-supremacist regimes. And Putin's support of Trump's campaign, about which more facts come out every day, was part and parcel of that.
And I think I'll stop there for now.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Mass Link Bundle
I really need to use this blog more often.
One of the problems with Facebook is that it makes it easy to just "share link", say a little bit about a thing, and then forget about it... and Facebook's magic makes it impossibe to find that link ever, ever again.
Another problem I have, not connected to Facebook, is that I will often read a link, think, "I want to say something about this, but I need to think about it," and then... just... let it sit there... in the tabs on my browser...
... which, at the moment, are up to something like a hundred tabs.
So, this is me, clearing out some (not all) of those tabs, and at the same time archiving the links in a place where they can be found. Some of these go back quite some time- they've been building up.
Starting with the most recent and moving backwards through my tabs row:
On how direct cash aid to individuals is the most effective means of ending poverty and boosting the economy, but envy and hatred of the poor sabotages it.
I like parts of this proposal, but I agree more explanation needs to happen.
Democratic leadership is still pro-business, anti-worker, and deaf as a post to what people are actually asking for- specifically, that corporations be reined in and that people get a decent wage and conditions at their jobs.
Of course, mechanization is on course to eliminate most human jobs, leaving the majority of mankind unemployable unless we do something about it.
White people forget that the Detroit Riots were a reaction to decades of police brutality and public segregation against black people.
This guy was the first: as of this week, three or four other top cybersecurity people have bailed out of executive-branch departments. Wonder why?
Brian Babin, my Congressman, wants to make it illegal to extend civil rights protection over transsexual people.
If you were wondering how Donald Trump won (despite the ten kazillion opinions on that subject expressed since the election), here's one clue: Hillary Clinton is even more disliked than he is.
Re: Trump-Russia collusion: How much more smoke does there have to be until we can safely assume there's a fire?
... and, well, I've run out of room in the tags. Guess I'll do more of this tomorrow.
One of the problems with Facebook is that it makes it easy to just "share link", say a little bit about a thing, and then forget about it... and Facebook's magic makes it impossibe to find that link ever, ever again.
Another problem I have, not connected to Facebook, is that I will often read a link, think, "I want to say something about this, but I need to think about it," and then... just... let it sit there... in the tabs on my browser...
... which, at the moment, are up to something like a hundred tabs.
So, this is me, clearing out some (not all) of those tabs, and at the same time archiving the links in a place where they can be found. Some of these go back quite some time- they've been building up.
Starting with the most recent and moving backwards through my tabs row:
On how direct cash aid to individuals is the most effective means of ending poverty and boosting the economy, but envy and hatred of the poor sabotages it.
I like parts of this proposal, but I agree more explanation needs to happen.
Democratic leadership is still pro-business, anti-worker, and deaf as a post to what people are actually asking for- specifically, that corporations be reined in and that people get a decent wage and conditions at their jobs.
Of course, mechanization is on course to eliminate most human jobs, leaving the majority of mankind unemployable unless we do something about it.
White people forget that the Detroit Riots were a reaction to decades of police brutality and public segregation against black people.
This guy was the first: as of this week, three or four other top cybersecurity people have bailed out of executive-branch departments. Wonder why?
Brian Babin, my Congressman, wants to make it illegal to extend civil rights protection over transsexual people.
If you were wondering how Donald Trump won (despite the ten kazillion opinions on that subject expressed since the election), here's one clue: Hillary Clinton is even more disliked than he is.
Re: Trump-Russia collusion: How much more smoke does there have to be until we can safely assume there's a fire?
... and, well, I've run out of room in the tags. Guess I'll do more of this tomorrow.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
More Mixed Returns on Obama's Race Speech
Let's get the worst out of the way first: Insider Advantage polling shows the Obama speech a great big flop, especially among those who didn't actually hear it.
That sentence sounds scary... until you read the header of the web page I just linked to... the Southern Political Report. Granted, there's no obvious evidence of bias there, but...
... why does CBS News show a poll taken at the same time which gives the exact opposite result?
The Insider Advantage poll claims that the Rev. Wright issue in general, and Obama's speech in particular, make 52% of the electorate less likely to vote for Obama. CBS, on the other hand, reports that 70% of the voting populace don't care one way or the other, with only 14% less likely to vote for Obama. Both polls, by the way, claim to screen to focus solely on those who have paid attention to the controversy. These aren't the ignorant or the apathetic.
Eric Kliefeld at Talking Points Memo finds two more apparently contradictory polls, with the contradiction apparently an artifact of how the polling questions were phrased.
For me, though, the tie-breaker is today's Gallup tracking poll... which shows Obama retaking the lead over Clinton. Today is the first day that their tracking poll shows only data from interviews taken after the speech. Granted, it's also the first report after the truly awful numbers from Tuesday- the day of the speech itself- dropped off the rolling report. The next couple of days should verify if this is a trend, but I'm inclined to believe so.
Gallup suggests Friday's total reflects a one-time boost from the Bill Richardson endorsement. My view: Richardson is one more superdelegate in the Obama camp, and nothing more. Note: Obama's magic superdelegate number is now 111. If Richardson had endorsed him before Texas, or indeed before Super Tuesday, he might have had a major influence. As it is, with a Florida re-vote belly-up in the water, there are no more strongly Latino states left (except Puerto Rico, who are not the same Latinos as what my less educated neighbors call "them damn Mexikins"). Richardson has no coattails, no real influence, just one superdelegate vote. He won't lead a flood of superdelegates to Obama, nor at this stage will this trigger a slew of Clinton defections. He doesn't even bring a substantial voting bloc with him- remember, his best performance was a pathetic 4% in Iowa.
No, I think Gallup's Friday results had nothing to do with Richardson... and everything to do with voters either beginning to forget about Rev. Wright or, more important, accepting that Obama has dealt with the issue and that Obama has sound, even profound views on race. Conservatives will continue to bring Rev. Wright up, but Obama has demonstrated that he can and will respond effectively. He's stopped the bleeding. What remains to be seen is: can he build a new lead and begin pushing Clinton out of the race once and for all?
Now what we need is post-speech polling from Pennsylvania and North Carolina. There's just barely been time for such polls to be taken, calculated and released since the Tuesday speech, had anybody been inclined to do so. I'm not surprised that none have been released so far... but I am very, very interested to see how they come out, in comparison with recent polls taken during the Wright brouhaha that showed Clinton and Obama even in North Carolina, and Clinton beating Obama by between eleven and twenty-six percentiles in Pennsylvania.
One final note: my own reaction to the speech remains the same- that Obama did not answer the concerns that working-class white people, particularly the southern-Baptist types that form much of Clinton's base, have about Wright and Obama's twenty-year membership at his church. To a certain extent Obama supporters and media commentators have picked up the slack, reminding others that worshippers will continue going to a church even when they disagree with the pastor of the moment.
It also doesn't hurt that the continual play that the right-wing forces- talk radio hosts, FOX News, certain 527s- have given the Wright issue are producing a growing backlash. The more they use the issue, the more they anger people who don't already support McCain. (And the more they do it, the more they invite left-wing 527s to start talking about the various looney preachers McCain's been cozying up to. Hagee is only the tip of a large iceberg there...)
That sentence sounds scary... until you read the header of the web page I just linked to... the Southern Political Report. Granted, there's no obvious evidence of bias there, but...
... why does CBS News show a poll taken at the same time which gives the exact opposite result?
The Insider Advantage poll claims that the Rev. Wright issue in general, and Obama's speech in particular, make 52% of the electorate less likely to vote for Obama. CBS, on the other hand, reports that 70% of the voting populace don't care one way or the other, with only 14% less likely to vote for Obama. Both polls, by the way, claim to screen to focus solely on those who have paid attention to the controversy. These aren't the ignorant or the apathetic.
Eric Kliefeld at Talking Points Memo finds two more apparently contradictory polls, with the contradiction apparently an artifact of how the polling questions were phrased.
For me, though, the tie-breaker is today's Gallup tracking poll... which shows Obama retaking the lead over Clinton. Today is the first day that their tracking poll shows only data from interviews taken after the speech. Granted, it's also the first report after the truly awful numbers from Tuesday- the day of the speech itself- dropped off the rolling report. The next couple of days should verify if this is a trend, but I'm inclined to believe so.
Gallup suggests Friday's total reflects a one-time boost from the Bill Richardson endorsement. My view: Richardson is one more superdelegate in the Obama camp, and nothing more. Note: Obama's magic superdelegate number is now 111. If Richardson had endorsed him before Texas, or indeed before Super Tuesday, he might have had a major influence. As it is, with a Florida re-vote belly-up in the water, there are no more strongly Latino states left (except Puerto Rico, who are not the same Latinos as what my less educated neighbors call "them damn Mexikins"). Richardson has no coattails, no real influence, just one superdelegate vote. He won't lead a flood of superdelegates to Obama, nor at this stage will this trigger a slew of Clinton defections. He doesn't even bring a substantial voting bloc with him- remember, his best performance was a pathetic 4% in Iowa.
No, I think Gallup's Friday results had nothing to do with Richardson... and everything to do with voters either beginning to forget about Rev. Wright or, more important, accepting that Obama has dealt with the issue and that Obama has sound, even profound views on race. Conservatives will continue to bring Rev. Wright up, but Obama has demonstrated that he can and will respond effectively. He's stopped the bleeding. What remains to be seen is: can he build a new lead and begin pushing Clinton out of the race once and for all?
Now what we need is post-speech polling from Pennsylvania and North Carolina. There's just barely been time for such polls to be taken, calculated and released since the Tuesday speech, had anybody been inclined to do so. I'm not surprised that none have been released so far... but I am very, very interested to see how they come out, in comparison with recent polls taken during the Wright brouhaha that showed Clinton and Obama even in North Carolina, and Clinton beating Obama by between eleven and twenty-six percentiles in Pennsylvania.
One final note: my own reaction to the speech remains the same- that Obama did not answer the concerns that working-class white people, particularly the southern-Baptist types that form much of Clinton's base, have about Wright and Obama's twenty-year membership at his church. To a certain extent Obama supporters and media commentators have picked up the slack, reminding others that worshippers will continue going to a church even when they disagree with the pastor of the moment.
It also doesn't hurt that the continual play that the right-wing forces- talk radio hosts, FOX News, certain 527s- have given the Wright issue are producing a growing backlash. The more they use the issue, the more they anger people who don't already support McCain. (And the more they do it, the more they invite left-wing 527s to start talking about the various looney preachers McCain's been cozying up to. Hagee is only the tip of a large iceberg there...)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
First Signs of the Obama Speech Reaction
Well, first the bad news.
Carrie Burdoff Brown at the Politico reports that in the white working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia Obama's speech was counterproductive; those voters apparently will accept nothing less than a total rejection of Rev. Wright by Obama. In fact, most of the people quoted in the article wouldn't vote for Obama even if he did reject him. This is bad, because Obama needs voters like this to keep Pennsylvania close when the vote comes.
On the other hand, when Ben Smith at Politico mentioned this article on his blog, the response was that the people interviewed for Brown's piece would never vote for Obama anyway. Several people said that if Jesus Christ himself returned in the form of a black man, the NE Philadelphia ethnic enclaves would vote against him. Other commentators pointed out that there were plenty of white voters in that area who would, indeed, vote for Obama. My view: the white population of Pennsylvania is well represented by the article's sample, and Obama will find it all the more difficult to keep the result within a ten-point spread when the vote happens next month.
MSNBC reporter Carrie Dann writes that reception of the speech is mixed in North Carolina. She gives three viewpoints: the negative viewpoint is from a 72-year-old white man who identifies as Republican. The second viewpoint, from a former Clinton supporter converted to Obama, ignores the speech. The final viewpoint adores the speech, but is apparently undecided between Obama and Clinton. This article, more than the first, serves as a reminder: "data" is not the plural of "anecdote." We have to wait and watch the polls, which took a distinct downward trend before the speech, to see what's really happening.
The first of those polls gives me a bit of cause for hope. Gallup's tracking poll shows Obama closing on Clinton today, after a five-day slide which took him from a 50-44 lead to a 49-42 deficit yesterday. (Today's score: 48-43.)
Viewpoints from the media provide further food for thought. Amy Walter of the National Journal writes that Hillary Clinton's last hope of winning the nomination, making the "electability" argument to sway superdelegates, was eliminated by Obama's decision to lay his views on race out in the open:
Quite frankly, I'm dubious about this- I really don't think we know yet whether or not Obama has succeeded in re-defining the race issue or the Wright issue. Associated Press reporter Charles Babington reports that a large number of Republican activists and advisors are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of attack ads linking Obama and Wright. John McCain's campaign has already suspended a staffer who created such a video and posted it to YouTube.
There is the possibility that these efforts could backfire on McCain, but I doubt it. Swift Boat didn't backfire on Bush; Willie Horton didn't backfire on Bush the Elder. What's more probable is that similar efforts could backfire on Clinton.
It seems, according to Eloise Harper at ABC News, the Clinton campaign has been using Rev. Wright to try to persuade Democratic superdelegates that Obama is unelectable in the general election.
Bob Beckel, head of Walter Mondale's 1984 Presidential campaign- the last time superdelegates decided the nomination- has weighed in not just on this issue, but also on the overall superdelegate issue.
Of course, as we've seen already, the Clintons never think about tomorrow, never think any further than the battle at hand. They will say and do anything they can to win the nomination, and only then will they consider the general election. Mark Penn is already pointing to polls that show Obama has lost his general-election poll lead over John McCain... but he fails to point out that Clinton is also losing, in the same polls, by the same or greater margins. They are willing and eager to throw away the general election in their efforts to win the nomination.
To sum up: a bit too early to say what the speech has done, but it is definitely not the big winner a lot of the media have painted it as. Wright is not going to be allowed to fade from public consciousness, which means he will continue to hurt Obama until at least the general election, if not long after. Wright harms Obama's ability to cut into Clinton's base. The one positive about the speech is that it is likely to reassure superdelegates- on whom all depends for both candidates. Anything else is too early to say- until new polls over the coming week clearly show trends after the speech.
(Well, there's two positives, actually. Breaking news tonight is that State Department contractors, on multiple occasions, illegally accessed Obama's passport records. Obama supporters can now point to a vast White House conspiracy to send in modern-day Plumbers to dig up the dirt on the Democrats, and suggest that Bush would prefer Clinton in the White House to Obama. Obama himself would never do such a thing, but...)
(Oh- and adjustments to superdelegate estimates tick Obama's magic number to shut the door on Clinton down one. Magic number now 112.)
Carrie Burdoff Brown at the Politico reports that in the white working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia Obama's speech was counterproductive; those voters apparently will accept nothing less than a total rejection of Rev. Wright by Obama. In fact, most of the people quoted in the article wouldn't vote for Obama even if he did reject him. This is bad, because Obama needs voters like this to keep Pennsylvania close when the vote comes.
Glenn Peter, 54, a patron at Rauchut’s Tavern, said he heard finger pointing, not reconciliation. He took issue with Obama’s explanation that Wright’s observations of a racist America were reflecting the racial scars of his past.
“I don’t want to hear that you are blaming us for him saying this,” said Peter, who is white and worked at an auto parts factory until it was shuttered several years ago. Cutting ties with the church “would have been the best way to do it. That way, I could have been able to listen to him again.”
On the other hand, when Ben Smith at Politico mentioned this article on his blog, the response was that the people interviewed for Brown's piece would never vote for Obama anyway. Several people said that if Jesus Christ himself returned in the form of a black man, the NE Philadelphia ethnic enclaves would vote against him. Other commentators pointed out that there were plenty of white voters in that area who would, indeed, vote for Obama. My view: the white population of Pennsylvania is well represented by the article's sample, and Obama will find it all the more difficult to keep the result within a ten-point spread when the vote happens next month.
MSNBC reporter Carrie Dann writes that reception of the speech is mixed in North Carolina. She gives three viewpoints: the negative viewpoint is from a 72-year-old white man who identifies as Republican. The second viewpoint, from a former Clinton supporter converted to Obama, ignores the speech. The final viewpoint adores the speech, but is apparently undecided between Obama and Clinton. This article, more than the first, serves as a reminder: "data" is not the plural of "anecdote." We have to wait and watch the polls, which took a distinct downward trend before the speech, to see what's really happening.
"I think he played the race card too much," says George McNeill of Aberdeen, N.C., as he politely nudges to the side his plate of ham mac n' cheese. "In all honesty, I got the idea a time or two that he was more looking down on the white race than I thought he should."
. . .
"He's not talking in a foreign language to anybody," Ruffin says, scanning the line of faces - black, white, young, and old — with trays piled with sliced turkey and unapologetically gooey pieces of pie. "He understands white. And he understands black."
He says that negativity in the race had started to leave a sour taste months ago. But it wasn't until the last few weeks that he finally made the switch when Hillary Clinton proposed that Barack Obama would make an excellent contender — for vice president. "He's the frontrunner!" he chuckles. "There's somethin' just not quite right with that."
. . .
As a lifelong churchgoer and a Southern woman at her core, Deborah Parish has a deep appreciation for the religious and racial roots that anchor Obama's identity.
A white woman often transplanted by her husband's military service, she's had her taste of unsavory comments from ministers at the many churches the couple has attended throughout their travels.
"We've had pastors who I haven't agreed with," she says in defense of Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "But I didn't stop going to church. Because I'm not going for the pastor, I'm going for my soul."
The first of those polls gives me a bit of cause for hope. Gallup's tracking poll shows Obama closing on Clinton today, after a five-day slide which took him from a 50-44 lead to a 49-42 deficit yesterday. (Today's score: 48-43.)
Obama made a major speech on Tuesday addressing the race issue in large part to help move past the controversy. While Tuesday night polling showed no immediate benefit for Obama, the Wednesday results were more favorable to him, as reflected in the slight drop in Clinton's three-day average lead. This suggests at least the possibility that Obama has stopped his losses. The tracking data over the next several days will be a crucial indicator of the lasting impact, if any, of the Wright controversy.
Viewpoints from the media provide further food for thought. Amy Walter of the National Journal writes that Hillary Clinton's last hope of winning the nomination, making the "electability" argument to sway superdelegates, was eliminated by Obama's decision to lay his views on race out in the open:
This should benefit Clinton, right? After all, her plea to primary voters as well as superdelegates has been to let the process play out until the last vote is cast, to allow for a proper vetting of the candidates. But it seems as if Obama's speech effectively turned the "electability" question into a code word for "acceptable to whites." If so, it means that superdelegates will be very wary of opening a racial divide among Democrats that won't heal before November and may not for a long time to come.
Quite frankly, I'm dubious about this- I really don't think we know yet whether or not Obama has succeeded in re-defining the race issue or the Wright issue. Associated Press reporter Charles Babington reports that a large number of Republican activists and advisors are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of attack ads linking Obama and Wright. John McCain's campaign has already suspended a staffer who created such a video and posted it to YouTube.
Should Obama become the Democratic nominee, conservative activists are virtually certain to remind voters of Obama's ties to Wright, perhaps by using the videos in TV ads, several strategists said.
"He can give a speech a week, and it's not going to make the issue go away," said Chris LaCivita, a Republican adviser who helped create the "Swift Boat" ads that severely damaged John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.
. . .
At least one conservative activist already has posted a video on the Web site YouTube with Wright's most incendiary remarks mixed with snippets from Obama speeches and interviews, which are edited to make the senator seem to be sputtering and unpatriotic. The Politico, a Washington-based newspaper, reported that the two-minute video was the work of Lee Habeeb, a former producer of the Laura Ingraham Show, a conservative talk program.
The Politico quoted Habeeb as saying, "I'm trying to join the YouTube generation and have some fun. We wanted to see if we could get in circulation."
The video was distributed Thursday by a McCain campaign aide, Soren Dayton, who subsequently was reprimanded and suspended. "We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said.
There is the possibility that these efforts could backfire on McCain, but I doubt it. Swift Boat didn't backfire on Bush; Willie Horton didn't backfire on Bush the Elder. What's more probable is that similar efforts could backfire on Clinton.
It seems, according to Eloise Harper at ABC News, the Clinton campaign has been using Rev. Wright to try to persuade Democratic superdelegates that Obama is unelectable in the general election.
However at a Thursday press availability in Terra Haute, Indiana after a report surfaced that the Clinton campaign was pushing the Wright story to superdelegates arguing that the relationship hurt Obama's electibility -– Clinton refused to deny that her campaign was pushing the story.
. . .
When Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story –- she shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.
Bob Beckel, head of Walter Mondale's 1984 Presidential campaign- the last time superdelegates decided the nomination- has weighed in not just on this issue, but also on the overall superdelegate issue.
The third key to Mondale's nomination, and arguably the most important, were superdelegates. Superdelegates were created in the early '80s with the strong backing of the Mondale campaign. These were party leaders (most with long histories with Mondale) who would decide the nomination if a candidate failed to get enough pledged delegates for a convention majority. Mondale had predicted enough delegates to claim the nomination after the last primaries on June 5th, '84. We came up short and needed roughly 50 superdelegates to commit. They did, allowing Mondale to claim the nomination on June 6th.
Did we twist arms and call in old debts like the Obama campaign believes the Clintons are doing? Sure, but that kind of pressure rarely worked. Our strongest arguments (which sold virtually all 50 superdelegates) were that: Mondale had won the most pledged delegates overall, gotten the most popular votes, and, more importantly, had won the home states or districts of the superdelegates we had targeted that day. Without a compelling reason, superdelegates were loath to go against the majority of their constituents. It was true in '84 and it should be true in '08.
. . .
But the Republican right wing has seized on the Wright story and is unlikely to let it go. For John McCain this has serious downside potential. Anger in the black community towards Republicans is established and immutable. But if conservatives are perceived as exploiting yet another race story, anger could spread to moderate Republican and Independent voters, many in the suburbs, where the Republicans have been bleeding support the last decade.
For those supporters of Hillary Clinton who see the story as a way of selling superdelegates on Obama's unelectability, the downside is far more dangerous. If the Clinton campaign is caught using the race card, particularly after Bill Clinton's 'cracker tour' of South Carolina, it will assure a Clinton defeat in November. Not only will blacks boycott the polls, so will many of the millions of young voters Obama has brought into the political process.
. . .
To repeat, for the benefit of undecided superdelegates; the nominating voting process ends on June 3rd. Superdelegates will have all the information they need (and none of the excuses they've been hiding behind) to declare support for one of the candidates by June 4th. If voting trends continue as they have, there is no other choice but Barack Obama.
If they go with Hillary Clinton, the case against Obama's electability better be a strong one. If not, superdelegates will be responsible for ripping the party apart in an election year that favors Democrats on every front. These "party leaders" will also be responsible for alienating our most loyal constituency and locking the door on our first young recruits in decades.
Do it on the "big state" argument and you deserve to be laughed out of town or maybe horsewhipped in Denver.
Of course, as we've seen already, the Clintons never think about tomorrow, never think any further than the battle at hand. They will say and do anything they can to win the nomination, and only then will they consider the general election. Mark Penn is already pointing to polls that show Obama has lost his general-election poll lead over John McCain... but he fails to point out that Clinton is also losing, in the same polls, by the same or greater margins. They are willing and eager to throw away the general election in their efforts to win the nomination.
To sum up: a bit too early to say what the speech has done, but it is definitely not the big winner a lot of the media have painted it as. Wright is not going to be allowed to fade from public consciousness, which means he will continue to hurt Obama until at least the general election, if not long after. Wright harms Obama's ability to cut into Clinton's base. The one positive about the speech is that it is likely to reassure superdelegates- on whom all depends for both candidates. Anything else is too early to say- until new polls over the coming week clearly show trends after the speech.
(Well, there's two positives, actually. Breaking news tonight is that State Department contractors, on multiple occasions, illegally accessed Obama's passport records. Obama supporters can now point to a vast White House conspiracy to send in modern-day Plumbers to dig up the dirt on the Democrats, and suggest that Bush would prefer Clinton in the White House to Obama. Obama himself would never do such a thing, but...)
(Oh- and adjustments to superdelegate estimates tick Obama's magic number to shut the door on Clinton down one. Magic number now 112.)
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Obama's Race Speech
Well, it's been a mixed week for Obama. On the one hand, he's continued a steady trickle of superdelegates to his side, and he's gained pledged delegates (estimated) in Iowa and California. On the other hand, video of his former pastor, Rev. Wright, began getting heavy, indeed near constant play beginning on FOX News and spreading across all the media and blogosphere.
Well, today I was resting after a working weekend, and I slept through Barack Obama's speech to respond to the issue of Rev. Wright. (Please don't offer me YouTube or other video links; I have dialup. I can't watch them.) I've got a copy of the speech that was leaked beforehand; I'm told that Obama's changes to the speech while giving it were minor. The Obama campaign says that Obama wrote this himself, without aid, over the past two days. I'm inclined to believe it.
For my money, this is a good speech for someone who wants to affect a Presidential campaign... but not so good for a candidate for that office.
The core issue with Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright is this: how could Obama, a man seeking to transcend race, have such a close relationship with an anti-white, anti-American racist? Obama really does not answer this question well- at least, not from a political point of view.
Disclosure time: I was once a born-again, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. I made my profession of faith when I was nine years old, led by a pastor who I still respect as being honest both in beliefs and dealings with others. (Said pastor drives a log truck to support his large family; he realizes little income from his ministry.) Even after I had a parting of the ways with fundamentalism, I respected that minister for his honesty and integrity.
Then, in 2004, while campaigning for Libertarian candidates here in my home area, I joined a conversation involving this minister and a couple of other people. In this conversation I learned that this minister was a severe homophobic bigot- advocating life imprisonment for homosexuals.
I've done my best to avoid that minister since (although in this tiny a community, absolute avoidance is impossible). I have lost all respect for him, despite his honesty and integrity... because of his happy, smiling, congenial hatred for homosexuality and homosexuals. The man was practically family (and, to most of my family, still is)... but I absolutely could not tolerate his anti-gay bias.
In the speech Obama admits knowing that Wright has preached "remarks that could be considered controversial." He does not, however, call the remarks- accusations that the US is run exclusively by rich white men, that Israel is wholly at fault for the Palestinian conflict, others- he does not call them racist.
He comes as close to an answer to the core question as he ever does here:
This is an answer with integrity and love for a man who brought Obama to Christ. I remember quite well the ecstacy of the moment of conversion, when the fears and terrors of the unknown, of what comes after death, were replaced by the comfort of a Savior who guaranteed strength against this world's trials and eternal life after death in Paradise. It's an extreme moment of emotion, and it creates emotional ties which are difficult to sever. When Obama says Wright is like one of his family, I believe it.
But the majority of white America will not.
To most white voters, Obama's effort to denounce the speech but support the speaker is doubletalk. First and foremost, it doesn't answer why Obama waited until now to make this speech- especially when these "controversial statements" were for the most part known to Obama before he announced his run for President, if not before then. Second, it looks like hypocrisy: how can Obama's campaign decry Geraldine Ferraro's accusations that Obama is the "affirmative action" candidate, like she was for VP in 1984, and at the same time continue to associate with a shameless, indeed loudspoken, bigot?
Finally- and this point is being brought up all over the place, and has been ever since this issue comes up- Obama's claim that Wright is like family cuts no ice. You do not get to choose your family. You do, however, get to choose which church you go to, which minister guides you on your spiritual walk. If you do not believe in something a minister says... you reject that minister.
A parable Christ gave backs this up: "If your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better to be blind or lame than for uncleanness to spread and jeopardize your life and soul."
Myself, I agree with the substance behind of most of what Wright said in those clips. Blacks may no longer be lawfully discriminated against, but the effects of past discrimination and the individual prejudices from that period linger. America has propped up dictators, overthrown governments, bombed nations at will and without warning, all in a smug self-righteousness based on the knowledge that those other nations dared never touch us in retaliation. That smugness was wiped off our face on September 11, 2001. And finally, yes, only a black man, immersed in the black subculture, can know what life in America is like for blacks. The rest of us don't have the same knowledge, experience, and cultural programming.
But in his anger Wright's words carried not these messages, clean and plain, but a fury and hatred for all things white.
And Obama's response to this is that he disagreed, that he was embarrassed in the same way his grandmother's unconscious racism sometimes embarrassed him.
And nothing more.
This is bad enough, but Obama then compounded his error:
In other words, rather than allowing the race issue to die, Obama announced his intention to make the discussion of race a major aspect of his campaign henceforth. He went on to point out that whites have legitimate reason to complain of racial injustice, just as blacks and others do... but that does not help him, not at all. To the average white voter, Obama has just taken a stand with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The average white voter won't see the difference between a black man wanting to discuss race and black men wanting to use racial tension for their own benefit. They'll just see a black man talking about race...
... and they'll think, "If this guy gets elected, it's going to be an all-black government. Everything for the blacks, the white man gets shafted."
Yes, there are still a lot of racists, black and white and otherwise, in this country. And they vote.
And they don't all vote Republican.
Today's speech, at best, changes no minds for Obama. It utterly fails to put the Rev. Wright and his sermons behind Obama. It fails to reassure white voters that Obama is not a "black candidate" in the mold of Jesse Jackson.
What it does do is reveal the conflicts of a gentle and principled soul who is not willing to sacrifice a long-time friend and mentor for the sake of political expediency. It reveals the basic philosophy of a man who shares multiple cultures- not merely black and white- in his background. It shares a desire to bring the races together, to tear down the walls between black and white and to give them common cause to build a new America where race is unimportant.
If he weren't a Presidential candidate, it would be a truly great speech.
But as a speech given by a Presidential candidate in response to a crisis, it was not what was needed. If anything, it's more ammunition for his enemies.
I am now very seriously concerned Obama's future... but we'll have to see how the voters react, if at all, to the speech and its coverage.
Well, today I was resting after a working weekend, and I slept through Barack Obama's speech to respond to the issue of Rev. Wright. (Please don't offer me YouTube or other video links; I have dialup. I can't watch them.) I've got a copy of the speech that was leaked beforehand; I'm told that Obama's changes to the speech while giving it were minor. The Obama campaign says that Obama wrote this himself, without aid, over the past two days. I'm inclined to believe it.
For my money, this is a good speech for someone who wants to affect a Presidential campaign... but not so good for a candidate for that office.
The core issue with Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright is this: how could Obama, a man seeking to transcend race, have such a close relationship with an anti-white, anti-American racist? Obama really does not answer this question well- at least, not from a political point of view.
Disclosure time: I was once a born-again, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. I made my profession of faith when I was nine years old, led by a pastor who I still respect as being honest both in beliefs and dealings with others. (Said pastor drives a log truck to support his large family; he realizes little income from his ministry.) Even after I had a parting of the ways with fundamentalism, I respected that minister for his honesty and integrity.
Then, in 2004, while campaigning for Libertarian candidates here in my home area, I joined a conversation involving this minister and a couple of other people. In this conversation I learned that this minister was a severe homophobic bigot- advocating life imprisonment for homosexuals.
I've done my best to avoid that minister since (although in this tiny a community, absolute avoidance is impossible). I have lost all respect for him, despite his honesty and integrity... because of his happy, smiling, congenial hatred for homosexuality and homosexuals. The man was practically family (and, to most of my family, still is)... but I absolutely could not tolerate his anti-gay bias.
In the speech Obama admits knowing that Wright has preached "remarks that could be considered controversial." He does not, however, call the remarks- accusations that the US is run exclusively by rich white men, that Israel is wholly at fault for the Palestinian conflict, others- he does not call them racist.
He comes as close to an answer to the core question as he ever does here:
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
. . .
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
This is an answer with integrity and love for a man who brought Obama to Christ. I remember quite well the ecstacy of the moment of conversion, when the fears and terrors of the unknown, of what comes after death, were replaced by the comfort of a Savior who guaranteed strength against this world's trials and eternal life after death in Paradise. It's an extreme moment of emotion, and it creates emotional ties which are difficult to sever. When Obama says Wright is like one of his family, I believe it.
But the majority of white America will not.
To most white voters, Obama's effort to denounce the speech but support the speaker is doubletalk. First and foremost, it doesn't answer why Obama waited until now to make this speech- especially when these "controversial statements" were for the most part known to Obama before he announced his run for President, if not before then. Second, it looks like hypocrisy: how can Obama's campaign decry Geraldine Ferraro's accusations that Obama is the "affirmative action" candidate, like she was for VP in 1984, and at the same time continue to associate with a shameless, indeed loudspoken, bigot?
Finally- and this point is being brought up all over the place, and has been ever since this issue comes up- Obama's claim that Wright is like family cuts no ice. You do not get to choose your family. You do, however, get to choose which church you go to, which minister guides you on your spiritual walk. If you do not believe in something a minister says... you reject that minister.
A parable Christ gave backs this up: "If your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better to be blind or lame than for uncleanness to spread and jeopardize your life and soul."
Myself, I agree with the substance behind of most of what Wright said in those clips. Blacks may no longer be lawfully discriminated against, but the effects of past discrimination and the individual prejudices from that period linger. America has propped up dictators, overthrown governments, bombed nations at will and without warning, all in a smug self-righteousness based on the knowledge that those other nations dared never touch us in retaliation. That smugness was wiped off our face on September 11, 2001. And finally, yes, only a black man, immersed in the black subculture, can know what life in America is like for blacks. The rest of us don't have the same knowledge, experience, and cultural programming.
But in his anger Wright's words carried not these messages, clean and plain, but a fury and hatred for all things white.
And Obama's response to this is that he disagreed, that he was embarrassed in the same way his grandmother's unconscious racism sometimes embarrassed him.
And nothing more.
This is bad enough, but Obama then compounded his error:
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
In other words, rather than allowing the race issue to die, Obama announced his intention to make the discussion of race a major aspect of his campaign henceforth. He went on to point out that whites have legitimate reason to complain of racial injustice, just as blacks and others do... but that does not help him, not at all. To the average white voter, Obama has just taken a stand with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The average white voter won't see the difference between a black man wanting to discuss race and black men wanting to use racial tension for their own benefit. They'll just see a black man talking about race...
... and they'll think, "If this guy gets elected, it's going to be an all-black government. Everything for the blacks, the white man gets shafted."
Yes, there are still a lot of racists, black and white and otherwise, in this country. And they vote.
And they don't all vote Republican.
Today's speech, at best, changes no minds for Obama. It utterly fails to put the Rev. Wright and his sermons behind Obama. It fails to reassure white voters that Obama is not a "black candidate" in the mold of Jesse Jackson.
What it does do is reveal the conflicts of a gentle and principled soul who is not willing to sacrifice a long-time friend and mentor for the sake of political expediency. It reveals the basic philosophy of a man who shares multiple cultures- not merely black and white- in his background. It shares a desire to bring the races together, to tear down the walls between black and white and to give them common cause to build a new America where race is unimportant.
If he weren't a Presidential candidate, it would be a truly great speech.
But as a speech given by a Presidential candidate in response to a crisis, it was not what was needed. If anything, it's more ammunition for his enemies.
I am now very seriously concerned Obama's future... but we'll have to see how the voters react, if at all, to the speech and its coverage.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Ron Paul and MLK...
... Just go and read this.
I have nothing more to add, except that this is the first I've been able to see of even clips from those newsletters scanned and hosted by the New Republic. What I see doesn't do much credit to Ron Paul, especially to his claims that he didn't write these statements... which were clearly written to appear as if he were the one saying them.
Yes, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a flaming socialist. So was Helen Keller. So are a lot of other people. I believe socialism, in general, is a wrong and destructive political philosophy.
But King, Keller, and other socialists were fighting unjust systems more offensive to me than socialism- racism, misogyny, the class system, and legislated injustice. Keller carried on her fight despite the incredible handicaps which make her famous still today. King carried on his fight despite death threats, attacks, misuse of the legal system to harass him, stopping only when an assassin's bullet put an end to his struggle.
For Ron Paul to claim that King would support his campaign today- especially after allowing newsletters to be published in his name, words inserted in his mouth, slandering the name of a dead man and appealing to bigotry for support- this isn't the height of hypocrisy, but it's one enormous mountain of chutzpah.
I have nothing more to add, except that this is the first I've been able to see of even clips from those newsletters scanned and hosted by the New Republic. What I see doesn't do much credit to Ron Paul, especially to his claims that he didn't write these statements... which were clearly written to appear as if he were the one saying them.
Yes, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a flaming socialist. So was Helen Keller. So are a lot of other people. I believe socialism, in general, is a wrong and destructive political philosophy.
But King, Keller, and other socialists were fighting unjust systems more offensive to me than socialism- racism, misogyny, the class system, and legislated injustice. Keller carried on her fight despite the incredible handicaps which make her famous still today. King carried on his fight despite death threats, attacks, misuse of the legal system to harass him, stopping only when an assassin's bullet put an end to his struggle.
For Ron Paul to claim that King would support his campaign today- especially after allowing newsletters to be published in his name, words inserted in his mouth, slandering the name of a dead man and appealing to bigotry for support- this isn't the height of hypocrisy, but it's one enormous mountain of chutzpah.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Ron Paul Thoughts I Couldn't Suppress
I've tried not to jump in too hard into the recent brouhaha about the recent New Republic story on Ron Paul. As you readers are aware, I've posted on the subject of Ron Paul's association with racists and racist ideas in the past, but I really want to see the newsletters for myself...
... only my downloads keep timing out before the whole PDF file of any of the newsletters archived here can completely download.
The story is continuing to grow, though: Matt Welch at Reason has dug up newspaper articles from Ron Paul's 1996 return to Congress after a twelve-year absence, when these newsletters first came to light. In these articles, as you'll see, Paul takes credit for the content of the newsletters, saying that the quotes used by his opponent are out of context. Included in the quotes are statements backing up his personal attack on then-recently-deceased Barbara Jordan as a legitimate expression of his differences of political viewpoint with her. This is particularly interesting since, five years later, in the interview with Texas Monthly, Ron Paul denied authorship of that specific newsletter article and claimed he regretted that it ever appeared under his name.
With more news coming out, however- news that "fixers" who committed vote fraud on behalf of George W. Bush in Ohio in 2004 are running Ron Paul's campaign there- and incompetent fixers at that- I figured the least I could do would be to own up to those comments I just couldn't resist making over at Third Party Watch.
(Minor edits made for grammar and for readability outside original context.)
... only my downloads keep timing out before the whole PDF file of any of the newsletters archived here can completely download.
The story is continuing to grow, though: Matt Welch at Reason has dug up newspaper articles from Ron Paul's 1996 return to Congress after a twelve-year absence, when these newsletters first came to light. In these articles, as you'll see, Paul takes credit for the content of the newsletters, saying that the quotes used by his opponent are out of context. Included in the quotes are statements backing up his personal attack on then-recently-deceased Barbara Jordan as a legitimate expression of his differences of political viewpoint with her. This is particularly interesting since, five years later, in the interview with Texas Monthly, Ron Paul denied authorship of that specific newsletter article and claimed he regretted that it ever appeared under his name.
With more news coming out, however- news that "fixers" who committed vote fraud on behalf of George W. Bush in Ohio in 2004 are running Ron Paul's campaign there- and incompetent fixers at that- I figured the least I could do would be to own up to those comments I just couldn't resist making over at Third Party Watch.
(Minor edits made for grammar and for readability outside original context.)
Here’s the money paragraph from the article in question:“In other words, Paul’s campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically—or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point—over the course of decades—he would have done something about it.”
Which is more or less the point. These newsletters go back to at least 1978. 1978. When Paul was in Congress the FIRST time round. For twenty years Paul let this sort of thing happen under his name… and, apparently, did nothing about it.
That’s either carelessness in the extreme… or endorsement of the material, if not actual authorship. (And authorship can by no means be ruled out.)
Even if you regard the item as a smear piece and the author as a Giuliani operative- which wouldn’t surprise me at all- that point remains valid. Add to this his ongoing flirtation with Don Black and other white supremacist leaders- “Send me your money, but you’ll be dissappointed…”- and I, for one, find it impossible to find any more doubt to give Ron Paul the benefit of.
. . .
To use {another commentator's} credit card metaphor, Paul handed his credit card over to other people- people who, to this day, he refuses to identify by name- and never demanded any accounting for the spending over twenty years… and TODAY, on Chris Matthews, he actually tried to DEFEND those people to a certain extent.So, one of these things is true:
(A) Ron Paul is tolerant of bigots and conspiracy nuts and utterly uncaring of his personal reputation being linked to such persons, and wants to be trusted with the reputation of the entire United States; or
(B) Ron Paul is a bigot and conspiracy nut, either one of which should disqualify him from being President, never mind both at once.
The evidence of twenty years of newsletters, fundraiser letters, and other documents does not support any other position, such as “Ron Paul does not allow his name to be linked to race hatred or conspiracy theory, much less indulge in either himself.” SOMEBODY did just that, in his name and with his consent.
. . .
The problem is that every candidate claims to be for freedom. You Ron Paul supporters just happen to believe him when he says it, but not any of the other candidates when they say it.When you get the ballot, you won’t find the options FREEDOM and NO FREEDOM written anywhere on it, where you can choose between them. Instead you’ll find a list of names, mostly men but some women. You will be asked, among the options given (and usually only those options), which person is the best person to hold the job available.
Some of Ron Paul’s positions are good ones- pulling all our troops home, ending the pro-corporate WTO, NAFTA, GATT and World Bank, shutting down useless or counterproductive Federal agencies and departments. Some of those attractive positions are held by no other candidate among the Republicans or Democrats. Unfortunately, you don’t get to vote those issues; you can only vote for the man who promotes them.
And Ron Paul, as a man, stripped of his campaign issues, is deeply flawed and highly unattractive as a candidate. That’s why he only got 10% in Iowa, why he got 8% in New Hampshire, and quite likely won’t get even that much in any other state primary or caucus. Voters aren’t just looking at his platform, they’re looking at him…
... and what they’re seeing is a strange, semi-coherent old man who, at the very best, is uncomfortably close with some truly despicable people.
Does Ron Paul have the best positions on the issues of the candidates? It’s debatable, but it’s possible.
Is Ron Paul the best man when issues not covered in his campaign literature come up, and he has to deal with them? Probably not- definitely not in my opinion, and based on the fact that independent voters in New Hampshire chose Ron Paul third behind McCain and Romney, probably not most other voters, either.
. . .{in response to Ron Paul, in an interview, saying there was no point in naming "the true author" of the newsletters}
What’s the point of naming who wrote the articles, Ron?
TO PROVE IT WASN’T YOU.
As it is, you’re refusing to name names. You keep saying “this has been rehashed,” but it hasn’t- a flat denial is not disclosure, and after twenty years of material under your name it’s not credible either. The only way you’re going to be credible when you deny authorship of all these articles and letters is to reveal the true author.
And if you ARE the true author, quit lying about it and make up your mind. Is Martin Luther King a hero or a polygamist? Is homosexuality a civil right or a death-sentence offense? Are Jews the same as everyone else, or are they secretly plotting to rule the world through fiat currency? You may say the politically correct thing on these issues in public, but twenty years of newsletters and other documents with your name and only your name on them say otherwise.
It’ll take more than, “I wasn’t paying attention,” or, “I didn’t write those words,” to put this matter to rest. It’ll take the identification of the true authors.
That’s the fundamental question: if Ron Paul didn’t write all those racist, bigoted, hateful, and outright looney things, who did?
Thursday, December 27, 2007
More on Ron Paul's Racist Ties...
I knew I should have checked Orcinus before posting that last.
Ron Paul's Friends in Black and White
As in Bill "Not the Mayor of Houston" White, leader of the American Nazi Party, outing Ron Paul as a participating white supremacist...
... and Don Black, founder of Stormwatch, whose donations Ron Paul is keeping with a coy statement that anyone who donates money to him for racist purposes are wasting their money.
My response: only if Paul loses.
Ron Paul's Friends in Black and White
As in Bill "Not the Mayor of Houston" White, leader of the American Nazi Party, outing Ron Paul as a participating white supremacist...
... and Don Black, founder of Stormwatch, whose donations Ron Paul is keeping with a coy statement that anyone who donates money to him for racist purposes are wasting their money.
My response: only if Paul loses.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Ron Paul Campaign Loves Ku Klux Kash
This morning, while looking for the material for this post, I came to a conclusion: either the writers of the National Review are utterly batshit crazy, or they're the greatest and most diabolical users of doublespeak in the world. One notable example, not really applicable to my main topic, is this article on the weak dollar which presents money not as a medium of exchange but as a standardized measurement such as, in the author's terms, the foot or the meter. He proposes that the reason for the slide of the dollar's value is the lack of a solid definition of the dollar's value...
Um, actually, that IS a gold standard. That's more or less the definition of a gold standard. Are we meant to practice doublethink, and hold two mutually exclusive and antithetical concepts as simultaneously true?
My response:
Mr. Woodhill; The dollar, and money in general, are not units of measuring capital. They are a medium for the exchange of capital. You cannot assign a fixed value to the dollar or to any form of currency, because value is not an objective or objectifiable quality. Nothing in a marketplace has any value except what individuals in the market think it is worth- in their opinion. The dollar's value has not dropped because of a lack of a mythical objective value, but because of America's irresponsible fiscal policies at home and America's irresponsible military policies abroad. Yours, Kris Overstreet.
Althought that's worth discussing on its own, I only bring it up today as an example. Now you know what to expect from this article by Mona Charen. You don't really need to read the article; most of it is doublespeak, essentially attacking Ron Paul for not being a loyal Bush toady. The only relevant point- that Ron Paul is strongly associated with conspiracy theorists and racists, and refuses to denounce them- has been brought up elsewhere by much more credible writers.
A key point in this issue is the fact that last month Ron Paul's campaign accepted a donation for $500 from Don Black, founder of Stormwatch.com (please note I do not hotlink). Stormwatch is essentially the successor of the Ku Klux Klan, with well over 100,000 members online. Stormwatch, the Klan, and dozens of other racist groups openly support Ron Paul, seeing him as their foot in the door of national politics.
Anyway, Ron Paul's campaign responded to Charen's article through spokesperson Jesse Benton. The relevant paragraph is this:
Excuse me? You don't know who he is AFTER you did a Google search on him? You looked him up, but you DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS? Could we possibly have a more ham-handed lie, please?
With that thought in mind, let me translate the above:
Ron Paul wants racists- including violent anti-freedom, anti-equality racists- to support his campaign. He will deliberately turn a blind eye to their views during the campaign. He will not disassociate himself from them; he will not directly denounce them; at most he will pretend they are not there. Meanwhile, aside from saying that racism is incompatible to liberty, he will say and do nothing which would oppose the goals of his white supremacist backers. He will only say the absolute minimum required to persuade the credulous that he, himself, is not a racist- and not one word more.
Ron Paul has been given a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his opposition to and intolerance of violent racism, just as Hillary Clinton had the opportunity to demonstrate her opposition to and intolerance of corruption. Hillary recovered from a campaign stumble by taking action. Ron Paul is deliberately, and loudly, taking inaction...
... and, if we're VERY lucky, that will prove to be a stumble he can't recover from.
A logical definition of the dollar might be “equal in market value to one five-hundredths of an ounce of gold.” The value of all the dollars in the U.S. monetary base would then be maintained by having the Fed’s open-market operations target the price of gold to keep it near $500 per ounce. Because the real market value of gold cannot run away to zero or infinity, the new monetary control system would be determinate and stable.
What I am describing is not a classic “gold standard.” Back then, gold was the monetary base. Instead, the monetary base would be the same “fiat” currency that we have now. Banks would maintain the value of their dollars the way they do now — by redeeming them with the dollars of the monetary base upon demand.
Um, actually, that IS a gold standard. That's more or less the definition of a gold standard. Are we meant to practice doublethink, and hold two mutually exclusive and antithetical concepts as simultaneously true?
My response:
Mr. Woodhill; The dollar, and money in general, are not units of measuring capital. They are a medium for the exchange of capital. You cannot assign a fixed value to the dollar or to any form of currency, because value is not an objective or objectifiable quality. Nothing in a marketplace has any value except what individuals in the market think it is worth- in their opinion. The dollar's value has not dropped because of a lack of a mythical objective value, but because of America's irresponsible fiscal policies at home and America's irresponsible military policies abroad. Yours, Kris Overstreet.
Althought that's worth discussing on its own, I only bring it up today as an example. Now you know what to expect from this article by Mona Charen. You don't really need to read the article; most of it is doublespeak, essentially attacking Ron Paul for not being a loyal Bush toady. The only relevant point- that Ron Paul is strongly associated with conspiracy theorists and racists, and refuses to denounce them- has been brought up elsewhere by much more credible writers.
A key point in this issue is the fact that last month Ron Paul's campaign accepted a donation for $500 from Don Black, founder of Stormwatch.com (please note I do not hotlink). Stormwatch is essentially the successor of the Ku Klux Klan, with well over 100,000 members online. Stormwatch, the Klan, and dozens of other racist groups openly support Ron Paul, seeing him as their foot in the door of national politics.
Anyway, Ron Paul's campaign responded to Charen's article through spokesperson Jesse Benton. The relevant paragraph is this:
Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity, and the protection of inalienable individual rights. He knows that liberty is the antidote for racism, anti-Semitism, and other small minded ideologies. Dr. Paul has focused all of his energy on winning the presidency so he can cut the size of government and protect the freedom of every American. Neither he nor his staff is going to waste time screening donors. If a handful of individuals with views anathema to Dr. Paul’s send in checks, then they have wasted their money. I cannot profess to understand the motivations of Don Black as neither Dr. Paul nor I know who he is, but a simple Google search shows that his $500 contribution has netted him at least 88 news hits, including Charen’s column. Perhaps a better explanation for his “contribution” is not support for Ron, but the attention he knew he would receive.
Excuse me? You don't know who he is AFTER you did a Google search on him? You looked him up, but you DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS? Could we possibly have a more ham-handed lie, please?
With that thought in mind, let me translate the above:
Ron Paul wants racists- including violent anti-freedom, anti-equality racists- to support his campaign. He will deliberately turn a blind eye to their views during the campaign. He will not disassociate himself from them; he will not directly denounce them; at most he will pretend they are not there. Meanwhile, aside from saying that racism is incompatible to liberty, he will say and do nothing which would oppose the goals of his white supremacist backers. He will only say the absolute minimum required to persuade the credulous that he, himself, is not a racist- and not one word more.
Ron Paul has been given a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his opposition to and intolerance of violent racism, just as Hillary Clinton had the opportunity to demonstrate her opposition to and intolerance of corruption. Hillary recovered from a campaign stumble by taking action. Ron Paul is deliberately, and loudly, taking inaction...
... and, if we're VERY lucky, that will prove to be a stumble he can't recover from.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Ron Paul: the Case Against, Part 3
Not long ago I said that I wasn't going to defend my assertion that Ron Paul is a racist- specifically a white supremacist- until I had positive proof in hand.
Well, I'm going forward with that now.
I first found out about this trait of Ron Paul's when I made the horrible mistake of buying a copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a truly noxious mixture of incomplete truths and complete lies by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. I bought it without reading the reviews or doing any research on Dr. Woods. Had I known that Woods was a co-founder of The League of the South, a white supremacist group dedicated to the resurrection of the Confederate States of America.
(The Wikipedia article on the League of the South is pretty well researched and covers the basic points about the organization; the article on Woods, however, reads more like an advertisement for his works.)
I posted a scathing review of the book (look to bottom of page) and was promptly counterattacked by numerous supporters of Woods. I was shocked when I saw that one of those supporters was Ron Paul. I was further shocked to read, in Paul's review and related writings, that Paul supported the efforts of the League of the South to "defend the unique culture of the Southern states."
The unique culture the League of the South seeks to preserve is white supremacy and racial purity.
Unfortunately, I lost my bookmark of that statement, and I've yet to rediscover it. Instead, I've had to rely on scraps and snippets regarding Ron Paul's frequent writing for The Southern Caucus, his frequent speaking engagements in front of the League of the South and other secessionist and/or white supremacist groups, and his endorsement by Stormfront and other white supremacist or Klan-associated groups.
All of this, of course, is guilt by association, as was Michelle Malkin's accusation that the presence of 9/11 conspiracy theorists at Ron Paul rallies meant that Ron Paul himself was a conspiracy theorist. Still... it's a LOT of association.
About the one semi-solid thing I have in hand at present is Ron Paul's newsletter, Freedom Watch, which has run more or less continually for over twenty years. Some of the most egregious items came to light in Paul's 1996 race, as reported by the Houston Chronicle:
Another, even more noxious article in response to the Rodney King race riots of 1992, is the first article archived here at the Nikzor Project.
Selected quotes:
What's interesting is, according to a Texas Monthly interview quoted in part at this website, Ron Paul disavows authoring these words (which, at Nikzor, are attributed to Dan Gannon)... but does not disavow the words themselves.
Yes, it does, doesn't it? And considering the sheer volume of opinion articles he puts out, you'd think a man so dedicated to expressing his own views would keep anything he doesn't agree with out of his own newsletter, wouldn't you?
Ironically, last April Paul wrote an article about racism, in response to the Don Imus scandal. After mentioning the free speech issues involved in the Imus case, he places the blame for racism on... guess what... government.
In other words, eliminate government and, as he says, "focus on individual liberty," and racism will fade away. Paul deliberately ignores the fact that it took active government intervention to stop institutional racism- Jim Crow, segregation, hiring preferences and barriers, etc.- and that there is no sign whatever that these things would have vanished of their own accord.
Now, I agree with some of what Paul says in his article. There are too many people who want to present all people of a certain race as identical, and who want special treatment for one race or another. I regard Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as racists no less vile than David Duke. I also believe that government intervention helps, in certain cases, to encourage racial friction and mutual resentment. But laying the entire blame for current racism on government action isn't merely misguided or disingenuous... it's an outright lie.
So- what do I have? Circumstantial evidence at best, but rather a lot of it. Publishing blatantly racist statements in publications intended to further his own beliefs, associating with openly racist organizations... yes, circumstantial, but when commentators like those on The Daily Kos put it all together, it's pretty damning.
Note that I'm not pointing to Paul's opposition to the US-Israel alliance as anti-Semitism. It's entirely possible to want to distance America from the government of Israel and its actions and, at the same time, have no bias against either the Hebrew faith or people of Hebraic descent. Paul might well be an anti-Semite- I don't know. What evidence I have in hand, however, points to his being anti-African and a white supremacist... and I'd vote for a Democrat before I support such a man, knowing what I currently know.
Well, I'm going forward with that now.
I first found out about this trait of Ron Paul's when I made the horrible mistake of buying a copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a truly noxious mixture of incomplete truths and complete lies by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. I bought it without reading the reviews or doing any research on Dr. Woods. Had I known that Woods was a co-founder of The League of the South, a white supremacist group dedicated to the resurrection of the Confederate States of America.
(The Wikipedia article on the League of the South is pretty well researched and covers the basic points about the organization; the article on Woods, however, reads more like an advertisement for his works.)
I posted a scathing review of the book (look to bottom of page) and was promptly counterattacked by numerous supporters of Woods. I was shocked when I saw that one of those supporters was Ron Paul. I was further shocked to read, in Paul's review and related writings, that Paul supported the efforts of the League of the South to "defend the unique culture of the Southern states."
The unique culture the League of the South seeks to preserve is white supremacy and racial purity.
Unfortunately, I lost my bookmark of that statement, and I've yet to rediscover it. Instead, I've had to rely on scraps and snippets regarding Ron Paul's frequent writing for The Southern Caucus, his frequent speaking engagements in front of the League of the South and other secessionist and/or white supremacist groups, and his endorsement by Stormfront and other white supremacist or Klan-associated groups.
All of this, of course, is guilt by association, as was Michelle Malkin's accusation that the presence of 9/11 conspiracy theorists at Ron Paul rallies meant that Ron Paul himself was a conspiracy theorist. Still... it's a LOT of association.
About the one semi-solid thing I have in hand at present is Ron Paul's newsletter, Freedom Watch, which has run more or less continually for over twenty years. Some of the most egregious items came to light in Paul's 1996 race, as reported by the Houston Chronicle:
"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e., support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."
"Politically sensible blacks are outnumbered as decent people... I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city [Washington] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
"We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
"By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism."
Another, even more noxious article in response to the Rodney King race riots of 1992, is the first article archived here at the Nikzor Project.
Selected quotes:
"We now know that we are under assault from
thugs and revolutionaries who hate Euro-American civilization and
everything it stands for: private property, material success for those who
earn it, and Christian morality." . . .
"The black
leadership indoctrinates its followers with phony history and phony theory
to bolster its claims of victimology. Like the communists who renounced all
that was bourgeois, the blacks reject all that is "Eurocentric." They
demand their own kind of thinking, and deny the possibility of non-blacks
understanding it." . . .
"Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not
going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities
across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good
sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly
avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of
actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color
of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for
many, entirely unavoidable." . . .
"Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots,
burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial
politics. The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting
booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you
are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the
streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their
Congressmen to arrange the transfer."
What's interesting is, according to a Texas Monthly interview quoted in part at this website, Ron Paul disavows authoring these words (which, at Nikzor, are attributed to Dan Gannon)... but does not disavow the words themselves.
In one issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report, which he had published since 1985, he called former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist." In another issue, he cited reports that 85 percent of all black men in Washington, D.C., are arrested at some point: "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." And under the headline "Terrorist Update," he wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
In spite of calls from Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, and other civil rights leaders for an apology for such obvious racial typecasting, Paul stood his ground. He said only that his remarks about Barbara Jordan related to her stands on affirmative action and that his written comments about blacks were in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." He denied any racist intent. What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.
When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, "I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady." Paul says that item ended up there because "we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything."
His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: "They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'" It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.
Yes, it does, doesn't it? And considering the sheer volume of opinion articles he puts out, you'd think a man so dedicated to expressing his own views would keep anything he doesn't agree with out of his own newsletter, wouldn't you?
Ironically, last April Paul wrote an article about racism, in response to the Don Imus scandal. After mentioning the free speech issues involved in the Imus case, he places the blame for racism on... guess what... government.
"In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through its taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government "benevolence" crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us."
In other words, eliminate government and, as he says, "focus on individual liberty," and racism will fade away. Paul deliberately ignores the fact that it took active government intervention to stop institutional racism- Jim Crow, segregation, hiring preferences and barriers, etc.- and that there is no sign whatever that these things would have vanished of their own accord.
Now, I agree with some of what Paul says in his article. There are too many people who want to present all people of a certain race as identical, and who want special treatment for one race or another. I regard Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as racists no less vile than David Duke. I also believe that government intervention helps, in certain cases, to encourage racial friction and mutual resentment. But laying the entire blame for current racism on government action isn't merely misguided or disingenuous... it's an outright lie.
So- what do I have? Circumstantial evidence at best, but rather a lot of it. Publishing blatantly racist statements in publications intended to further his own beliefs, associating with openly racist organizations... yes, circumstantial, but when commentators like those on The Daily Kos put it all together, it's pretty damning.
Note that I'm not pointing to Paul's opposition to the US-Israel alliance as anti-Semitism. It's entirely possible to want to distance America from the government of Israel and its actions and, at the same time, have no bias against either the Hebrew faith or people of Hebraic descent. Paul might well be an anti-Semite- I don't know. What evidence I have in hand, however, points to his being anti-African and a white supremacist... and I'd vote for a Democrat before I support such a man, knowing what I currently know.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
On the Issue of Race...
I usually make an active effort to ignore race and all considerations thereof. In this case, though, the situation is so glaring that I have to say something which might well be racist. Bear with me, please.
Why do African-Americans vote repeatedly for nakedly corrupt politicians?
Earlier this year New Orleans re-elected Ray Nagin, Jr.- known before Katrina as the puppet of land development lords and after it as America's most incompetent mayor.
This november John Conyers of Michigan, Charles Rangel of New York, and Shelia Jackson Lee right down here in Texas all got re-elected- despite Conyers's naked partisanship on the Judicial Committee, Rangel's call for a universal draft, and Lee's naked personal corruption.
And last night New Orleans re-elected William Jefferson. During Katrina Jefferson hijacked a Coast Guard rescue chopper to survey his own house for several hours- then returned to Washington without a backward glance at his drowning, starving constituents. This year a FBI search turned up $90,000 in Jefferson's kitchen freezer. He's currently under investigation for bribery. Yet even running against a fellow Democrat, an African-American Democrat, a female African-American Democrat, he won with 54% of the vote.
I have to ask: is there something about black skin that makes a person want to support the candidate who most obviously abuses power once they're in office?
... no. Obviously not. If so, more than 9% of African-Americans would have voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Likewise, I doubt many black people voted for Tom DeLay. No, this is just a personal perception problem, and for that I must apologize.
Also, in the Georgia primary election this past May, a mostly black district turned out Cynthia McKinney- the Congresswoman who lost election in 2002 after going on a conspiracy-theory, Elders-of-Zion rant, then somehow got her office back in 2004. You probably know her best for punching out a Capitol security guard who dared to think that she was mortal enough to have to go through the metal detector like everyone else.
Well, she's out of office now. Ironically, her last act in office was to do something honest, something Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said will never happen under her leadership. McKinney filed a bill of impeachment against George W. Bush.
(With hours to go before the expiration of the 109th Congress, making it nothing more than an empty political gesture from someone who hosts 9/11 conspiracy meetings claiming that Bush ordered the destruction of the World Trade Center. And despite this, it's likely as close as the Democrats will come to saying that Bush did anything wrong...)
Why do African-Americans vote repeatedly for nakedly corrupt politicians?
Earlier this year New Orleans re-elected Ray Nagin, Jr.- known before Katrina as the puppet of land development lords and after it as America's most incompetent mayor.
This november John Conyers of Michigan, Charles Rangel of New York, and Shelia Jackson Lee right down here in Texas all got re-elected- despite Conyers's naked partisanship on the Judicial Committee, Rangel's call for a universal draft, and Lee's naked personal corruption.
And last night New Orleans re-elected William Jefferson. During Katrina Jefferson hijacked a Coast Guard rescue chopper to survey his own house for several hours- then returned to Washington without a backward glance at his drowning, starving constituents. This year a FBI search turned up $90,000 in Jefferson's kitchen freezer. He's currently under investigation for bribery. Yet even running against a fellow Democrat, an African-American Democrat, a female African-American Democrat, he won with 54% of the vote.
I have to ask: is there something about black skin that makes a person want to support the candidate who most obviously abuses power once they're in office?
... no. Obviously not. If so, more than 9% of African-Americans would have voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Likewise, I doubt many black people voted for Tom DeLay. No, this is just a personal perception problem, and for that I must apologize.
Also, in the Georgia primary election this past May, a mostly black district turned out Cynthia McKinney- the Congresswoman who lost election in 2002 after going on a conspiracy-theory, Elders-of-Zion rant, then somehow got her office back in 2004. You probably know her best for punching out a Capitol security guard who dared to think that she was mortal enough to have to go through the metal detector like everyone else.
Well, she's out of office now. Ironically, her last act in office was to do something honest, something Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said will never happen under her leadership. McKinney filed a bill of impeachment against George W. Bush.
(With hours to go before the expiration of the 109th Congress, making it nothing more than an empty political gesture from someone who hosts 9/11 conspiracy meetings claiming that Bush ordered the destruction of the World Trade Center. And despite this, it's likely as close as the Democrats will come to saying that Bush did anything wrong...)
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