Is your whiteness showing?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
81 Comments
not likely, but my curiosity is as I contemplate my compost pile of cow poo. Just imagine.
a few days ago Reuters had a news item that a Japanese engineer had developed a car powered by water and now this:
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol
Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’
When will these “scientists” get it in their heads that we can’t burn carbon products any longer? Gas substitute galore, but the pace of global warming and climate change accelerates with every molecule of CO2 we release.
We had the chance to lead the world in alternative energy in the 1970’s, but failed, and now the globe is failing.
NO MORE CARBON FUELS!!!
Tim Russert was actually a journalist, and there are few on corporate media to whom I’d give that title. He deserves to be remembered and honored.
But frankly, I think he’d be appalled at the way that his network is filling hour after hour with maudlin quotes from people. Ben Bradley: “Well, I haven’t watched the show in years, but he was a nice guy…”
Russert must literally be rolling in his grave at the overkill on MSNBC tonight. A show on the principles of good journalism in his honor in a week or so would be so much more effective.
Debra Bartoshevich is showing her whiteness.
Oh, big time. That’s the first thing I thought about as I read the article.
He captures perfectly my feelings about this whole thing. You either want us to go forward, or not. But don’t be daft, and don’t pretend not to know what this is.
.
… to keep you updated
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Go, Netherlands, go. Hurrah for the Orange.
Kind of like that creepy feeling you get when you are watching an old movie and suddenly Alan Ladd or Cary Grant says, “mighty white of you.”
heh
Tim Wise, I salute you. Your letter is magnificent. Boo Man, thanks for the reference.
Blowback for voting for Johnny Mac, if he should win and appoint another conservative judge or two to SCOTUS, Roe vs Wade is most likely kaput. It will be back to back alley abortions for many. How will that contribute to the march for women’s rights?
Get real, gals. Obama is the only hope. For women, for men, for all of us.
Some facts you have to hang onto, real tight.
With respect,
your last line strikes me as condescending to women, and it paints Obama as a messianic figure. Last I checked he was an ordinary man.
Regarding the Supreme Court, it’s increasingly being used as a hammer, (not by you necessarilly) held above the heads of women and threatening to fall if they (those who plan to) make good on their intention to vote for McCain or not vote for Obama in some other way. I think that a lot of people who are making this threat have conveniently forgotten that Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito were appointed to the court with almost no opposition and with some notable help from…the democrats. But now suddenly the next nomination is the pivotal one. They were all pivotal, and yet Roberts and Alito may as well have been given the red carpet treatment by the democrats for all the objections and real (what a joke) opposition they mounted against them. So, Obama as president hardly represents an impenetrable bulwark against the court going more conservative or guaranteeing the democrats might miraculously start sporting spines. Just my opinion, but it seems common sense and a need to be serious about winning back the White House would suggest that these women not be threatened. That a real effort to better understand them and get them to reverse their path to opposing Obama with their votes (beyond universally accusing them of racism) is what is needed. They are not dispensable. Any more than African Americans are dispensable or any other large democratic voting demographic.
Praising what this guy wrote sure isn’t the way to get off on the right foot.
well, the next nomination is pivotal although I completely agree with you that we wouldn’t be in this mess if the Democrats in Congress had refused to confirm Roberts. But their bad acts don’t make the next appointment any less pivotal.
I’m working my way through the Boumediene case this morning and I’m telling you that the court is hanging by a thread. Four justices didn’t vote for habeus rights. If John McCain can appoint one more justice like them, the ideological conservatives will control the court and McCain can declare himself dictator for life as long as the ‘War on Terror’ lasts.
However, I agree with you that using the court as a hammer (especially when the hammer always involves Roe v. Wade) is incredibly bad strategy with a group of women who are well aware of these issues. It clearly isn’t being done to inform them (anyone who thinks they need to be informed is being very condescending) but to insult them by saying they are hypocrites and/or stupid.
I agree with you that most of this is retaliatory thinking. I think some of it is an attempt to get some leverage. They have what we want – their vote. By holding out they may get wooed. Why do people automatically conclude that women act irrationally and not in their best interest and that they don’t act as rational actors using whatever they have to get the best deal possible?
I’m agreeing with you a lot today. When was the last time that happened? 🙂
Sorry for the delay. I’m not feeling real good today and like me, one of my daughters is losing her voice (metaphors, metaphors!) so I needed to make her some hot tea with honey. Funny but I get the sense there are some in my family who are perfectly fine with me losing my voice :o)
Oh, I think on balance I agree with you more often than not. I’ll say that I appreciate your even handedness. I definetily wouldn’t go out of my way to be on the recieving end of a disagreement with you though! I mean that in a nice way :o)
You’ll have to enlighten me about the Boumediene case. I haven’t a clue. But I think the court has been hanging by a thread for a long time now. It’s just that we’re down to one or two threads right now. I’ve lost complete faith in the democrat’s willingness to make a stand and really, I’m not impressed or even a little optimistic that Barack Obama being president will change anything in any significant way in that regard.
It’s difficult to be involved in, and some might point out I really have no right lecturing about the court, involved in conversations about it’s tenuousness because I’m a third party voter now and therefore not being serious myself about it’s health. It is pretty safe for me in NY to go third party because NY is overwhelmingly blue. But I would vote the same if I lived in Ohio or Pennsylvania.
I’m not sure that McCain is of the mind to ever appoint himself dictator for life. I used to actually…not like him per se, but have some minimal respect for him. That is until he began his kiss and makeup routine with Bush. I would never vote for him, but neither would I go back on my change away from the democrats, at least presidential candidates, since last voting for Kerry, as a way to block McCain’s election as president. I know my positions in this regard are opposite of the majority on this site and in contrast to the site’s goals. If I were still a dyed in the wool democrat I might likely be none too pleased with people like me. But I’ve come to believe that continuing with the democrats, as a party for the country, and as a strategy to move to a more sane and inclusive way of governance is now pretty much a lost cause. I really believe that things will need to become much worse before the people finally take back the power they’ve had all along and force politicians of any party to get this shit straight, and consistantly straight.
I suppose I do still have leverage with my senator and congressmembers to have some small influence on their votes in DC, but the evidence isn’t good that any of them, nationally not just here, are listening, much less caring.
Now, I think I’ve cluttered up this thread enough. Besides, any minute now dataguy will be along to call me a bozo and it hurts too much right now to laugh anymore :o)
I actually think you and I do agree a great deal of the time. I think we most often differ on methods and means rather than ends. And that’s ok because I think it’s good to have people working toward the same goal using different methods. So I want to say something about how I look at the court generally and why I think how I feel about the court intersects with how you see life.
On May 17, 1954 a liberal court in Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. That ruling changed everything and it changed nothing. A court ruling is just words on a piece of paper until the Executive branch enforces it. So nothing changed on the day after the Brown decision because the Executive branch hadn’t figured out what it wanted to do and how far it wanted to go in enforcing that decision. And yet, everything changed.
I once saw an interview with Constance Baker Motley who worked on the case for the NAACP legal defense fund and she said that the immediate impact of that court ruling on the black community was immense. She said that the Brown decision was seen as a statement that the black community now had a friend in the Supreme Court and that emboldened them to move forward to secure their own rights.
That’s where you and I intersect. You wonder what it would take today for people to take back the power they’ve had all along. To secure their own rights. I say it would help if they knew they had a friend in the court who would back them up when the Executive tries to put them down.
The court in Brown didn’t tell the black community anything they didn’t already know. The black community had always known that segregation was morally wrong. They had known for almost 100 years that segregation was illegal under the constitution. And it wasn’t as if no one in the black community had been trying to change things during all those years. They had been trying to tell their story for years but no one was listening. Or the ones that were listening were threatening violence that wasn’t punished by the judicial system.
But Brown, and the lawyers from the NAACP who worked so hard to get the right case up to the court, changed everything. Less than a year after Brown, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus.
Don’t misunderstand me. The fact that a court rules something doesn’t make the court more important than the people who bring the suit or who work to enforce the decision. The civil rights activists were among the bravest Americans who ever lived. They were out there on the line alone. The court wasn’t going to personally come down and protect them. But having the Supreme Court on their side gave them a legal legitimacy in the eyes of the country and that gave them hope and hope made them take the risks they were taking.
The civil rights movement of the 1950’s and early 1960’s used the federal courts to back themselves up in every major struggle they were involved in. The march from Selma to Montgomery, which began so disastrously and in such violence, was delayed by Dr. King specifically because he was waiting for a federal appellate court to rule that there was a constitutional right to walk from Selma to Montgomery.
I want federal courts of that caliber again. I want a Supreme Court that again interprets the constitution by erring on the side of inclusivity rather than exclusivity. I want a Supreme Court made up again of justices who see the constitution as embodying our aspirations rather than justices who see it solely as a document made up of 18th and 19th century words and who refuse to consider the principles that underlay those words.
That’s my long term goal. So everything I do is a baby step to get to that point. And getting to that point will hopefully bring us to an intersection with the point you want to get to. Then maybe we’ll get to the point where the people are able to get the politicians to ‘get this shit straight.’
This would make my top five best responses list if I…. had a top five best responses list :o)
Your passion certainly shines through.
Can you imagine a supreme court in this country as it is today and looks like for the foreseeable future ever handing down any unanimous decisions? It’s almost as if we no longer produce the people of that caliber that make possible a court of that caliber. Even 2/3 of that court would work, eh? :o)
I think the biggest obstacle to having courts like that again though isn’t finding qualified justices so much as having a political party as an engine motivated enough to shepard the appropriate people through the landmine of the modern nominating process and onto the court. people unwilling to give any ground in that effort. The republicans surely seemed to have little difficulty getting Alito and Roberts seated. There was no real opposition. Only what looked like cursory softball questions followed by a bunch of Bidenesque slobber and platitudes.
You have to first build that engine. Your baby steps. It sounds possible and yet I’m reminded of 2006 when so many here, including you were working so hard to get some new faces in the Senate. The efforts to work for a new majority. I remember feeling relieved after November of that year that my fears about election integrity and my scepticism that there were enough voters left who cared enough had been proven wrong. But then something I hadn’t considered happening began to happen. That the new majority would then not only not try and fail to do what it had said it would do but that it would actually refuse to do what it was elected to do. To more or less thumb it’s collective nose at those, like you, who’d given so much to make it a reality. I think of Claire McCaskill. She hasn’t turned out to be who she represented herself to you to be, has she? If I could think of any person who would be a model of how to rigorously vett a candidate before throwing all their spare energy into getting them elected it would be someone like you, Mary.
But look where we are now. All of these new democrats. Majorities in both houses, and yet not a single significant thing ventured, let alone accomplished. And just as disturbing, maybe more, is this new acceptance by the democratic leadership to pursue people who would never have been classified democrat. Anti-choice social conservative. For a person like me who was frustrated to begin with that the democrats were leaning increasingly right to then witness that was just about the last straw. I mean, I have a long list of complaints and I don’t consider myself a particularly radical person. But above all I’m reasonably patient so long as there’s reason to believe that there’s motion in the right direction. But we’ve got nothing.
Kerry shook off most of the last vestiges of any confidence in a democrat’s willingness to stand and deliver on his promises to the people who worked and voted for him when he flew the white flag without a fight over Ohio.
But this current Congress? They’ve desecrated the corpse of the party I grew up with. They’ve finished once and for all any possibility that I could ever trust them again.
With that group, how do you propose to get that caliber of Supreme Court again?
The best any of us can ever do is try to get people elected who represent what we believe or, if that isn’t possible, are better than what we have.
Jack Balkin at Yale believes that constitutional changes are responses to political mobilizations, social movement activism, presidential appointments strategies, and shifts in popular opinion.
Today I see political mobilizations and shifts in popular opinion from what it was 20 years ago. That should be reflected in the presidential appointment strategy of a president who comes to power on the wave of that political mobilization and shift in popular opinion.
But can I guaranty that Obama appointees will create the kind of federal judiciary that I want? No. In the same way that I don’t know what John McCain’s appointees would do once they got on the court. After all, Richard Nixon appointed Justice Blackmun who authored Roe v. Wade. But since McCain says that he intends to appoint people just like Roberts and Alito I don’t see any reason to doubt him. I don’t want to have a court packed with seven or eight movement conservatives – because then I’ll never have a hope of seeing the kind of court I want in my lifetime.
As far as Claire goes, I was never under any illusions that Claire was progressive. We don’t have progressives in office here in Missouri. But she was better than Talent and I still believe that. She’s voted pretty much as I expected EXCEPT that I’m completely baffled by her vote on FISA. For instance, I never thought she’d break away from the Democratic pack to try to end the war. But I thought she would go along with them if there was leadership from above – which there wasn’t. What I never expected was for her to vote with the Republicans on FISA. It’s a mystery to most of us here.
But no matter how much that annoys me I don’t regret working to get her elected. Because she is better than Talent. He would vote against Obama’s appointees. She’ll vote for them.
You know, there’s a lot of truth to the whole “retaliatory thinking” and the idea of withholding something in an attempt to gain some leverage coming from Hillary’s ardent supporters (why does this approach always make me think of would-be purity ball attendees?).
But I have to say, I’m more than a little disgusted at Hillary and the bitter-ender supporters for perpetuating the “woman scorned” stereotype for the past several months, and then saying they’re crusading for all women. Puh-leeze. They’re doing it for no one but themselves and their own self-righteous anger.
On top of that, I feel like they’ve just vindicated the thoughts of every woman-hating guy who thinks women are all a bunch of angry vengeful witches.
I know, some people hail her claws-out, down-in-the gutter, fighting-till-the bitter-end style as something more women should aspire to, but I’m not one of them.
(ps, I agree with you that the aftermath of this election season has been an eye opener, in more ways than one.)
I think it’s perfectly fine to disagree with Hillary, her style and the viewpoints of her supporters. Heck, I disagree with them.
But ‘several months’? It’s been one week since Hillary conceded. One week. I know it seems like a lifetime but it has been one week.
Here’s my biggest issue. Not only does it seem like people aren’t willing to give the ardent Hillary supporters the time and space they need, there also seems to be something else, something ugly, at play here.
The fact that Hillary lost doesn’t seem to be enough for some people. The fact that she was forced to give a nice speech endorsing him (through gritted teeth) isn’t enough for some people. The fact that most of her followers and donors are starting to head over to Obama isn’t enough for some people.
Well, What would be enough?
It’s starting to look to me that the only thing that will placate certain people is … ritual punishment.
Yes, Hillary’s supporters must come crawling back to the Democratic Party where Obama now sits on the throne and they must acknowledge their sins. They must grovel before the Obama supporters (Obama himself btw doesn’t seem to need any of this) and make atonement for their utter SIN of supporting Hillary and especially for not making atonement earlier. And they must listen to how they are utterly unworthy to even THINK that they offer anything to the Democratic Party and they must ADMIT that black “folks” are sooo much more loyal and soooo much more important than they are AND they must never, NEVER think they can dictate the terms of political engagement in the party the way that white MEN have for so long (and they must listen to this from someone who admits that he isn’t even part of the Democratic Party):
And to this they must respond: YES! We are BAD people.
meh.
Utter crap.
It’s been several months since February 5th, which is when Hillary lost too many races to ever catch up, and any other candidate (without a former president for a spouse) would have been out of the race shortly thereafter, so I stand by my complaint.
The Hillary supporters are welcome to take all the time they need to grieve…could they please just stop carrying on about how they’ll vote for McCain to punish the world for Hillary’s loss, in the same breath that they’re claiming to be doing it because they’re uber-feminists?
I think we get a skewed view of reality from the online discussion of the “You can’t have my vote if I can’t have my Hillary” people and the Obama supporters who won’t be happy until she retires. In the real world, I think they’re a pretty small percentage of the population, albeit exceedingly vocal online.
Most people in the real world just aren’t that invested in either candidate.
I agree with this:
As I said to someone here (I don’t remember who) back in March, ardent candidate supporters are entitled to support their candidate to the bitter end. That’s why you see candidate parties on election night for candidates that are going to lose and that loss is obvious to everyone. But the supporters are standing there still letting the idea that their candidate can pull out a miracle guide them. Until the candidate concedes her supporters are entitled to support. So while I think it is acceptable to blame Hillary for not conceding back in February I think it is unreasonable to blame her supporters, especially her ardent supporters, for not abandoning her. And for them it has only been one week.
As far as online discussion goes – where are those people you are talking about? I have seen NO ONE here at BT going on and on about the things you say. If there has been someone it must be a very tiny percentage of the BT population for me to have missed it.
So why is everyone here still obsessing about Hillary? She lost. None of her ardent supporters are here. No Hillary supporters are here saying the things that you say bother you. If any place could move on, this would be the perfect place. And yet … we don’t. Why?
I think it’s because the retaliatory urge exists on both sides.
I think some of the retaliation (on both sides) is based on crossover between real-life and the blogosphere.
Anyway, I just spent a week in Europe being completely uninvested in politics…and you know, I could kind of get into that. 🙂
I was sooo hoping that feeling of peace and serenity would last 🙂
How’s the smell?
The smell? Not very peaceful or serene yet, but it’s down from a rating of 10+ (1-10 scale) to a 4. The activated charcoal stuff hasn’t arrived in my mailbox yet.
And of course, now I’m plotting and scheming to just replace it with a little Vespa (until fall anyway), with it’s 70+ mpg and lack of space for more than 1 CB at a time…
A vespa … now there’s an idea. Does it come with a cute Italian guy on it?
Do you need a motorcycle license to drive one?
4 is still pretty bad. imo. Hope the charcoal stuff gets there monday … and it works.
Apparently you don’t need a motorcycle license in PA if you get the 50-cc version, which I just found out yesterday and it made the idea a little more appealing. The CBs think I’m crazy, of course.
I second your hopes for Monday and an improved smell. The only saving grace is that my car is old with >180,000 miles on it, and it was getting to be time for a new one anyway.
It seems to me to come down to a matter of reading comprehension.
Hillary’s supporters need time and space? Fine.
We were discussing McCain supporters.
Show me a Hillary supporter that plans on voting for Obama and I’ll show them time and space to get used to the idea. They shouldn’t feel criticized by this piece in the slightest.
But the one’s that actually want Obama to lose and that will use their little piece of power to that end? There will be no time or space for them. Nor should there be.
If you are talking about my reading comprehension, I comprehend just fine.
So you’ll give Hillary supporters time and space to get used to the idea of voting for Obama … as long as they’ve already (as of TODAY) decided to do exactly what you want – vote for Obama.
Let’s see, I think that falls under this clause of that ridiculous piece you linked to – but it might be even more appropriate if I make just a little tweak to it:
You want them to support Obama and not McCain. You might try winning their votes. Instead of berating them for not doing what you want them to do.
I’m not interested in winning the votes of bigots.
That’s where we are not seeing eye to eye.
It’s as if you think we can charm people into voting for Obama who oppose him because he’s black. Or you think there is this big pool of voters out there that are so mad about Clinton that they’ll vote for McCain, but that if I just show them a little respect in June they’ll come around in November.
That’s all crap (to use a term you like).
And I’m saying that all the ‘white women’ who are ‘threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama’ are not bigots. And you are tarring them with one big brush by claiming that they are. oh my. god. I used the word tar. It will give you an excuse to call me racist.
And in fact I’ll go further. I’ve notice a whole lot of men in the blogosphere writing about white women in derogatory terms in a general way until some of us come into the threads and point out that many white women voted for Obama and many white women who voted for Clinton have already indicated that they are going to vote for Obama. And other white women who will eventually come around to voting for Obama.
I know you’ll come back and say you aren’t talking about anyone but the ones who WON’T vote for Obama. But it doesn’t matter what you intend. It hurts all of us white women to have the phrase ‘white women’ used over and over and over in rants on the blogosphere.
And using the term ‘whiteness’ to denote racism? Yeah, I get that he’s turning the whole thing of judging a group by its skin color on its head.
But you know what? When I try to work for a society that doesn’t treat people differently based on the color of their skin – I’m not working for a society that feels comfortable calling ANY skin color, white OR black, a bad thing.
That was an incredibly offensive piece. Frankly, by the end it almost convinced me that I was in the wrong party because of my gender and my sex.
But then I reminded myself that the guy ISN’T even a Democrat. Who the hell is he to lecture on what group is important to the Democratic party and what group isn’t? And why is a Democrat buying into that crap. Yes. It’s crap.
you know what I find offensive? TalkLeft, Riverdaughter, Hillaryis44, LeftCoaster, Taylor Marsh, and NoQuarter.
Me calling calling out the racists on those sites and the people that think like them is not something that should be offensive. It’s not my fault that they’ve showed up all too much of their whiteness.
huh? this seems a non sequitor. Unless I missed a big discussion of those sites here in this thread.
You should stop reading those sites. It would be better for you. And better for us here at BT. After all, if we wanted to be involved in what goes on at those sites, we’d go to those sites. 🙂
Although I was thinking of going back to TalkLeft occasionally. Wadda ya think?
After all, I am white. and a woman. Maybe that is the place for me.
Let me point you to Frank Rich today
In my opinion, when you link to work of this type you are feeding the sexist stereotype that there are scores of women out there who would vote against their own values instead of simply a few women who would do that (and in fact some of them were Republicans to start with and aren’t really going to be voting against their values). I say to you again, that your (very admirable) work against racism sometimes causes you to take stands that either do not fight against sexism or feed into sexist stereotypes.
In addition, as Mr. Rich says, this is part of a larger false narrative that we are divided.
I know that you don’t care about ‘framing’. So let me make this very personal for you – by linking to these types of opinions you are intentionally feeding the larger false narrative that Armando is feeding by his insistence that Hillary must be on the ticket.
No. I’m not.
Let me tell you what I’m doing. I’m telling all the people in the blogosphere that populate Hillary sites that I am gonna call them racist if they continue to support or threaten to support John McCain. I’m not gonna give No Quarter or Talk Left denizens a pass. I’m gonna be on their asses like white on rice. You want to threaten us? Okay.
You were critical of me for getting my hands dirty at the end of the primaries, but the ratfuckers needed to get ratfucked, and they got what they had coming to them. I don’t think Larry Johnson will be getting asked on any more cable news shows or that he has a shred of credibility left. That’s sad for me, but it is what it is. This is war and it hasn’t been fought nicely, mary.
it’s not war. and if you think it’s war and make it into a war, you will end up with a pyrrhic victory fought using the tools and tactics of sexism. All in the name of fighting racism.
The only one of those sites that’s worth fighting is NoQuarters and that’s NOT because Larry is a blogger and the way to fight him is NOT on blogs.
I never read Larry when he posted here because I thought he was a kook. And Susan … well .. I think you know how I felt about Susan’s honesty. Manny is worth 1,000 Susans but you didn’t seem to get that at the time. that might make you step back, take a breath and question your judgment right now.
the worst part about this is that i don’t think this really is about racism for you. i think yelling racism is just a tactic for you. why? because you are not at all interested in figuring out which of those supporters really are racist and which of them are threatening to support McCain for other reasons entirely. You’ve just decided your tactic:
this could have to do with fighting racism if you were really interested in separating out those who aren’t racist from those who are. But you aren’t.
this isn’t about racism, this is about your outrage that Hillary Clinton and her supporters didn’t do what you wanted them to do – they inconvencienced you and your candidate by winning a heck of a lot of votes and making this a heck of a close race and forcing Obama to win by fiat of the DNC. and after it was over they had the NERVE to think that they might still have some leverage in the party.
well have at your imaginary war. Just don’t expect me to be sancho panza to your don quixote. I don’t let friends live with delusions.
Their leverage in the party?
We’ll see what their leverage truly is. I predict that their leverage will be pretty close to nil. And the reason it will be so low is because of the tactics they chose to use and are still choosing to use.
Do you want to know the real reason why I have so much more to say about racism than sexism?
Because I never once saw Obama use sexism in the campaign. I never got an email from the campaign that gave me any negative talking point about Clinton’s experience, her qualifications, her character, or her gender. I did not see any of Obama surrogates, with the exception of Jesse Jackson Jr., making derogatory remarks about Hillary Clinton. The campaign hardly even complained about the character assassination that the Clintons were pushing at every turn. They repeatedly chose to not take offense to the most offensive tactics and remarks. And, I’m being serious, they did not ask or coordinate with bloggers to do the job fo them.
I have a real problem with people that made excuses for the Clinton campaign and stuck with them to the bitter end, because unless they were not paying attention (which is fine) they had no problem with race-based attacks on Obama.
You say I don’t want to make an effort to distinguish the racists. That’s not true at all. I want to make sure people know the racists.
C’mon, super, get your facts straight.
And:
Alito’s nays:
Roberts’ nays:
Democrats that voted for Alito: Byrd, Conrad, Ben Nelson, and Tim Johnson.
Really, I think there was more opposition to Alito by members here on your blog at the time than was mounted by the democrats.
What I remember of Kerry’s filibuster effort was that it was unorganized and ill prepared for and that most importantly, if I recall correctly, it actually pissed off Harry Reid, at least initially.
What I also remember is that there were Senate democrats who used their nay votes in the floor vote as evidence (sugar cookies for the base) that they were doing all they could to represent and defend the ideals of the party, the base and the rights, particularly women’s rights to reproductive freedom and choice and also civil liberties of Americans, knowing full well the floor vote would not succeed. And those nays on the floor were how they covered for their complete lack of support for Kerry’s filibuster. Support that had a real chance of making a real difference.
You can’t tell me there was any serious opposition to either Alito or Roberts. Least of all any legitimate organized opposition by the leadership.
you are talking about the cloture vote that only got 25 Democrats. That’s one way of looking at it. The other is that his nomination was unanimously opposed by the Dems on the Judiciary Committee and he would never be confirmed today. In fact, even under McCain, he would never be confirmed today. That’s the advantage of having control of the committees.
The great majority of (white) women are in the process of switching to Obama. And I know that Planned Parenthood is throwing their support to Obama in a big way, as are several other women’s organizations I have heard about. The hold-outs may indeed be closet racists. That’s as good a guess as any. But ultimately, they won’t matter, because they will only be a tiny minority. At least that’s my take so far.
all the hypocritical comments about Tim Russert at Dkos. The guy was a partisan Republican masquerading as an objective journalist. That’s what he was in life and what he remains in death. Reading the thread I started to laugh. The comments are uniformly laudatory and there are even threats of troll-rating for anyone who even THINKS of saying something critical about him.
Something smells fishy here. I think the Obama crowd which hated Hillary for being a centrist are now afraid of appearing anything BUT centrist.
What’s that line about “We have met the enemy, and…”?
I am an Obama supporter and will miss Tim Russert on Meet the Press. I enjoyed the show for years and thought he did a good job. You are welcome to your opinion on the topic but it has nothing with trying to seem centrist because I am anything but a centrist.
I didn’t hate Hillary till she earned that hatred with her racist and necon style campaign. She got what she asked for. The eggheads, liberals, gays and African- Americans(the Dukakis Crowd) dumped her and voted for someone who cared.
it is sad to see Russert die at such an age, and i feel bad for his family. I wish them nothing but strength & peace. i am sure he was a decent person. it is a tragedy.
HOWEVER, he was a cheerleader for the war, a defender of hawkish policy, and he was Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney’s favorite newsman. he wasn’t one of mine.
the thing that really bothers me is the way the TV folks are covering this. you would think he was the pope. Suarez on PBS called him a journalist and an insider…seems to me those two cancel each other out…..which is the problem with TV news specifically and the MSM in general these days.
Kudos to you for speaking up and saying it — The Truth about Russert.
The schmaltz over Holy Russert is about as deep as the floods in Cedar Rapids, but let’s not talk about that, let’s allow the Media to put our heads in the sand AGAIN and try to snuff us out . . .
Russert was a Republican promotional wuss-bag. A war monger and supporter of the Oligarchy.
Got a classification for African American supporters of Clinton who will vote now for McCain? They’re out there. What about Latinos? Obama’s support among many different Hispanic groups has been thin. Or at least not what might be expected. Is their “whiteness” showing too? Or are they race or fellow minority traitors?
Just by observation so far it seems that a lot of assumptions are being made that all these different people will automatically fall in line behind the democrat. Maybe most of them will. But the passionate stands that I’ve seen being taken by a lot of them might say otherwise.
I met one Wednesday evening. This man was so adamant about Hillary he refuses to vote for president in November. He’s a Latino with old roots in California. We had a pointed discussion about this, my friend asked him if he understood how his not voting would be a vote for McSame. He responded: that doesn’t come into my decision, Hillary is the one qualified to be president, no one else.
Many people love America because it is a bastion of conservative and MOR thought. I agree that we should never assume that anyone who’s of a recent immigrant minority is automatically a near-Marxist progressive, as much as the Democracy Now! crowd assumes.
Many people come here so they can act out their get-rich-upper-class fantasies. eg: Cuban-Americans.
Yes, I agree that there’s that perception, but in my admittedly limited experience with undocumented workers here on Long Island there is a definite conservative bent. Two guys that I work with, one in his 60’s, from Guatemala, and the other in his 20’s from El Salvador, both had the same adamant answer when I asked them who they thought was best for U.S. president. They both said Clinton. They had nothing bad to say about Obama but were more or less dismissive of him. That seems opposite of what I would have guessed they would say.
Unfortunately they weren’t able to really articulate why they saw it that way.
Right. Fact is, people are people are people. We come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and persuasions.
Or just jump to conclusions? The entire thing was directed to white women.
Fabooj,
that’s the second time you’ve accused me of not reading an article and jumping to conclusions. I answered that accusation the first time you did it, so won’t bother to make it clearer for you twice.
So, it’s a ‘no’ yet again. Thanks!
It’s whatever you insist it is, apparently.
I think the point is that there is no legitimate reason for a DEMOCRAT to vote for Johnnie Mac over Obama because policy-wise he is inline with DEMOCRAT stands on issues.
Unless a person (a DEMOCRAT person) can show the POLICY reason they would not vote for him I think it is understandable that people watching might go ‘HMMMMMM’.
Latest polls show overwhelming support for Obama amongst hispanics, something like 70-30. That 30 per cent would not be ‘showing their white’ because it is quite likely that 30 is in accord with Johnnie policy-wise, making them….. republicans.
nalbar
If he’s polling 70/30 with hispanics that’s pretty good and corrects what I’ve seen so far. Other than my personal experience I related in a comment above, I remember reading a comment on another site that linked to an interview that Obama did on Univision with one of their top reporters who was asking some pretty hard hitting questions about Latino issues here in the U.S., unlike the free pass given to all pols by U.S. journalists. But apparently he gave many a wrong answer regarding immigration, the border wall, and so on. Almost the conservative line. I wish I could find the link to the interview. It was not real great.
Thanks
Sorry, it’s 62%- 28%, not 70-30.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/poll_obama_leads_mccain_domina.php
nalbar
About immigration;
I never know what to say about it and what politicians say. By what I see with my own eyes the reality is quite different than every thing said about the issue. I work with the undocumented every single day (like today, for instance). There have been many a time I have been the ONLY gringo on the job. Me and 20 hispanics. It’s all very strange when I then go home and some white fat dude with soft hands tells me what a threat they are to my way of life.
Most of it is laughable in its delusion.
nalbar
Same here. I’m not in construction like you (read that in one of your comments somewhere) but I’m in a trade and I work with two guys everyday. And they’re not out to steal my American way of life either. The truth is, they’re two of the best, hardest working and motivated guys I’ve ever had the pleasure to work alongside. The communication problems we have are an issue, but we find ways around that. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t go to a French restaurant in Paris and expect that my waiter and everyone around me would understand English. It’s up to me to assimilate, at least so far as language at the workplace and in the community goes to the culture I’m coming into.
Other than that, there aren’t many I’d trade them for.
I have a classification. It is called Idiot. Same one I give for anyone who supported Hillary who is willing to back McCain for anything. He is spouting the same failed policies that have come close to destroying America.
You ask if we think they are traitors? YES to themselves and their best interest if they are willing to vote against their best interest just because Hillary didn’t win. This is not about the candidate but about America. If Hillary could throw her support behind Obama then her supporters need to grow up and join her.
I agree with all of that except maybe the last sentence. I think a lot of her supporters have legitimate gripes about how she was treated, not only by the media but some of Obama’s surrogates and certainly by a large number of his supporters. But, like you say, it can’t justify making the leap from her to McCain. That just doesn’t make sense.
My solution? Vote Green! :o)
I fear that many Americans vote not according to ideals or even their self-interest, but according to some middle school popularity contest: many Obama supporters are supporters for really stupid reasons (ie, he has a nice smile and that one guy made that video on youtube about him). Likewise, Hillary supporters who couldn’t care less about issues might go and support McCain.
However, the letter is really only addressing people with half a brain who really cared about the issues, but who got really attached to Clinton and are now abandoning logic.
If such a mythical creature does indeed exist (Bob Johnson?), then by definition your answer would be YES – in much the same way that I’ve seen Andrew Sullivan referred to as “homophobic”…
We’ve been referring to Andrew Sullivan as a “self-hating faggot” for years and years! 🙂
I would normally never think twice about your word usage here (my friends & I use the same phrase, with full queer appropriation), but it just caused me a twinge because the B word was considered inappropriate for the front page, even when used in a similar “insider” way.
You make a good point. But I didn’t realize Sullivan was considered self-hating. Really conservative, yeah but did he have a phase where he tried to deny to people or himself that he was gay?
I’d see him as more of a sell-out than self-hating, but obviously that’s not my call. I’d just be curious to know how he’s perceived in-community.
He’s probably perceived in multiple ways in the gay community. And Andrew has changed and grown in the 15+ years he’s been around making a splash in the news world.
Generally, Americans think that gay men are ultra liberals, but that’s not the case. Just because we want equality under the law doesn’t make us liberals, it makes us think we might actually be full-fledged citizens of this country, like our hetero counterparts. 🙂
Just because we want equality under the law doesn’t make us liberals, it makes us think we might actually be full-fledged citizens of this country, like our hetero counterparts. 🙂
Yeah…just like a lot of Black folks. Shhh! Was I supposed to say that out loud?
🙂
I don’t know what the “majority” culture thinks they have to be afraid of, when most “minority” or “not quite as mainstream” or simply “nonwhite and/or not straight” folks are just as conservative as they are in many ways.
I remember when his, um, proclivity for bareback activity pretty much bit him in the ass. Huge uproar–and I believe it was fair, btw. And who could forget his immediate post-9/11 “5th column” rantings?
Now that he’s more or less backing Obama–even with the caveat that he’s more left than he’ll ever be–I wonder how he’s perceived now.
Either way, he never seems to want for work!
The classification is for white Democratic women.
The issue is: why would a white Democratic woman vote for John McCain?
What would be the basis for them to do so?
Keep thinking on it. As a McKinney supporter you might wonder why your candidate isn’t feeling their love.
I understood the classification. I was asking different questions about different people who might also come to the same place as these white women who will vote for McCain now.
And obviously there’s a subset of them who will be racist. But I get the sense that the majority of those making that switch now are doing it not out of racism but out of a feeling of being cheated out their time to shine. They really feel like Clinton was forced out in favor of a younger man, which would obviously open historic and prevalent wounds among older feminists.
Is that any better a justification? No. But there’s plenty of it there. At least in what I’m reading.
Why they wouldn’t then vote for McKinney instead is, well, I guess it comes down to throwing a childish fit…and some racism.
then we’re all agreed.
The article accuses all white, female Clinton supporters who now claim to be voting for McCain as racists. That’s just false. It’s also a recipe for disaster to make those blanket charges. And it’s becoming an MO.
So, we’re not really all agreed.
Is telling the people that if it’s truly female solidarity they’re after, then support Cynthia McKinney. Other than that, what else can one assume?
You can be mad and want to get even with someone, some entity, a campaign, for all kinds of stupid reasons that don’t qualify as racist. What if Obama was white and this group of women we’re choosing the same reaction? To vote for the republican to defeat their object of scorn because they think, wrong and crazy as that may sound, that they we’re ripped off or once again tossed aside or told to get in line for a younger man with no more qualifications than their candidate. A correlation to what women face in the real world everyday? Does that make them racist? Or does it make them gender defensive? Like I said, it doesn’t have to make operational sense. But to say they’re all racist is not only wrong, but destructive. As destructive and divisive as what they’re doing…imo.
Good night.
I think you are right, as far as it goes.
Lately I have come to the realization that we have been able to get away with voting emotionally because we have been in a ‘caretaker’ mode in this country. Many have allowed appeals on an emotional level to shift their votes. Willy Horton, gay marriage, scary terrorists, scary commies are all such appeals. American’s have gotten fat and lazy, and it showed when they let such things frighten them. And it really has not mattered because all our recent presidents have been caretakers, with no intention of doing anything important to change the status quo. Until Bush.
But we are no longer in such a position. Bush and the republicans have taken us to the precipice. Four more years of the present policies will ruin us. We simply cannot allow emotions like fear and anger of supposed wrongs determine our votes. IMO this will be the only election in my life time that REALLY matters. This time my vote (and all my friends, and all American’s) has to be decided by the cold calculation of facts. Who is more likely to take us back from the precipice? Who looks like they actually THINK before they act? Who looks like they can govern without themselves falling back on their emotions? And their fear.
I like your last sentence… ‘As destructive and divisive as what they are doing.’ Meaning those who are voting from emotion.
The problem for me is that much of Obama’s appeal IS ’emotional’. He is appealing to the better side of us in an emotional way. And much of his administration has to be taken on faith. I am not completely comfortable with that. But he is obviously smart. BooMan has repeatedly made two points on this site. First, that you can judge Obama (and Clinton) by those he surrounds himself with (and their actions). And second, Obama has run the only type of campaign that could win for him. So I have paid attention. And Obama is without a doubt the better candidate for this time.
So I don’t think anybody is saying they are ALL racists. but any DEMOCRAT that cannot look at the cold hard facts of what our future might be with McCain and lets their emotions rule them……. well….. they should look again. And they should not be shocked if I wonder about them.
nalbar
What if Obama was white and this group of women we’re choosing the same reaction?
Honestly–I don’t think the reaction would be the same. I really do not. Too many racial, race-baiting and downright racist comments…too much of this “you must bow in obeisance to me for my vote” attitude. If this was some white guy, they’d be pissed…but not like this.
It’s definitely showing, and it ain’t pretty.
I don’t know, AP.
First of all, from my perspective it’s difficult to communicate what I think about this and other racially charged aspects of this election fully so far simply because I’m not black and there is, at least it feels to me like there is and I could be wrong, an unspoken restriction on how far one can take the conversation when you’re not black. It feels like there’s an automatic disqualification of opinions coming from anyone not living and walking in those shoes. That could be just my own trepidation. But it could also be in part, and again, this is my perception, that there’s a pretty thin hair trigger at play here from the Obama side, and especially from many of his supporters who are black. It’s easy to see how someone who doesn’t support him or even merely questions his qualifications could feel browbeaten into silence because of the real instances where charges of racism are being leveled indiscriminantly. I’ve seen white bloggers all over the place qualifying there remarks upfront as a way to preempt being called racist in the same way I’ve seen many bloggers who are nuetral between Obama and Clinton and now Obama and McCain qualifying criticism of Obama by stating their opinions aren’t evidence of any support for Clinton. That charge has been made against me several times now here on this blog. Even after stating unequivocally that I’m supporting Cynthia McKinney. Three days ago I was judged here to be an Obama hater, and thus untrustworthy because I didn’t fully love him enough. And that from a white person. It’s like it’s become the default response for many of Obama’s supporters. And when it happens enough it can lay waste a person’s reputation. Worse than that though, it creates an unbridgeable divide.
You’re right of course that it ain’t pretty. There’s a whole lot this time around that ain’t pretty. And that’s unfortunate mainly because other issues that need to be critically addressed like the war, energy costs, healthcare and so many others have become largely invisible if not outright dead at this point. I agree with you that the reaction from some of Clinton’s female supporters would not be the same if it was a white guy instead of Obama, but only so far as the volume of the reaction goes. There is definetily a racist motivation behind some of it, but I honestly believe it has less to do with Obama’s skin color than it has to do with the disappointment that the person they rightly or wrongly placed their hopes with and projected their identity as women and feminists onto was defeated by a young, and I suppose in their eyes, less qualified man.
There’s also the real possibility that I don’t know a goddamned thing I’m talking about :o)
Hope the weekend is good for you and your guy. Me, I’m hoping to maybe get a little sailing in on Fathers Day if the weather holds :o)
Super-
What you are describing (resentment about a younger less qualified man winning out) is real and has a (very small) degree of legitimacy. If, in some fantasy world, it was John Conyers that won the nomination, people wouldn’t be offended by the age and experience aspects of this result.
But the focus has to remain here, not on hard feelings alone, but translating those hard feelings into a vote for John McCain.
And in evaluating this, we should keep in mind that most Clinton supporters will be over their resentment by November 4th. They’ll be making a cold calculation between the candidates that are on the ballot, not about the candidates that are not. So, let’s keep this focused on the small group of Clinton supporters that are actually serious and correct that they will be voting for McCain.
Don’t think about the people that are saying this now in a fit of pique, think about the ones that will actually follow through.
To give an example, I would not have voted for Clinton in November because of their decision to use race-based attacks and polarization as a campaign tactic. It’s a principle with me. But I never, in a 100 Iraqi years, would have voted for McCain. I would either have placed a protest vote with a third party candidate or I would have left the slate blank. What is the principle that Clinton supporters would use to not only not vote for Obama, but to vote for McCain?
That is where you start coming up blank and its clear that people’s whiteness is showing.
I still disagree, in part. I just don’t see how all those vowing to now vote for McCain, no matter how small or large a group they might be can have their motivations described as racist in a blanket accusation fasion.
What they’re doing is retaliating, not just protesting by voting third party or not voting at all. The question is why. You say it’s all racism and dismiss any other motivation as insignificant. But since there’s really no way to measure it without people admitting to things they’ll never admit to, we’ll just have to disagree. I’ll say again that taking the tack the author of this article is taking is really destructive and because it’s so destructive and divisive it really shouldn’t be adopted as a response to those women who feel so injured (right or wrong) that they’ll vote for McCain because there’s absolutely no good that can come of it. It will only serve to further damage and fracture the party and make an Obama presidency less and less a likelyhood or even a possibility.
All this is of course from the perspective of a democrat. Something I no longer call myself. I’m asking these inconvenient questions because I’m genuinly interested to know how everyone approaches it all, and because I’m always open to being persuaded and taught to see things differently.
Are we filing this under ‘Things that cannot be said because they’re divisive’?
I hate those arguments. How often have people told me not to say something because it was bad spin or bad framing or bad political strategy, when they didn’t dispute the truth of what I was saying?
Look. Any Clinton supporter that is serious about voting for John McCain and will actually do so is not going to suddenly turn around and vote for Obama because I was nice to them. So let’s bury that right now.
I’d have to have a much bigger platform before I’d believe that I have that kind of influence over any significant number of votes and I’m not stifling myself on the theory that it’s my responsibility to foster party unity with disenchanted McCain supporting Clinton fans.
As a third party voter you’re are already utterly unconvinced that your vote (especially in New York) is needed to make the world safe for women. I don’t disagree. My vote would have been in protest, too, had Clinton become the nominee. What I’m talking about is not some compulsion that every left-leaning person has to vote for the Democrat. I’m talking about why some people are not only not going to vote for the Democrat, but vote for the Republican. That’s something neither of us would even consider doing.
Some people probably think McCain is more qualified. But the vast majority of these voters were supporting Clinton specifically because she was a woman. Once they get over their disappointment that she won’t be the nominee, they should (unless they agree with McCain on the issues) pick the candidate that is better for women. If they don’t and they agree with the Democratic platform, support Roe v. Wade, and oppose the Republican agenda, then what is left to explain their vote for McCain?
There is a lot of racism left in this country. And there are plenty of white women that are letting that racism show.
I understand that people don’t want to feel like their refusal to support Obama is de facto evidence that they are a racist. But unless you can point out real policy differences or some principle that you are using, then racism is the default explanation. Democrats don’t vote for Republicans for no reason.
And, if the theory is
I wrote so much until I’ve decided to make it a diary. I didn’t realize how raw some of my feelings still are.
I hope this time, I can get all of these feelings and frustrations out of my system for good. Frustration is a useless emotion…on some level, I must feel as if there is some pay off for feeling this way, or responding this way. It’s not that I don’t want to wrestle with it, but I feel the Pond knows how I feel about sexism, homophobia and racism–I don’t want to repetitive.
Or maybe it’s just feeling really foolish, and I hate to feel like a fool. I feel like the masks have been dropped and I’ve seen the real Clintons, the real feminists…and further, that their real beings were there all the time, had I cared to look.
Anyway, I hope you take a peek when you’ve finished sailing.
Happy Father’s Day, Super!
Hi AP,
I completely missed your comment here last night. Sorry :o)
…and thank you :o) I decided not to go sailing because one, we had some gimundous t-storms last night and the weather today is kind of overcast (blech!) and two, whatever’s made me sick for almost two weeks now is still kickin my behind parts today.
Thanks for the Happy Fathers Day wishes and I’m off to read your diary :o)
I agree with you supersoling.
The aftermath of this campaign is as eye opening as the campaign itself. Especially the part about blanket charges becoming an MO.
I can’t even begin to count the ways in which I hated the article you linked to. I hope I never read this guy again.
I have no patience whatsoever these days with political blogs that claim to be working to elect Democrats linking to crap that is only meant to divide Democrats.
If this guy had come here and posted this as a diary I would label him a purity troll. Read his second last paragraph again.
The only question in my mind is why you linked to such a piece of crap.