You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.-- the late Lee Atwater, Republican strategist
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
Semantic point: Do these people realize that the Czarists were the ones who the Communists opposed? They know they were enemies, right?THAT'S COMMIE TALK
So we've gone from "dissent = treason" to "dissent = racism."
Progress!
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, which it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.…What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence.…The laws of probability would dictate that part of…[the] decisions would serve the country’s interest.Now turn back fifty years to a manifesto signed in 1895 by a number of leaders of the Populist party:
As early as 1865-66 a conspiracy was entered into between the gold gamblers of Europe and America.…For nearly thirty years these conspirators have kept the people quarreling over less important matters while they have pursued with unrelenting zeal their one central purpose.…Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring are being used to deal a blow to the prosperity of the people and the financial and commercial independence of the country.Next, a Texas newspaper article of 1855:
…It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.…The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country on a secret commission, the effect of which is an extraordinary boldness of the Catholic church throughout the United States.…These minions of the Pope are boldly insulting our Senators; reprimanding our Statesmen; propagating the adulterous union of Church and State; abusing with foul calumny all governments but Catholic, and spewing out the bitterest execrations on all Protestantism. The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed. Add to this the vast revenues collected here.…These quotations give the keynote of the style. In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims. I do not propose to try to trace the variations of the paranoid style that can be found in all these movements, but will confine myself to a few leading episodes in our past history in which the style emerged in full and archetypal splendor.
There is a LOT of tension in the air. The fact that nearly ALL the tea-baggers are white hasn't been lost on the BFRC attendees—a group that is, I might mention, significantly more diverse than the tea-baggers.posted by pwnguin at 10:36 PM on September 12, 2009 [2 favorites]
. . . the consistent branding of President Obama as “other” by his opponents has created a context within which it is perceived that Obama need not be treated as other presidents have been treated. The creation of that “otherness,” while possibly motivated by racial animosity, is certainly rendered more effective as a result of deeply held negative predispositions about African Americans. . . .posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 11:12 PM on September 12, 2009 [13 favorites]
I’m interested in this idea that it’s also in part pent up anger at Bush that could not be vented for cultural reasons. . . . It makes sense to me, that you could look at what white people are upset about other people doing or being and get a glimpse of the ways that Whiteness has fucked them over, but which they are culturally prevented from articulating. . . .posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:37 AM on September 13, 2009 [4 favorites]
"In their mind they are all interchangeable and they all mean black."That can't be right, they call Canadians commies all the time and only 2% of us are black.
The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any futher circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders’ Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.So you can guess what kind of numbers the movement is aiming for today.
Every party has its extremists, and if we focus on the crazies we're going to get a very distorted view of the opposing side.Yes, every party has its extremists. But the mainstream Republican Party, including people like Senators, Representatives, and Governors, has been actively legitimizing claims of death panels, Obama being foreign-born, and, yes, even America under Obama is like Germany under Hitler.
Let it be so noted that opponents of a woman's right to choose are so fanatical in their beliefs that they are willing to deny people access to affordable health care to accomplish their goals, all the while hiding their true agenda and claiming it's about being "overtaxed".And over something that has no effect on their goal, anyway.
And claim they are doing it in Jesus' name, no less.
Was bantering this around with the fam and it came up that there is a *possibility* that the more nutjobbier of the signs have the potential to be staged productions by those who support Obama - i.e. in an attempt to discredit the "other side".Once again:
Since it seems there are a fair number of Obama supporters in this thread who believe they are intellectually superior to the "morons" who are protesting, I would not put it past them to orchestrate something like that.
The 9/12 project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001.On September 12, 2001, I was terrified, heartbroken, paranoid, and looking towards the future with dread and uncertainty. No I do NOT want to go back to 9/12, thankyouveryfuckingmuch.
@Flunkie - wasn't suggesting even a majority of them were "plants"...just that the possibility cannot be dismissedOK. I don't dismiss the possibility that there might exist some liberal in that crowd pretending to be one of the many totally unhinged conservatives in that crowd.
.is anyone else completely creeped out by Glenn Beck's whole "9/12" project thing, which inspired these protests on this particular date?I suspect that a significant number of these people believe that, on September 12, 2001, we all felt things akin to "we should nuke Iran" and "liberals should be tried for treason*" and "Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster". That we were all "real Americans" on September 12, 2001.
The 9/12 project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001.
On September 12, 2001, I was terrified, heartbroken, paranoid, and looking towards the future with dread and uncertainty. No I do NOT want to go back to 9/12, thankyouveryfuckingmuch.
When all either side can do (just look at this thread) is name-call during heated diatribes, it's hard to take either seriously and I have to call the motives of both into question.You called these people "nutjobs". Why do you think that they are nutjobs?
At PARC we had a slogan: "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points." It was based on a few things from the past like how smart you had to be in Roman times to multiply two numbers together; only geniuses did it. We haven't gotten any smarter, we've just changed our representation system. We think better generally by inventing better representations; that's something that we as computer scientists recognize as one of the main things that we try to do.posted by Palamedes at 11:18 AM on September 13, 2009 [3 favorites]
Flunkie prbly the signs calling his nationality into question, comparison to Hitler and the fact they showed up to something Glenn Beck organized.OK, so that's why you think these people are nutjobs. Now why is it inappropriate for other people to also call them nutjobs? And why does other people also calling them nutjobs make you "call their motives into question"?
SIEGEL: When you spoke of the extension of coverage, do you mean by that that you support, in principle, the idea of mandates and that individuals and employers be required to purchase health insurance?posted by hrbrmstr at 12:38 PM on September 13, 2009
Sen. NELSON: Well, I think it's important that it'd be compulsory. I don't particularly like the idea of calling it a mandate. We have compulsory auto liability coverage in America today in virtually every state.
SIEGEL: But is there any more than a semantic distinction between something that's compulsory and something that's mandated?
Sen. NELSON: Well, let's put it this way - we already have a word that outlines exactly what it is and why it exists. Why do we invent new words?I'm supposed to trust that my best intentions are at hand when the people crafting the legislation try to wordsmith their way out of something and equate health insurance with car insurance? And, while I am not someone who tracks entries in Webster, I bet "mandate" has been around for a while. To you lefties (and righties): get smarter folks who don't sound like they are hiding something and maybe you'll stop scaring people into reacting the way they are in these protests.
It's not trolling to disagree with both extremesWhat leftist extreme are you disagreeing with in this thread?
"But yesterday, someone told a real whopper. ABC News, citing the DC fire department, reported that between 60,000 and 70,000 people had attended the tea party rally at the Capitol. By the time this figure reached Michelle Malkin, however, it had been blown up to 2,000,000. There is a big difference, obviously, between 70,000 and 2,000,000. That's not a twofold or threefold exaggeration -- it's roughly a thirtyfold exaggeration.posted by ericb at 1:46 PM on September 13, 2009 [2 favorites]
The way this false estimate came into being is relatively simple: Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, lied, claiming that ABC News had reported numbers of between 1.0 and 1.5 million when they never did anything of the sort. A few tweets later, the numbers had been exaggerated still further to 2 million. Kibbe wasn't "in error", as Malkin gently puts it. He lied. He did the equivalent of telling people that his penis is 53 inches long.
Malkin, who to her credit later corrected the error, frets that it might be used to by liberals to "discredit the undeniably massive turnout". She's right to be worried -- it absolutely will be used that way. If you don't want to be discredited, then don't, as Kibbe did, tell a ridiculous (and easily disprovable) lie."*
Finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today. — Obama's speech to Congressposted by enn at 2:13 PM on September 13, 2009 [9 favorites]
Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong…Friedrich Hayek, The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9)
…Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken.
But as bad a system as we have now, I would like to see it not get worse.How can it get any worse for you? You have no insurance now and in the current system and with your current position in life you never will have. The first major medical emergency that comes your way could probably put you in bankruptcy. Medical bankruptcy is the largest cause of private bankruptcy in the US. Of course there's a link between health care and the economy!
Let me make it plainer-I think they would be forced to go out of business."And that's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. (Applause.) Likewise -- likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still can't afford coverage, and 95 percent of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements."
NOAM CHOMSKY:Take a look at Germany. In the 1920s, Germany was the absolute peak of Western civilization, in the arts and the sciences. It was regarded as a model of democracy and so on. I mean, ten years later, it was the depths of barbarism. That was a quick transition. “The descent into barbarism” it’s sometimes called in the scholarly literature.posted by orthogonality at 3:25 PM on September 13, 2009 [18 favorites]
Now, if you listen to early Nazi propaganda, you know, end of the Weimar Republic and so on, and you listen to talk radio in the United States, which I often do—it’s interesting—there’s a resemblance. And in both cases, you have a lot of demagogues appealing to people with real grievances.
Grievances aren’t invented. I mean, for the American population, the last thirty years have been some of the worst in economic history. It’s a rich country, but real wages have stagnated or declined, working hours have shot up, benefits have gone down, and people are in real trouble and now in very real trouble after the bubbles burst. And they’re angry. And they want to know, “What happened to me? You know, I’m a hard-working, white, God-fearing American. You know, how come this is happening to me?”
That’s pretty much the Nazi appeal. The grievances were real. And one of the possibilities is what Rush Limbaugh tells you: “Well, it’s happening to you because of those bad guys out there.” OK, in the Nazi case, it was the Jews and the Bolsheviks. Here, it’s the rich Democrats who run Wall Street and run the media and give everything away to illegal immigrants, and so on and so forth. It sort of peaked during the Sarah Palin period. And it’s kind of interesting. It’s been pointed out that of all the candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one who used the phrase “working class.” She was talking to the working people. And yeah, they’re the ones who are suffering. So, there are models that are not very attractive.
Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?posted by Palamedes at 3:42 PM on September 13, 2009
Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?
Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach…as if you’re completely alone?
If so, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides—the reality is very different. Once you pull the curtain away you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.
We surround them.
posted by inconsequentialist at 9:15 PM on September 12, 2009 [6 favorites]