The editors are careful to note that Obama “is not divine.” But he does walk on water and is accompanied everywhere by white horses and cascading rose petals.
Obamamania gives liberals the opportunity to surrender to the same mindless hero-worship as Republicans. That’s really the deal. George W. Bush is, in actuality, a creep. A vicious little man. But he was marketed as a Man of Honor, a Man of God — and people fell for it. Because they wanted to, because they were ripe for that kind of pseudo-religious surrender.
Barack Obama is not a creep or a vicious little man. He is, however, a canny politician, and not even a particularly honest one. He’s a product of the Chicago machine, and he’s played as dirty as anybody. His whole career, going back to the moment he graduated from Harvard Law, has been focused on one thing: his own advancement. The elaborate advertising campaign that’s selling him to the gullible masses as some kind of savior is just that — an advertising campaign.
We are a nation of consumers, of believers, of dupes. Maybe we don’t deserve democracy anymore.
Posted by Violet under Politics on May 11, 2008, 4:28 pm EST
Could you pass some info on to the rest of the callers that are
calling into WV?
I’ve been talking with some people already on the ground in WV and the
Obama camp is calling voters, NOT to get out the vote, but to ask for
money - campaign donations. The gist of the call is that its not
important that they vote, because the election is over, and then they
ask for money to help put this primary campaign to an end and move on
to the general election. Basically, they are telling voters its over.
Then they ask for $400 donations. What the dollar amount is about, I
don’t know. Perhaps they are just getting greedy.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 9, 2008, 7:13 pm EST
(Note to readers: I’m going to return shortly to the subject of this post, because there’s a lot more to add to the discussion. But I want to get this out first, because time is of the essence.)
Hillary is on track to recover the lead in the popular vote, winning big victories in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. She’ll go into the summer with the majority of popular votes, a near-tie in pledged delegates, and a strong argument for the supers that she should be the nominee.
But you wouldn’t know that from the media.
Let’s review: Indiana was the tie-breaker, as Obama himself said it would be. He predicted that Hillary would win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina, and Indiana would break the tie.
Hillary won Indiana. She broke the tie.
But a strange thing happened: the media – and the Obama campaign – simply ignored reality. They created their own reality (and where have we heard that before?). In one of the most striking incidents of Orwellianism I’ve ever seen in this country, the pundits and politicians ignored the fact that Hillary had won the tie-breaker and instead declared that Obama was now the “presumptive nominee.” Tim Russert announced that “we now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it” (as if it were up to him). Time magazine rolled out a cover with a big picture of Obama and a headline reading, “And the winner is….”. The Obama campaign leaked word that Barack would hold a victory party on May 20.
It’s the ultimate haka.*
And it’s effective, make no mistake. If you ever doubted that the media in this country creates the news rather than reports it – that the Village idiots are the ones picking our presidents – then this should settle it. The media colluded with the Bush campaign in 2000 to destroy Al Gore and force Shrub down our throats, and now they’re doing the same thing with Hillary and Obama.
It’s so effective that many of the Hillary blogs are in a miasma of despair. Hillary supporters are discouraged. Hillary voters in West Virginia and Kentucky are wondering if they should even bother.
Which is the whole point.
A haka is a war dance designed to intimidate the opposition. It’s a psych-out. A mind-fuck. It’s not a victory dance, because the battle hasn’t happened yet; it’s an intimidation dance. It’s designed to scare the opposition into freaking out or going home.
This haka-to-end-all-hakas is happening because of what I said in the first paragraph up at the top of the post. The Obama camp is desperate to stop Hillary in her tracks.
I realize now that this particular haka was originally scheduled for the night of the Pennsylvania primary. The Time magazine cover, the editorials, the “presumptive nominee” crap – all that was in the chute and ready to go a couple of weeks ago. That’s why the media boyz were so glum that night; all their plans had been ruined. Hillary’s victory margin in Pennsylvania was just too big.
But Indiana – that was close. Somehow, somewhere it was decided that if Indiana was close enough, the haka would go forward. It’s possible that the chicanery in Gary was actually part of the plan to make sure the margin was narrow.
And so the haka is in full blast, everywhere you look, every time you turn on the tube, every time you pick up a newspaper. And I say to hell with it.
The most important thing now is to get out the vote in West Virginia and Kentucky. Those states are overwhelmingly for Hillary, and if the voters there get the message that their votes still count, then Hillary can still win the race.
What you can do right now is call. Phone bank for Hillary. It’s easy as pie – I’ve done it, and it’s simple and painless. It’s especially fun in West Virginia, because the folks there love Hillary so much. They just need to be reassured that their votes still count. That there’s still a reason to go to the polls next Tuesday.
Kentucky also needs callers, and Oregon has an impressive ground game for Hillary that’s going on right now (it’s a mail-in primary).
From there it will be on to Puerto Rico, where Hillary could net a quarter of a million votes in one shot.
Here’s a widget to get you into the Hillary Action Center:
Click on “Make Calls” there in the bottom red bar.
Come on, folks! Let’s do it!
*Coined by Riverdaughter, based on the pre-game war dance performed by the New Zealand football team.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 9, 2008, 4:51 pm EST
The Obamabots are under the delusion that if Obama wins the nomination (which he hasn’t yet, by the way), all of us in the Hillary camp will forget about the misogyny and come over to their side. Make nice for the sake of party unity. Forgive all the abuse.
Nope.
Several of us have tried over the past couple of months to explain why that won’t happen, but the Obamabots don’t seem to understand. And I know why: it’s because they don’t take sexism seriously. When women say we will not reward misogyny, we’re laughed off. The Obamabots just tell more jokes and hurl more insults and write more crass articles about how the little lay-dees have their little pan-tees in a twist.
The only “ism” the Obamabots take seriously is racism. So I’m going to try to explain the situation in terms they’ll understand, using a racial analogy.
Imagine this scenario:
The shoe is on the other foot, and Obama, not Hillary, is the punching bag of the media — a media that is blatantly and unapologetically racist. And I do mean blatant. Jokes every night on the cable news shows about Obama’s hair and his fondness for fried chicken. Pundits laughing about what a problem uppity Negroes are.
Across the country, racists openly ridicule Obama and his candidacy. In mainstream stores there are gag gifts playing on racist themes: maybe a (water)Melon Baller with Obama’s head on the handle, maybe a Barack Obama Shoeshine Set — you get the picture. 501c groups invoke the most grotesque racist slurs with their advertising; T-shirts say “Quit Running for President and Shine My Shoes!” Anybody who protests is branded a fool and a spoilsport.
Online, Hillary’s supporters constantly refer to Obama and his supporters as n—–s and c— -s and all the other epithets I refuse to type out. Blogger Boyz blog about those stupid lazy Negroes who are still wallowing in memories of the Civil Rights era, too dumb to get with the program and vote for Hillary.
And the lies: Obama is constantly lied about, belittled, demeaned. His record is distorted, his character impugned. Every day the pundits and the Blogger Boyz urge him to drop out of the race, to remember his place, to give up his seat to the white woman. All in the interest of “party unity.”
And nary a word of reproach from Hillary herself. No denunciation at all of the relentless racism. In fact, she actually cracks a few racist remarks herself, albeit subtle ones. She jokes and nods with the media about “letting” Obama run as long as he wants to. And when she makes speeches about American values, she talks a lot about women’s rights but never mentions civil rights. She’s strikingly silent on the subject. Even when she delivers a major address on the importance of rooting out bigotry, she neglects to mention racism at all.
Just to make the analogy even more apt, let’s further imagine that some key civil rights issue is on the table — say, voting rights. For forty years the Democrats have been on the side of the angels with that one, but Hillary goes out of her way to say how much she admires and respects those Republicans who don’t think African-Americans should have the right to vote. She says judges with a record of opposing voting rights are good candidates for the nation’s benches — even the Supreme Court.
And the Democratic Party goes along with all this, pushing Hillary as the nominee, ignoring the anger of African-American voters, smugly assuming that they’ll “come back to the fold” by November. After all, say the pundits and the Blogger Boyz, where else are they going to go? The Republicans are even worse.
If you’re an adult American with even half a lick of sense, you know damn well that there is no way black folks would stand for that crap. There is no way any self-respecting African-Americans in this day and age would take that from the Democrats. It’s inconceivable that anybody would expect them to.
Because dig it: if the Democrats carried on like that, they wouldn’t be any better than the Republicans. And they sure as hell wouldn’t deserve the African-American vote.
Why should it be any different with women?
If Barack Obama and his supporters become the new Democratic party, then the Democratic party will no longer be the party of women’s rights. There will still be women in the party, naturally, but basic respect for women as citizens will be a dead letter. It will be the party of John Roberts and anti-choicers and the most virulent outbreak of public misogyny I’ve ever seen. All the sexism of this campaign will be rewarded instead of repudiated.
And that Democratic party will not deserve my vote.
And it’s not just women’s rights at stake. Social Security, health care, sticking up for the working class — those things are important. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the place where those things are defended, not dismissed. The place where those values are embraced. The place where, at every turn of American history over the past century, underdogs and reformers and humanitarians have found shelter.
That’s why I won’t vote for Obama. I’ll be sending a message to the Democratic party: if you want my vote, then you need to earn it. If you throw me under the bus — me and my sisters and my grandparents and my friends and everybody in this country who isn’t a rich man — then to hell with you.
Go on, Democrats, try to get elected without me — me or any of my friends. See how far you get. Go on with your bad self.
And when you figure out that you need my vote, give me a call.
Note on commenting: this thread is closed to Obama trolls. I can’t cope with the volume, given that this post has been linked far and wide. There’s a whole big internet out there where you can make your case that Hillary is an evil racist, that sexism doesn’t exist, and that we silly bitches are just having a hissy fit because our candidate is behind. Got it. Kthxbai.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 7, 2008, 11:33 pm EST
Obama wrapped up a low-key event at an Indianapolis factory Wednesday by telling the audience that a victory in Indiana would be decisive. “It starts right here in Indiana,” Obama said. “If we win Indiana, we’ve got this nomination.”
He didn’t, and he doesn’t.
Obama’s win in North Carolina was strong but expected, essentially a reprise of his win in South Carolina. In North Carolina he was down to his core constituency, who are now the only people who can be counted on to vote for him: African-Americans and the college crowd.
But he was also supposed to win in Indiana! It’s in his backyard, and the northern part of the state even shares the Chicago media market. His campaign has had it in his “win” column since the beginning. The fact that he lost there is testament to his weakness as a candidate.
Back in March Bill Clinton said, “Nobody believes she can win in Indiana because it borders Illinois. If you show them they’re wrong, she’ll be the nominee, and she’ll be the president.”
And last night in her victory speech, Hillary said:
Thank you, Indiana. Thank you. Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction. He said I would probably win Pennsylvania. He would win North Carolina, and Indiana would be the tie-breaker. Well, tonight we’ve come from behind, we’ve broken the tie, and thanks to you, it’s full speed on to the White House.
So why is the media spinning this as if Obama won the tie-breaker? Sorry, rhetorical question. These are Hillary Rules: no matter what happens, Barry is the winner and Hillary needs to drop out. Repeat ad infinitum.
There’s collusion here between the media (particularly networks like MSNBC), the corrupt party machinery, and the money men behind Obama who are calling the tune. That was more evident than ever last night in Indiana, with the shenanigans in Gary and the networks refusing to call the race until those returns came in (after being “consolidated” at the airport, ahem).
It was naked and ugly, but I don’t think the people running this show are much worried about appearances anymore. The DNC’s main goal now isn’t to put up a candidate who can win in November, but to hitch a ride on the Obama gravy train. Obama has a donor list of over a million (assuming it’s an honest count, which is no longer a safe assumption with anything regarding Team Obama). The Democrats are perfectly willing to sacrifice the election as long as they can get their hands on that list.
As for the corporate backers, they want a Republican in the White House, whether his name is McCain or Obama. Somebody who thinks Republicans have the right ideas, somebody who’ll turn Social Security over to Wall Street, somebody who won’t fight polluters, somebody who won’t buck his paymasters.
And the media just wants to destroy the uppity woman.
What none of them wants is a true Democrat in the White House, a Democrat committed to women’s rights and Social Security and health care, a Democrat with the guts to take on the oil companies and polluters. A Democrat who will stand up for progressive values. A Democrat like Hillary.
“If the Obama contingent succeeds in taking over the Democratic party, then we will have, in effect, two Republican parties.
“Who, then, will speak for the women of America? Who will stand up for our rights? Who will hold fast against sexism and misogyny?
“Who will fight for the middle class? Who will fight for working people? Who will fight for universal health care? Who will protect Social Security?
“Who will hold fast against polluters and thieves?
“Certainly not the new Obama-style Democratic party. The Obamabots are just like Republicans: swimming in sexism and utter disdain for anyone but themselves.
“If progressives want to have a voice at all in national politics, our only hope is to keep the Obamabots from taking over the Democratic party.”
The only question now is whether it’s too late.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 7, 2008, 1:56 pm EST
She’s the special-interest candidate of older women—the post-sexual set. She’s resisted by others (including older women who don’t see themselves as part of the post-sexual set) who see her as either frigid or sexually shunned—they turn from her inhibitions and her pain.
Dear God. Lance does an excellent job with this muck, though he focuses more on Wolff’s voyeuristic delusions than on his sexism. I could go into a whole feminist analysis here, but time presses and I’ll just confine myself to commenting on one thing that’s been amusing the hell out of me ever since this primary season started.
It’s this business about who’s old and who’s young and who’s middle-aged. I’m a 45-year-old over-educated ultra-liberal writer. Notice that I am one year younger than Barack Obama (who’s 46) and one year older than Michelle (who’s 44), both of whom are routinely referred to as “young.” I’m also about the same age as many of the Blogger Boyz. If I were an Obama fan, I would be considered a young high-information member of the “creative class.” But because I’m for Hillary, I’m automatically an old, low-information, “post-sexual” (thank you, Michael!) uncreative lump of suet.
45-year-old female Obama voter: 45-year-old female Clinton voter:
My question is, why aren’t the women’s magazines all over this? This is a fricking gold mine, people. To hell with diet and exercise and plastic surgery. If you’re a schlumpy old bat who wants to be hawt again, just join the Obama Movement. Automatic youth.
(And the flip side, of course, is that if you’re already hawt, for god’s sake don’t vote for Clinton. You’ll turn into a sexless bag of cellulite within seconds.)
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 5, 2008, 4:19 pm EST
Blegghh. That goddamn James Wolcott piece keeps popping up on blogs and listservs, and every time I encounter it the bile rises in my throat. Hitherto I have refrained from unloading said bile here on the blog, but why the hell not? That’s what blogs are for.
Anyway, here’s the Wolcott piece — When Democrats Go Post-al — and here, for blogular posterity, is my reaction to it:
I know Wolcott is a Hillary supporter. I’m glad he hasn’t drunk the Obamabot koolaid, and I’m glad he’s giving attention to the pro-Hillary blogosphere.
But the article is disappointing, even infuriating. Wolcott makes the same sexist mistakes so many men (and young women) are making in this race.
First of all, he accepts the conventional wisdom that Hillary is fundamentally uncharismatic. He repeats uncritically the “Nixon in a pantsuit” meme started by Andrew Sullivan, a meme that is predicated on the assumption that a mature woman cannot possibly be inspiring to anyone, no matter how brilliant and powerful and courageous she is. No, instead she’s Nixon, who to my generation is Exhibit A in the gallery of grim power-grubbing politicians (Bobby Kennedy said he represented “the dark side of the American character”).
Secondly, he dismisses the role sexism is playing in the current divide between Democrats — the divide his article is supposed to explain. Notice that after quoting Alegre’s frustrated denunciation of the outrageous misogyny online, he says the whole contretemps sounds rather silly and what people are really upset about is Bush-Cheney. No. Wrong. What people are really upset about is exactly what Alegre said: the relentless misogynistic denigration of Hillary and her supporters.
Sexism is the story of this election year. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent people are utterly insensible to the problem is an indicator of how deeply rooted it still is.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 4, 2008, 4:09 pm EST
Dededo is a village in Guam. It’s in the news today because of Hillary’s astonishing almost-win in a territory that Obama had expected to take by 11%:
Even the Kentucky Derby wasn’t this close. In the strangest of circumstances that could only bring about the closest of races, Hillary Rodham Clinton finished with 49.9% of the vote of the Guam Democratic Caucus, just 7 votes shy of Barack Obama’s total of 50.1%. While Obama led for the vast majority of the night’s tallying, Clinton needed a strong finish in the municipality of Dededo, Guam’s most populous village. And she did - gaining 61% of the 822 votes counted by the Democratic Party of Guam.
Note: these are unofficial, uncertified results as tabulated by the Democratic Party of Guam. The DPG also noted a high number of spoiled ballots in Dededo.
Dededo. About 35 years ago I lived there with my family in a squat concrete house with a grassless yard of rocks. There were no big hotels on Guam then, no tourist industry at all. It was just a little island with an American Air Force base at one end and a Naval base in the harbor. It was a simple place.
One night the power lines came down and started a fire in the neighborhood; we piled into the car and drove out to the beach until the flames were doused. Rumor had it a snake had gotten tangled up in the wires, but this was many years before it was understood what was happening with the brown tree snake population. Thank God for that, because if we’d known at the time how many snakes were out there breeding like mad my mother and I would have simply died from terror.
Another night there was a typhoon, and we all sheltered in the middle of the house with the windows boarded up while we waited for the storm to pass. I was thrilled.
And the earthquake! A highlight of my young life. 5.6 on the Richter scale. I’ll never forget hearing the rumbling and not being able to sort out what was happening or why I’d suddenly fallen off the bench I was on.
I loved Guam. Earthquakes and typhoons and raging fires. Coconut trees in our backyard. Geckos on the walls inside our house; geckos everywhere. White sand beaches and cliffs and boonies and warm coral reef lagoons. Monsoon downpours in the afternoon. Little black chickens running across the road. I loved it all.
Another memory surges up, this one more relevant to the day’s proceedings than typhoons and fires (though possibly not earthquakes): when we moved to Guam the territory had just gained the right to elect its own governor. The Guamanians embraced the American political process with a vengeance, and for a couple of months the island’s single TV station was dominated by electioneering. They seemed particularly attracted to the surface symbolism: Democratic donkeys and Republican elephants, straw hats and bunting, endless reprises of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” It had the feel of people trying to imitate something they had viewed only from a distance and without complete understanding, like the aliens in Galaxy Quest.
But that was long ago.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 3, 2008, 11:46 pm EST
The Obama camp is in meltdown. They’re looking at a loss in Indiana and a squeaker in North Carolina; the national polls are killing them; the media is suddenly treating Hillary like a contender; and worst of all, the DNC mouthpieces are making unaccustomed noises about how this is still an open contest.
They need something nuclear to turn the tables before Tuesday. In the past 48 hours they’ve made three attempts to gin up a Clinton scandal — all three heavily peddled and all three completely bogus.
The Kantor “scandal” consists of this: in a documentary from 1993 called The War Room, the camera shows Kantor, James Carville, and George Stephanopoulos reading the returns on election night 1992, which of course were very good for Clinton and very, very bad for Bush. When Kantor gets to Indiana he says, “Those people are shitting…How’d you like to be in the White House right now?”
Incredibly — and it is incredible to me — somebody in the Obama camp has dug up this 15-year-old documentary and argued that what Kantor is really saying is, “Those people are shit…How’d you like to be a worthless white n—-r?” — supposedly referring to the good people in Indiana.
No, of course it doesn’t make sense. It’s a desperate move by desperate people. What they’re gambling on is that a single idea will sink into the public mind: “somebody on the Clinton campaign said the people in Indiana are white n—–s.” Never mind that nobody said any such thing; never mind that it’s not even the current Clinton campaign. The dirty tricksters behind this know that most people don’t read and won’t bother to track down the YouTube clip.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this stunt is so crude it could backfire. Maybe the meme that will reach escape velocity won’t be the lie about Mickey Kantor, but the truth about Obama supporters circulating a doctored video to smear Clinton.
Over at the Mighty Corrente Building, vastleft is suggesting we embrace the zeitgeist by making up our own Clinton scandals. It occurs to me that what we really need is an automated Clinton Scandal Generator, something like a cross between Blogwarbot and the Daily Mail headline thing. Any code cowboys out there?
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on May 2, 2008, 9:24 pm EST
I slept! Nine hours, I think. The world is a beautiful place again. Or it was until I got to my computer and started on the news.
Two items this morning caught my eye with their promise to tell the truth, to actually say what the hell is going on in this godforsaken crack-brained world of ours. But on perusal both proved disappointingly flawed.
First up, from ABC: Madams Fall While Their Johns Prosper: D.C. Madam’s Suicide Shows Great Discrepancy Between Men and Women When It Comes to How Prostitution Is Punished. Yes! Great headline and some good points in the article. But Christomatic, couldn’t they have interviewed a feminist for the piece? Instead they went to Concerned Women of America, the ultra-rightwing anti-feminist industrial-strength Christian group. The lay-dees at CWA think the answer to everything is for women to get married and stay home, cooking and cleaning and slavishly obeying their husbands. Thank jeebus none of that fundie shit made it into the article, but why in bog’s name did the reporter even go to them? Might as well interview somebody from FLDS.
There is an odd dichotomy emerging in the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race emerging this morning. On one hand, the media is seeing former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew’s defection to Barack Obama’s camp as a sign that superdelegates are beginning to move towards his candidacy, and give the move extensive coverage. On the other, there are a number of items of good news for Hillary Clinton polls showing her in a dead heat in Indiana and one showing her competitive in North Carolina, which was expected to be an Obama stronghold. In addition, she picked up the endorsement of the Indianapolis Star, and a group of swing state polls show her far stronger in the general election in key states than Obama.
This is a perfect setup to explore why the media is paying so much attention to the Andrew business, overinterpreting its import while downplaying Hillary’s rapidly rising poll numbers. (Gosh, could it be that they’re biased?) A really intrepid reporter — say, somebody with the intellectual curiosity and electronic resources of a blogger — might even go so far as to note that the Obama campaign has a pattern of revealing existing superdelegate endorsements when they’re needed, as a PR maneuver to shift the news cycle away from whatever bad thing is happening to Obama. And if the reporter were really up for some kind of media critique, he/she might note that the breathless stories about the Andrew business are largely regurgitated press kibble from the Obama campaign. Funny, that.
But the reporter doesn’t do any of those things. The ripe fruit is left hanging there, unplucked. As ever.
I’m sick in the head. I mean that literally: my head feels like somebody drilled a hole in my skull and filled my braincase with cotton wadding and brake fluid. The deal is, I’m on an extended tour of sleep-fucked-uppedness. I had some errands over the weekend that required me to actually leave the house during daylight hours, and from there everything just went straight to hell. I sleep for about three hours and then sit awake for thirty, stupefied from exhaustion but too brain-buzzy to settle down. I feel like a goddamn butterfly pinned alive to some kid’s bulletin board, staring straight ahead, feebly batting my little wings. Help.
All of which is just my way of explaining why I’m weirdly quiet during this epic week of betrayals, condemnations, renunciations, and wild reversals of fortune. The drama! It’s like the House of Atreus every day. You just know the TV people are wishing they could somehow rig up a live telecast of Obama and Wright in gladiatorial combat. To hell with debates. Hillary? Flatbed truck? Boo. Who cares about that shit? Let’s get Barry and Jerry to fight to the death!
But I’m in no shape to blow some proper blogular smoke about all this, not yet.
What I can do, though, is run a little survey on how people think this deal went down. Over in ‘bot land they’re working themselves up into a real tinfoil moment; the favored scenario has Hillary bribing Wright through her bag woman Barbara Reynolds, with the payout rumored to be $10 million and a part in Spike Lee’s next movie.
But there are other possibilities. Poll is after the flip (it screws up the home page).
So the Rev. Wright is all over the place now, explaining himself, defending his beliefs, proving conclusively that, why yes, he is a fucking moron. What interests me in particular is the way the press is covering this trainwreck. Wright’s insistence that Louis Farrakhan is a great man — “one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century” — is understood to be toxic because Farrakhan is anti-Semitic. Which he is, of course, but that’s not all he is.
Really, how many times have you read a piece about Louis Farrakhan that mentions anti-Semitism as his main flaw, or even his only flaw? I’ll bet a bunch of times. And how many times have you seen a piece on Farrakhan that nails him because he’s a goddamn raving misogynist who thinks women should be subservient to men in every area of life? I’ll bet almost never.
Mr. Farrakhan urged the women to embrace his formula for a successful family. He encouraged them to put husbands and children ahead of their careers, shun tight, short skirts, stay off welfare and reject abortion. He also stressed the importance of cooking and cleaning and urged women not to abandon homemaking for careers.
“You’re just not going to be happy unless there is happiness in the home,” Mr. Farrakhan said at the Mason Cathedral Church of God in Christ in the Dorchester section, not far from the Roxbury neighborhood where he was reared by a single mother. “Your professional lives can’t satisfy your soul like a good, loving man.”
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on April 28, 2008, 10:39 pm EST
I propose a Clockwork Orange-style intervention for all those deluded Obama supporters who still think Barry gives a rat’s ass about any Democratic values. A chair, some restraints, whatever those things are that keep the eyelids propped up, saline drops so the eyeballs won’t dry out. And we’ll force them to read this.
Think it’ll work? Or is there no hope?
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on April 27, 2008, 3:44 pm EST
Obama has not had any difficulty pulling white voters, per se. Where he can’t crack the nut is with the working class, whether they’re white, Latino/Latina, or something else — anything but African-American. The reason AAs are the exception is obvious: Obama has tremendous support from the entire African-American community, understandably so. AAs from every economic stratum support his candidacy. But if Obama weren’t black, working-class AAs wouldn’t vote for him either.
And no wonder. Working people need health care and Social Security, not a goddamn Unity Pony and a speech.
I’m moved to remark on this because the meme is circulating that Obama’s problem is that white working-class voters are all a bunch of Archie Bunkers who are too racist to vote for him. This meme is being pushed aggressively by the Obama campaign, especially after the huge Pennsylvania loss. Straight from Axelrod’s mouth to the pages of the New York Times, where it’s dressed up as thoughtful analysis.
The purpose of the racist meme is fivefold:
To distract from Obama’s real weakness — that he has nothing to offer working people and can’t get them to vote for him to save his damn life;
To excuse his failure by instead blaming the voters;
To imply that the only reason people vote for Hillary is because they’re racists, which just goes to show how nasty and icky Hillary is;
To subliminally remind people that the Clintons themselves are racists, at least according to the Obama campaign;
To once again mine the seemingly inexhaustible vein of white guilt that sends shivers up the legs of the liberal elites.
The constant repetition of the phrase “white working class” (or variations thereon) is crucial to propagating the meme. And it’s false, because it erases Latino/Latinas along with every other non-AA ethnic group, and shifts the focus away from “working class” (which is where it belongs).
So please, stop saying white working class. Don’t play into Axelrod’s game.
P.S. Similar thing with older voters.
Posted by Violet under Politics, Hillary on April 27, 2008, 11:13 am EST
