As long time readers know, I have been searching for a unified theory of race card players.
It seems too simplistic to view people like Chris Matthews as liars. It’s not that they lie about facts, it’s that facts are irrelevant. Everything becomes racist or at least a racist dog whistle, based solely upon the political advantage to be gained.
It’s what’s so maddening.
Thanks to Sneaky Pete in response to my post this morning, How not to raise legal ethics issues as to a candidate, for pointing me in the right direction.
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit:
With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not.
Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
NSFW in case you were wondering:
Which brings me to this:
With the predictable reaction from Atlantic Wire:
The woman herself called it an Obama Phone. Drudge didn’t give it that name. The vast right wing conspiracy didn’t give it that name. Romney didn’t give it that name.
Why in the world would she think it was an Obama Phone? (h/t Instapundit)
And why would the woman think that all the poor and disabled people in Cleveland were getting free Obama Phones?
One million people in Ohio now get free Obama Phones.
The woman is right. They’re getting their free Obama Phones, and they’re voting Obama.
The racists are the liberals who deny this woman her truth because she is black and the imagery, in the mind of liberals, is not helpful.
She’s got an Obama Phone and she’s proud. Deal with it.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Off topic: Folks don’t need to worry about the Massachusetts senate race anymore. I shook Scott Brown’s hand today and wished him luck, so his victory is now assured. 😀
I have a good feeling about Scott. I just sent for my second Brown t-shirt. The first one never arrived. I’m not sure I’ll ever get this one either. Lousy service he contracts with.
That said, I can’t stand the word “folks”. Obama has made it cringe-worthy for me forever but I’m glad you shook his hand.
On the other hand 51 years ago I shook Teddy Kennedy’s hand in Boston at the Copley hotel. I was attending a wedding and he was at a campaign event. I was 16 years old and a Kennedy fan.
Joan was standing next to him and complemented me on my dress. I thought did they think I got dressed up for them?Even I wasn’t that much of a fan.
Well, my cousin’s marriage ended in divorce after the husband strayed. Teddy? Unfaithful?
The program has been around for well over ten years. It was apparently used by American Indians and for Katrina victims, even before this. The program was apparently amended recently but it was around well before Obama was elected.
http://www.universalservice.org/li/tools/rules-orders.aspx.
And it was used to help people who actually needed the assistance instead of being a tax supported vote buying frenzy.
Many things were around before Obama was elected. Things like following the Constitution but, hey… it’s a new day in America.
Go back to troll school and this time pay attention.
Do you know what the “universal service fee” is? Do you know how it is spent? Read on:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/your_universal_service_fee_at_work.html
Oh… Well then… It must be OK then, right?
You do realize that you’re invoking the ubiquitous “Bush did it” defense, are you not?
Let me be clear, in case you’re a little cloudy on my perspective on the matter.
The government has no right, no duty, no justification to reach into my pocket and appropriate my labor such that someone else that either does not work or refuses to work can enjoy a luxury item free of charge that I myself have to pay for.
If they want a cell phone, they can get off their asses and go earn the money to buy one themselves. Otherwise, they can send smoke signals or raise carrier pigeons, or pound sand as far as I am concerned.
That goes not only for their cell phones, but for their rent, their food bills, their utilities, their car payments, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
If flipping burgers at McDonalds or pouring coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts is beneath them, then I do not wish to pay for their telephones to discuss same with all their other useless layabout friends.
Good day, sir.
Turf……you, I and 53% of the country share the same sentiment. What happened to “earning”? Back in the eighties I was working at the local pizza establishment and going to community college. the “welfare queens” would come in once a month, on cue, and demand that I fill out their unemployment “searching for work” tipsheets. I would, each time, give them applications and ask them to fill them out before I would sign the tipsheet. of course, they were black and I am white so it was a big old “you is racist” moment. I’ve dealt with this attitude since 1985 and I am sick to death of it!
The fact that the phone program pre-dated Obama’s presidency does not change the fact that he has vastly expanded the program, and changed its name (to his own, of course) on government websites. Obama is using my money, and the money of everyone else who pays a phone bill, to enhance his own electoral prospects.
I wasted about half an hour earlier today arguing with some liberal fool on another site, who kept insisting that the “free” Obama phones and the “free” minutes are paid for by the telecommunications companies, so there are no taxes involved and everybody should be happy! (Apparently, she either does not pay a phone bill, or she pays one without ever bothering to wonder what the “universal service fund” charge is for). These are the same dopes who think that health insurance companies are paying for all the “free” contraceptives, abortion pills, colonoscopies, and mammograms mandated by Obamacare. How do we battle this degree of ignorance? It’s so frustrating.
Do you have any proof that was a government website?
There is no doubt that obastard’s purpose in beefing up the freebie programs to blacks is to beef up his turnout in November. On this there is no question.
But what is in question is how productive this effort will be for obastard. If blacks demonstrate their usual lack of gratitude for fulfillment of their blatant parasitic demands, turnout won’t amount to much. Maybe throwing in a pair of Nikes on our dime would up his chances.
What Jimbo is sayin’,Yo, is that Drudge’s massive wacism is Jorge Booooooooooooossshhh’s fault. Jimbo, be massively sharp,’Yo.
Jim1 is spreading the Bullshit to hide the lies…Is he doing it knowingly or unknowling ? Either way he is just helping in spreading the Bull Shit…
Bet you only saw a charge of a few cents for it on your landline or cellphone bill until 2008, then Obama expanded it to include cellphones, and they started advertising it. It is called the Universal Service Fee, tacked on to the end of the bill for anyone that has a phone, landline, or cellphone. Look at your bill champ, it’s there, and it’s going higher every few months.
The same claim about Obama phones was made in 2009:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/obama-phone.shtml.
Do you know what the “universal service fee” is? Do you know how it is spent? Read on:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/your_universal_service_fee_at_work.html
Here is one “lucky” recipient of your tax dollars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio
Keep working. The 47% depend on your tax dollars.
“It’s not that they lie about facts, it’s that facts are irrelevant. Everything becomes racist or at least a racist dog whistle, based solely upon the political advantage to be gained.”
Sounds like your search for the Grand Unified Theory of Race card playing, is over 🙂
I got one of those Obama Phones. It looks nice, but it doesn’t “work” either (much like its namesake).
This election is shades of 1936 and ’40.
FDR inherited a bad economy, his excuse to start socializing/nationalizing everything in sight. This leftist tinkering made everything worse. Little known fact: things were picking up DESPITE Roosevelt, when New Deal policies caused an a crash bigger than 1929, in ’38.
FDR’s opponents: hapless and clueless, especially Wendell Willkie, who had no excuse for losing in 1940.
I fear Obama is the Dems’ long-awaited FDR II; Romney, just the latest in a long line of Willkies.
The difference is that Roseveldt liked Churchill.
Eleanor Rooseveldt despised Churchill & saw him as a great threat to her control over FRD.
In contemporary terms Churchill= Netanyahu . Obama is safe to take Cameron to a ball game in Ohio & eat hotdawgs . Because Cameron is a twit.
I haven’t had a phone for a few weeks now. I’m still alive.
One day last month I had lunch at a table outside on a beautiful sunny day at an outdoor mall in Little Tokyo. I started walking back to work when, not more than a couple blocks away from the mall, I realized I didn’t have my phone.
I ran back and it wasn’t on the table. I figured I must’ve absent-mindedly thrown it into the trashcan a few steps away from the table when I tossed my napkins, etc.
As I dug through the trash looking for my phone, my hands becoming covered with God-only-knows how many germinating germy microbes, a security guard approached and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he handed me his cellphone and I dialed my number.
Not only did it not ring inside the big trashcan, some woman answered it and when I said, “Excuse me, I think you have my phone,” she barked, “No! No! My phone! My phone!”
LukeHandCool (who feels ashamedly racist for having let that woman steal his phone … but who is nevertheless sure she’ll vote for Luke if he ever decides to run for any office).
I’m just impressed that you knew your own phone number. I never call myself so I have to keep the number written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.
Besides, I never give out the number anyway. If I did people might call me and I hate phones. When I retired I turned the phone off. One of the really great things about being retired is not having to talk on the phone.
A-f**king-men, my brother. I hate a phone. It is nothing but an electronic leash, a tool of slavery, and worse yet, self-inflicted.
The minute I hit the afterlife, two people are getting knocked on their asses first – Alexander Graham Bell and whoever invented the tie.
Haha. My kid & I were at the doc’s & he didn’t know his number to put on the form . He asked me mine so as to ring me to find out. I did not know my own either.
I only use my $30 phone to call & boast to friends & family sitting in offices when I reach a mountain top on a hike.
Otherwise I keep it turned off in case someone bothers me.
Get thee to your garage and flog yourself in the most hideous manner imaginable for your thoughtless deed of asking for your phone back, you vile and disgusting racist, you.
Turfmann fervently hopes that Luke Hand Cool had the presence of mind to first call his carrier and cancel the service to that number, and then to call the local authorities to report this theft, and then to report himself to Attack Watch for his crimes against the state.
Shame on you, sir.
I swear to God, turfmann, the woman who answered my … err … “our” phone, sounded a lot like the Obama phone woman in the video.
Call the local authorities? Ummmm, no. When I got back to the office a few minutes later, at LAPD headquarters, my coworkers had a good laugh when I told them what had just happened and almost each one asked me if they could personally take my stolen report so they could have fun writing the narrative.
That stuff never gets recovered. So, even though I work at LAPD, I didn’t file a report. But don’t do as I do! Haha!
I tried calling my cellphone a few times more from my office phone, but she had obviously wised up and didn’t answer any more (Funny, she seemed like a reasonably reasonable lady to me from our limited interaction.)
LukeHandCool (who is now out the door upon his wife’s insistance that he get a new phone today … but who has grown somewhat comfortably accustomed to being unreachable to his wife … especially when he needs his quality time alone).
https://www.mobiledefense.com/
can lock/buzz/locate phone.
since mine also hits my exchange mail server (exchange 2010) I can remote wipe it.
There’s an app for that. Install and then report it missing. Your phone will scream like a banshee until the battery dies… and it can’t be turned off or muted.
SoCA Conservative Mom who is not racist for using the term banshee because she’s 3/16 Irish, or at least that’s what dad always said.
“she’s 3/16 Irish”
Sure that’s not 1/32? ;-p
How many Romney ads does it take to counter nearly $250 million in Obama campaign phones? But Ohio is Romney’s.
Good to know, isn’t it, that every time you pay your phone bill you’re kicking in another dollar or so to the Obama re-election effort.
A few months ago I commented:
That behavior now holds well beyond the Warren campaign. I see it in the lefty blog I belong to: on the spot they concoct a ludicrous pretext to disregard an unwelcome report, and they treat that pretext as definitive. People on the site who try to keep the facts straight are ganged up on by their fellow leftists.
I had heard of the madness of crowds of course. What took me aback was how flimsy the pretexts are (among people who consider themselves intelligent) and, especially, how quickly—how reflexively—it happens.
[…] Legal Insurrection, a review of On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt One of the most salient features of our culture is […]
I believe that as originally proposed the recipient of the government paid for land line phone had to show both financial need and exigent circumstances such as a chronic medical condition to prove they needed 24/7 access in their home instead of the pay phone at the convenience store down the block.
Not it’s socially unjust not to have the latest iphone.
$75 million in one year and just for Oiho? Do they make toilets that big?
I don’t have a cell phone. I live in one bar land. I’m single. My closest relative is a 1st cousin I haven’t seen in 30 years, though we do talk once in a while. I keep in touch with friends via e-mail and social media so I probably use my land line twice a day on average. On the rare occasion I take more than a day trip I buy a disposable to keep in touch with my neighbors who are looking after my critters.
Jay-Z don’t need no stinkin’ phone!
Rapper Jay-Z, who recently held a fundraiser that raised $4 million for President Barack Obama’s campaign, said he was just not that into politics.
He could have been speaking about Obama, but the rapper said he had to support Obama because he “is the first black President ever.”
Intellect is a wonderful thing, ain’t it?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/09/29/Jay-Z-Just-Not-Really-Into-Politics
RE: Unified Theory of Race Card
Professor J,
Maybe the following definition from Merriam-Websters online will help:
fas·cism
noun \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Definition of FASCISM
1
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Does that sound somewhat like a particular candidate for U.S. Senate?
Does that sound more like one of the major American political parties than the other?
Also, to help clarify some definitions on the way to a Unified Theory:
rac·ism
noun \ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\
1
: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
big·ot
noun \ˈbi-gət\
Definition of BIGOT
: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
prej·u·dice
noun \ˈpre-jə-dəs\
Definition of PREJUDICE
1
: injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights; especially : detriment to one’s legal rights or claims
2
a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge
b : an instance of such judgment or opinion
c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics
ste·reo·type
transitive verb \ˈster-ē-ə-ˌtīp, ˈstir-\
Definition of STEREOTYPE
1
: to make a stereotype from
2
a : to repeat without variation : make hackneyed
b : to develop a mental stereotype about
— ste·reo·typ·er noun
Examples of STEREOTYPE
It’s not fair to stereotype a whole group of people based on one person you don’t like.
There are actually very few racists around anymore. In fact the most common racist sentiment one will encounter is when sports fans or sports commentators assert that a particular black athlete is a “natural” talent. I am sure that most successful black athletes work very, very hard.
The second most common stereotype in modern American involves people from the western side of the Pacific Ocean and either 1) academic achievement or 2) the operation of motorized vehicles. The latter is almost always primarily racist, the former is often split between a stereotype of the racist variety and a stereotype of admiration for hard work/”reverse bigotry.”
Not very common, but still floating around is describing a black person as articulate. White people don’t get described as articulate very often.
Now, there is still quite a bit of bigotry and stereotyping in American. But, it tends to come more from people who view other people as members of a group than as individuals.
Politically speaking, almost all the bigots and stereotypers that I know are Democrats. I mean it. Take Vice President Biden (then Senator Biden) for example, with his description of President Obama (then Senator and Presidential Candidate Obama). Biden said clean, articulate, good looking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgIFV7jXBFQ
Many “liberals” feel that certain groups of people in this country just can’t be expected to hack it and need government (and labor unions, although the Davis-Bacon Act was actually motivated in part by a desire to exclude black construction workers). Liberals who think like this are engaging in what President George W. Bush called, “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Indeed, much of affirmative action is based on
stereotyping. For years, I advocated that if affirmative action is to be implemented, it ought to be done on income/wealth grounds, not skin color. I went to a prep school with minority classmates who were nothing short of rich and privileged. Some of them were even dynastically wealthy. They may have suffered some occasional slights, but they were not disadvantaged.
So, while true racism is fairly rare, stereotyping and some bigotry still exist.
I was going to make a crack about Professor Warren and the unlicensed practice of genealogy and phrenology, but then I double-checked the definition of phrenology and physiognomy and I am not sure her “high cheek bones” remark fits either of those disciplines.
Thank you for On Bullshit, Sneaky Pete. I have just purchased a Kindle edition.
Might be of interest to see what the website obamaphone.net now looks like. The Screen Grab depicted in this Legal Insurrection blog post has now been replaced with a well scrubbed, hide the propaganda angle website with a chess board as the header visual. Surprised the site is not completely pulled down and even scrubbed from all the mirror wayback machines as is ussually done with anything damaging to barry…Maybe by tommorow…I also saved the original screen grab thursday when I first checked out obamaphone.net.
e
I’ve patented a new app for the freebie i-phones that The Boy King be given the folks: The Victim App..! And, it obviously workin’ goooood.
Whatever non-contributory entitlements we decide are desirable and necessary, it is of paramount importance to control the progressive corruption that redistributive change policies engender.
That said, the offering of luxury products and services as non-contributory entitlements cannot be justified while there are homeless Americans. It cannot be generally offered as it sponsors corruption. It cannot be justified as a general policy to offer an incentive for progressive disengagement from a productive society. There are a very small number of individuals who are involuntarily incapable of productive endeavors. The goal, ideally, should be the rehabilitation of individuals who momentarily falter. The offering of non-contributory entitlements cannot be offered to compensate for displacement of Americans by legal immigrants and certainly not by illegal aliens.
An “Obama phone” is simply a “shiney thing”
…designed to cancel the vote of the informed-a stake holder.
10 cell phones at a time….paid for by the informed stake holder…
I live in Michigan, and I know my vote will be negated by a Detroiter that cannot even read the ballot, let alone understand….anything.
Why the hell do those who work have to pay for those who don’t?
What are you, some kind of racist?
We always spend so much time determining why a campaign or candidate said or did something. Forget about the “why!”
Obama’s campaign means to do what it can to harm Romne’s efforts and everything Obama’s campaign does needs to be viewed in that light. This is not football with rules, it’s hardnosed racketball with permission to bash each other freely, in the sense of fair play.
Romney’s campaign needs to do just that itself, only not in the guttersnipe way that Obama’s does. Romney’s campaign needs to hit back twice as hard, with good clean chops to his opponent’s campaign efforts, plus hit out at Obama’s many defects and problems.
A good political fighter does so not to score fencing points but to win the hearts and minds of us, the voters. Romney needs to stick to the issues and layout his goals, his way to pull our country out of the hole Obama has put us in.
Make it a win for America, Team Romney / Ryan / USA! 🙂
The above is all true.
However these people will want more than a phone to get up & vote.
They got dem sum pride ! They are worth more than that.
The flights of factual fancy taken by the Chris Matthews of the world, specific to racism in this case, are the result of people whose emotional needs overrule their intellectual assets. Chris Matthews is certainly smart enough to see his own blatant racism, if only he could observe himself objectively.
Matthews is a bone-deep liberal, a position that insists on certain narratives with which this readership is familiar. Those narratives are not supported by the facts. That’s a problem of internal inconsistency for Matthews: his heart (emotions) tell him that conservatives *must* be racists, that anyone who opposes any halfway reasonable minority candidate could only do so out of racism. His intellect knows this isn’t so, that there are minority people with whom he himself doesn’t agree (Allen West, Thomas Sowell, et al) and that his disagreement is based on policies and politics, not race. So, from this we know that Matthews is fully capable of understanding that people can disagre with Obama based on policy, with Obama’s race irrelevant. So why doesn’t he?
Because of his emotional death-grip attachment to liberalism and its primary tenet of rampant racism of anyone white against any minority, excepting the Chosen Few – his fellow white liberal elitists. The liberal vision demands this tenet be true, and damn the facts and evidence. Matthews’ and other liberals certainty of being right creates out of thin air racism not otherwise present. It HAS to be there. If it is not overtly evident, it is only because of the skill of the racists in obscuring it, those bastards, and once again, the Chosen Few, the white liberal elitists, are there to point the way.
Matthews’ personal politics are based on emotion, not intellect, and his emotional needs overrule intellectual abilities that would otherwise expose the flaws in liberal tenets. E over I = Insanity, if not literally, then E over I = Internal chaos, a decent description of Chrissy.
Matthews is also noted for what appears to be a considerable ongoing baseline of anger. Two causes:
Cognitive dissonance – at some level inside he is aware that placing emotional need in primacy over intellectual reason doesn’t work. Watch Matthews explode at anyone who points it out or even hints at it. (He doesn’t have any insight into this internal mechanism).
Pulpitrude – A term I made up for the guy who gets very angry when he’s doing his best preaching on what he knows is the Truth, and sees there are people who inexplicably refuse to accept it. In Matthews’ case, this is most often (or most easily) explained by… racism.
All political sets have these guys on their margins, but only the liberals put them front and center on cable TV.
Dallas Morning News has endorsed Mitt Romney for President. No joke. 9/28/12, “We recommend Mitt Romney for president,” Dallas Morning News.
If people think they are getting a bribe for a vote, although the candidate blatantly is taking credit for something someone else paid for, why should the technicality of the candidate’s dishonesty as to the source of the bribe be relevant.
[…] William Jacobson has much much more on this at Legal Insurrection. […]
Counselor, I’m pleased that you appreciate Mr. Frankfurter’s work.
However, I intended it to apply to the simple example of Ms. Warren and her personal determination to ignore the facts slapping her in the face.
And here you go and apply it to the entire bureaucracy of the FCC who have conspired with the President to flout the law and flaunt their ability to get away with it – because AG Holder is an enabler, and whoever the Inspector General of the FCC is, he’s now hiding under his desk.
TG for the FCC is David L. Hunt and I’m sure Jimbo Clyburn’s daughter Mignon (FCC commissioner) keeps him under wraps. I attended the Univ. of SC for one glorious year and recall Mignon being pretty radical and full of hate for the white man. Like father like daughter.
[IMG= http://transition.fcc.gov/commissioners/clyburn/%5D
[…] Legal Insurrection completely dismembers this line of idiotic thinking. […]
I love that Atlantic stuff. In the companion piece
we get these two statements.
Okay, it’s not racist on its face to interview the lady.
Wait, what?
Interviewing a black person isn’t racist, but deciding to interview a black person is racist?
As the professor said, that’s bullshit.
they must not have watched the video. So was everyone else (except one person) in the field of view
Can you imagine the economic usefulness and intellectual rigor of the phone conversations that lady has with her government-subsidized cell phone?
“Shut up, Voltaire, I want to hear what that lady has to say?”
Do you think Alexander Graham Bell would have forged ahead had he known the use to which that lady would put his device?
To be fair, the conversation began with “Mr. Watson–come here–I want to see you.”
I guess I was wrong. Racism is alive and well in social media!
A Pulitzer Prize winning commenter at the Washington Post just posted a piece about a study of racist content in social media directed at President Obama and First Lady Michell Obama.
Some of the things cited in the Washington Post piece are rather nasty and actually fall within the correct definition of the word “racist.”
The Washington Post piece makes no mention of the long history of invective hurled at American politicians. Abraham Lincoln was depicted many times in very debasing ways, and not by only Confederates and those who favored slavery.
And, the Washington Post piece makes no mention of Michelle Malkin’s recent post calling Jason Biggs (of American Pie) a misogynist.
According to one portion of Ms. Malkin’s piece, Mr. Biggs (now with Nickelodian) and his actress wife sent out various tweets. Ms. Malkin describes it as follows:
The Nickelodeon TV star joked about digitally sodomizing GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s wife, Janna, and sexually degraded Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, by referring to her body parts in a similar pornographic manner. He also mocked Christians and their faith. Wrote Biggs: “Clint Eastwood talking to a non-responsive stool sorta sums up Christianity in a nutshell, huh Republicans?”
Biggs then publicly re-tweeted (shared) his actress wife, Jenny Mollen’s, own misogynist jab at Mrs. Ryan: “People are cheering off screen because Janna Ryan is showing her t*ts.”
The Washington Post piece fails to mention any of following:
the vitriol hurled by the likes of Cher, Ellen Barking, Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L. Jackson.
the sharp contrast between how Muslims need to be handled with kid gloves when it comes to editorial cartoons but Mormons are fair game in plays like The Book of Mormon.
the use of racial and gender stereotypes by comedians and commentators of all different sorts of backgrounds, including Cosby, Twain, David Chappelle, Ice-T at the Roast of Hugh Hefner, H. L. Mencken.
Could it be that some social media tweets and posts do not reflect the sentiments of the person who posted them at all, and that they are attempts at hyperbole and over the top commentary?
Hasn’t Mitt Romney been receiving some anti-Mormon jabs and could not a commentator assert that “Religious Bigotry Could Sway the Election” instead of “Racism Could Sway the Election?”
But, the sickest part of the piece is that it strongly implies that Americans, who voted Mr. Obama into office, are actually a cesspool of racists and bigots, and implies that many, if not a majority, of the people who are not fond of the Obama Administration are motivated by racism, bigotry, and hate.
Would it be fair to say that the overwhelming majority of the people who are not pleased with President Obama and his administration also would have been displeased with a John Edwards presidency? And, that an overwhelming majority of the people who are not pleased with President Obama and his administration have not brought up the topic of race at all?
The Washington Post piece can be found at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-racism-through-social-media/2012/09/28/3ddb1c86-0966-11e2-a10c-fa5a255a9258_print.html
IDENTITY POLITICS SATIRE / PARODY
[Author is Jewish and heard/saw Louis Farrakhan speak at Cornell].
Jew Who Posted Farrakhan Video Online Deemed Racist
On the heels of the Obama Phone video controversy and a commentary in the Washington Post that the presidential election might turn on racism, an anonymous Jew is being condemned from all sides after posting online a video excerpt of the Reverend Louis Farrakhan’s “never again” speech in which the Good Revered declared that saying “never again” about the Holocaust doesn’t mean a thing when God slams the door to the oven shut.
At first, Jewish leaders thought the video was being posted by an anti-semite who supported the Good Reverend’s remarks. Then, after discovering that the person who posted the video was Jewish, many Jewish leaders said that any Jewish person who would post such a video must be a self-hating Jew.
The anonymous Jew who posted the Louis Farrakhan video is currently being called a racist by Spike Lee, Harry Belafonte, and the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, because it turns out the Jew is not self-hating and actually lost many relatives in the Holocaust and has videotaped the historical accounts of relatives who survived the Holocaust.
The Jew who posted the video agreed to speak with us only on conditions of strict anonymity because he was afraid that Spike Lee would tweet out his address. Earlier this year, Mr. Lee tweeted out the address of the neighborhood watch aficionado who has been charged with the second degree-murder of Trayvon Martin. An elderly couple who had nothing to do with the killing was driven from their home, in fear for their lives, when it turned out that Mr. Lee tweeted out their address instead of the address for the defendant in the Martin killing. Mr. Lee has not been charged with inciting a mob or reckless conduct. It is not believed that Mr. Lee has apologized to the elderly couple or offered to compensate them.
The person who posted the video said that he did not even realize that Lewis Farrakhan was black, he just wanted to let the world hear Mr. Farrakhan in “his own words.” “Frankly, Lewis Farrakhan looks an awful lot like one of my relatives who died in the holocaust. Same hair part, same complexion, and they both had a fondness for bow ties. I am not accusing Mr. Farrakhan of being a ‘self-hating Jew.’ I did not think he was Jewish because he is a reverend. I simply assumed that he was another racist, bigoted American of non-Jewish European descent.”
This explanation carried little weight with Reverend Farrakhan, who called the anonymous Jew “a racist kyke.” When reached for comment, Mr. Lee called the anonymous Jew a “racist cracker” and asked for his address. Reverend Jackson said, “that Jew should go back to Hymie Town.” We have been unable to reach Reverend Jackson against for clarification of whether “Hymie Town” means New York City, as he famously called it 25 years ago, or some other location such a Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa.
Harry Belafonte’s remarks are unprintable.
Ward Churchill called the anonymous Jew “a little Eichmann,” and asked for his job back at the University of Colorado, which just won a victory at the Supreme Court of Colorado which upheld a lower court’s ruling that the University did not act improperly when it fired Mr. Churchill.
When asked how he would vote in the presidential election, the anonymous Jew said that he would vote for Barack Obama. When asked about the intellectual consistency of being opposed to Lewis Farrakhan’s comments about the Holocaust but voting for a president who many people feel has not been sufficiently supportive of the State of Israel in the face of existential threats of wiping Israel of the map and denying the Holocaust by Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the anonymous Jew said, “I am Jewish. If I don’t vote Democrat I am going to face even more accusations of being both a ‘self-hating’ Jew and racist against black people.”
Similar stories that are being investigated include a lifelong white Democrat who voted for President Obama in 2008 because of party affiliation, but who is now voting against President Obama because the Democrat lost his Chrysler dealership under the Obama Administration’s auto bailout, and a study that shows that white Democrats who are biased against Native Americans show only 96.875% of the support for Elizabeth Warren as do politically correct white Democrats. Elizabeth Warren is 1/32nd Cherokee or Delaware Indian. The former auto dealer is being accused of being 100% racist and the white Democrats who are bigoted against Native Americans are being accused of being 3.125% racist. Of course, white Democrats who vote for Obama are only 50% racist and all Republicans are racist, even if they vote for Obama.
Elsewhere, a poll of Republicans finds that nearly 100% of Republicans consider Winston Churchill to be a more significant historical figure than Ward Churchill. A similar poll of Democrats found that more than half did not know who either Churchill was, and that over half of the remainder did not know one of the Churchills or the other. Of the remaining minority of Democrats who were familiar with both Churchills, 87% believe that Ward Churchill was the more important figure on the issue of fighting racism, discrimination and bigotry. A follow up poll of Democrats will compare Winston Churchill and Louis Farrakhan.
The Obama Administration called Winston Churchill a chauvinistic colonialist and offered Ward Churchill the position of Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
We will keep you posted on the story as it develops further. Spike Lee, Ward Churchill and Reverend Sharpton is scheduled to appear on Cornell alum Bill Maher’s show. Reverend Sharpton is scheduled to appear on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow or Chris Mattews. Cornell alum Keith Olbermann has not announced any guests.
Chelsea Handler will have the Kardashians as guest to discuss their efforts in sticking up for both blacks and Jews in one recent episode of the Kardashians that can be found here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtwftu_chelsea-lately-kardashians-spinoff_news
and
http://www.hulu.com/watch/405511#iundefined,p6,d2
[…] (She’s got an Obama Phone, and she’s proud. Deal with it.) […]
I guess my satire was unnecessary or very on point. Turns out that there are media reports that Amazon is coming under fire for selling a 252-piece puzzle for children showing the ovens at the Dachau concentration camp.
Assuming the story is not fake, and ignoring the creepiness of a Holocaust concentration camp jigsaw puzzle (just the gift that every kid wants for Channukah, Kwanza, or Christmas because an XBOX or Wii would be way too fun), I guess the question would be who would put forth such a product and why?
Would it be someone trying to educate about a horrible historical event and not make a profit, or someone trying to celebrate a horrible historical event?
I felt that learning about the Holocaust at the age of six in Sunday School was a little too young. So, my wife and I tried to shield our kids from 9/11 and the Holocaust until about third or fourth grade.
The story can be found at numerous sites, including a link from Drudge. I have not been able to find out anything further about the puzzle.
The following link is dead:
http://www.amazon.com/Crematorium-concentration-Bavaria-Robert-Harding/dp/B0080WYSR6
And the following links provide little additional information:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R12CFX5Y7C7Q1E
http://www.timesofisrael.com/german-politician-slams-amazon-over-dachau-puzzle/
For the main story, see:
http://www.france24.com/en/20120930-amazon-under-fire-over-nazi-death-camp-puzzle
http://www.smh.com.au/world/amazon-under-fire-over-nazi-camp-puzzle-20121001-26ukd.html