Letters to the Editor
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It really does lend credibility to all the right wing ranting about the tyranny of political correctness, etc.
The righties have their own version of political correctness too.
Recall Ari Fleisher telling Americans to "watch what they say" after Bill Maher made a perfectly accurate observation?
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The phantom edit, and Nader.
I'm sorry if someone already posted this -- I've only waded 10 or so pages into the backlog -- but could someone please post a video link to this rumored "longer" version of the Clinton-Jesse Jackson video that kicked off today's discussion? Or, barring that, a transcript? Much obliged...more information is always good.
Regarding Nader, since he seems to have come up a few times, I have to admit: Even notwithstanding Al Gore's many dumb tactical decisions in 2000 (running away from the still popular Clinton and his record, not sending Clinton to Arkansas or WV, not winning his home state, turning in two legendarily bad debate performances, etc.), I never understood the argument that Ralph Nader caused Al Gore's loss. Why would you blame the 2% of people who followed the process enough to vote third-party, rather than the 40% of people who didn't even bother to vote?
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Hope for SOME change
People have been "Whining" about the "Southern Strategy" for a long time.
The Democrats ONLY talk about race when it comes to getting things done in urban areas. It's like they don't know the address so they just say "Black neighborhoods."
If suburban Dems were a bit more sensitized and less terrorized by urban America, this probably wouldn't be quite as big a deal.
As is, eighties white flight soccer moms and nineties "security moms" are probably the most powerful force in the Democratic party. Unless this new generation is for real.
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kovie
And I'm not exactly clear how Obama has been supportive of the "War on Drugs".
Obama has a plank in his platform to end the drug war?
Kucinich did and Paul does.
But of course, they aren't "serious" candidates.
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Thank you Pointblank.
I used to write for a small town newpaper many years ago. We had better ethics then -- when if the local car dealership had pulled its ads -- it would really have hurt us. My old girl scout leader wrote for the local newspaper when I was a teen. She researched and wrote about one of the major government-economic scandals of the day.
Because she was a woman she did not get the Pulitzer Prize that went to her publisher, 'cause he had a penis.
There is not a single journalist I know of among the talking heads of the MSM today who had the ethics of that woman. Her writing cost her husband his job, cost her husband his life (suicide), and eventually cost her job. She was hounded out of town. Had it been a later era, she would have been rewarded with a steady income from Texas Monthly
Marge Carpenter, I remember you and I salute you.
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KcM
I never understood the argument that Ralph Nader caused Al Gore's loss. Why would you blame the 2% of people who followed the process enough to vote third-party, rather than the 40% of people who didn't even bother to vote?
Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.
The Dems had to have *somebody* to blame who wasn't a Dem, Nader was a handy whipping boy.
And of course, we always have to get through the "next election" by "sticking together" and *then* changes will come about in the
Dem party.
But there is always a "next election" coming up.
The parties are the two faces of the same plutocratic machine.
Good cop, bad cop.
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rosemary, n o.
you keep on scrolling, you don't like what you see.
i'm pretty sure it's as simple as you not knowing what it is you're looking at or hearing.
i take offense to what i just saw you say. but because you're ignorant, i'll scroll down from you myself.
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@KCM
I never understood the argument that Ralph Nader caused Al Gore's loss.
Then let me help explain it to you. What Sir Ralphie Ratfuck and his supporters (moronically insisting Gore=Bush much as they are moronically insisting Clinton-Bush now) did to us in New Hampshire alone would have made the Florida debacle irrelevant if they hadn't. 5 fkg electoral votes.
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@ Aycharaych
Libertarians and liberals are two different animals. There is nothing in liberalism that would indicate that drug laws would be out of place. Civil libertarians are different from libertarians, having a greater emphasis upon constitutional issues. There are also libertarians left and libertarians right. Ron Paul is a half-assed libertarian right. His notions on state's rights weaken his libertarian positions. The real libertarian position is "State? What state?"
However, to chat further would take this thread more off topic than it already is.
I apologize to all for that.
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Anony and Aychy
The idea that white people are obliged to prostrate themselves for their historical sins before the self appointed guardians of racial sensitivity
That's hilarious. I haven't seen any white people doing deep-knee-bends in my neighborhood, but maybe I'm just not moving in the right circles.
Personally, I love when someone reminds me that there are people out there so clueless as to suggest that whites are too guilty about the racial sins of the past...
And Aychy... you're like Rudy Giuliani talking 9/11 with the drug war shit. I really think we could be talking about, I don't know, horse breeding or something and you'd still find a way to work in a reference to the War on (Some) Drugs.
Ah well, they mocked Cassandra too...
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Anonymous
I am truly shocked and alarmed at how many apparently mentally functional people seem to believe this. It really does lend credibility to all the right wing ranting about the tyranny of political correctness, etc. The idea that white people are obliged to prostrate themselves for their historical sins before the self appointed guardians of racial sensitivity will be toxic to Obamas chances against the Republicans if it is seen to taint him. I have to say also that young white liberals seem far more prone to this thinking than black people, perhaps because black people lead less sheltered lives.
What the hell are you talking about? For one thing, unless you're black yourself, you have no place speaking for black people much less telling other people not to because they're white. I certainly wasn't, and I'd like you to tell me how I was. By accusing Clinton of engaging in race-baiting, I am speaking for all black people? Does that mean that a straight person who condemns Pat Robertson is trying to speak for gay people, rather than simply condemning a homophobic bigot?
And for another thing, by characterizing this as a comment by someone who dared go up against those awful thought control PC policemen by saying the truth that we're not allowed to speak of in public, you reveal yourself to a defender if not practitioner of racist thinking who tries to hide behind Rush Limbaugh-like protestations of how his right to free speech is being denied by all those awful liberals. Why don't you discuss his comments instead on their own merits, in the context of race relations in the US, rather than as a manifestation of the free speech vs. PC debate?
No one asked Clinton to "prostrate" himself for his "historical sins before the self appointed guardians of racial sensitivity". We just expected him to not do the exact opposite. Your attempt to excuse the latter by mischaracterizing it as complaining about his not doing the former is just plain dishonest, and thoroughly transparent. Are YOU "mentally functioning"?