Letters to the Editor
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thanks for the invite, XH
but honestly, oftentimes it simply is not worth the effort.
Especially when half of the time, you have to keep correcting what other people have said that you have said, but you didn't.
However, if I see a reason to jump in, I will.
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Where is this from?
For those of you who find my posts a bit grating, please skip to the end and help me locate the source of the interview clip. For those of you who can tolerate me, do the same without the skipping part, please.....
Not only does Joan make sure that I am never the first responder (not yet sure how she pulls that off), but now I see that she comes to the party whenever I go to sleep, denying me a chance to join in the robust interlocutions and swapings of research that goes on here. Not fair. Still considering unsubscribing. I hope that threat gets me what I want. Wouldn't it be great to see, first, the percentage of people who actually unsubscribe after threatening it to Joan and, second, the percentage of those threateners who are actually subscribed in the first place?
For the record, I don't think Obama is a snob at all and I don't think Clinton is racist. I think they each can get caught up in the tactics of the race and, therefore, will sometimes look slimy. But I'd put either of them in charge of my daughters elementary school in a heartbeat. My wish that Hillary had left the race already is not because I don't think she would be a massive improvement upon Bush (no brainer), but simply because it seemed clear Barack had gotten the numbers and I loved the idea of a democratic party that wasn't composed of too many people who "knew" what a greedy, immoral imposter Barack is...and, come on, there is no doubt that Hillary has been and still is hoping that more people see Barack in that light; to some degree that is understandable (she wants to win).
I recieved an email this morning with the following snip from an inteview transcipt with Clinton. Does anybody know where this came from? (kidding, of course)
Hillary Clinton: "My opponent seems to be weakening
in support among working class whites, white Americans
who work hard, or blue collar whites, or whites who
didn't finish college. They're white, and I'm white,
and they're supporting me. There was a story on the
AP, just posted, about this..."
Interviewer: "Are you saying that uneducated whites
won't vote for Senator Obama because he's black?"
HRC: "I'm not going to get into that."
Interviewer: "But that's what you seem to be
suggesting."
HRC: "I'll leave that to the voters."
Interviewers: "No, no. Wait a second. You're saying
that Barack Obama can't win the votes of low income or
blue collar white people, and that YOU can. You seem
to be implying that there is a racial, or racist,
angle behind their decision to support you and to
actively NOT support Senator Obama. Doesn't that
bother you, on some level?"
HRC: "What I'm saying-- and again, I think this is
borne out by the facts-- is that some of us are white,
and some of us are wrong. Wrong for America."
Interviewer: "Are you making a pun?"
HRC: "He's black."
Interviewer: "Okay, we're done here."
HRC: "BLACK!"
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one possible explanation
When you correct someone, but don't really address the point they were trying to make, you're not fostering good communication. You're obviously not interested in the ideas in the post...you're just trying to make points on someone you perceive as a threat to the "truth", and create a springboard for presenting your own ideas.
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Carol Richards
Did Hillary really say that? Why isn't she put in a straight jacket and hauled off to have her head examined? Are we watching the melt down of an exposed nutty person? Please somebody - tell her she is defeated and drag her away. I cannot believe that people are enabling her to misbehave so badly.
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to Joan, us, and all the nation...and WORLD
I've crossed some lines in regards to my communication to and about Joan. I don't think I've crossed any lines in regards to being fowl or inappropriate, but I've crossed those personal kinds of lines that we all know we've crossed by the way we stop thinking about it almost immediately after the crossing.
It seems to me we are entering a new phase in this primary and in the general election. I'll probably be hanging out in Joan's blog up till around election day (to some degree). I'll probably still go through phases of sarcasm in which I take the republican talking points to absurd extremes, trying to expose the warped logic they will be using to make us be afraid of Obama or to at least make us scratch our heads and be concerned about him as a person.
I expect that I will have less "clashes" (they were really anything but) with Joan once she is writing about the general election, but I don't doubt that our differing tendencies will cause me to wish she would lean towards various subjects more than others. Also, now that I'm learning what "trolls" are, I have no doubt that this comment section will have plenty of opportunity to keep dramatizing the list of who's naughty and nice.
But right now I'd like to just say to Joan that I'm impressed by how she does things on the whole. I probably wouldn't be saying that if for some odd reason the Wright story (as the media utilized it) had blown up and Obama had been buried by it; if that had happened I would have needed to do some major processing continuing to look at the underlying logic of why Joan wanted us to care deeply about that particular fact about that particular candidate. But even in that case, I don't think I could lose sight of why I respect Joan.
The volume of her communication with Salon readers surprises me. And here is a scientific fact: she does so with a massive degree of respect most of the time. In fact; almost all of the time. And even when she slides towards disrespect it seems to be only disrespectful in the way that I can actually really respect; like telling somebody they are a pain in her ass. It is not every major editor that lets their readers know exactly where they are feeling pain.
I'm not sorry for obsessively pointing out that I see no rational or evidence Joan's approach toward Obama and Clinton was all that fair or helpful. I wish she had written more about her guesses and hunches about what kind of leaders they would be in the white house, or why the media seems to go to such great lengths to ensure we don't read engaging articles that investigate how these two people make decisions and express their values in their actual work. And Joan argued back, saying that she does have a hunch that there is something about the worst Obama supporters that is...worse...than the worst Clinton supporters. She was even willing to acknowledge that she wasn't ready to say exactly why she had that hunch. That is not the kind of discourse you get from pure idiots. That's the kind of thing you hear from people with what I consider high integrity and courage.
But there will still be a lot of Joan hate written here: people will watch her concede things to McCain and question Obama in the general and they will "know" that it proves Joan isn't a good liberal or whatever. They will hear her make comments on Hardball that "prove" she is stupid or mean or arrogant. And some of us will have the tendency to defend her and so there will probably be no lack of personality arguements in the days to come.
My suggestion is that we keep doing our best to remember that we are all basically ignorant and nice and well intentioned. I want to take this little moment in our little primary pause to thank you folks on here who disagree with me but yet don't call me slut and who find me annoying yet don't use me as an example of why Hitler took power. And I want to thank Joan for having the ovarian veracity to come here day after day and learn how awful she is and yet be basically really nice to all of us. But, hey, please contact me immediately if Joan starts calling you bad names or making wild assumptions about what an awful person you are!
imeanitcommatotally at yahoo
seriously!