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Oh, so now we’re “Hardly Anyone”

Chris Bowers et al finally get it

Chris Bowers et al finally get it

I found this link to Avedon (the blogger, not the famous photographer) that thinks it is astonishing that very few bloggers have blogged about Matt Taibbi’s piece on Goldman-Sachs:

I do find it kind of strange that hardly anyone aside from Lambert and Susie Madrak have treated Matt Taibbi’s blockbuster on how Goldman Sachs and their little friends run the world with much seriousness. Even Randi Rhodes apparently prefers to talk about Michael Jackson. I mean, come on.

Well, at least he/she hasn’t accused us of racism- yet.  It’s still early and since the vast majority of those accusations come from people who hang out or near Corrente for some strange reason we can’t quite figure out, it’s just a matter of time before the misinformation spreads.  I see that this Avedon person has a bit of a correction and acknowledges that we were actually cognizant of Taibbi’s piece.  But Avedon is hardly the only person who conveeniently doesn’t know about us.  Take this little piece I found linked at Susie Madrak’s place the other day.  It’s from a site I’ve never heard of before called Scholars and Rogues.  The author of this post, bonesparkle, complains that the Democratic party isn’t listening to progressives and has this nifty, new idea that “hardly anyone” has ever heard before:

Playing along isn’t working. So how about rounding up all the members of the Progressive Caucus (and their many allies around the country) and opting out? Leave the Democractic Party. Form a third party of their own (or just join the Greens). All of a sudden the Democratic Party has a numbers problem. All of a sudden they lose majority status, chairmanships, agenda-setting stroke, etc.

Whoa!  That’s novel.  One might even call these people, oh, I don’t know, Democrats in Exile!  Since they’re self-proclaimed “scholars”, it wouldn’t be prudent to call them PUMAs.  Too many working class people call themselves PUMAs these days.  Work with their hands.  Nasty bitter old racist hags.

The author of this post seems to think Chris “I’m a Whole Foods Shopper” Bowers is some kind of leader on this front.  I hate to bring this up since Bowers may sincerely be seeing the light but perhaps bonesparkle hasn’t seen this little bit of Bowers’ unintentional self-parody.  Oh, yeah, Bowers was drunk on the grape flavored beverage and fuzzy goo-goos.  it was nauseating, especially for the true creative class members- such as myself {{sniff!}}

Why am I bringing this up?  I guess I’m feeling a bit like Dan Froomkin these days.  For Dan, the world of journalism was so blind-sided by the Bush administration, it couldn’t function properly.  Dan was practically the only accountability journalist at the Washington Post.  When he proved to be correct and then started aiming his fire at Obama, he had to go.  He just wasn’t staying in the lines.  He was an embarrassment to all of the journalists who had accepted the new consensus reality.  Time to erase him from memory like some disgraced Roman dignitary.  He’ll go away, no one will mention him anymore, nothing to see here, move along.  The duped will go on as before.

The left has also accepted a form of consensus reality.  Obama was the change agent, er, except that he’s not.  Now, what do the once sycophantic Whole Foods crowd do?  Well, they still have to pile on the PUMAs and call them racists, even though they were simply a year ahead of everyone else saying “why buy the cow when they’re getting the milk for free?”  While the so-called “A-listers” were celebrating the changing of the guard, we were telling them Obama wasn’t going to listen to them after the election because he didn’t have to.  They were making it all too easy for him to ignore them because they weren’t demanding anything of him.  Did they listen?  No, they did not.  And we’re still here, an embarrassment to them.

So, when they’re not making ridiculous accusations of racism against us, they are forgetting our name.

Not a very propitious start to a movement that bonesparkle thinks is so badly needed right now.

One more thing: About the acetomenophen thingy, it has been well know for *YEARS* that as few as 4 extra strength tylenol can cause permanent liver damage.  Acetomenophen and aspirin are responsible for a lot more serious side effects every year than Vioxx or Phen-fen ever were.  It’s just our perception of them as safe, over the counter drugs and widespread use that keeps them from being yanked off of every shelf in America.  They were approved by the FDA back in the day when the clinical trials were a lot less stringent.  One of these days, I’m going to get around to writing a series of posts about how we got to the point where we can buy dangerous drugs without a prescription but prevent people with serious diseases like rheumatoid arthritis from buying prescription drugs with a much cleaner safety profile.  Eventually.


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124 Responses

  1. RD:

    You probably haven’t checked Avedon’s blog this morning because she started with this:

    A post with links

    My apologies for missing out on Riverdaughter in the short list of liberal bloggers who are paying attention to Matt Taibbi’s article on The Illuminati Goldman-Sachs

    The post was there early this morning CET

    I think it was clearly an oversight for which she apologized.

  2. No, I saw it and I even mention it in the post. My point still stands. We are invisible to a vast majority of people who are just coming around. We’ve been here, we saw what was coming.
    We get virtually no recognition. This avedon creature is still hanging out around Corrente and apparently doesn’t know we exist. Same with bonesparkle. Chris Bowers? I mean, really. CHRIS BOWERS????

    • Avedon Carol is on our blogroll (The Sideshow)

      But we’re not on hers.

      • I’m shocked.

        • I was shocked when Susie said that she had subscribers threaten to cancel if she didn’t take us off her blogroll.

          Then I remembered that something similar happened right here.

          • Ahhhhh censorship rears it’s ugly head again. what is it that makes people afraid of opening themselves up to different opinions and ideas? I mean if you aren’t mentally feeble then surely it isn’t too hard to sift fact from opinion and then use them to draw your own conclusions.

      • and there really were an awful LOT of blogs listed on that gosh dern blogroll. What gives?

        I also noticed that Avedon chose to say “Riverdaughter” rather than specifically mention TC in her afterthought post (though the author did put in a link, at least). :-/

      • Um, you only had to ask. As everyone who actually reads my blog knows, I’m continually struggling over the blogroll and finding it hard to handle. But communicating with me with something more friendly than unearned insults would probably have been the better course.

        • Thanks for letting us know, Avedon. I DO hope things work out between the blogs, if there is just misunderstanding going on regarding blogroll lists. As Democrats in exile… TC, Riverdaughter, & crew have been disparaged, disowned, and deep-sixed by many bloggers and writers from the liberal wing, which you probably know about already…and I believe therein lies the seed of the sentiment. As an avid TC and RD supporter/admirer… I also respect that you came to the thread to address the issue.

    • It’s like talking in meetings where 5 minutes later some guy repeats what you just said and viola! it’s a great idea!!

    • Confluence is the Casandra of blogs.

      Sad for her as she got no credit when she was alive, but her name has lived for over 2000 years. Just saying.

      djmm

  3. I wonder if this explains Paul L.’s recent freakout? He knew what was happening and could even have posted his thoughts here, but instead he chose to hang out with the crowd that was still hoping to get in with the kool kidz. Are some of the smarter ones starting to realize they will never be accepted by the A-list blogs because they once supported Hillary?

    • I’m still just fine with being awake and aware and on the outside of the consensus reality crowd.

      • The reality-based community is a lot smaller than it used to be. It it wasn’t for us it would have been a ghost town

      • Me too, BB. It’s just that the ones who are still getting recognition don’t really deserve it.
        It’s a merit thing.

        • I know, RD, and I’m glad you wrote about this. We need to keep reminding them and never let them forget that they had a choice.

          • BB…

            I think that is their problem now. They had a choice. They ignored the facts. REAL facts. They abandoned every principal they ever had to “Feel” good. Now, that they “SEE” what what we saw, way back when, they don’t want to be reminded that they were taken for ………………….SUCKERS!”.

            Creative class and scholars my ass! Even a blind, deaf, albino bluesman would have noticed the flies swarming around Obama’s line of “Feel good Doo-Doo!”

        • Being consistently wrong about everything of importance will get you invited to join the Village – with a high paying job even.

          Being right appears to be its own reward cuz it don’t pay squat.

    • I’m not sure what caused Paul L to freak out. I’m not sure that it is Paul L. It’s just so unnatural.
      Personally, the r@cist shit is getting really old especially after all we did last year to purge it from this site.

      • RD..

        It seems that the “racist” tag is all they have now. They believe by shouting it long and loud enough, that we here will be cowered!

        Never!

        They can call me whatever they like as long as they acknowledge that we, here at TC and other place were RIGHT!

        Using the racist mantra was old the first time they did it. No matter what or who you “Purge” it will never be enough for the likes of them RD.

        We just need to keep on trucking.

      • I think the accusations of r@cism will get worse because it’s their way of avoiding that they are the r@cists. They are the ones who couldn’t look past skin color.

        As Obama is revealing his true colors, it’s pretty damn obvious that we were the ones who could judge a man on the content of his character and not skin pigmentation. And they hate us for it. We possess the quality they so greatly desire, yet escapes them.

        • I could not have said it better myself GXM

        • gxm17:

          “accusations of r@cism will get worse because it’s their way of avoiding that they are the r@cists.”

          YES!

          but instead of him showing “his true colors” … I see Obama’s deathly pale white skin emerge, as the full moon rises over the 7 miles stretch of Transylvania Ave. and citizens watch as the blood is sucked out of our safety net.

  4. Speaking of dangerous drugs that you can buy over the counter, alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs ever. It can damage and even destroy the liver and it can kill in countless other ways.

  5. ‘morning all… can I stand on the street corner now and start screaming, “I told you so – I TOLD YOU SO!”

    • You can but in they’re not going to hear you. Or if they *do* hear you, they’ll never admit it.

  6. Clinton urged Obama to talk tough on Iran

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged President Obama for two days to toughen his language on Iran before he did so, and then was surprised when he condemned Iran’s crackdown on demonstrators last week, administration officials say.

    Behind the scenes, the officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing internal deliberations, said Mrs. Clinton had been advocating the stronger U.S. response, but the president resisted. When he finally took her advice, the aides said, he did so without informing her first.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/01/clinton-urged-obama-to-talk-tougher-on-iran/

    • You mean he ‘s *not* a team player who gives credit where it’s due?

    • There’s lots of folks to clear stuff with before he can ” react” . And he’s not gonna inform Hill about taking her advice because by the time he does it, her part in it is forgotten! lol!

    • Why am I not surprised?

    • “When he finally took her advice, the aides said, he did so without informing her first.”

      Ugh! he is such opportunistic jerk-wad!

      Those aids better watch out, as I’m sure Astroturf Axelrove is probably spying on anyone remotely near to Clinton. Ick!

  7. Btw there is still a site called Progressives For Obama. Yup, you read that right.

    Actually I want them to stay around. I’m only aware of that blog because Black Agenda Report has been mocking them mercilessly and relentlessly for more that a year.

    Here’s one of their last shot:

    As of this writing, the Progressives for Obama website still exists, a relic of Left delusion that should have died of embarrassment months ago. Barack Obama has, indeed, grown in the presidency – but not into the FDR-like figure of his leftish supporters’ imaginations.

    Should we laugh or cry about people who are so deluded?

    • It’s sad really. But feelings of compassion will quickly subside when the wake up and claim they’re the only ones that woke up and how no one could have ever known, etc., etc. Bunch of asswipes.

    • That was the blog that all the old SDSers and Weathermen participated in. They must have listened to Bill Ayers.

      • I must have a really sick sense of humor because I find that absolutely hilarious. LMFAO.

  8. That acetomenophen thing HAS been around for years (But I’m THRILLED it’s finally getting attention again). I remember when I first heard about the hazard — I could be wrong but, I think it was before the Tylenol Scare. It wasn’t long after. (Maybe it’s just that it happened before I became “bitter”)

    And I know I read/heard that combining acetomenophen and asprin was especially dangerous. Maybe to the kidneys?

    When one of my nephews was a teen he broke up with a girl friend and swallowed a bottle of Tylenol (thinking it was the equivalent of swallowing a bottle of asprin) and it just about killed him.

    When you consider that the dangerous level is so close to the recommended level — it’s a story that can’t really be publicized enough.

    I’d love it if you could write a whole post about this issue!

    • Oh no!

      I just read the NYTimes article about the ban of Percocet and Vicodin: I smell a lawsuit MABlue v Beth Israel.

      After I had a surgery last year, I was sooo much in pain the Med staff gave me tons of Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin. I actually had a lot left because I hated to take my meds.

      Is there a lawyer here?

    • RD – I’ll second KB for a post on the tylenol/aspirin subject. I take a narcotic for pain. The one with aspirin is very expensive, with tylenol it’s dirt cheap. I’ve refuse the tylenol combo for years, even though it’s pushed at every appointment. This will give me some ammunition.

      Aspirin doesn’t scare me so much. When I first got RA my mom bought it in bottles of 1000. I’ve been all the way to biologics for treatment, if my stomach would take it I’d go back to aspirin in a heartbeat.

      • I have had good success with low dosage aspirin.. the coated ones …. Keeps my pain at bay pretty good. if I take a regular aspirin pill however, my stomach is torn up for at least two days

        • My days of washing down 4 aspirin with a can of Coke are long gone! I have to make sure I take my med. with lots of milk or a full slice of bread.

    • Acetominophen is safe in the recommended dosage. The problem is that various pain or cold/sinus meds have it as an ingredient. So people take those, then take tylenol in addition to it, because they didn’t bother to read the labels to see they were ALREADY taking Tylenol.

      People also exceed the recommended dosage on purpose, thinking it’s “harmless”. I am old enough to remember when Tylenol was a prescription drug.

    • The biggest problem with Acetomenophen and especially narcotics that contain it is that people who take too much to get high end up with liver failure and go to the head of the line for a liver transplant. People with chronic liver disease who have been on the list forever are trumped because drug induced liver injury is lethal. No time to wait. They die within weeks without a new liver. This move by the FDA is a good thing.

      • If they live long enough. If the tylenol overdose is high enough, and there is even a little delay in seeking treatment, there tsn’t much that can be done. They just die.

      • It depends. If they took an overdose deliberately, or were an abuser, they don’t go to the head of the line. And if they are uninsured, fuggedabouit.

        One of hubby’s patients, a young girl in her 20’s, died just a couple of weeks ago from liver failure from a Tylenol overdose. He spent 3 days trying to get a transplant hospital to take her – none would. Of course, she was also uninsured, but that was not (wink wink, nod nod) the reason they wouldn’t take her. They had no beds available – nope, we’re so sorry, not a one.

        “No beds available” is the usual answer he gets when trying to get hospital care for an uninsured patient. Funny how so many more beds magically appear when that patient is insured.

        • WMCB – What I wouldn’t give to have a doc like “yours” again. Right now I have two that are both in the middle of midlife crisis and little tin god syndrome.

          It breaks my heart to hear about that young woman.

          • Oh, he’s got an EGO, and can be an ass, but he’s a damn good diagnostician, and passionate about medicine. Many of his patients call him “Dr. House”, which is an overstatement with a grain of truth – LOL!

            He’s sometimes a bear to get along with, and administrators and lazy docs don’t care for him, because he will go to the mat for his PATIENTS, not just himself or his colleagues, and fearlessly. Insurance companies hate him, because he impatiently tells them to fuck off and does what’s best – on a regular basis.

        • WMCB:

          “she was also uninsured, but that was not (wink wink, nod nod) the reason they wouldn’t take her.”

          that is F**ked up! (sigh, poor girl…)

    • Good Morning, All!

      I recommend two fascinating reads:

      “The Aspirin Wars” – Money, Medicine and 100 years of Rampant Competition
      by Charles C. Mann & Mark L. Plummer
      ISBN 0-394-57894-5

      and

      “The Social Transformation of American Medicine” – The rIse of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry
      by Paul Starr
      ISBN 0-465-07934-2

      Anyone interested in health, pharmaceuticals and the politics of public health will enjoy these.

    • Acetomenophen has been around for a long time so the date is probably very reliable. But my mom took Vioxx for a short time and it worked great for her and she had no side effects. When Vioxx got yanked, the replacement drug didn’t work as well and nothing else we tried ever did.

      • JinB – Ketoprofen might be an option, if she hasn’t already tried it. Works well for me after several other nsaid’s quit and I’ve been on it 15 years at the max dose.

    • Overdosing on Tylenol can kill you, but it’s more likely to leave you with cirosis of the liver. It’s not a good way to go.

    • Liver toxicity.

      • Tylenol overdose can also cause severe brain damage. A friend of my sister’s tried to kill herself with Tylenol and she had an agonizing death.

        Here’s a story about a young girl who ended up brain dead from an overdose–and not a massive one.

  9. This is good for a laugh. Now, it turns out Sanford has “crossed the line” with several other women, but “not the ultimate line.” He also wanted to bring his wife to meet his mistress. And he’s out there talking about it all–this guy has lost his marbles.

    South Carolina’s Sanford Admits Additional Liaisons
    Governor Says He ‘Crossed Lines’ With Other Women

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124637653450373933.html

    • And he’s out there talking about it all–this guy has lost his marbles.

      Exactly why he’s not fit to stay on. He’s losing it more by the hour. He’s been so ham fisted, I think he wanted to be found out , at least subconsciously….

      • It seems like the more men talk about cheating “geez – life was so hard with my mean wife but I feel really bad to let everyone down” the more sympathy they end up with. I suspect we will soon see his wife turned into a mean, bossy, evil woman that DROVE him to the comfort of this other young lady.

        Think about any cheating scandal in recent time – politics or celebrity. The guy gets the sympathy as long as he didn’t hire the girl friend.

        • The sympathy quotient seems to depend on whether an R or D follow your name . When a R is found with his pants down, we hear about how his family needs privacy to “heal” . I have never seen the MSM well up with such human kindness than when a R is caught in the nookie jar.

      • Gah. BTW, I know that conventional wisdom is that female politicians rarely cheat, and I’d bet that many fewer do then the men do.

        But I’d also bet that a lot more cheat than we know about . I just think the women have sense enough to be discreet, to end it quietly and quickly, and are not so stupid as to risk all for that entertaining roll in the hay.

        I think female politicians do cheat, at least sometimes, but are mostly smarter about it than the men tend to be.

        Just my opinion – no proof whatsoever.

    • I spent an age the other day looking for an article I’d seen sometime last year.

      It was a short interview with Rev. Wright who was describing how, when Obama was first elected to the Ill. Senate, there were parties thrown for him where he would be literally leaped upon by women of all shapes and sizes. They couldn’t get enough of him-there were groupies everywhere. It was wild.

      Of course it had been scrubbed.

    • I wonder if he means he had oral sex but not intercourse?

      • Depends on what your definition of “is” is. Or, maybe he “lusted in his heart.” Could be those foot taps were just a “wide stance.” Or, he coulda been just hiding in the bathroom cuz the kid is not his son, she’s his daughter.

  10. Why am I in moderation?

    Spammy lemme out Goddammit!!!

    • Comrade Spammy can be like that. Or sometimes I suspect it’s a nervous breakdown. I suspect the front pagers aren’t feeding Spammy proper nutrition — i.e., sodas and snickers bars just won’t cut it. 🙂

  11. The netroots was incredibly racist to start with then they started listening to ignorant Third Wavers who are wrong half the time because they aren’t intersectional i.e. they think like men of color which made criticizing sexism of Obama’s campaign or criticizing anything about Obama “racist” and this alone elected Bush III.

    • And Susie, Corrente, Avedon and PLukasiak were part of the netroots.

      It’s frustrating because I’m with relatives who think Obama is 100% fine. He’s brilliant on high speed rail, climate control, etc.

    • dd,
      do you have any term for a feminist that is generationally a 3rd waver but not a close-minded, privileged (anti-2nd wave feminist) jerk like a lot of them seem to be?

      I’m almost 40 (gen X) and so I think that categorizes me as a 3rd wave feminist but I don’t share their opportunistic, ageist, & sexist attitudes. I really don’t know how to accurately classify myself – any suggestions?

      • You’re just like me! I call us Fourth Wavers or feminists. Third Wavers are Third Wavers, faux feminists, “feminists”, gender sellouts, patriarchs, mullahs, Failbots and a host of creative names PUMAs use I can’t recall right now!

  12. Of course, there was the sexist media, the DNC and rigged nomination, Axelrod/Plouffe/Emanuel/Obama, the netroots/Third Wave but Obama would not have been elected without the netroots/Daily Kos/OpenLeft/Yglesias/Ezra Klein, etc..

    • Yes-a number of them put in an amazing number of hours -for free. Some even paid for things like campaign headquarters from their own pockets.

      • And underlying media/netroots elite, you have the fear of powerful women like in Jay Cost’s RealClearPolitics article last Thursday. Jay Cost is afraid of women:

        Is Sarah Palin Running for President?

        First, her negatives are very high.

        Second, she’s the governor of Alaska.

        We’ll see what she does, but I think it would be a real stretch for her to run for the presidency in 2012. I think she has enormous political talent, and that she was treated unfairly last cycle (though that’s the breaks in politics!) – but I just don’t think she’s well-positioned for a run next cycle.

        Clinton and Bush were governors before becoming President and Clinton of a small state. Her negatives are high? That sounds familiar and it’s because of the sexist media. Those are the breaks? You mean the historic misogyny last year?

        • Yea, love the high negatives meme like we heard with Clinton. They throw dirt and hate non stop and they say she’s “controversial” or has nigh negatives because they worked hard to make it so. Bottom line, we’re scared of someone outside the system or who has scary lady parts, and when it’s both we’re just going to pee our pants.

          • the Obot/media Hillary refrain: “She’s so divisive!” Repeated ad nauseam while B0 went on his merry way driving democratically inclined Democrats out of the party, making race relations more strained (imo), supporting astronomical levels of public misogyny, and basically putting our Constitution on the chopping block.

            Yep, that Hillary Clinton sure is divisive…

          • High negatives and divisiveness is entirely of the media’s making.

  13. I find it funny that being both male and black is not quite enough “street cred” to get me a pass on the “bitter racist white woman” meme. Oh well, who am I to argue. If that is what I have to be to be a PUMA then I guess there is going to be some sort cosmetic surgery and hormone therapy in my future. 🙂 Just kidding.

    “Say It Loud, I’m PUMA and Proud!” A PUMA is a kind of “Panther” and it makes feel good that my mom and I were Black Panthers together when I was a little boy and now we are Black PUMA’s together now that I am a man!

    Never let that “racist” BS shake you off of your truth. We are a diverse group with no “anti” anything agenda. Well I take that back, we are pretty “anti-koolaid.” And “anti-sexism.” But, the things we are accused of being are reflections of our detractors, not of us. And it is a scam to intimidate you into shutting up.

    W2 is showing his true “colors”, and I in no way mean race. I mean, as he continues to show his corporatist colors, his ambivalence towards LGBT’s colors, his phony solidarity with blacks colors, his sellout to the healthcare status quo colors, people will start to criticize. And they will be as shocked as I was to find out they they are racists too.

    • comment of the day! Keep the faith Ron.

    • Ron I’m glad you’re only kidding about the surgery and therapy, lol! And from Black Panther to Black PUMA – I like that!

      You know I’ve been thinking a lot about this “ra¢ist bs” coming from whites, and I suddenly realized, that even though I have lived in a predominantly black neighbourhood, had black neighbours, black acquantances, the kids had black playmates … I never had black friends!

      So noone ever told me the things I now learn, by reading blogs and listen to blacks tell about ra¢ism as they/you experience it – things I had no idea about! So who am I to tell what is ra¢ism, not only being white but also never had a black person so close to me, that s/he would be comfortable telling me about it?

      And I wonder: Does any of those whites, who so eagerly toss the ra¢ism accusations around themselves have black friends? What do they even know about ra¢ism? And who are they to judge/accuse!

      Just wondering.

      (Not that I accept the ra¢ecard being played by blacks either!)

      • You know, for years I objected to the term “race card.” I felt that it was an overbroad generalization whose main purpose was to mislead people into thinking that any objection to racial discrimination was really just a calculated tactic. Imagine my horror when I saw the way race was used in the 2008 election. It was precisely what I had been saying for years was right wing propaganda.

        How lucky for me that they were accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton. I might have missed it otherwise.

        Now I still believe that lots and lots of self serving groups, still dismiss real objections to real racism as “the race card,” but 2008 was an eye opener.

        I was truly stunned when black people began spreading the lie that he Clintons were racist. I honestly thought that large numbers of blacks would call BS. I mean if Bill Clinton is a racist then the term has no meaning whatsoever. I couldn’t believe how many friends were ready to believe it and repeat it. I was equally shocked by how many in the MSM, who had prevsiously been extremely skeptical to most if not all claims of racsim, were happy to run with “Racist Clintons.’

        In a way,and I don’t mean to over dramatize it, it is a vilolation of a sacred trust to claim racism for gain, when you know in your heart it isn’t true. It breaks faith with MLK and Malcolm X and Thurgood Marshall, et al. The way I was raised you never back down in the face of racism, but you never “USE” a false claim of racism to smooth your way. NEVER.

        What is funny is I can not tell you how many times I was approached by the followers of “He Who Must Not Be Middle Named” with the appeal, “C’mon man, he’s a brother.” Hmmm. No shame either. “C’mon dude choose based on race alone. Even though you clearly prefer another candidate and you have doubts about the dudes experience, don’t vote for whitey, vote your color!’ I won’t even get into the black elected offical pressured, bullied and threatened.

        Not exactly Dr. King’s dream is it.

        I have said all of this to say, I can’t tell anyone anything about racism any more. My thought and beliefs have been so rocked by recent events and I am figuring out what I believe afresh.

        • My thought and beliefs have been so rocked by recent events and I am figuring out what I believe afresh.

          And that may be a good thing for us all that we have to dig deeper and re-figure this stuff out.

          I think the superficial stuff many of us have surfed on has been, well, superficial. You need to dig deeper. For example, some old codgers I’ve befriended here will be more open about superficial stereotypes of ethnic groups and races, but when you dig deeper you don’t find any hate. Whereas with some younger liberal friends who are all patronizing and politically correct in the worst way, if you dig deeper they are full of ignorance, and deep fears of the “other”. Apparently people are complicated or something. 🙂

        • Yes, we are all diverse and I think we should shed the “bitter racist white woman” meme.

          It’s only a corner to be coraled into. When in fact we are all people who don’t like being pushed and emotionally blackmailed.

        • This is a magnificent thread of discussion. I’ve always wished a well-monitored board existed where race could be intensely and intelligently discussed.

          Ron4Hills said “I have said all of this to say, I can’t tell anyone anything about racism any more. My thought and beliefs have been so rocked by recent events and I am figuring out what I believe afresh.”

          This is where I am too. It’s like a cultural quake and things are shifting under our feet.

          And I’m a bit concerned about that amorphous white middle who voted for Obama, like the ex-Klan member who was quoted in the media rejoicing at his redemptive vote for BO. If Obama turns out to be as bad as it appears he’ll be, I’m a bit fearful there may be a backlash among those who banked entirely on his perceived blackness. These are the folks who truly can’t see past color and if he’s a complete failure, they may hang it on the entire AA culture.

          • The amorphous white middle made several miscalculations:

            Black = Pro UHC.
            Black = Pro Choice.
            Black = Pro Gay Rights.
            Black = Equal Right for Everyone.
            Black = Pro Union.
            Black = Anti-Unconstitutional Surveillance.
            Black = Anti-Unconstitution Detention
            Black = Anti War

            Turns out Black = Black and that is about it.

            Don’t judge a black by his color. To the good or to the bad.

            I hope that there are no backlashes of any kind. We need to move forward, not “lash back.”

            I really hope that the vicious misogyny leveled at Gov Palin won’t cause a backlash so much as an awakening where people on the left and right say, “Wow, this is unacceptable.”

            That’s a lot of hoping, huh?

          • “Turns out Black = Black and that is about it.”

            It really is that simple, isn’t it!

          • Ron4Hills, Your posts have been great today, thank-you. I was really rocked by the primary too. If BC could be labeled a racist, it meant two things. One that the name-callers were not working from a base of reality and integrity (hint, hint, voters–that’s B0 showing us who he is), and two, that real racism would be obscured amongst all the phony claims, and/or people will become uninterested or hostile to real racism because they’re angry about the false claims (which BC and HC both endured, as we saw.)

            I tried to tell my white friends that if they voted for B0’s skin color thinking it signified something about his character or principles or his allegiances, they were making a big mistake and going against all real data. They voted for him, and though they’ve never called me a racist to my face, my (more than a decade long) friendships have practically dwindled to nothing.

    • great comment-we must stop believing our labeling.

      (pearl stringed panty wetter is me-just joking)

    • But, the things we are accused of being are reflections of our detractors, not of us. And it is a scam to intimidate you into shutting up.

      Yup we knew this is what the race-baiting was about all along.

  14. RD! This is great. I hope you do end up writing that last bit. Major point there! Gee remember when drugstores were simpler? How many types of Tylenol are neede actually? Geez.

    On the rest, RD I have a huge theory on something that really pissed me off as the headlines flashed by yesterday. It was this Sullivan over at the Atlantic and Camille Paglia over at Salon.

    RD — it occurs to me that Gay is the new Patriarchy! Seriously.
    After reading that piece about te Palin as “horror” and seeing the pix of Palin pregnant? I thought, geez. MIQ is right on that whole v. dentata deal he was writing! Surely the idea of that would scare the bejsus out of Sullivan, no? I mean he must have emerged from one once I daresay…

    As for Paglia, that salon piece proved, well, dripped with rage at Hillary. Fuck. Well of course. As a lesbian, who punched out guys in her past? Hmmm…She couldn’t stand that Lewinsky stuff…

    Anyway, pumas I know grew up with gay friends?
    In our part of the boom, and the puma-y people are still buds around here at the Conf. No problems…

    But, why the rage at straight women? Straight women in power?

    Hmmm……

    Hmmmmmmm……….

    ?

    Anyway check out these two pieces — MIQ was on all this before his time, geez. it took yesterday to make it all click for me or something.

    !

    Fuck.

    We don’t need any more patriarchal crapola from the gay set….

    Nope. Don’t even go there, babes….

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/palin-the-horror.html
    http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/01/10/hillary/

    geez!

    read their wiki pages and you get a whole sense of why they might hate straight women!

    LOL!

    the phallus figures in here someplace?

    But?

    LOL!

    go PUMAS, GO! We know who we are!
    geez MIQ. Who knew? ‘cept you!

    • It’s a mistake to attribute Sully’s pathologies to gay men generally. Gay men, and women both straight and gay, have pretty much suffered equally from the patriarchy.

      Which is not so say that there aren’t gay men who cozy up to the patriarchs for power or protection. Some do. Sully’s one.

    • Paglia and Sullivan are patriarchy straights in feminist & gay clothing….Just like Obama is a white republican in black liberal clothing.

      Paglia and Sullivan don’t represent the diversity of the GLBT community… just the way Obama does not represent many AA’s in real life experience or how he does not represent many real liberals.

      It is the cynical intelligentsia playing shell games with us and co-opting (and then ruining) the image of large, diverse, & legitimate groups of people.

      • thanks madrigal & okasha s.

        this is making it all clearer, somehow. Madrigal you are onto something huge, here in this bit — see, I as worried about gains that have been made, esp with what just happened in CA on prop 8 deal?

        this admin is not exactly cozy to bboom tail ender issues, so far — esp with that Rick Warren deal and everyone wonders, you know?

        all us liberals….with friends we care about. Madrigal, you called it.

        “cynical intelligentsia playing shell games”

        there was DIRECT target-marketing, no? very much so……for GLBT on that page……..

        thanks & hugs

        • yes, totally “DIRECT target-marketing” going on! 😦

          I wish I still had the link to an article on how Obama & Axelrove hired all these social-engineering and psychologist academics (early in the primaries) to basically target & manipulate as many constituency nook-n-crannies as possible.

          And NO…they are definitely not “cozy to bboom tail ender issues”! (or to bboom & older for that matter)

          “Out with the old and in with the new”, seems to be one of their common themes.

          Hey, why do we need aging people at ALL with their wisdom and life experiences. Why not just go back to principles of Logan’s Run and have everyone die at 30 to make it easier for the ruling class?
          (obviously being snarky here)

          His enabling the breaking down of the separation of church & state is creeping me out too. :-O

          hugs backatcha, Valentine
          (hugs are good therapy in troubled time)

  15. Great post, RD. These morons have to live with themselves and that must really suck.

  16. I like your comparison to Dan Froomkin, RD, but I tend to agree with Bob Somersby on why Froomkin was canned: he criticised the coverage by his fellow journalists, regardless of administration. Froomkin was supposed to understand that, as a journalist, one is never allowed to criticise other journalists. PUMAs criticised those we believed were fellow liberals by criticising their blind adoration of Obama without examining the facts. The herd mentality of the A-list doesn’t allow that, so we are now Democrats in Exile.

  17. R.D.thanks great info.throwing my tylenol away.(hugs)

  18. Some people think that Clinton would have been any better? Obama’s failing because he surrounded himself with Clintonites and acts like he was adopted into the family or something.

    And perhaps his best foreign policy act so far was to stay out of the Iranian situation; he should have continued to stay silent. It wasn’t what the press made it out to be. Moreover, a democrat meddling in the domestic affairs of another nation is no better than a republican doing the same thing.

    • Clinton was a Democrat perhaps a centrist Democrat, liberal Democrat or even a progressive Democrat. We don’t know. Obama is a Republican. He’s worse than Bush on the economy, civil liberties and GLBT issues. That’s why Bush is quiet. He likes what Obama is doing.

    • Re: “Clintonites”

      Repeat slowly after me….. a wife is not the same person as her husband. She is not a mere extension of him. I know that’s difficult for you to comprehend. She actually has her own separate identity and could pick her own cabinet to fit the current realities, and EVERYTHING!

      I think Bill was a good president, but Hill could kick his ASS on that score, given the opportunity.

      • wmcb, let’s not forget that most of those “Clintonites” Obama put in his cabinet supported him not Hillary. That should shut down that little piece of Opropaganda.

  19. Drop it. People come here to be comforted. Who gives a fuck about whether you get you credit. Appeal to our emotions. Give us a reason to come back.

    No one in the future who picks through these archives will ever think this was a racist site.

  20. I don’t understand the high dudgeon over Avedon Carol not mentioning your blog as one that covered Taibbi’s book.

    Conflating that with all the Hillary hate and PUMA, racist stuff makes little sense whatsoever.

    You may have missed it, but the Sideshow was one of the oasis’ that a Hillary supporter could go without fearing that they’d be dumped on.

    I can understand feeling slighted. I don’t get the full flame mode deal.

    • Sideshow is on the sidebar here-it wasn’t a full flame mode, it was an observation.

      • Even if you choose to ignore the long, very public, history involved, it was at best an ungenerous “observation.” At face value, it was a rather nasty hit piece on one of the few leading bloggers who had the nads to challenge the conventional wisdom, and who has taken a large hit for it; and it was apparently written in the throes of pique at not getting mentioned in someone else’s blog.

        How this is generally handled, by people not demonstrating a kneejerk assumption of bad faith and a swollen sense of entitlement, is by a private e-mail with a link pointing out the post that you feel the blogger may have missed.

        Which, parenthetically, Avedon is unusually good about acknowledging in her blog.

        If you need bona fides that I’m not dismissing you because I drank the kool aid, I refer you to both Landon and Susie, who I discussed the situation with in person during the primaries.

  21. I see that nothing here has changed; you’re still a bunch of think-skinned, petty idiots. And just a clue for you: It wasn’t your refusal to support Obama, it was your leaping to support Sarah Palin, that did you in with me — and most likely the rest of the blogosphere.

    • Of course it was our refusal to be blinded by Obama, that got you. The mention of Sarah Palin is just a sexist bit of flim flam that makes you feel superior.

      And BTW admit that you’re speaking for yourself alone.

    • Very few PUMA’s actually supported Palin, in truth. Most of us, however, defended her with vigor when she was attacked with outright misogyny and sexism.

      Would you “support” Colin Powell or Michael Steele, despite your disagreements with them, if someone were making watermelon and fried chicken jokes, and writing songs about hilarious lynchings? If you call yourself a liberal, I would hope so.

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