Whatever happens works for me. I ain't gonna get blamed. At least not by black folk. For the Clintons are uniquely, inexplicably popular with blacks, which completely defuses the bomb, and is something I presume the righty who wrote, blinded by Clinton-hatred, is incapable of seeing.
Now an Edwards nomination, rich Southern white-guy, might be more of a problem for Democrats. And Obama losing to McCain or Huckabee in the general, will I suspect it will be very obvious who kept Obama from the Presidency. My inner Leninist is licking his chops.
The bigger problem is the white Democratic Obammers with the whirlpool eyes. They WILL BURN SHIT DOWN.
I'm for stuffing Jonah full of green cards, too, and using him as a pinata. (I mean, this isn't about immigration, but if we've got some left over after Dobbs...)
You kill Obama and we will BURN SHIT DOWN. You don't vote for him over a Republican and you probably deserve the country you get.
Also, Goldberg & Reynolds are big fat racists.
I think ogged and Greenwald are making an unjustified leap here. Goldberg probably isn't talking about black people at all - he is just talking about Barack Hussein Obama's Muslim supporters.
Why aren't those "BURN SHIT DOWN" t-shirts actually available for sale? I want one.
"BURN SHIT DOWN" t-shirts
I feel like we're already going too far to normalize the thought of killing the guy.
The whole BURN SHIT DOWN meme has gotten me really interested in learning about the history of the 1968 riots that took place in our neighborhood. I've ordered some books about it and will probably write them up once I'm done.
I did some riot research in college and the prof was toying around with the idea that the biggest predictor of riots were warm but not hot temperatures in the early spring or summer. If it's snowing, no one's pissed off enough to bother bundling up to riot, and if it's oppressively hot outside, no one wants to BURN SHIT DOWN.
"BURN SHIT DOWN" t-shirts
Everybody's so tough. When did everybody get so tough?
I feel like we're already going too far to normalize the thought of killing the guy.
Right, I guess, but jeez, what a buzzkill.
I was like all flashback been there done that in '68 2-3 years ago.
I have been worried that exactly this situation would arise, a young inspirational anti-war candidate, and worried about how that insurgency (hee-hee Obama?), how that 18-yr-old poll-worker is gonna feel as Hillary makes her acceptance speech. Or the left blogosphere.
But it's all good. Those disappointed direct-action anti-war movements of 67-69 rechanneled their knowledge & skills into environment, identities, local and Congressional elections. I expect the same in a Hillary Presidency.
This line:
And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?
from the latest David Brooks column bothered me in the same way. The rest of his comments on Obama were less obnoxious, but what was this line? Hinting that a vote for Obama must be motivated by white guilt and tokenism? Maybe he's doing the expanding temporal horizons thing that ogged was talking about -- in the eventuality of an Obama victory, he'll be able to say that of course Obama won, after all, Americans wouldn't want to put down the black guy.
12: That's the sense I get. If Obama's strategy is to build some massive 58-60% mandate to push his agenda through, then counter that by saying it isn't a real mandate at all.
There's nothing whites fear more than the thought of inner-city blacks rioting and burning down their own blighted, de facto segregated neighborhoods. People like David Brooks bolt awake at night in a cold sweat at the thought of all the smashed windows of the currency exchanges, liquor stores, and coin laundries on King Drive.
Hinting that a vote for Obama must be motivated by white guilt and tokenism?
Plus being stupid under-30s.
Plus being stupid innocent and idealistic under-30s.
In fairness to Brooks, David Duke was polling 25% among Iowa Dems until Obama announced. I think that white guilt is the only plausible explanation for what happened on Thursday.
Having spent years talking about how Bush won because of the votes of people who think Jesus Hates Fags, and/or indulge in other assorted Bedwettery, along with rampant cheating, I'm not really in much of a position to complain when the other side whines about the motivation of the marginal voter on our side. "Wah, wah, wah -- elections have consequences."
I think that any one of the three Dem candidates will lead to a uniquely fucked up campaign from the Repubs and press.
Clinton - continued intense press hatred and both coded and open misogyny. [and the fact that these last two have been engaged in to some extent by "progressive" Dems is the most disturbing development to date.]
Edwards - press corps & repubs crying Class War & hypocrisy. Coded Breck girl feminization narratives.
Obama - Its going to be all about coded race narratives—as we see already. "Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations", white guilt. FEAR!FEAR FEAR!
My other sad thought is that both Clinton & Obama would be at great personal risk during the campaign & while in office. (Any president is to some degree, of course.)
On a more positive note, the fact that Obama is a front-runner after Iowa and a woman is being put down for being the establishment candidate are certainly signs of the trajectory of increasing mainstream social acceptance of blacks and women in positions of power in this country. (Neither would have been anything more than marginal in the 60s or 70s.) This campaign is going to let us see how far this has really gotten.
Second verse, same as the first!
No Dem victory can ever be legit, so we hear screwy things like how Dems only win because of NY and CA, or because they get all the black votes, etc. Blue states aren't "real" states, black votes aren't "real" votes, and people only vote for Dems because they're stupid and/or get tricked into it.
And you know what? Fuck 'em. Maybe it's all just false consciousness white guilt, but I'm actually feeling like I like a candidate for a change, rather than voting for someone who just isn't as bad as the other guy.
Obama does seem to be the closest we've ever come to having an actual human being running for president.
The Antichrist did have to be human, naturally.
23: Barack Hussein Obama: 675. Dang! So close, maybe it works in the original Arabic.
When Obama becomes president, it will be yet more proof of America's ineradicable racism. Or if he loses. Either way.
I had totally overlooked how wildly historic (and largely positive) a successful Obama candidacy is to the rest of the world. Pretty cool. It would be fun to be able to talk more joyously about my country with non-Americans.
To travel abroad without having to cover myself in fucking maple leafs? Do I dare to dream?
24: It's 396 in the Arabic. And yes, I really did just calculate it. I clearly have too much free time.
My other sad thought is that both Clinton & Obama would be at great personal risk during the campaign & while in office.
My gut feeling, and I could well be completely wrong on this, is that I don't think that's as true for Clinton as Obama. The right can savage her openly for being a Clinton and a cryptolesbian cryptocommie or whatever; I think her role as a hate object will paradoxically help the haters let off steam. It's a lot harder to openly hate on Obama because of political correctnessismism and because, geez, look, he's so evidently a nice guy, but you know there's a handful of people out there for whom seeing a black guy in the White House would just be the end of their world.
Also, 2.2 gets it right, thank you Cala.
there's a handful of people out there for whom seeing a black guy in the White House would just be the end of their world
I agree. But (anecdata alert!) I have also realized in the last two days that there are some folks I know whose love for the American narrative of triumph-over-hardship is going to push them to support Obama, even though if you asked them bluntly whether they are comfortable with a black president, they might say no.
It really is tremendously powerful, this will we have as Americans to believe that our system is fair, that people can come from nothing and build themselves into something, that we see people for who they are and not for the color of their skin. I mean, the racist reactions wouldn't need to be coded if the surface narrative weren't so darn appealing.
I'm not going to get ahead of myself here -- it's long road to November. Even so, it's a happy realization.
Obama's victory wasn't due to white guilt. I don't sense that most whites feel guilty towards blacks at all. But besides, white guilt would never apply to an election. Name me one black person who won an election because of white guilt. With anonymity, people don't vote out of guilt. They either vote positively, fearfully or for electability. The latter doesn't apply for Iowa. Also, the strongest demographics for Obama are the most likely to vote positively.
Name me one black person who won an election because of white guilt.
Dennis Hastert.
I don't think asl was referring to the colors of politicians' souls, apo.
"BURN SHIT DOWN" t-shirts
I suggest: "We're coming to your town [picture of w-lfs-n] to BURN SHIT DOWN!" Alternately, there may still be time to cash in on a trend and bilk the hipsters with an Obama-as-Che design.
They either vote positively, fearfully or for electability.
There was an article a while back interviewing black women in South Carolina who weren't willing to vote for Obama because they were worried he'd be assassinated -- I think the article was linked here at some point.
Is that voting fearfully? For that matter, my mother isn't willing to vote for Edwards in NH next week because his wife has cancer: he won't be able to focus properly on either the job or his family.
34: It's racist to associate blackness with evil, you fucking racist.
38: not very well photoshopped, though.
Right, and what's my point? I suppose it's just that I'm constantly surprised, naif that I am, by the degree to which people's voting choices have not a thing to do with actual policy issues.
Wow. The two post-Iowa NH polls show Obama leading HRC by double digits. I guess people like winners.
Coincidence? A post briefly on MeFi today: How can we prevent the assasination of Obama?
pale person mole check
Ah yes. The one my PCP has been badgering me to get for six years. What with my moles and having two people with various kinds of skin cancer in my maternal line, I should totally do that. But getting an appointment with a dermatologist takes frickin' forever in this town.
Damnit, wrong tab open for that comment.
I had totally overlooked how wildly historic (and largely positive) a successful Obama candidacy is to the rest of the world
Especially after 2004, you'd have to figure the rest of the world would be stunned—and while they were all caught off guard, we could steal more of their stuff.
Obama is up 12 in New Hampshire because he won in Iowa? What is wrong with Democrats? Are they voting for Obama because he suddenly seems "electable"?
42: And though the link still worked there was a note saying that it has been deleted.
I don't want to dwell on this, but it has been bothering me since a conversation I had with a colleague at work about his relative calmness in the face of a potential Hilary presidency (he is one of those types who just HATE! HATE! HATE! her). His reply was that he knew that she would not last long in the job if she even made it that far.
I am not sure people appreciate the demonization that Hilary (and Bill) has suffered. Freaking Hardball had Gennifer Flowers on for nearly half an hour in the late '90s going on about all the murders they had arranged in Arkansas. I am sympathetic to the position that Kevin Drum talks about in this post: (ignoring whether "liberal" is the right characterization)
As long as we're laying our cards on the table, this is one of the things that keeps me on Hillary's side regardless of anything to do with issues or tactics or rhetoric or anything else. I just hate the idea that the fever swamp has been able to turn a perfectly decent liberal woman into such an object of malign loathing. If she loses, then she loses. But by God, I don't want her to lose because millions of Schiffren's fellow travelers have carried on a 15-year vendetta of sick-minded smears and hatred. Enough's enough.
Obama is up 12 in New Hampshire because he won in Iowa? What is wrong with Democrats? Are they voting for Obama because he suddenly seems "electable"?
I don't know. My mother's in New Hampshire, and was torn between Clinton and Obama. It's the live free or die state: they're conservative in the old-fashioned sense of the term. They don't like the establishment. The self-made man (or woman) is preferable to a New Yorker.
if Obama assassination seems imaginable
can you imagine an american civil war like II?
that social unraveling meaning black riots or kkk activism or both with a broader involvement resulting in civil war?
knock on wood of course
race, wealth or the party affiliations, what would be the main divider
once started it could get like you know a chain reaction and in no time everybody'd get involved?
just curious
in no time everybody'd get involved
I don't know, it's a pretty lazy country.
read, nobody knows. It's unimaginable. This country is very well tamed to civic behavior: civil war? No.
And frankly, the rhetoric discussing such is inflammatory.
Obama is up 12 in New Hampshire because he won in Iowa? What is wrong with Democrats
Check for the whirlpool eyes. Are they wearing sunglasses? Try to, without drawing attention, pat a few of them on the small of the back, and see if something slithers. Then run.
Good ole Nietzsche on the sanity of individuals and the madness of crowds. This particular mass hysteria, as opposed to the 2002 hysteria, is based on good & true emotions, nice cuddly fuzzywuzzy moshpit closeness. Mmmmm, good CHANGE.
Is Obama a good guy, with progressive instincts & policy postions and amazing conciliatory skills? Probably. But that isn't why we are seeing a 20 point swing and a mass movement.
Movement politics can be "right or wrong" but they are never controlled by reason.
gosh everybody here is so didactic
well tamed? good for you
i'll retreat to my wilderness
Damn I sound like Edmund Burke or something.
29: Disagree. I think Hillary really could get shot by some freeper misogynist asshole.
Also, seriously, don't you think that the fact that we've spent two days now talking about Obama in racial terms is kind of bad?
gosh everybody here is so didactic
well tamed? good for you
read, I have no idea what you're talking about.
She's saying that your tone is uncongenial.
Buying a shotgun in case people decide to try to BURN YOUR SHIT DOWN: gross overreaction or at least partially justified?
read thinks parsimon meant "American won't have a civil war, we're civilized," but parsimon meant "docile," not "civilized."
Ah. Yes, ogged translates me correctly.
Strange, between this and the Olmsted RIP thread, Bob is beginning to come over all elder statesman. It's everyone else who wants to BURN SHIT DOWN, whereas he's thinking in terms of what to do with a kajillion dissatisfied Obama volunteers in the putative Hillary administration.
It reminds me of someone saying anarchosyndicalists were the best lovers.
docile or civilized, i'm not that upset about your phrasing as about teaching me lessons on inflammatoriness of the comments
corrections on my english, sure, anytime
answers on what i asked, please, i'm the most grateful
Also, seriously, don't you think that the fact that we've spent two days now talking about Obama in racial terms is kind of bad?
I didn't even realize he was black. I don't see colors.
59: A recent theory floated around the calahousehold, after being reprimanded by the cops for not seeing the thieves that smashed the window of our car late at night, was that if the cops weren't going to take a report because we didn't see nothin'*, we should be able to shoot at thieves on the grounds nobody would see nothin', and at least it would be entertaining.
*Not that I expected them to be able to do anything, but acting like it was our fault that we didn't have the car staked out at 4am struck me as bizarre.
By-the-by, I've linked to the best thing I've seen on the Iowa results.
49: just curious
Since I helped fan the flames a bit, let me help damp them. I can see many relatively bad things and trends happening in America, but as a society and country we are a very long way from that type of instability.
My roommate as a college freshman was an Ibo from the region of Nigeria that had seceded as Biafra. (This was just a few years after the civil war had ended.) At first, he understandably had a hard time dealing with much of the Black Nationalist rhetoric of the day, adamantly describing the horrors he thought it might unleash.
The best thing SEK has seen, linked directly.
Are you calling me out on my laziness, ben?
Apologies if this is a repeat, but I thought Jon Swift was quite good on the results as well, if not quite as creative.
63: read, I'm not trying to teach you anything. I answered your question: no, there will not be civil war in this country. Your comment was not inflammatory, but the racially-themed discussion propagated elsewhere is.
What Stormcrow said: we're not that unstable here yet.
Are you calling me out on my laziness, ben?
Seems like the lazy thing to do would have been to link to the site without writing a post about it.
55: don't you think that the fact that we've spent two days now talking about Obama in racial terms is kind of bad?
My opinion? Bad in the sense that it sucks that race is still an issue in this country, sure, but not bad in the sense that we shouldn't be discussing the significance of his race at this juncture.
We can switch to talking about Hillary and sex instead of Obama and race if you like.
Or we could switch to John Edwards, so that we could finally start dispassionately discussing the issues without interference from extrinsic concerns.
We can switch to talking about Hillary and sex
Or Edwards and teh gayzorz.
Or we could switch to John Edwards, so that we could finally start talking about haircuts instead.
Also, 46: Yes. Next question?
The thing linked in 68, via 66, is just terrific, by the way.
fears that ethnic tension will escalate towards the kind of violence usually associated with failed states like the District of Columbia, which has been occupied by the Federal government for decades.
Made me snort aloud helplessly in that way. You know the one I mean.
Seems like the lazy thing to do would have been to link to the site without writing a post about it.
Yes, but when I type "ac" into my browser, the first thing that shows up is my site. I could click on it, copy the link, &c., or just hit the down arrow twice there it is!
(Plus, all those ADZ on my site don't produce dollars without hits.)
the history of the 1968 riots that took place in our neighborhood.
They did more damage to poor blacks than anyone else.
Violence is bad.
I was too afraid to read them, DS, but I'm glad you suggested it. Genius stuff there.
It did cost a little piece of my soul, mind you. But only 21 grams' worth.
Mary, the dirty unmarried whore who opened her lady legs for any man, may have been a sand niggro, but the sperm was from the LORD, which means it was WHITE SPERM!!!!! Don't any of you fools read the Bible????
Oh, snap:
For your information, Mr. Smarty Pants: some of us only drink the BLOOD of the Perfect Lamb!
some of us only drink the BLOOD
And some of us only eat the MARROW. How you like me NOW?
I floss my teeth with the SINEWS, bitch!
God, now I'm monitoring that Republican Faith Chat thread. Check out the "mod note" on Priscilla's post.
89 reminds me; anyone have a link to the Christian cult that specifically encourages sexual fantasies about Jesus?
I love where Mrs. T.D. Gaines-Crockett says, "Connie, you crazy thing you!" as if she had just admitted to putting pineapple in her Jell-O mold.
Is it necessary to milk out the venom? Is it right or good? Probably not, but if only it weren't so damn funny.
Wait, is that thread *real*? That is too good to be true. There's got to be a plant or two in there...
The host site and moderators are doing parody, but plenty of their commenters, AFAIK, are real. That said, the parody is so impenetrable in places that they get naively cited pretty often as a pro-Brownback conservative site.
whew, that was a close one. For a moment there I thought the rules dictating what could be publicly expressed had expanded to include all the stuff people say among fellow travelling friends.
This video of Kobe! jumping an Aston Martin is fake, right? I'm pretty sure that the car is actually slightly to his left, and that if it were real they'd have filmed it from behind. Far enough behind that the car wouldn't also hit the cameraman, obviously.
What the hell are you posting on this thead for, w/d? Stop living in the past, man!
I was going to explain that in my comment, but I put the reasoning on Standpipe's blog instead.
I hope you didn't scroll through the archives looking for a thread with 99 comments.
No, I ran the search site:unfogged.com "Comments (99)"
I refuse to recognize jokes that involve so much work for so little payoff.
Once I had a question about Kobe and was trying to figure out which thread to ask it in, the rest just came naturally.
These were happier days.
Everyone looks so young!
I don't get it, and my IP address is banned from Standpipe's blog for dissecting too many frogs.
Googling "Kobe 100" and "Kobe 99" is not immediately helpful.
