(07-22-2010, 06:52 PM)kandrathe Wrote: And, no one told him it was despicable either.
Just going on Tucker's reporting of it, at least two people told him he was wrong, that this was not the way forward, that they should stick to facts, that this undermined Obama's message about doing politics differently. (Do we have the full-emails?) To Tucker, I guess, this is just tactical talk. I read it differently: part of the appeal of Obama to many on the left is his tendency to talk reasonably about facts, rather than simply hurl insults. Ackerman obviously thinks that this means his allies must fill the attack dog role. Others clearly disagree.
Quote:There is an avoided national conversation on race, and race baiting. I'd say there is a pretty clear strategy to use division as a political weapon, whether it be race, gender, class, or age. Political strategists on both sides pander and create incendiary dialog with the sole purpose of retaining power, and feigned concern about the actual well being of the electorate in general, or even that subsection.
True. Two notable examples in my mind include the Southern Strategy, and the Rothbard/Rockwell unholy alliance with the racist paleoconservative fringe (See: Report, Ron Paul.) I think both of those strategies have led quite directly to where we are now: an anti-tax, anti-government protest movement that is persistently unable to shake its racist components. This is not accidental. It's the inevitable result of decades of intentional alliance building and dog whistling.
Are there alliances between the Dems and groups like the NAACP? Of course. But courting the civil rights movement, even with its occasional excesses, strikes me as a much nobler enterprise than courting racists and inciting racism.
When the McCain campaign was in dire straits, and people kept coming to rallies calling Obama a traitor, questioning his birth, his religion, and so forth, McCain seemed very uncomfortable, and tried to take the high road. Sarah Palin didn't seem to mind, though, so it all worked out, in a sad kind of way.
Quote:Why don't we agree to call it all bull crap? The flimsy allegations against the tea party resulting in comparisons to Stormfront and the Klan are equally incendiary and ridiculous.
Because, at the base of the Tea Party movement, way back buried, are Stormfront, David Duke, and the like. (The Klan itself, probably less. I think they've more or less descended into crime.) When Murray Rothbard decided it was not only okay, but strategically beneficial, to get chummy with David Duke; when Lew Rockwell, writing under Ron Paul's name, spewed forth overtly hateful invective against racial minorities, immigrants, homosexuals, and any other easy target he could find, they were forging a very, very hazardous alliance.
They made their bed, and now lie in it. The nutty fringe, including (but certainly not limited to) racists and bigots, is an integral part of the Tea Party movement. The racist fringe is no longer cleanly separable from the low-tax-and-constitution crowd.
Does that mean every Tea Partier is a racist? Of course not, especially since it has broadened into essentially a right-Republican umbrella term. But it does mean that the Tea Party has to be doubly vigilant, and so far, it's been a pretty shoddy job. Their apologists, yourself included, seem to have no defense except for No True Scotsman - whenever someone from the movement is revealed to be a racist or a bigot, whenever obviously racist signs or slogans (Obama-the-witchdoctor, "African lion and lyin' African," Bitherism, "Congress = Slave owner, Taxpayer = Niggar", Obama/Osama wordplay, etc...) are shown, the claim is that they don't really represent the movement, that they're exceptions - up to and including national leaders like Mark Williams. So far, it hasn't been very convincing.
-Jester