A nation of cowards

[kandrathe]

Yes Virginia, we are going to Hell in a hand basket.

Exhibit A -- > A Leadership of Cowards?: Why is Eric Holder embarrassed about enforcing civil rights in Noxubee County?

"This is probably one of the worst cases of intentional voting discrimination that the Justice Department has prosecuted since the 1960s."

But, nary a peep from the press or the Justice Department.

[Jester]

Yes Virginia, we are going to Hell in a hand basket.

Exhibit A -- > A Leadership of Cowards?: Why is Eric Holder embarrassed about enforcing civil rights in Noxubee County?

"This is probably one of the worst cases of intentional voting discrimination that the Justice Department has prosecuted since the 1960s."

But, nary a peep from the press or the Justice Department.

The news here is that there was no news? Because it sounds to me like this story's got a happy ending: voter fraud and intimidation takes place, lawsuit happens, courts rule in favour of the plaintiffs.

The problem with the "no news" argument would, for starters, be this. The NYT reported on the story three years ago. There's a reference from NPR even earlier. USA Today covered it. The WSJ has an opinion piece on it. Fox was on the case (duh). This is just the results of a quick google.

The conclusion to the case is not particularly surprising, so what's the issue? That the media should devote even more space to the conviction of a nasty, but ultimately small-time, political operator from one of the most corrupt states of the Union? Or is it the unusual racial reversal that means this case should be singled out for extra attention?

Afterthought: This recent 2009 event was just the rejection of the appeal. The original ruling happened in 2007. So, it's not exactly a fresh story.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yes Virginia, we are going to Hell in a hand basket.

I'm going to have to go with Jester on this one. To mix metaphors, this is a tempest to wrap fish in.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Hi,
I'm going to have to go with Jester on this one. To mix metaphors, this is a tempest to wrap fish in.

--Pete

Right. The point may be obscure. The news is not the voting fraud case in Mississippi, but rather Eric Holder recently calling the people in the US a nation of cowards and for us to discuss racial issues. There is a hypocrisy in our leadership when they blame others for "not talking about racial issues", when they will not do so themselves. Why didn't the AG hold a press conference to use this case as an example of the kind of "justice" that the Obama administration stands for?

He said, "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards" While, yes, there have been news stories buried in newspapers on the story, it is treated as you suggest as a non-issue.

[Jester]

While, yes, there have been news stories buried in newspapers on the story, it is treated as you suggest as a non-issue.

Is that the sound of goalposts moving I hear?

First it's "not a peep". Then, when it becomes obvious that it as covered fairly extensively by every major news media outlet years ago, it's "treated.. as a non-issue" and "buried" in newspapers. (As if this was front-page news?) What I was suggesting, and I believe Pete was concurring with, is that this has already been covered in more than enough depth, and there is no reason to brew up another tempest over it.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

The news is not the voting fraud case in Mississippi, . . .

I guess what confused me is that that is what you linked to.

. . . but rather Eric Holder recently calling the people in the US a nation of cowards and for us to discuss racial issues. There is a hypocrisy in our leadership when they blame others for "not talking about racial issues", when they will not do so themselves. Why didn't the AG hold a press conference to use this case as an example of the kind of "justice" that the Obama administration stands for?

So, let me see if I got this right. Eric Holder is a hypocrite for not discussing racial issues while discussing racial issues? Or is he a hypocrite for not mentioning one case where the whites were the target while ignoring thousands of cases where the blacks were?

Excuse me for being dense. Having been raised not to hate any particular group (OK, Sicilians *were* put down, but I've overcome that and the only Sicilian I know is one of my dearest friends:)), I often don't see injustice when others do. So, please clarify why this particular omission is an injustice and an hypocrisy.

--Pete

[Chesspiece_face]

Is that the sound of goalposts moving I hear?

First it's "not a peep". Then, when it becomes obvious that it as covered fairly extensively by every major news media outlet years ago, it's "treated.. as a non-issue" and "buried" in newspapers. (As if this was front-page news?) What I was suggesting, and I believe Pete was concurring with, is that this has already been covered in more than enough depth, and there is no reason to brew up another tempest over it.

-Jester

What the Heritage Foundation seems to have an issue with isn't the fact that the issue hasn't been addressed (because it obviously has), the article seems to take issue with the fact that the AD isn't rubbing the guilty peoples faces in it.

My response to this position would be "What purpose would it serve to rub their faces in it?" And "how exactly would rubbing thier faces in it help to address racial issues as opposed to just facilitating a greater instance of race-baiting?"

[kandrathe]

What the Heritage Foundation seems to have an issue with isn't the fact that the issue hasn't been addressed (because it obviously has), the article seems to take issue with the fact that the AD isn't rubbing the guilty peoples faces in it.

My response to this position would be "What purpose would it serve to rub their faces in it?" And "how exactly would rubbing thier faces in it help to address racial issues as opposed to just facilitating a greater instance of race-baiting?"

Or, that the guy who is calling the US a nation of cowards was looking in the mirror when he wrote that speech.

[Jester]

What the Heritage Foundation seems to have an issue with isn't the fact that the issue hasn't been addressed (because it obviously has), the article seems to take issue with the fact that the AD isn't rubbing the guilty peoples faces in it.

My response to this position would be "What purpose would it serve to rub their faces in it?" And "how exactly would rubbing thier faces in it help to address racial issues as opposed to just facilitating a greater instance of race-baiting?"

Well, given that the author is a known partisan hack, the likely answer is "It helps Republicans look good and Democrats look bad." If that isn't a self-evidently positive objective, then I'm not sure what this article does for us.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Well, given that the author is a known partisan hack, the likely answer is "It helps Republicans look good and Democrats look bad." If that isn't a self-evidently positive objective, then I'm not sure what this article does for us.

This is your standard answer. "He is a republican..." would be all you need to say. It disqualifies anything further he has to say.

He does have an axe to grind given his treatment by the democrats in pushing him out of job at the justice department due to some of his decisions. Does that make him a hack? No. Does it make him biased against the clique that wronged him? Probably. He stands for voting integrity. His position is that we should use things like DL photo ID to strengthen confirmation in voter registration, while his enemies (Kennedy, Fienstein, Pelosi) would like to weaken the controls on voter fraud.

[Jester]

He does have an axe to grind given his treatment by the democrats in pushing him out of job at the justice department due to some of his decisions. Does that make him a hack? No. Does it make him biased against the clique that wronged him? Probably. He stands for voting integrity. His position is that we should use things like DL photo ID to strengthen confirmation in voter registration, while his enemies (Kennedy, Fienstein, Pelosi) would like to weaken the controls on voter fraud.

Guy's a hack. He was put into his position in the DoJ to to hack work. He did it. Everyone who wasn't overtly partisan complained, for obvious reasons. Now he's writing for a premier Republican think tank, doing hack work.

This really isn't rocket science. I would listen to most Republican talking heads for hours before I would give this guy fifteen seconds.

However, this is all rather beside the point. Your entertaining strawman of me aside, my original post didn't mention a single thing about the source, despite its obvious bias. This article simply has no merit, and can be thrown out on those grounds alone.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Guy's a hack. He was put into his position in the DoJ to to hack work. He did it. Everyone who wasn't overtly partisan complained, for obvious reasons. Now he's writing for a premier Republican think tank, doing hack work.

This really isn't rocket science. I would listen to most Republican talking heads for hours before I would give this guy fifteen seconds.

However, this is all rather beside the point. Your entertaining strawman of me aside, my original post didn't mention a single thing about the source, despite its obvious bias. This article simply has no merit, and can be thrown out on those grounds alone.

-Jester

Ok. Mr. "LALALALA I can't hear you!" Try this "hack", Larry Pinkney, who is saying about the same thing about Holders hypocrisy and being led by cowards.

[Jester]

Ok. Mr. "LALALALA I can't hear you!" Try this "hack", Larry Pinkney, who is saying about the same thing about Holders hypocrisy and being led by cowards.

Have you been taking lessons from Occhi? Or just in a particularly belligerent mood? I haven't insulted you yet, why start the fight?

That article doesn't even mention the case discussed in the link above.

It seems pretty standard to me, and I largely agree, although not with some of the more wingding assertions about fifth columns and whatnot. To talk about "cowards" is a handy catchphrase, but the reality is about power and history: who has had it, who still does have it, and how do we use it to further equality rather than destroy it. It is not about every single person being tarred with exactly the same brush, but about the lingering stench of racism that pervades the corridors of power.

However, I don't think Eric Holder would particularly disagree with that, though he would no doubt phrase it differently. He was speaking for Black History Month, but his comments were general ones to the issue of race. I doubt he would disagree that a similar dialogue should take place for all minorities, or for gender, or on sexuality. Nor would he disagree that MLK, Harriet Tubman, or any other smattering of civil rights activists would be unfairly tarred as "cowards". Indeed, he even singles those same people out for praise in his own speech, making me somewhat wonder if that author had actually heard or read the speech.

This is also what, in so many words, those same activists said in their time, challenging America to confront and overcome the problems of race. I take semantic issue with the article on one point, though: it is the nation collectively, and not every individual person, that needs a serious discussion. That article seems to use "collectively" to mean "every single person", whereas I see it as the organic whole.

This is all quite unlike the partisan hack cited above, who is simply throwing excrement at the Obama administration and hoping that it will stick.

-Jester

Afterthought: Of course it's Rush Limbaugh driving this... should have been obvious, didn't catch it at first.

[kandrathe]

That article doesn't even mention the case discussed in the link above.

It's not about the case. I don't care about the case. I care about my nations leadership and their inflammatory rhetoric structuring and justifying class warfare. The case is just an example of Mr. Holder's hypocrisy in shining the glaring lens of racism, when it suits him. It's about hypocrisy. Mr. Pinkney's article is titled "‘America: "A Nation of Cowards?" written a week after Eric Holder's speech. Coincidence? I think not.

Here is another black man's take on Eric Holder. He ends the article with, "If black people continue to accept the corrupt blame game agenda of liberal whites, black politicians and assorted hustlers, as opposed to accepting personal responsibility, the future for many black Americans will remain bleak." I agree with him.

[Jester]

It's not about the case. I don't care about the case. I care about my nations leadership and their inflammatory rhetoric structuring and justifying class warfare. The case is just an example of Mr. Holder's hypocrisy in shining the glaring lens of racism, when it suits him. It's about hypocrisy. Mr. Pinkney's article is titled "‘America: "A Nation of Cowards?" written a week after Eric Holder's speech. Coincidence? I think not.

There go the goalposts again. First, we get a link to an article about a case, and how it's disgraceful that we heard nothing from the press about it, despite Holder's comments: prima facie hypocrisy. Then, it's that the discussion was "buried" in the NYT (and every other media that covered it) and it's about race generally. Now it's not about the case at all, which you don't care about. What exactly is the point of all this, then? If you wanted to open up a general discussion on race, you sure picked a funny way to do it.

Could you perhaps cite another example of Mr. Holder's supposed hypocrisy? I'm really unconvinced by this first one, so maybe context would help.

Of course Mr. Pinkney's article is about Eric Holder's speech. Who was suggesting otherwise? (Edit: I suppose my comments could be interpreted that way, my apologies for the ambiguity.) The meaning of my comment was that he apparently hadn't bothered to read the whole thing, since it's about a very superficial gloss of it (probably just a hearing of the stir over the term "cowards"). This seems clear from the way he criticises Holder using points and people that Holder himself uses in the speech he is purportedly criticizing.

Also, this would be race warfare, not class warfare.

-Jester

[Rhydderch Hael]

I disagree. I thought we were a nation of lazy procrastinators.

And yes, I originally intended to make my reply some several hours earlier.

[kandrathe]

... a nation of lazy procrastinators.

Also, impulsive. We must not forget impulsive.

[Vandiablo]

I thought we were a nation of lazy procrastinators.

Ya, thx 4 sayin it 4 me.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I disagree. I thought we were a nation of lazy procrastinators.

I'll get back to you on that later.

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

Freakin' amateurs.

Down here in South Texas, the dead still vote. It's a tradition passed down from zombie to son.

@ jester:

Your appeal to special victim status is noted, yet you now play bait and switch, or perhaps a goal post move, pick your rhetorical term to suit, attempting to clothe it by juxtaposition, as a matter of race.

Do you see what you did there?

Was it intentional?

It seems pretty standard to me, and I largely agree, although not with some of the more wingding assertions about fifth columns and whatnot. To talk about "cowards" is a handy catchphrase, but the reality is about power and history: who has had it, who still does have it, and how do we use it to further equality rather than destroy it. It is not about every single person being tarred with exactly the same brush, but about the lingering stench of racism that pervades the corridors of power.

However, I don't think Eric Holder would particularly disagree with that, though he would no doubt phrase it differently. He was speaking for Black History Month, but his comments were general ones to the issue of race. I doubt he would disagree that a similar dialogue should take place for all minorities, or for gender, or on sexuality. Nor would he disagree that MLK, Harriet Tubman, or any other smattering of civil rights activists would be unfairly tarred as "cowards". Indeed, he even singles those same people out for praise in his own speech, making me somewhat wonder if that author had actually heard or read the speech.

This is also what, in so many words, those same activists said in their time, challenging America to confront and overcome the problems of race. I take semantic issue with the article on one point, though: it is the nation collectively, and not every individual person, that needs a serious discussion. That article seems to use "collectively" to mean "every single person", whereas I see it as the organic whole.

As to Holder's remarks, I think he is at least partly right: some people won't speak plainly and honestly about race, or mayhap we might consider a more applicable term: clan or group identity.

Occhi